The Biggest Challenge

Our conference CFO Forum EUROPE is knocking on the door! Zoran Daljević, one of our speakers, decided to give us an interview about issues during COVID-19 and what new this pandemic taught him.

What was the biggest challenge for you last year and what did you find out about yourself in these difficult times?


Niels Behrensen, CFO, Danfoss Climate Solutions, Germany

The biggest challenge in 2020 for me was keeping people on-board and motivated as well as keeping the organization staying committed to the financial targets.

Alina Popa, CFO, OMV Petrom, Romania

The biggest challenge was to remain close to the people although we do not meet physically anymore. I learnt to find ways to remain connected and drive engagement and motivation of my teams despite difficulties.

Branislav Loncar, CFO Southeast Europe, Publicis One, Serbia

The biggest challenge for me last year was definitely crisis management and how to adopt to lockdown and working from home mode, how to help our clients to overcome those challenges. What we have found about ourselves was that we were more agile and flexible than our perception and expectations were.

Stefan Bergsmann, Managing Partner, Horváth & Partners, Austria

The biggest challenge for me was to change from personal leadership to “remote” leadership via MS teams.

I found out, in particular, how important it is to give the team a clear vision where we want to go as a motivator and also as a guideline in these “distributed” times.

Miroslava Stodolicová, Finance Director for Czech Republic and Slovakia, AbbVie, Czech Republic

For me the biggest challenge was starting a new role in a completely new company and industry. This was connected with integration within my peers, regional peers, my team and actually starting to lead my team while managing all remotely in constantly changing government safety recommendations and rules. Skills we needed to acquire last year and the speed at which we needed to acquire new skills of virtual and hybrid leadership were very demanding. Employees are more than ever in need of leaders and in need of guidance and reassurance so that they can perform, deliver and learn how to navigate in a constantly changing environment with high levels of ambiguity.

Would you like to know more about the challanges that finance departments and CFOs will face in the future? Attend CFO Forum EUROPE, which will take place on November 4 - 5,2020 in Radisson Blue Hotel,Prague.