Dr. Veronika Von Heise-Rotenburg, a leader whose expertise lies at the intersection of finance and strategic growth. As both Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director, Veronika brings a wealth of experience in steering companies through complex financial landscapes while driving long-term business success. With a proven track record of operational excellence, financial stewardship, and leadership in high-pressure environments, she has played a pivotal role in transforming businesses and positioning them for sustainable growth.

We had the pleasure to sit down with her to understand her journey, gain insights into her leadership style, and hear first hand how she approaches decision-making.

Q: Your session focuses on the Agile CFO. What does that phrase mean to you personally?

A: Agile CFO narrows down to a leadership style that is about being flexible, adaptable and constantly learning as a leader. This means we CFO’s must be moving away from that old school, top-down hierarchy and really empower our finance team members to work autonomously and make decisions, most of them autonomously. Is this of course also applying agile methodologies like we see them in tech teams like team OKR’s using manuals of me doing sprint work, taking ownership of topics and making database decisions. I also feel the most important for us in leadership is the mindset shift from rigid control to a very trust-based approach, and this is helping finance teams to become strategic partners to business and not just the people who do the number crunching.

Q: What is one common mistake that you see finance teams make when trying to become more agile?

A: I feel one of the biggest is that hierarchical mindset is just so very ingrained in us, maybe also in the professional formation that everyone has been doing. Trying to introduce agile tools, while still sticking to those very traditional and rigid and hierarchical leadership styles, will not work. While agile is standard in tech, it's quite rare in back office, so finance and controlling people will not necessarily have worked in an agile environment before. If you onboard tech people for them, it's totally normal to be working in an agile way. For us, we on the one hand have to train the old team and on the other hand, we have to train each new team member to really adopt those principles.

Q: What is your favourite agile tool to use in finance?

A: To me, it's the “Manual of Me”. I don't read many manuals, so when I get a new tech tool like very recently my new phone, I don't read manuals. I just work with it, but I like the "Manual of Me" a lot. The title gives it away; it’s a tool that describes who you are in a professional capacity. What is your role? What are your goals in this role? What is the way you like to collaborate with people? What is the way you like to be addressed or to be reached out to. I also have one for myself, and there's a lot of standard examples into it such as I'm traveling a lot. Please watch out for my slack emoji. “If I’m travelling, this means, unfortunately, that you cannot expect speedy responses”. There's my priority of workflow, so I'll always answer Slack first, E-mail second. If you need something urgently then please use Slack and please also be aware that on Slack and especially when travelling, I won't write “Very dear Name, I hope you are well, the weather is sunny where you are and I have a tiny request for you”. I instead write “Need this, thanks”, so I feel this is relieving a lot of pressure because it tells people how you tick. It’s also so they don't have to take your preferences and your personal working style in any way personal, but team members need to respect each other styles and try to accommodate as much as possible in different situations.

Q: Without giving too much away - what kind of conversations do you hope your session sparks among CFO's in the room?

A: I don't think one talk can totally change the system, so I would like to get the CFO’s thinking and talking about the need for agile leadership in finance. I would like to provide them with some arguments and the motivation to start adopting this research step by step. I would also like to show them how to help navigate uncertain times and tackle multiple crises from financing to efficiency to shortage of skilled labour. All of those can be addressed with agile leadership. I would like to show how it leads to more efficient and adaptable and highly motivated teams so that CFOs can consider how to start this journey in their companies.

Q: What is one quality that you think is essential for modern finance leaders but still underrated?

A: I would say it's the creation of psychological safety. There are many studies out there which have proven that psychological safety is the most important factor to keep team members engaged, motivated and loyal to the company. How can you do that? Most importantly, I'd say is matter communication, so communicate about the way you are communicating to create a climate where team members feel safe to take risks, to admit mistakes and share their opinions openly because this will lead ultimately to better decisions.

Want to hear more from Veronika? Register your ticket for Finance Forum 2025 here!