Nicolas Ajas

– Lead the digital transformation of ING BE + NL Business Segment, operating in direct support of the business and IT leadership on a strategic, multi-year program. – Own the end-to-end IT demand management flow: intake, qualification, scoping, business-value / effort estimation, and prioritization aligned with IT capacity and business stakes. – Steer a coherent IT project portfolio – governance bodies, portfolio monitoring, executive reporting, and transparent arbitration across 17 Agile squads and ~80 FTE. – Evolve the IT delivery model: SAFe-aligned practices, clarified roles between IT, business and suppliers, structured risk, dependency and reporting mechanisms. – Coordinate Build, Run and Enable activities to improve overall IT performance, reliability and time-to-value for the Business Segment. – Manage strategic partners and external providers – monitor commitments, structure SLAs, reduce dependency and reinforce internal steering capacity. – Act as AI ambassador – deliver two concrete AI use cases improving DevOps and management reporting, driving digital fluency across the program community. – Lead a core team of 9 Road Managers with a pro-active, structured and human management approach – prioritizing clarity, accountability and team well-being.

– Delivered end-to-end the multi-year Single Sign-On security program across all ING Belgium customer and internal solutions – one of the bank's most complex cross-channel integration initiatives, touching retail, private and business banking. – Took ownership of the program at a critical phase where governance, scope and stakeholder alignment required urgent reset; restructured the delivery approach within weeks and regained the trust of business and IT sponsors. – Coordinated 8 FTE and 42 SPOCs across multiple Agile squads, business lines and security stakeholders – aligning a highly matrixed organization around a single, coherent delivery roadmap. – Ensured a zero-downtime rollout across all customer channels, with no security incident reported throughout the migration; delivered on time and within the revised budget envelope. – Coached squads on high-performance delivery, DevOps practices and quality engineering – several team members grew into senior roles after the program closed. – Owned executive-level reporting, steering committees and regulatory stakeholder engagement, balancing compliance pressure, customer experience and delivery constraints.

– Recruited to recover and structure the test and release dimension of NASCA – a strategic multi-year transformation program for the social insurance fund, operating under strong governance and regulatory pressure. – Built the test function from scratch (2 FTE + 5 consultants) – defined test strategy, environments, automation baseline and release cadence in a context where none of these existed at the required maturity level. – Rebuilt the Release Management capability end-to-end and raised the organization's release maturity by two levels within 18 months – measurably reducing regressions, hotfixes and rollback events. – Pioneered the integration of a Rules Engine and end-to-end traceability system based on IOTA Distributed Ledger Technology – a first-of-its-kind innovation used as a compliance, auditability and cross-system traceability enabler. – Implemented DevOps automation components (CI pipelines, automated deployments, environment provisioning) that became reference assets reused in subsequent programs. – Acted as a trusted interlocutor to IT and business leadership on delivery quality, risk and release arbitration – restoring executive confidence in the program's ability to deliver. – Reshaped the relationship with external consultants – clarified RACI, reduced dependency and ensured knowledge transfer toward internal teams.

– Created and led the Quality Assurance department from scratch for Partena – one of Belgium's major social insurance funds – establishing it as a recognized pillar of the IT operating model for more than five years. – Defined and rolled out sustainable processes for tests, releases, delivery quality and environments, fully embedded in an IT + Business governance framework aligned with COBIT. – Acted as Interim Release Manager for two consecutive years on top of the QA lead role – double scope, single point of accountability toward the IT Director and business leadership. – Contributed directly to IT + Business governance committees, advising on release arbitration, operating-model maturity, capacity planning and cross-departmental coordination. – Led a team of 10 FTE + 6 external consultants through a lasting culture shift toward DevOps, accountability and service orientation; turned QA from a perceived bottleneck into a recognized business enabler, mentoring team members with a human, coaching-oriented leadership style – several evolved into senior roles after the transformation.

– Orchestrated solution design, architecture choices and evolution of the M-Team Java framework across the Software Development Lifecycle. – Oversaw delivery quality, reviews and 3rd-line production support for a multidisciplinary team of 13 FTE.

– Led planning, budget and delivery of a Financial Web software project, applying RUP governance and managing a cross-functional team of 5 FTE.

– Delivered core modules of the UCB Healthcare Intranet and the first Documentum integration into UCB's digital infrastructure.