Avendar Welcomes Thom Hopmans as Chief Technology OfficerAvendar Welcomes Thom Hopmans as Chief Technology Officer

With a career spanning data science, software engineering, and national security, Thom Hopmans joins Avendar to lead the engineering of its sovereign AI platform for Europe's most critical decisions.

Avendar is pleased to announce the appointment of Thom Hopmans as Chief Technology Officer. Thom brings over a decade of experience building data-driven systems across national security, fintech, and public transport. Most recently, he served as Lead Data Scientist at the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee developing data products and software in a high-governance environment. Before that, he held senior roles at Floryn and Nederlandse Spoorwegen, consistently shipping AI models that support decision making.

Thom will lead the continued development of Avendar's sovereign AI platform, which is designed from the ground up to meet the reality of working with sensitive government and law enforcement data. That means local AI models running on Avendar's own infrastructure, full compliance with ISO 27001, GDPR, and the EU AI Act, and systems where no data ever leaves the building.

Thom's thinking on how to best use AI draws on what researchers call the centaur model, a chess concept where human-AI teams consistently outperform both humans and machines working alone. Backed by recent research from Harvard, the key insight is that the best results come from professionals who know exactly when to use AI, and when to rely on their own expertise. That philosophy aligns very well with how Avendar builds its products. Whether investigators are using Caselink to connect leads from thousands of public tips, or are screening applicants through Integrity, the platform does the data crunching and analysis, but the human makes the call. As Thom puts it:

"The best investigators I've worked with don't need AI to think for them. They need it to do the boring groundwork so they can focus on what only a human can do. That's exactly what Avendar is built for."

The appointment also marks a reunion of sorts: Thom previously worked alongside Avendar co-founders Marijn van Aerle, Hugo Sleegers, and Tijs Bronnenberg at Floryn. Now, at a moment when public institutions across Europe face growing pressure to modernize with limited capacity, the team is building what it believes the sector urgently needs: a sovereign AI-powered data platform that makes Europe's most important decisions faster, more informed, and fully accountable.