Tryfon Chiotis, Chief Programmes Officer
Tryfon took on the role of Chief Programmes Officer on an interim basis in July 2024 and was subsequently confirmed in his new role in March of this year. He succeeds Matthew Scott, who stepped down after 28 years of dedicated service helping to steer the organisation. Tryfon first joined GÉANT in 2013 as Head of the Project Management Office, where he was responsible for the day-to-day management and administration of the various iterations of the GÉANT project.
“In my new role as Chief Programmes Officer, my goal is to establish and lead a strategic vision that shapes the future direction of GÉANT’s programmes. I oversee key initiatives, including the GÉANT Framework Partnership Agreement and its Specific Grant Agreements, and work to strengthen partnerships across the research and education community. Ultimately, my focus is on delivering meaningful outcomes for science and education throughout Europe.
Alongside Lise, and together with the other Executive members and my team, we are committed to fostering a collaborative, inclusive, and forward-thinking community environment, ensuring that GÉANT continues to lead in social responsibility, while enhancing its visibility and competitiveness, and maintaining a diverse and sustainable income stream.
Through the successful implementation of the GNx project we deliver world-class services for research and education, across networking, above-the-net services, trust and identity, and security, as well as driving impactful collaborations with the European Commission.”
Nathalie McKenzie, Executive Secretary
During her 15 years at GÉANT, Nathalie’s focus has been on its Members, ensuring that their voices are listened to and heard – and that GÉANT generates value for them and their constituents. Following many years working directly with specific Members, Nathalie currently supports the General Assembly, Board and Executive team as the Association navigates the challenges brought forth by an ever-changing political, technological and environmental landscape. Ensuring that GÉANT has the appropriate statutes and flexible structures, processes and procedures to meet the requirements of its stakeholders and fulfil its strategic objectives for a long and bright future is at the forefront of her mind and efforts.
“The consensus-based approach to decision-making that exists across the governance bodies is an ever-evolving, precious and delicately balanced thing but one which ultimately serves as a strong foundation for this successful collaboration and will be critical when determining GÉANT’s next steps. Working behind the scenes across teams, committees and governance bodies to “grease the wheels” and facilitate decision-making, whilst bearing witness to the amazing work the community achieves despite its diversity and the challenges it faces, is something I find really fulfilling and take great pride in.”
Alex de Leeuw, Chief Financial Officer
Alex joined GÉANT as Chief Financial Officer in April 2024 and brings close to 20 years of experience in the technology and telecoms industry. He previously worked at Deloitte, serving various Dutch and international companies and also spent two years seconded at the World Economic Forum, gaining experience with public-private partnerships. After that, he joined Naspers (known in Europe as Prosus), where he gained deep financial and operational experience in managing hypergrowth technology companies.
“Finance plays a key role in supporting GÉANT’s strategy: building financial resilience, adapting to changing funding models, and staying in control of our costs. Over the next few years, we’ll strengthen our financial foundations by improving internal processes, increasing transparency, and helping the organisation make informed, forward-looking decisions.”
Bram Peeters, Chief Network Operations Officer
Bram joined GÉANT in January 2018, following a role at Nokia where he project-managed the delivery of new technology solutions to Nokia customers. He is well known to the GÉANT community thanks to his 10+ years at SURFnet, where he joined as a Network Expert, developing the SURFnet network and services. He quickly rose to Head of Network Services, where his team was responsible for the exploitation and innovation of SURFnet’s network services, from the fibre network up to the routed network; during his time at SURFnet he also acted as Program Manager for the “Connecting Infrastructures” innovation program covering both the fixed backbone network as well as developments in the ‘wire-free’ area.
“The network we are rolling out now is an excellent platform for many secure, high-capacity network services. We will continue to make these network services seamlessly integrate in the globally interconnected R&E world, and to enable innovative services on our unique infrastructure.”
Klaas Wierenga, Chief Information and Technology Officer
Klaas joined GÉANT in February 2017 and is now Chief Information & Technology Officer, responsible for GÉANT’s Trust & Identity, Security, Cloud, Product Management, Software Development and IT teams.
Klaas has an extensive background in innovation management, with an emphasis on identity, mobility and security. Before joining GÉANT, Klaas was a senior consulting engineer and identity architect at respectively Cisco Systems’ Research and Advanced Development group and Cloud Infrastructure Services group. Before that, Klaas was an innovation manager and manager of Middleware services at SURFnet, the Netherlands NREN. There, Klaas built the first generation of federated identity systems at SURFnet and was the creator of the eduroam service for WiFi roaming in research and education.
“The European Commission choosing MyAccessId for authentication and authorisation in both EOSC and EuroHPC is testament to the success of the CoreAAI platform, and the value that the NRENs bring to the federated services landscape.”
Paul Rouse, Chief Community Relations Officer
Paul joined GÉANT in 2011 as Head of Procurement, leading and growing the procurement team, and was later appointed Chief Community Relations Officer in early 2020. In his time with GÉANT, he has overseen extensive procurement activity relating not only to the pan-European GÉANT network where he secured extensive savings but has also played a central role in the success of GÉANT’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service framework, as well as supporting research community engagement with EUMETSAT, ESA and ESnet. Paul’s involvement and influence continues to benefit numerous projects and initiatives across Europe and beyond, including the EaPConnect project, the Collaboration Asia-Europe-1 (CAE-1) 100Gbps link between Singapore and London, as well as the BELLA submarine cable linking Europe and Latin America.
As Chief Community Relations Officer, Paul is responsible for Partner and Stakeholder Relations, International Relations, Research Engagement, Community Support, and Learning and Development.
“These are exciting times as we build on proven capabilities and delivery, with GÉANT’s continued role in securing digital sovereignty as an enabler to the EC’s Digital Data Gateway initiative and bringing the significant data volumes to facilitate the construction of new intercontinental submarine cables supporting global research collaborations. All of this requires highly effective global collaborations. And, as we witness the global landscape evolve, with changes to the way services are funded and consumed, our community must consider how we find our place in this new ecosystem. It is a great chance for reflection as we have just completed a proposal for hyper-connectivity for the EuroHPC JU and now consider our new GÉANT strategy.”
Cathrin Stӧver, Chief Communications Officer
Cathrin has almost 30 years of experience working in the European and global Research and Education networking community. She is a consistent, reliable and active player in the European GÉANT projects contributing to their ongoing excellence. Cathrin has built NRENs as well as regional organisations and their backbone infrastructures in Latin America and in Africa.
Over the past five years, she has led GÉANT and our membership through the changing European landscape of emerging new policies and resulting activities, raising early awareness and advising on the positioning of the organisation and memberships. Cathrin has a broad, long-range view across the GÉANT organisation and our European and global community. She is committed to collaboration and knowledge sharing and transfer, as well as inclusive team
building across cultures or continents always based on a foundation of mutual respect, partnership and trust.
“The CCO team covers GÉANT’s MarComms, Design, Events and Public Affairs. At the time of writing this, all hands are on deck for the successful delivery of TNC25 in Brighton, every single member of my team has a role in TNC, and we are proud to be such an integral part of the delivery of TNC year after year. Another major piece of work, where my whole team works together is of course the CONNECT magazine. Here, the public affairs team collaborates very closely with the Comms team. In this particular edition, the public affairs team covers the strategic topics of GÉANT’s alignment with the new EU Priorities, as well as the EU’s recent launch of the AI Continent, while the regular CONNECT contributions from the Comms team always aim at showing the depth and breadth of our community work. Looking forward, we are supporting Lise in the creation of GÉANT’s new strategy 2026-2030 and we are working towards the high-level visibility event in Brussels which will take place in October this year.”
Read the full online magazine here
