The Delfen practice
Independent technology leadership for regulated and capital-intensive organizations. Four domains — governance, technology, data and architecture — held by one person.
Technology decisions don’t respect organizational silos. An AI strategy touches the data architecture. A security question touches governance. A build-vs-buy decision touches both engineering and financial planning.
Delfen doesn’t treat those decisions in isolation. Delfen brings CIO, CTO, CDO, and Chief Architect perspective together in a single engagement — because the organization needs all of it in a single decision, too.
Two situations
Which one is yours?
You sit on the board of a large, regulated organization.
You have a CIO or a CTO, a risk function and internal audit. What you do not have is a view from someone with no stake in the answer. A programme of several million is on the agenda, and everyone who wrote the proposal has an interest in it. The supervisor asks who at your table understands the technology, and the auditor asks who controls it. One supplier has become too large to leave, and nobody can tell you what leaving would cost.
What helps
You run a mid-sized company, and nobody at your table owns technology.
Technology is a large part of your cost, and a risk you cannot judge yourself. Your IT manager keeps things running, your suppliers tell you what to buy, and the big decisions wait. A full-time CTO is more than you can justify. You still need someone senior who sets the direction, sits on your side of the table when contracts come up for renewal, answers for security and compliance, and helps your own people grow.
What helps
Start with a Second opinion on the decision that worries you most, or a Sparring partner for the person who runs your IT. When the question is bigger than one decision: an enterprise CTO for part of the week.
Enterprise CTO, interim or fractional
Technology direction, target-state architecture, build-versus-buy, and the investment case behind them. One senior person who holds the direction until the organization can hold it itself.
When
- Technical direction is contested, and no single seat can settle it
- The CIO or CTO departs and a permanent successor has not been appointed
- A build-versus-buy or platform decision needs a judgment that defends no budget and no supplier
- AI adoption needs governance the current technology function cannot deliver
- A large supplier contract is up for selection, renewal or renegotiation, and you want someone on your side of the table who has done it before
Within the same engagement, the three domains those decisions touch
Governance (the CIO domain)
Technology governance, accountability for security and compliance, reporting the board can act on, the conversation with regulator and auditor.
Data (the CDO domain)
Data strategy, AI governance, master data and reporting.
Architecture (the Chief Architect domain)
Enterprise architecture, integration, technology selection, building the architecture function.
One judgment across governance, technology, data and architecture, from someone who has directed IT inside a DNB-regulated bank and led enterprise architecture as part of IT management in marine engineering and in metal packaging manufacturing.
For boards and supervisory boards
Four ways to get an independent technology judgment into the room.
Not every question needs an interim leader. Some need one day, one afternoon a month, or one clear answer before a decision. Each offer below has a fixed shape and is delivered by the same person.
Board day: technology leadership, AI and cyber accountability
One day with your executive board on the technology decisions it is accountable for: what to ask, what to decide, and what to stop delegating.
When
- Supervisors and auditors ask how board members keep their cybersecurity knowledge current, and the board wants more from that day than a certificate
- AI decisions reach the board table without a shared way to weigh them
- Technology reporting arrives every quarter and nobody can say what it means for the next decision
What a Delfen engagement includes
- A preparation call, and we read your own board papers beforehand, so the day is about your organization
- One day on location: cyber accountability, AI decisions, dependence on suppliers, and the questions a board should ask of its technology leadership
- A one-page record of what the board decided to do next
- A certificate of participation for each board member, stating name and dates
- Shape
- One day, up to six participants, so it stays a conversation. Larger groups or a tailor-made programme on request.
- Price
- From €5,000 ex VAT
Architecture seat: an independent chair for your architecture board
One afternoon a month, an independent senior architect chairs or sits on your architecture board: the agenda, the decisions, and the trade-offs written down so they can be found again.
When
- Technology decisions are taken in projects, and nobody weighs them against each other
- The organization is too small or too busy for a chief architect, and the decisions are too large to go without one
- The supervisory board asks who is looking independently at the large technology choices
What a Delfen engagement includes
- Preparing and chairing the monthly architecture board, or a seat on it
- Every decision recorded in one format: what was decided, what was given up, and later what happened
- A one-page quarterly report to the executive board
- Between meetings: a reply within two working days to questions about decisions on the agenda
- Shape
- One afternoon a month, contracted per year.
- Price
- On request
Exit map: which systems can you actually leave?
A map of your dependence on suppliers and platforms: which systems you could leave, on what timeline, at what cost, and which ones you could not.
When
- A supervisor, an auditor or your own supervisory board asks for an exit plan, and the honest answer is a contract clause
- A supplier changes its prices or its terms, and nobody knows what leaving would take
- Cloud and AI choices are being made now that decide your room to move for years
What a Delfen engagement includes
- The critical systems and the suppliers behind them, on one page
- Per system: where it and its data sit, who owns and operates the supplier, which country's law follows from that, what an exit would take, and two worked exit scenarios. A factual mapping, not legal advice
- The decisions that follow, recorded with their trade-offs
- An optional yearly review, because the map is out of date after twelve months
- Shape
- Fixed scope, seven to nine working days over four weeks.
- Price
- From €12,000 ex VAT
Second opinion: a technology strategy or programme, tested before you decide
An independent judgment on a technology strategy, a large programme or a platform choice, delivered before the board or the supervisory board decides. When a programme is already running, it comes before the decision to continue, change course or stop.
When
- A programme of several million is on the agenda, and everyone who wrote the proposal has an interest in it
- The technology strategy is finished, and nobody outside the team has tried to break it
- The supervisory board wants to approve, and wants to know first what it is approving
- A programme is already running, it is late or over budget, and the board no longer trusts the reports it gets
What a Delfen engagement includes
- Reading the proposal, the business case and the architecture behind it
- Conversations with the people who wrote it and the people who will have to run it
- A written opinion of a few pages: what holds, what does not, what is missing, and what we could not judge
- A presentation to the board or the supervisory board, in person
- Shape
- Five to eight working days in two to three weeks. The method of the Executive Technology Review, aimed at one decision.
- Price
- On request
All four are delivered by one person, who led the IT function of a bank under central-bank supervision and answered to its board, its supervisors and its auditor.
Every offer states its time and frequency. The price shown is for that standard shape. A different size, frequency or programme is settled in one conversation: use the button under the offer, and the contact form opens with the offer already filled in.
What independent means here: Delfen sells no software and takes no commission from any supplier on its advice. Any commercial interest is stated in writing before an engagement starts. Articles on delfen.ai may carry an affiliate link to a tool; where one does, the article says so.
For technology leaders
The decisions are yours. You should not have to think them through alone.
Sparring partner: one conversation a month for technology leaders
A monthly conversation for a CIO, a CTO, a chief architect or a head of architecture, or for someone growing into that seat. It is about the decisions on your desk, the board you report to, and the things you cannot discuss inside your own organization.
When
- You are new in the seat, or the seat has grown faster than your network
- A decision is on your desk that you cannot test with your own team or your own board
- You lead architects or engineers, and you want their development, and your own, to be deliberate
What a Delfen engagement includes
- One conversation of ninety minutes a month, in person or online
- Between conversations: a reply within two working days to questions about what is on your desk
- Your agenda sets the conversation. It is confidential, and independent of your employer's suppliers
- Shape
- Ninety minutes a month, contracted per half year.
- Price
- On request
From someone who has mentored chief architects, directors, managers and engineers for many years, formally and informally.
For deal teams, buyers and sellers
Technology judgment on a transaction.
M&A Technical Due Diligence
The four disciplines applied to a single transaction — technology judgment for acquisitions, in euros and deal terms, not adjectives.
When
- You're acquiring a company whose value depends on production systems (OT), ERP, or a technology platform the deal team can't assess itself
- The target falls under NIS2/Cbw, DORA, or the AI Act — and that compliance gap transfers at closing
- The synergy case assumes system integration, but nobody has mapped what that integration actually takes
- Post-close, the integration or carve-out needs technology leadership through the transition
What a Delfen engagement includes
- Technical due diligence across IT, OT, and architecture — grounded in hands-on operating experience in manufacturing, offshore, and regulated financial environments
- Regulatory exposure assessment (NIS2/Cbw, DORA, AI Act), translated into a remediation cost range
- Findings translated into deal mechanics: price adjustments, escrow, TSA clauses, Day-100 capex
- Integration boundaries mapped during diligence — Day 1, Day 100, Year 1
- Post-merger integration or carve-out guidance as a follow-on engagement
Duration: 2–6 weeks per diligence. Available: per deal or on retainer.
Pre-Deal Technology Scan
A fixed-price red-flag review of the target's technology before you sign: IT, production systems and architecture, translated into what it means for price and terms.
When
- The deal team can read the numbers but not the systems behind them
- The target's value sits in production systems, an ERP or a platform that nobody on the buy side can judge
- There are three weeks, a data room and a limited number of questions you may ask
What a Delfen engagement includes
- A review of the data room and two to four management conversations
- The red flags, ranked: what can stop the deal, what changes the price, what belongs in the terms
- A first estimate of what integration or separation will really take
- A report of a few pages and a call with the deal team
- Shape
- Fixed scope, two to three weeks.
- Price
- From €15,000 ex VAT
From someone who has led IT due-diligence tracks on the buy side of a bank, sat in the deal team of a mortgage-financing transaction, and executed the integration after closing in metal packaging manufacturing.
Also available
The 100-day scan
After closing, when access is no longer a problem and the integration plan meets the real systems.
The exit-readiness scan
For owners preparing a sale, so the buyer's technical questions are answered before they are asked.
Executive Technology Review
The starting point for every Delfen engagement. Available as a standalone engagement.
Before a longer engagement begins, the situation needs to be clear. Not based on assumptions. Not based on the story the organization tells about itself. Based on an independent, structured examination of five domains.
Governance
How are technology decisions made? Who decides what, on what basis?
Architecture
What’s the state of the application landscape, the integrations, the technical debt?
Data
What’s the maturity of the data structure, MDM, and BI?
Security & compliance
Where does the organization stand relative to NIS2, DORA, and relevant regulatory requirements?
AI readiness
What capacity does the organization have to adopt AI in a way that creates value and limits risk?
At the end of the ETR, a Delfen principal presents the findings to the board or executive team. The result is a clear directional judgment: where the organization stands, what it needs first, and which next step is most valuable.