You operate in systems where small shifts can trigger large consequences. External shocks rarely stay isolated. They ripple through markets, organizations and decisions. Chaos is not noise to eliminate. It is a reality to navigate.

In this opening keynote, you step straight into the heart of that dynamic. Together with Margot Ribberink, former storm chaser, and scientifically trained meteorologist, you explore what happens when complex systems come under pressure. Not through spectacle, but through analysis.

Together, you explore how extreme weather systems unfold, how patterns emerge in apparent randomness, and where predictability proves its value and where its limits lie. Chaos is rarely accidental. Small disturbances can trigger large effects, often far beyond the original epicenter.
In the eye of the storm, something unexpected appears: clarity. Not because everything stands still, but because you learn to recognize which signals matter when everything is in motion.

This opening does not offer ready-made answers. It sharpens your perception, expands your frame of reference, and sets the starting point for a day about holding direction within forces you cannot fully control.
 

How do you create clarity when everything around you is shifting at the same time?
In a world where signals contradict each other, risks shift overnight and the pressure on finance keeps rising, clarity becomes a competitive advantage. In this conversation, moderated by Rens de Jong, Charlotte Hanneman (CFO Philips), Pieter Everard (CFO Picnic) and Steven Zaat (CFO KLM) share how they cut through the noise, bring focus when their organisations are being pulled in multiple directions and make confident decisions in moments of uncertainty. 

Celebrating exceptional financial leadership with the CFO of the Year Award

Budgets were designed to create control. Yet for many CFOs today, they do the opposite. They create illusions of control. Plans break faster than reporting cycles. Targets become outdated before the year has even started. Rigid detailed cost budgets prevent fast responses. And the gap between what the numbers say and what the business actually needs keeps widening.

In this keynote, Bjarte Bogsnes does not argue for less discipline, less accountability, or financial looseness. He challenges something more fundamental: whether traditional management through fixed annual budgets are still the right instrument in a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Drawing on (nearly) thirty years of experience with Beyond Budgeting in complex, global organizations, Bogsnes explores how CFOs can regain better control by shifting focus from static plans to adaptive decision-making.
From compliance to confidence.
From prediction to preparedness.
From fighting uncertainty and ambiguity to accepting and embracing it.
From managing performance to enabling performance.

This is a session for CFOs and finance leaders who feel the tension between structure and reality every day.
Who know that tighter rules do not automatically lead to better outcomes. And who are ready to rethink what financial leadership looks like when certainty is no longer guaranteed.

Not a plea to abandon control, but an invitation to redefine it.

In the days leading up to a board meeting, the numbers rarely stand still. Forecasts shift, assumptions evolve, and figures that looked solid yesterday may already tell a different story today. In this environment, the challenge is rarely a lack of data, but turning complex reporting into a clear story that helps boards focus on the decisions that matter.

In this interactive roundtable, CFOs and senior finance leaders will explore how greater clarity can be brought to board-level financial communication. Drawing on real boardroom examples, we will discuss how complex reporting can be translated into clearer financial narratives and visuals that support more focused discussions and decisions in the boardroom.

Together with think-cell, participants will exchange perspectives on where complexity arises in practice and how finance teams can turn busy fact packs into clearer, decision-focused communication.

Bjarte’s keynote typically triggers the same reaction: “This makes sense, but how do we do this here, without losing control or credibility?” That’s exactly what this small-group session is for.

In a limited setting, Bjarte opens the floor for a moderated in-depth Q&A with CFOs and senior finance leaders. No deck. No scripted content. Just an honest conversation about what happens when you challenge one of the most entrenched processes in the company. Expect concrete discussion on cost control, shareholder confidence, the resistance you will face and failures to avoid.

Bring your own situations and dilemmas and learn from the questions others are wrestling with. The session is open, candid, and grounded in practice, aimed at helping you leave with clearer options and more confidence about next steps.

How CFOs stay strategic in a world that constantly pulls them back into operations

Today’s CFO is expected to do both: keep the business running and help shape the future of the organization. In practice, however, operational demands often take over. Board meetings, urgent decisions, transformations, organizational changes and talent challenges all compete for attention.

Many finance leaders find themselves constantly reacting. Days fill up with operational issues, leaving little space to step back, think strategically and focus on the decisions that shape long-term direction.

In this interactive workshop, leadership advisor Frans van Loef introduces a practical framework for redesigning your Personal Operating Model: the way you structure your roles, focus your attention and organise how you lead.

Working through five drivers, Roles, Focus, Leadership Mode, Way of Working and Wellbeing, participants will reflect on their current operating model and identify where it supports their impact and where it quietly pulls them back into operational overload.

The session also offers a rare opportunity to step back and reflect with fellow CFOs on the question every senior leader eventually faces: what kind of leader you need to be in the next phase of your organization and what may need to change in the way you lead today?

Expect to leave with clear insights on what to stop, simplify or delegate, and how to create more space for strategic thinking, shifting your focus from running the business to building its future.

Strategic Allocation Exercise

Geopolitics are reshaping the global business landscape. Trade tensions, industrial policy, reshoring, and geopolitical fragmentation are forcing companies to rethink where they produce, invest and grow.

For you as CFOs and finance leaders, this is no longer an abstract macroeconomic discussion. It directly impacts capital allocation, geographic exposure, supply chain resilience and currency risk.
In this interactive workshop, Menno Middeldorp, Global Head of RaboResearch at Rabobank, will briefly outline several geopolitical and economic scenarios that could redefine global supply chains, access to markets and investment decisions in the coming years.

You will then step into your role of CFO of a fictional multinational company and face a strategic question increasingly relevant in today’s boardrooms:

Where do you position your company in a geopolitically fragmented world?