Following cost from the production floor to the service promise

Mandate

Make the economics of accepted service work understandable before committing capacity or distributing cash.

Outcomes

• Separated a EUR450,000 rise in project completion cost from an unresolved commercial recovery.
• Funded 12,400 paid learning hours for 155 engineers with explicit capacity consequences.
• Presented 90.5% gross and 110.5% net retention on the same opening contract cohort.
• Deferred EUR900,000 of a proposed owner distribution pending the service-cost review.

Decisions in context

I became CFO as the company was preparing for a broader ownership base and a larger recurring-services business. The minority investment in 2020 increased the need for a financial account that founders, managers and the new partner could all interrogate. I retained the controller's attention to source evidence but had to make choices about capacity, cash and investment before every uncertainty was resolved. My team now comprises forty-four colleagues with five direct reports. Delivery leaders own the work estimates and technical decisions; I connect their assumptions to the company's commitments and financial consequences. The cases in this profile come from that collaboration, including a revised implementation forecast, paid engineering development and the treatment of advance service cash. I attend board discussions as an executive presenter, without claiming a director's vote or independence. The appointment has made me more deliberate about showing what an attractive number leaves unfinished.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; considering a first external board contribution alongside executive duties.

Mandate

Create a consistent financial explanation across project delivery and recurring support activities.

Outcomes

• Introduced separate reporting of agreed contract fees and unresolved scope proposals.
• Brought delivery managers into the review of remaining project effort.
• Documented the treatment of advance service receipts in the monthly cash discussion.

Decisions in context

I joined Avelrune to bring project control and regional finance experience into one group account. At the end of this appointment the business employed 430 people and generated EUR61 million in annual revenue; those figures do not describe its scale when I arrived. My task was to help managers understand why the financial result differed between implementation work and continuing support. A delayed customer acceptance, a revised staffing estimate and an advance invoice could each move a different part of the account. I worked with four finance leads and, by the close of the period, a twenty-six-person function to preserve those distinctions through consolidation. The CFO retained overall financial authority and the board relationship. I prepared the evidence and increasingly joined discussions where delivery and commercial assumptions diverged. Moving into the CFO role required me to add ownership of the proposed response to the discipline of explaining the reported position.

Reason for the move

Appointed CFO after the previous finance leader's planned retirement.

Mandate

Connect regional sales commitments with delivery resources and financial performance.

Outcomes

• Established a common account of implementation contribution across the two country teams.
• Required staffing assumptions to accompany the regional sales plan.
• Separated recurring support economics from one-time implementation fees in planning reviews.

Decisions in context

This was my first appointment with responsibility for a finance team across two countries. I reported to the group CFO and worked closely with the regional managing director, but I did not hold a statutory directorship. Eighteen colleagues supported a regional business that reached EUR36 million in revenue within a EUR59 million company by 2011. The central challenge was to make a commercially ambitious plan credible in terms of people and delivery timing. I learned to ask which skills the next contract required and whether those colleagues would actually be available. Country managers had different customer mixes, so a common reporting view still needed room for local explanation. I became more comfortable bringing an incomplete but material concern into an executive discussion. The move to Avelrune offered the chance to apply that habit across a whole enterprise rather than a defined regional remit.

Reason for the move

Moved to group control at Avelrune for a wider company-level finance responsibility.

Mandate

Explain project-cost movements in terms that delivery and commercial colleagues could act on.

Outcomes

• Linked project estimates to named delivery activities rather than unexplained percentage adjustments.
• Distinguished signed fees from proposed scope changes in internal reviews.
• Improved the continuity of project-finance records when delivery managers changed.

Decisions in context

Moving from a components factory to software implementation changed what I could physically observe. There was no finished unit beside the cost report. Progress depended on work completed, customer decisions and the credibility of the remaining estimate. I joined a four-person project-finance team and supported a portfolio that reached EUR12 million in annual fees by the later part of the appointment. The financial controller and operating managers retained approval authority. My contribution was to trace a movement back to work and assumptions that somebody could explain. I spent time with project managers because a mathematically complete spreadsheet could still contain an implausible delivery plan. The role taught me to respect technical judgement while asking for its financial implications. I also learnt that a difficult customer conversation rarely becomes easier when finance postpones acknowledging the cost. Those habits formed the basis for my subsequent regional appointment.

Reason for the move

Promoted into regional finance leadership as the company expanded its two-country operations.

Mandate

Make material usage, labour time and production variations intelligible to the plant controller.

Outcomes

• Reconciled reported production quantities with the cost records used in plant reviews.
• Documented the operational explanations behind material and labour variances.
• Built a working relationship with supervisors before proposing changes to reporting.

Decisions in context

I entered the plant-finance team three months after completing my management-accounting degree. My early work involved reconciling records and asking supervisors why production differed from the assumptions in the cost account. I was one of seven finance colleagues and had no authority to approve the plant budget or production choices. The company reached 310 employees and approximately EUR42 million in equivalent annual revenue by 1997; the retrospective euro figures are used for comparability, not as a claim about the currency then invoiced. I learnt that a variance could be numerically correct and still poorly explained. A change in material, a maintenance interruption or an unrealistic work standard could produce similar-looking movements with different remedies. That experience made me curious about businesses where the output was less tangible. The opportunity at Corvessa offered a way to carry the discipline of tracing cost into an unfamiliar operating setting.

Reason for the move

Accepted a project-control role to learn the economics of software and professional service delivery.