Building the High-Performance Finance Function

The finance function can be regarded as the spider in the organizational web, as it has relations with every part of the organization and is also represented on the executive board. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that this function takes the lead by quickly transforming itself into a high-performance finance function (HPFF), serving as a role model for other functions in the organization.

Building the High-Performance Finance Function describes the development of the high-performance finance function (HPFF) framework and explores the experiences, lessons learned, and results achieved by finance functions that have transformed themselves into “HPFFs,” or high-performance finance functions, using the HPFF framework. Covering a range of topics such as excellence in finance and high-performance organizations, it is ideal for industry professionals, teachers, researchers, academicians, practitioners, and students.

About the Author

André de Waal (1960) is Academic Director of the HPO Center, an organization that conducts research into high performance organizations. He is also a partner at the Finance Function Research & Development Center, a company that aims to help finance functions to transform into high-performing units. André has been a consultant and partner with Arthur Andersen for 16 years. André also held a 13-year tenure as Associate Professor Organizational Effectiveness at the Maastricht School of Management. He has been guest lecturer at the Free University Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, and Erasmus University Rotterdam, visiting fellow at Cranfield University UK, and senior lecturer at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences. André holds a MSc in Chemistry from Leiden University (the Netherlands), an MBA from Northeastern University Boston (USA), and a Ph.D. in Economics from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands). His dissertation was about the behavioral aspects that are important for the successful implementation and use of performance management systems. André teaches and undertakes projects in the field of high-performance organizations and performance management in countries such as China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Nepal, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Suriname, United States, UK, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Palestine, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zambia. He was selected by managementboek.nl as one of the Dutch Masters in Management, 10 people who have influenced management thinking in The Netherlands the most in the past decade. André has published 440 articles (among which more than 140 academic publications) and 35 books. Among his English books are Power of Performance Management, How Leading Companies Create Sustained Value (John Wiley & Sons, 2001), Quest for Balance, the human element in performance management systems (John Wiley & Sons, 2002), What Makes A High Performance Organization (Global Professional Publishing, 2012), Strategic Performance Management (Palgrave MacMillan, 2^nd edition, 2013), and High-Performance Managerial Leadership (Praeger, 2020). His articles can be read on www.hpocenter.com and www.andredewaal.eu.

Eelco Bilstra (1969) is a partner at the Finance Function R&D Center (FFR&D). Before co-founding this company, Eelco was a consultant with Finext for more than 17 years, a controller at Rabobank International for five years, and an accountant at Ernst & Young for two years. Eelco has a Masters in Business Economics (University of Groningen), field of study: Administrative Information Services. He has also completed a one-year post-doc course ‘Steering changes in organizations’ at SIOO (Interuniversity Center for Development in the area of Organization and Change, Utrecht). Eelco has more than 20 years of experience in the finance function in all kind of roles—as a business controller, project lead, initiative lead, product owner, advisor and coach—in all kind of companies in different sectors: telecom, banking, insurance, pharmacy, real estate, healthcare, and service organizations. His passion is improving the finance function, and through this helping the organization improve. In his view, finance should function as the spider in the organizational web, using its strategic position impactfully. His assignments are mostly positioned in the triangle of: organizational change, finance and data & IT. Eelco’s areas of expertise are planning and budgeting, management information, cost management, performance management, and intercompany processes. His strengths are in the uncompromising analysis of an organizational dilemma and focusing on pragmatic execution in small steps together with the client, all in order to guarantee the sustainability of the solution and new ways of working in the organization. Eelco publishes on a regular basis about all kind of topics in the finance function, such as financial shared services, management information, and business control. In 2013, he conducted research with André de Waal on trends in the finance function; this formed the starting point of their journey into how to improve the finance function. In 2016, they wrote the first book about the concept of high performance in the finance function, with a strong link with André’s HPO research. In 2019, they developed the HPFF framework, which essentially formed the start of the research and advisory company FFR&D (co-founded with Jacques Bootsman) with the aim of studying various kinds of areas in finance together with a network of finance experts, and to advise clients with an evidence-based and science-applied approach. You can reach Eelco via www.linkedin.com/in/eelcobilstra.

Jacques Bootsman (1967) is a partner at the Finance Function Research & Development Center, an organization that guides and supports finance functions to achieve and maintain excellence. Jacques has almost 30 years’ experience in several finance functions in different industries. He started his career as a finance professional in a medical supplies and pharmaceutical company in an international environment where implementation of an international shared service center was on the agenda. Later, he was responsible for business control in a food factory and finance lead within a wholesale clothing company where improvement of working capital was necessary at that time. In the past 20 years, Jacques has been active as a consultant within the finance function in several roles such as (business) controller, program-lead, and advisor in the triangle of commerce, finance, and board of directors, helping organizations to increase the efficiency of their finance processes and to improve insights in the performance of the business. Because of his extensive experience with change management in finance, Jacques knows what is required to implement a new way of working within the finance function, taking into account the human factor in the change process. His drive is helping finance professionals to increase their impact within the organization. Jacques is also a member of the supervisory board of two scale-up companies in the healthcare sector. You can reach him via www.linkedin.com/in/jacquesbootsman.