Speakers and moderators
Szilard Bedecs
IT Director, Central European University (CEU), AT
Szilard Bedecs is IT Director at Central European University, where he is responsible for institutional IT strategy and services. He joined CEU in 2005 as IT Helpdesk Supervisor and was appointed IT Director in 2009, reflecting his strong service‑oriented and client‑focused approach.
Under his leadership, CEU’s IT services were stabilised and subsequently transformed, supporting the university’s academic and administrative development. Key initiatives included the implementation of Microsoft 365, a major role in campus development and the modernisation of classroom technologies, and the introduction of state‑of‑the‑art business systems for human resources, finance, and student records. He holds an MBA with a specialisation in Management and a BSc in Economics, and his professional focus includes digital transformation, IT governance, and organisational change in higher education.
Nadine Burquel
Director General, HUMANE, BE
Nadine is the Director General of HUMANE. She works closely with the Chair and the governing bodies on HUMANE’s strategic developments. She manages the HUMANE Office to offer the membership an attractive portfolio of professional development and networking activities. She has been involved with HUMANE since its foundation in the mid-nineties, until December 2022 as Executive Director of the three residential schools (the Barcelona Winter School, the Berlin Summer School and the Asia School).
Nadine has extensive director level experience, having worked with multiple international non-profit organisations, university networks and international boards. She has wide knowledge of leadership, governance and management in higher education institutions, and the global trends in the higher education sector. As EFMD Director of Business School Services she was responsible for a wide portfolio of large global events and communities of practices, interacting with business schools and universities in the wider Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, the Gulf, as well as North and South America. More recently in Maastricht University she was strategic adviser to the leadership of the School of Business and Economics, advising on international accreditation, the internationalisation strategy, and delivering societal impact.
She has significant experience with EU (higher) education policy and programmes since the early days of the Erasmus programme. She has a strong track record of EU projects, leading large EU-funded European university networks and providing technical assistance to the European Commission. She is high level EU policy expert, working at system level in Brussels and beyond, carrying out capacity building and evaluations of EU interventions, having worked with EU Delegations in many countries.
Mark Cianca
Principal Strategy and Operations, Huron Professional Services, US/UK
Mark Cianca is an accomplished higher education executive with extensive experience in information technology and cybersecurity leadership, business transformation initiatives, ERP deployments, strategic planning, business operations and leadership development. He is an effective collaborator and communicator, a strategic adviser for academic and administrative governance and a champion of the customer perspective. Most recently, he has been helping Huron’s Education and Research practice develop and bring Artificial Intelligence offerings to market. Mark recently concluded a 35-year career in higher education at R1 research campuses and a systemwide office.
Prior to joining Huron, Mark served in two concurrent roles at the University of California’s Office of the President (UCOP). As vice president/CIO, he oversaw the IT function of 8,000 staff, identified operational opportunities across the 10-campus system, convened the University’s cyber-risk governance committee, led collaboration among the campus CIOs and oversaw a team supporting the University’s corporate information systems and cybersecurity program.
As associate vice president for operational services, he led the development and operations of a systemwide shared services function supporting payroll, human resources (HR) and benefits administration for 285,000 employees. He also provided leadership to UCOP Operations, overseeing the Budget Analysis and Planning (BAP), HR, Facilities and Shared Services departments, and regularly briefed the Board of Regents and education subcommittees in both houses of the state legislature.
Jack Cross
Chief Information Security Officer, Queensland University of Technology, AU
Jack Cross is a seasoned business leader with a strong background in digital technologies and risk management. Dedicated to aligning people, processes, and technology, he actively leads efforts to counter cyber threats and reduce organisational risks.
Over the past 15 years, Jack has held a range of leadership positions across the Defence and Education sectors, developing expertise in guiding multidisciplinary teams through complex and sensitive technical challenges. He holds a Master of Systems Engineering (Electronic Warfare), along with internationally recognised CISSP and CISM certifications.
Jack is pleased to share his insights with the HUMANE community and looks forward to engaging with fellow professionals during the conference.
Baptiste Mulot
Chief Information Security Officer, University of Orléans, FR
With a background and mindset rooted in engineering, Baptiste Mulot has built his expertise over twenty years at the heart of IT infrastructure. He forged this solid technical foundation within the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, later enriching it with international experience in the banking sector. Today, this background is his primary strength in understanding and anticipating operational realities.
After years of managing complex systems and networks, he naturally transitioned toward more organisational and strategic challenges. Currently serving as CISO at the University of Orléans, he bridges the gap between pure technical operations and institutional risk management.
His core areas of focus reflect this dual culture:
- Security Engineering: Deploying and modernising protection tools (filtering, remote access, antivirus) with the precision of someone who knows the inner workings of infrastructure.
- Governance & Resilience: Structuring security policies and coordinating incident response to ensure organizational business continuity.
- Modernising Practices: Supporting the transition to new services (Cloud, mobility, wireless) while maintaining the balance between user experience and security.
Having progressed through various levels of support and administration, Baptiste prioritizes a human-centric and accessible approach to cybersecurity. He makes it a point of honor to demystify complex issues and translate best practices for all audiences. For him, security is a collective project that succeeds through listening, dialogue, and daily team awareness.
Mike Nachtegael
Chief Academic Administrator, Ghent University, BE
Mike Nachtegael was born in 1976 in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. Given his love for mathematics it was an easy choice to study this topic at Ghent University. He graduated in 1998.
During the period 1998-2015 Mike continued to be active at Ghent University as predoc, postdoc and guest professor. His research included soft computing techniques in image processing, on which he published several conference papers, journal papers and books, and taught several bachelor and master courses.
During the period 2011-2018 Mike was Alderman for Finance and chairman of the Public Center for Social Wellness in Sint-Niklaas, a Flemish city of around 80.000 people. This policy function was totally different from academia, which just made it quite enriching.
Since 2018 Mike is back at Ghent University as chief academic administrator. The chief academic administrator and the chief logistics administrator together with the vice-chancellor and the deputy vice-chancellor form the Management Committee of the university. The chief administrators are responsible for the day-to-day management of the university and the co-ordination of the central university administration. The chief academic administrator is in particular responsible for the steering of the Direction of Educational Affairs, Direction of Research, Direction of Administrative Affairs, Direction of Personnel and Organisation, Internationalisation.
Kstina Noormets
Director of Administration, University of Tartu, EE
Kstina Noormets has served as the Director of Administration at the University of Tartu since 2019, leading key strategic and operational functions that support the university’s academic mission. She oversees marketing and communication, including brand management, the administration of immovable and movable property, insurance and risk management, security, environmental and radiation protection, fire safety, information technology and information systems, and information management. Her remit also includes supporting the university community through the coordination of sports and cultural activities.
With more than twenty years of professional experience at the University of Tartu, Noormets combines deep institutional knowledge with strong legal and managerial expertise. She holds an MBA in financial management (cum laude) and a law degree, both from the University of Tartu. Earlier in her career, she held senior legal counsel roles across economic, estates, procurement, and administrative management, and provided legal services to several organisations within the university’s consolidated group.
In addition to her executive responsibilities, Noormets contributes to university governance and wider societal bodies. She chairs the university’s working environment council and serves on the Board of Advisors of the Viljandi Culture Academy and the Council of the Strategic Management Programme. She represents the University of Tartu in HUMANE, on the Investment Advisory Board of the Kääriku Sports Centre, and at the general meetings of the Academic Sports Club and the Tartu Student Club.
Remco Poortinga-van Wijnen
Team Lead Security Technology, SURF, NL
Remco Poortinga-van Wijnen is team lead security technology at SURF (NL). SURF is the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions. Remco joined SURF back in 2008, then working on innovation projects and operations of federated identity management services and other middleware solutions.
For the past ten years Remco has been team lead for the security (technology) team at SURF. Together with his team Remco is responsible for providing the technical services that help improve the security and resilience of the members and customers of SURF, ranging from mail filtering to certificate issuance, VPN and SOC/SIEM services.
As team lead security technology Remco is also responsible for the (virtual) SURFcert team: the coordinating CERT team for organisations connected to the SURF network. Together with the Security Awareness & Organisation team, which handles non-technical aspects of improving security and resilience, all teams strive to support and improve the security and privacy of education and research in the Netherlands.
Remco holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Twente.
Michel Raes
Cybersecurity Officer, Ghent University, BE
Michel Raes is an accomplished Cyber and Information Security professional with over three decades of technical and strategic experience, uniquely bridging a chemical process engineering background with advanced IT and security governance experience.
Originally graduating with a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Ghent University (1990), he started his professional life as process engineer with Solvay nv, the Belgian chemical company. His career subsequently transitioned into the public sector’s central ICT domain, where he has been a statutory staff member at Ghent University for over two decades.
Since 2013, Michel has served full-time in security leadership at Ghent University. In 2018, he took on the position of IT-Security Officer for Ghent University. In this capacity, he is responsible for comprehensive information security risk management, policy development, organizing or coordinating IT-security related auditing, and providing expert advisory on IT-security and data protection in the IT department of Ghent University and throughout the organisation.
Prior to his security focus, Michel demonstrated strong IT-infrastructure leadership as Datacenters Coordinator, where he played a major role in the planning and realization of the multi-million euro greenfield primary datacenter of Ghent University. Furthermore, he was actively involved in interuniversity development cooperation worldwide until 2010, with IT-related assignments and projects in South-East Asia, Central America and Africa.
A dual Belgian and Finnish national, Michel is now mostly working remotely from Finland.
Jeroen Vanden Berghe
Chief Administrator, Ghent University, BE
Jeroen Vanden Berghe is Chief Administrator at Ghent University (Flanders, Belgium), a position that he holds since September 2012. He has university master degrees in Archaeology, Information Sciences and International Political Sciences. He has a professional background in research and innovation policies, both at university and government level.
Together with the Rector, the Vice-Rector and the Chief Academic Administrator he forms the Management Committee of the university, responsible for the day-to-day management of the university and the co-ordination of the central university administration.
As Chief Logistics Administrator, he has an overall responsibility for the Financial Department, the Department of Information and Communication Technology, the Department of Infrastructure and Facility Management and of the Student Facilities. He has a seat in the Board of Governors and the Executive Board of the University and the university hospital. As representative of the University, he is actively involved in a variety of initiatives, such as the development of the Tech Lane Ghent Science Park and the positioning of the Ghent University Museum.
Magnus Wikforss
IT Director, Malmö University, SE
Magnus Wikforss is the head of Malmö University’s IT department in Sweden. He has a background in various managerial positions within public organizations.
Magnus always stands on the side of the operations and strives to act as a link between specialist functions and operational staff. He holds a master’s degree in business administration with a specialisation in management, as well as a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
Previous leadership roles have included working as a management consultant, private psychiatric nursing companies, public transport administration, and, of course managing several IT departments.
Technology is just a tool!