IT & Security that enable the business

Nick Takes

Certified Information Systems Security Professional since 2026

Advice, development or planning, clearly scoped and properly delivered.

The Netherlands · on site & remote

Services

IT, Security & Governance

Someone has to keep IT, security, and governance pulling in the same direction. That person just left, you never had one, or an audit, customer, or regulator now demands one.

What I do

Security strategy and programmes, risk management, IAM and Zero Trust, Microsoft 365 environments, incident response and BCDR, compliance and audits (GDPR, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, NIS2), IT, vendor and MSP management.

What you get

Audits that pass, insurance approved, customers and regulators satisfied, IT that just works. Reporting your board can act on, and one clear contact when something breaks or someone asks the hard questions.

AI Automation & Security

Your team already uses AI, with or without your blessing. You want the gains without leaking data, breaking GDPR, or buying tools nobody uses.

What I do

I set the guardrails: an AI policy, vendor checks, and a safe shortlist of tools. Or I build it: GDPR-aware automations and internal tools, designed and shipped hands-on.

What you get

Your people use AI safely instead of secretly. And what I build is a working tool, shipped in production, not a slide deck.

Everything else

Not every task needs a project. Sometimes you just need one thing done properly: a secure website, a password manager set up right, or a straight answer on what hardware to buy.

What I do

The hands-on, fixed-scope work that falls outside the other two. Well designed and hardened by default, for your organisation or for you. This site is an example.

What you get

It works, and you understand exactly what you have. Honest advice, no retainer, no upsell, and set up so you can keep running it yourself, as far as that's realistic.

How I work

Every engagement starts with listening: to what you want to achieve.

From there we agree the scope and deliverables, and what's agreed is what gets delivered, properly. Everyone has their specialism: when a job calls for one outside mine, I'll say so, and help you find the right fit.

Background

Technology was my hobby long before it became my profession.

I have worked in IT for more than a decade, on every side of the field: managed services and in-house, the service desk and the boardroom, and everything in between. Today I lead IT and security for an international organisation across four countries.

Principles

Everything is connected.

Infrastructure, security, suppliers, new technology: most problems sit where these meet, not inside one of them. So that's where I look.

The business comes first.

IT & Security exist to support what the organisation wants, not to slow it down. Every recommendation is weighed on cost, risk, and value.

Listening comes before advice.

I take the time to understand the organisation first: its goals, its people, and the way it works. Advice is only useful when it fits.

Let's talk

Ask me anything!

Drop me a message and we'll take it from there.

Or directly: contact@nicktakes.com