Eleftherios Giannakis

I’ve been working for Ahold Delhaize for almost 15 years now and am still loving it. I’m privileged to be working from Athens, Greece while being part of the global (GSO) organization and there is never a dull moment in our great global family of local brands.

I have a background in IT audit and security and 10 years ago I was asked to come work for Information Security. At the time we had a big acquisition in Southeastern Europe, and I was given the opportunity to build the information security team for the region from scratch.

Then in 2016, when Ahold and Delhaize merged, our global CISO, Florence Mottay approached me for my current position. I’m one of the 3 Information Security directors in Europe. My team is spread across all the European countries, so I get to work with all the different great Ahold Delhaize brands in Europe.

Before Covid-19, I was travelling a lot but that has stopped. I don’t really miss it because we manage to collaborate virtually, and it really is far more efficient. But I do miss the informal face to face conversations with my team and my colleagues.

Daily morning vitamin shot with the European team

That’s why, each morning, our European team starts with a ‘Daily morning vitamin shot’. We have our coffee or tea together online and share our experience and knowledge.

It’s a good way to get a feel for what’s going on. This was especially important last year. As a result of the pandemic all countries and brands faced different challenges, while at the same time cyber security became even more important with cyber attacks on the rise. There was an increased risk landscape and for us it was an absolute necessity to appropriately manage it.

A truly global function

We are in a unique position as Information Security is a truly global function, there are no borders when it comes to our topic of expertise.

As I am part of the global Information Security team, I also work very closely with my US counterpart who has exactly the same responsibilities on the other side of the ocean. All very interesting because of the very different local flavor and culture where we operate.

Collaborating with interesting brands and cultures

To me, collaborating with all the different colleagues and brands in the different countries is what makes this job so interesting and what keeps me motivated.

Take the recent FreshDirect acquisition in the US, for example. This is exciting as it is a new brand, a different company with a different business model. I hope that in the future we can do something exciting like that in Europe as well.

The challenge for us is that even though we are one group we are all different companies with different maturity levels when it comes to IT and business models. We are here to get all of us on the same track, give them the tools they need to make this work for them in the best possible way.

Exposure to global initiatives

Being part of the global organization also gives me exposure to global management and Group wide initiatives, and the opportunity to lead projects that affect the whole Group.

The MS Office 365 implementation for the whole company, for example, has a huge impact. It is an IT initiative and there are many security aspects being implemented as a result of it. Or the Living Data program, our security awareness program that we set up right after the merger of Ahold and Delhaize, to work on global security awareness and to educate our associates about the risks and what they can do to protect our company’s, our customers’ and associates’ data. We had to set it up in a very short timeframe during the first year, but it was the beginning of a truly global security awareness program.

Come join our global family of great local brands

The great thing about Ahold Delhaize is that it is not one of these typical multinational companies, it is a family of companies, of great local brands with a #daretocare culture. Although there is this big global organization supporting them, the customer just sees its great local brands. In each country there are different local brands. It’s that local flavor, that local identity that makes my job so interesting and challenging.

Eleftherios Giannakis

Greece

1 χιλ. Οπαδούς 500+ συνδέσεις

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Eleftherios Giannakis

Greece 1 χιλ. Οπαδούς 500+ συνδέσεις

Σχετικά με εμάς

Προβολή Eleftherios πλήρους προφίλ

Άλλα παρόμοια προφίλ

Dimitris Aretis

Demetre Valindras

Panagiotis Theodosopoulos

Chrak Barmparian

George Tziaros

George Ginis

Dimitris Karamitsas

Ioannis B.

George Vasilakis

Dimitris Lymperopoulos

Προσθέστε νέες δεξιότητες με αυτά τα μαθήματα

Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) Cert Prep: 4 Privacy Operational Life Cycle: Protect

CRISC Cert Prep Audio Review

CRISC Cert Prep: 3 Risk Response and Reporting

Greece

1 χιλ. Οπαδούς 500+ συνδέσεις