Dr. Mongi Gazelle · Interim CIO · CTO · CISO
Interim CIO, CTO and CISO with mandates in banking, industrial manufacturing, retail and aviation — Sparda-Bank, ALDI Nord, GEA, Sennheiser. Programme and portfolio budgets of EUR 100M+, across 60 countries.
Available now for interim mandates, worldwide. Alongside the mandates I write the operating manuals working professionals need to come out of the AI shift on top — practical, role-specific, built from first-hand work.
30+
years of leadership
EUR 100M+
programme and portfolio budgets
60
countries
5
languages
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An interim mandate, a critical transition, or an experienced voice at the table.
Explore interim leadershipPerspectives on AI, cybersecurity and the decisions that shape working life.
Read the articlesStart with a two-minute AI readiness check, then explore resources for your next step.
Check your AI readinessIdeas from the field
Featured article · 3 min read
Almost forty years ago, I was writing assembler on a Commodore 64. Today, I sit in C-suites debating whether AI agents should be allowed to occupy seats my colleagues once held. The trajectory between those two points…
One question I ask early in any engagement: how many AI tools are actually in use here? It is rare that anyone in the room can answer it. Often there is already a policy in its third draft, but no list. I think that order is backwards. A policy written before you know what is in use ends up either too abstract to apply or too strict to follow, and people quietly route around it. What has worked better for me is a plain inventory, built in two or three weeks. Every AI tool or feature in use, what data goes into it, who owns it and who approved it. The assistant add-ons in the office suite count. So do browser plugins, and the model a SaaS vendor switched on in last month's release. The list is almost always longer than the board expects. But it turns a vague governance debate into four or five concrete decisions: what to block, what to license properly, where personal or customer data must not go, and who approves new tools from now on. The policy can then be written around real cases, and the EU AI Act classification becomes work on known systems instead of guesswork. The harder part is keeping that list current once it exists. How do you handle it? #AIGovernance #CIO #EUAIAct
Read this note →When I was CISO at a regulated bank, the most useful meeting of the month was not with the security team. It was thirty minutes with the board, going through the open audit findings one by one. Who owns it, what is the date, what is blocking it. No slides about the threat landscape. Just the list. With NIS2 now in force in Germany, management boards carry personal responsibility for cyber risk, and many are asking what that means in practice. In my experience it means exactly that meeting: a short list, named owners, real dates, and a board that asks why something slipped. The companies that struggle are rarely the ones without tools. They are the ones where nobody outside IT has ever seen the list. Does your board see the open findings, or a traffic light? #NIS2 #CISO #Governance
Read this note →Selected experience
Career highlights across banking, industry and retail. Different organisations; the same need for clear decisions and accountable leadership.
Sparda-Bank Berlin
CISO of a BaFin-regulated bank, with accountability for cybersecurity and regulatory delivery.
GEA Group
Global IT security programme leadership, including ISO 27001 certification for an organisation of 20,000+ users.
ALDI Nord
Head of enterprise architecture, bringing technology decisions into an international business context.
30+ years · 60 countries · 5 languages
Employers and interim mandates as listed in the CV, the client engagements delivered during ten years at Microsoft Germany, and earlier engagements across Europe and the Middle East.
Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus
Deutsche Bank
Volkswagen Group
Bundespolizei
VW Financial Services
Carlson Wagonlit
Qatargas
Saudi American Bank
Commerzbank
SparkasseReferences on request
About · Dr. Mongi Gazelle
Now I’m writing what I learned, in the language people doing the actual work can use on a Tuesday morning.
Dr. Mongi Gazelle
Interim CIO · CTO · CISO · Doctorate in AI & Digital Transformation Leadership
I’m Mongi — interim CIO, CTO and CISO, based in Rüthen, Germany, and available worldwide. I take on IT and security accountability where it is vacant, overloaded or under regulatory pressure, and hand it back to the line organisation in a governed state.
Behind that are 30+ years of international leadership: CISO of a BaFin-regulated bank at Sparda-Bank Berlin, head of enterprise architecture at ALDI Nord, global IT security programme lead at GEA Group — ISO 27001 certification with 100% audit success for 20,000+ users — and IT director at Sennheiser. Most recently I led group cybersecurity and application protection at Emirates Group in Dubai. Before that, ten years at Microsoft Germany on client programmes for Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Volkswagen and others.
In every one of those rooms, the same conversation comes up: what does this actually mean for the people doing the work?
The honest answer — the one most decks won’t print — is that AI is rewriting job descriptions quarter by quarter. I’ve watched which roles get cut, which roles get amplified, which workflows automate, which become more human.
That’s why this site exists. Every guide here is the operating manual I would hand the professional on the other side of the board decisions I’ve sat through for 30+ years.
Not theory. Not conference talk-track. The actions that work on a Tuesday, in your industry, in your role.
Direct line
An interim mandate, press, speaking, team licences or a question on a guide — every message lands in my inbox. I’m the one who replies, usually within two working days.
Reply window
Two working days
Languages
DE · FR · AR · EN · NL
Best for
Boards · CIOs · founders
I never share
Your name, your message
01 · The Flagship
The flagship guide · pre-order open
For mid-career professionals 35–55
A day-by-day plan to make yourself the person who runs the AI — not the one it replaces.
02 · Operating principles
01
Every guide is built on first-hand work — the kind of work the buyer is preparing to face. Not a course built on top of a course.
02
Day-by-day actions, named workflows, real prompts, measurable outcomes. If a line cannot survive the Tuesday-morning test, it does not ship.
03
14-day no-questions money back on every guide and every subscription. If the work has not paid back inside two weeks, the refund is automatic.
04
Written by a former bank CISO with 30+ years of international leadership. No tracking, no remarketing, no profile sold on. We hold only what the order needs.
The Catalog
1 available · 5 on the schedule
A 50-question compliance workbook
What Annex III actually requires of you, in plain language. A workbook a non-lawyer can finish in a week.
90 pages · PDF · 14-day refund
€39
€79
The architecture every modern professional should grasp
Enterprise microsegmentation, translated. The literacy non-engineers need to make better decisions.
55 pages · PDF · 14-day refund
€19
€39
A 12-month operating plan, from the inside
Operating model, governance, capability planning, value realisation. The agenda decomposed for the next quarter.
110 pages · PDF · 14-day refund
€49
€99
A 90-day path to certification
Exactly what to build, in what order — with the policies and evidence that pass auditors.
95 pages · PDF · 14-day refund
€39
€79
What a CISO does — and what your career should learn from it
Threat models, response plans, blast-radius thinking — applied to your own career, not server racks.
60 pages · PDF · 14-day refund
€19
€39
Need a guide on a specific role? Subscribe and reply with the role — every reply is read.
From the desk of Dr. Mongi Gazelle
“AI doesn’t replace people. It replaces the version of you that hasn’t yet learned to operate it. These guides are the operating manual I would hand my best friend at 47, written from inside the rooms where the decisions are actually made.”
03 · The Boardroom Library
Two new guides every month, drawn directly from work I am doing inside the boardroom — operating models, governance frameworks, cyber-resilience playbooks, AI-readiness diagnostics. The library opens with the second release.
€19/mo
Monthly · cancel anytime
€179/yr
Yearly · save €49
Founders' pricing held for the first 100 subscribers. Lifetime access (€499) opens at the same time.