Head of Digital Strategy & Development, accountable for the organisation-wide technology strategy and roadmap. My remit includes enterprise and data architecture, central technology and data platforms, and AI governance.

I translate strategy into operating platforms: shaping digital and AI strategy, designing governance and security structures, and staying hands-on through prototypes and open-source work.

I also run SouthByte, an independent AI-governance advisory for small and medium-sized organisations. SouthByte combines EU AI Act and ISO/IEC 42001 expertise with practical experience in on-prem AI platforms, RAG systems, and model evaluation.

• IAPP – AIGP (AI Governance Professional)
• ITIL 5 – Bridge Course

I am focused on building sustainable digital and AI capabilities within organisations.

• Designing and operating a central organisational AI platform
• Establishing AI-governance frameworks, including risk assessment, lifecycle management, and compliance controls
• Defining secure, scalable enterprise-architecture principles
• Supporting digital transformation and technology modernisation

I lead a cross-functional team spanning requirements and demand management, enterprise and data architecture, technology and data platforms, and security, quality, and compliance across the IT portfolio.

• On-prem LLM deployment and evaluation with vLLM
• RAG systems, LLM integration patterns, and guardrails
• Python automation and integration
• Docker- and Kubernetes-based AI services

• Enterprise and Data Architecture
• ITIL 4 governance practices
• AI governance and risk assessment
• ISO/IEC 42001 (AI Management Systems)

• SouthByte - Independent AI-governance advisory for small and medium-sized organisations
• Model evaluations - Public on-prem LLM evaluation results
• Microsoft Presidio contributions - German PII recognizers for an open-source data-protection framework

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael--van-den-berg/
• SouthByte: https://southbyte.de/
• GitHub: https://github.com/MvdB