The moment that stayed with him began at a marketplace where sales dashboards showed&nbsp;40%&nbsp;gross margin—yet finance closed the books at&nbsp;20%, Boon tells us. The gap, he discovered, lived in the shadows: rebates, discounts, and “free” services that never touched operational metrics. He manually traced economics to the client level and found margins many considered healthy were thin—or nonexistent. One customer representing roughly&nbsp;30%&nbsp;of revenue delivered&nbsp;0%&nbsp;gross margin, Boon tells us.That scene explains his broader path. He started in London investment banking “working on deals 24/7,” then spent five years at McKinsey across Europe on corporate finance and strategy. At Zalando he founded Strategic Finance to ready the company for IPO—tightening the P&L and working capital. Hypergrowth taught him that unchecked hiring breeds overlap and data drift, so ownership and reporting must evolve with scale, Boon tells us.He gravitates to complexity. At his current company—public since&nbsp;2021&nbsp;and combined with a U.S. competitor bought for “about a billion USD”—systems sprawl and legacy platforms made accuracy difficult while two-thirds of revenue came from the U.S., across&nbsp;130&nbsp;countries with people in&nbsp;14, Boon tells us. He cut legal entities from&nbsp;28&nbsp;to&nbsp;14, moved to one ERP, and shortened the monthly close from “15 days” to “five or six days,” Boon tells us. Two efficiency programs, a&nbsp;120 million&nbsp;refinancing, and a rights issue&nbsp;60% oversubscribed&nbsp;rebuilt credibility.Back at the marketplace, he installed a pricing director reporting to finance, killed blanket rebates, and tied commissions to&nbsp;net&nbsp;revenue. Within&nbsp;12 months, margin rose from&nbsp;20%&nbsp;to&nbsp;40%, Boon tells us—proof that disciplined economics, not dashboards, drive durable turnarounds.

Podurama

Home

Trending

Personal

Your Podcasts

New Episodes

My Files

Favourite Episodes

Tags (Folders)

Recently Played

Bookmarks

Followed Playlists

1140: The EQ Playbook for Post-Merger Reality | Niels Boon, CFO, Cint

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

AI Chapters

AI Insights

Reviews