Henri Kilpeläinen, M.Sc. (Econ), CFO Consultant and Finance Director
What does financial management mean to you, Henri?
Financial management to me means ensuring the profitability and liquidity of the company. The most important task of a finance director is to stay up-to-date on the current and future state of the company’s business and to be able to communicate this actively both within and outside the company to relevant stakeholders.
What kind of finance director are you/how would you describe yourself as a finance director?
As a finance director, I am efficient, communicative, and analytical. I aim to build processes that minimize the burden on the organization while still producing sufficient data for decision-making. I ensure that all necessary information is available in all decision-making situations so that decisions can be made based on the best possible information.
Share an interesting fact about financial management.
“When a ship is sinking, the captain is the last to leave. When a business is heading for bankruptcy, the finance director turns off the lights last.”
How do you promote a culture of financial management?
I aim to break down the stereotype of the finance director as a “numbers guy” and emphasize the communicative and positively challenging role. Business is the finance director’s work, and often there is a long experience behind it in various situations and matters that may be far from the traditional role of a finance director. I believe that most finance directors would have a lot to offer, for example, in developing sales.
What is the most common misconception about financial management?
The perception of the finance director as a money hoarder and a nitpicking “numbers guy.” Nowadays, the finance director is a business professional, and numbers are part of the toolkit for modeling the present and future.
What is the best part of financial management?
The best part is that financial management is a suitable mixture of working with information, interacting with people, and encountering (sometimes surprising) situations brought about by various circumstances.
What have you achieved as a finance director (in numbers)?
I have worked with nearly 200 different companies, so the field from which I draw my work is really broad. Additionally, I am proud to have been involved in growing a ten-person branch into an international group employing over 200 people.
What insight have you gained recently?
When you give things time and “breathing room,” for example, by sleeping overnight, I find many new perspectives, and some things resolve themselves almost effortlessly.
What do you do in your free time?
In my free time, I engage in a variety of sports according to the seasons – cycling, hiking, and swimming in the summer, and skiing and skating in the winter. I am also interested in all kinds of documentaries and cooking.
Tell us something that doesn’t appear on your CV.
I placed third in the school’s internal economics competition in middle school and earned the nickname “economic guru” in the school’s annual publication.
In the team, Henri is known as a durable economist who knew at the age of three that he wanted to help Finnish companies succeed with numbers!
Get in touch with Henri if you want to ask him more:
Henri Kilpeläinen
+358 (0)40 5566 830
henri@finaly.fi
