Christophe Sterkens

Network engineering for the City of Ghent's IT services organization.

• Enterprise switching and routing across Aruba and Alcatel-Lucent fleets (including Alcatel-Lucent APs migration to Aruba). L3, ACLs, IS-IS, BGP, and fiber work.
• NAC with Active Directory integration for network access control.
• Palo Alto firewall deployment and configuration.
• Infoblox for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM.
• Automation and observability with Ansible and Elastic.
• On-site rack and cabling work as part of the broader infrastructure team.

Recovery from surgery and treatment.

Independent IT consultancy serving SMBs across hospitality, retail, maritime, and adjacent sectors.

• Long-form direct IT management for client businesses, including multi-year retainers in hospitality and serviced office sectors.
• International subcontracting through specialist partners on maritime networking projects.
• Vendor management, on-site deployment, and platform/infrastructure operations across the engagement portfolio.

Elected to the four-person board of Ghent's community hackerspace after the previous board stepped down during a planned relocation. Shared operational responsibility through the transition: finances, administrative registration, and stock management.

Freelance IT engagement with a Belgian animation studio working with major game and entertainment clients.

• Designed and deployed a new local network with proper security and firewall segmentation.
• Stood up a Microsoft 365 environment with cloud directory services.
• Deployed Peplink multi-WAN bonded hardware for frequently-traveling staff.
• Implemented local backup and recovery, with improved RDP-based remote work workflows.
• Consolidated software licensing and advised on hardware cost optimization.

Owned the technical platform at a B2B networking startup serving hospitality and retail across Belgium and the Netherlands.

• Architected and operated the connectivity stack at customer sites: multi-vendor topology covering Ubiquiti UniFi, TP-Link, and Peplink Balance routers.
• Built and operated the cloud platform: virtualized controllers and bonding hubs, fronted by Cloudflare and Nginx, deployed through Docker.
• Established two strategic vendor partnerships: TP-Link and Peplink (API and CLI feedback into vendor roadmaps).
• Built out physical security capability: IP cameras, DVR, and door access integrated into the site stack.
• Technical management of a Network Engineering bachelor intern, including formal evaluation reporting.

Owned IT operations for an international game development studio through the development of Baldur's Gate 3.

• Administered the company-wide platform stack: identity and SSO, collaboration tools, project management, version control for game assets, build orchestration, and perimeter firewall.
• Drove modernization from a flat local-admin Windows fleet onto a managed enterprise stack: Active Directory, Azure AD, Intune, Microsoft 365, and Palo Alto next-gen firewall.
• Architecture supported the pandemic-driven shift to fully remote operations and the IT buildout of the new Kuala Lumpur office.
• Stood up dedicated storage and access separation for the finance team in line with GDPR. Worked with the DPO on privacy compliance.
• Single point of contact for IT operations: procurement, hardware lifecycle, license management, vendor relationships, and end-user support.

Subcontracted via Confident IT to EuroMS, a UK maritime networking specialist, for technical design and field deployment on superyacht IT infrastructure.

• Designed and deployed multi-WAN bonded connectivity (VSAT + multi-cellular + WiFi WAN) for superyacht clients, coordinating with European satellite providers.
• Network architecture across multiple decks: VLAN segmentation for crew, guest, and IoT/sensor traffic, managed enterprise switching, UniFi controller, and firewall.
• Migrated a major yacht off legacy on-prem Windows Server onto a consolidated 2U NAS hosting virtualized services: AD, mail, UniFi controller, internal chat.
• International project work across Mediterranean ports.

Full IT responsibility for a boutique hotel and serviced office in central Antwerp, freelance through Confident IT.

• Migrated the network from a legacy enterprise stack to a consolidated UniFi-based architecture with VLAN re-adoption for the existing IP phone fleet.
• Decommissioned on-prem AD; moved mail to Google Workspace, web to Squarespace, hosting to DigitalOcean, replaced legacy RDP workflows with VPN access.
• Installed a CCTV system with on-site NAS recording and off-site cloud backup.
• Reduced ongoing MSP, SLA, and licensing costs against a one-time hardware investment.

Took over the Antwerp flagship store after the regional reorganization moved service and repair operations out of Benelux. Day-to-day operations, team management, and sales of refurbished Apple devices.

Led the Belgian technical operation for a multi-country Apple refurbisher across seven shops.

• Hands-on refurbishment: RAM/SSD upgrades, screen work, AZERTY keyboard conversions across iMacs, MacBooks, iPhones, and iPads.
• Designed and rolled out an in-store Service Agent role modeled on Apple Geniuses across the seven Belgian shops.
• Built leappOS: a stripped-down macOS USB image for hardware testing and refurb prep, used across the shop network.
• Replaced the security stack with Fortinet at HQ (VPN, VLAN, DHCP, DNS) and rolled out UniFi across all Belgian shops.
• Migrated phones off legacy PBX onto 3CX/VoIP; migrated company off VMware spreadsheets onto Google Workspace.

Ran Ricall's Antwerp store from opening as lead technician for complex device repairs. Built up local business clientele; developed the MediaMarkt Antwerp partnership including an in-store repair desk.

Early career roles — datacenter floor work at Red Hat in San Antonio (fiber upgrades, switch swaps, storage adjustments); multilingual QA testing at Lionbridge in Tampere for Microsoft and Nokia's mobile platform (Dutch, German, Swedish builds).