I am a Certified Senior IT Project & Program Manager with 15+ years of experience in public and private sectors, leading programs with 15+ concurrent initiatives and budgets up to €3M. I focus on cloud, data and platform modernization, aligning executives and securing funding to drive measurable outcomes. I have driven cloud adoption through large-scale migrations and implemented governance, enabling faster delivery and better decision-making. I built and scaled internal data & platform services with a 10-person core team, supporting a 1,000-person department. I work remote-first and flexibly on hours, and I am open to contract or permanent roles to continue delivering value through Agile delivery, dependency management, and cross-functional collaboration.

Bernard Baetens

I am a Certified Senior IT Project & Program Manager with 15+ years of experience in public and private sectors, leading programs with 15+ concurrent initiatives and budgets up to €3M. I focus on cloud, data and platform modernization, aligning executives and securing funding to drive measurable outcomes. I have driven cloud adoption through large-scale migrations and implemented governance, enabling faster delivery and better decision-making. I built and scaled internal data & platform services with a 10-person core team, supporting a 1,000-person department. I work remote-first and flexibly on hours, and I am open to contract or permanent roles to continue delivering value through Agile delivery, dependency management, and cross-functional collaboration.

Available to hire

I am a Certified Senior IT Project & Program Manager with 15+ years of experience in public and private sectors, leading programs with 15+ concurrent initiatives and budgets up to €3M. I focus on cloud, data and platform modernization, aligning executives and securing funding to drive measurable outcomes. I have driven cloud adoption through large-scale migrations and implemented governance, enabling faster delivery and better decision-making.

I built and scaled internal data & platform services with a 10-person core team, supporting a 1,000-person department. I work remote-first and flexibly on hours, and I am open to contract or permanent roles to continue delivering value through Agile delivery, dependency management, and cross-functional collaboration.

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Experience Level

Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Intermediate
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner
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Language

Dutch
Fluent
English
Fluent
French
Beginner
Portuguese
Beginner

Work Experience

Senior IT Project & Program Manager at Independent Consultant
June 1, 2022 - Present
Defined and ran the delivery operating model for a 10-person internal team delivering data integration services to a 1,000-person department. Owned annual planning, portfolio governance, KPI-based performance management, and continuous improvement across 15+ concurrent initiatives. Designed and implemented an annual program planning cycle, converting long-term strategy into an executable delivery portfolio with a €1M budget, ensuring clear project scope. Built scalable internal data‑integration services: led a core team of 10 to deliver data integration, infrastructure, analytics, coordination and education for a 1,000-person department. Established the delivery operating model (governance, RAID, reporting cadence, change control), improving predictability and reducing ad-hoc execution across teams by ~30% through process improvement. Managed cross-functional execution across 15+ concurrent initiatives (including a custom AI tool), improving delivery speed by ~30% via dependency ma
Senior IT Project & Program Manager at Flanders Connect
January 1, 2019 - May 1, 2022
Operational lead for Cloud and data platform delivery, vendor coordination, and service maturity. Increased adoption through structured governance and enablement, including recurring training programs for hundreds of internal users. Owned platform delivery operations and portfolio execution, ensuring governance and stakeholder alignment, managing project scope. Led a €1M AWS Cloud migration program, delivering cloud foundation and migrating 20+ applications for scalable modernisation. Standardised delivery workflows with CI/CD + DevOps, improving deployment reliability by 25% and establishing repeatable operational processes, contributing to process improvement. Built data platform roadmap, coordinating 12+ initiatives to improve data accessibility, resulting in a 4X increase in data usage, supported by data warehousing and ETL. Implemented operational foundations for platform stability and security, including monitoring/alerts, achieving 99.99% system uptime. Managed vendors, contra
IT Project Manager at GeoSolutions
November 1, 2017 - December 1, 2018
Delivered 3 client engagements in 12 months, establishing consistent delivery cadence, reporting, and stakeholder alignment across parallel initiatives. Standardised integration workflows: produced templates for scope definition, handovers and change control that reduced delivery risk and improved schedule adherence by 20%. Led cloud-based automation (RPA) delivery for a global enterprise, improving execution visibility through structured tracking and stakeholder reporting. Coordinated the API integration programme for the City of Ghent: harmonised sequencing and dependencies across 10 APIs, ensuring timely integration and smooth handovers. Engineered national geospatial data pipelines: created ETL workflows that raised data reliability to 99.9% and cut manual processing by 50%, demonstrating data quality and managing projects.
IT Project Manager at Vansteelandt
September 1, 2009 - October 1, 2017
Oversaw delivery operations across multi-year government GIS/data programs, coordinating 20+ contributors and €1–3M/year in execution scope. Designed and rolled out a semi-automated production pipeline adopted by subcontractor teams, increasing throughput and reducing rework by 35% through standardised workflows and managing projects. Guided the update of Flanders’ Large-Scale Reference Database: aligned subcontractors and internal teams to deliver automated topographic datasets across 200+ municipalities. Introduced operational quality controls and delivery guidelines to improve consistency across distributed production teams and reduce delivery variance, focusing on data quality. Led end-to-end mapping of Flemish government school buildings (3.2M+ m²), implementing scalable collection workflows and deploying a web-based GIS viewer to improve accessibility and planning.
Senior IT Project & Program Manager at Independent Consultant, EU/US
June 1, 2022 - Present
Defined and ran the delivery operating model for a 10-person internal team delivering data integration services to a 1,000-person department. Owned annual planning, portfolio governance, KPI-based performance management, and continuous improvement across 15+ concurrent initiatives. Built a scalable internal data‑integration services function, establishing governance (RAID, reporting cadence) and improving predictability while reducing ad-hoc execution across teams by ~30%. Guided AWS investment decisions and consolidation scenarios, influencing €3M in cloud merger outcomes. Coordinated international partner teams on education platforms, delivering training to +100 professionals and demonstrating strong communication skills.

Education

GEO-ICT at HoGent
September 1, 2016 - June 1, 2017
MBA (AI & Digital Economy) at University of Bradford
September 1, 2025 - September 1, 2025
MBA (AI & Digital Economy) at University of Bradford
September 1, 2025 - September 1, 2025
GEO-ICT at HoGent
September 1, 2016 - June 1, 2017

Qualifications

PMI - Project Management Professional (PMP)
July 1, 2022 - January 24, 2026
SCRUM Master
January 1, 2021 - January 24, 2026
Prince2 Agile Practitioner
March 1, 2020 - January 24, 2026
Prince2 Practitioner
September 1, 2019 - January 24, 2026
TOEFL
June 1, 2025 - January 24, 2026

Industry Experience

Software & Internet, Government, Professional Services, Education, Other

Experience Level

Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Intermediate
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner
See more

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