Arieke Bollemeijer – CFO of The July, on how to elevate the finance team and truly add value.
CFO Arieke Bollemeijer offers golden tips for both the scaling phase and the next stage, as The July has already established a solid foundation.
“Now the question is: how does the finance team add value?”
Myrna spoke with Arieke Bollemeijer, CFO at the apartment hotel chain The July. In the five years she has been CFO, she has experienced both the building phase and the current stage, where the company continues to grow rapidly on a solid foundation.
With the basics now in place and investors on board, her focus has shifted to strategy and compliance, and how to add value with her finance team. Arieke shared her golden tips for both phases with Myrna.
‘Put finance on the map! Especially in scale-ups, it’s crucial. The real value of the finance team is often not fully recognized.’
Three tips for scaling
Arieke is well-acquainted with the typical scaling dynamics. There is still limited management information, the team is not yet fully established, and cash flow is tight. Here are three golden tips for scaling:
Lesson 1. ‘Gain complete control over the cash flow forecast’
Arieke emphasizes the importance of internal stakeholder management. ‘Everyone needs to understand the impact they have on the cash position.’
What is crucial too, is the multi-year business plan. ‘Identify the key sources of cash inflow and outflow; manage these sources carefully, including external banks and shareholders.’
Lesson 2. ‘Lesson 2: Scale up the team in a timely manner’
‘You’d rather be slightly over-resourced than under-resourced,’ Arieke advises. ‘With a certain growth rate, you’ll catch up eventually. This way, you have time to focus on building a scalable organization.’
Arieke is aware that boardroom priorities often lie elsewhere. ‘As a CFO, you need to make it urgent to enhance the back-end on time. As a scale-up, you need to build the foundation: a good team, clear processes, and IT functionality for scalability. That’s the starting point.’
Budgeting for personnel is crucial. ‘You often see many interns in scale-ups, but you can’t build effectively with them – it’s more like putting on band-aids. It’s better to hire a few excellent team members with experience than to rely on trainees. You need to bring in knowledgeable people – this works well in a mix with team members who have been with the company longer and are growing.’
Lesson 3: ‘Ensure transparency of figures – and with stakeholders’
‘The faster you grow, the more crucial it is to have transparent performance metrics and analyses,’ Arieke points out. ‘Start small and build from there. When your analyses are solid, you can forecast effectively. This forward-looking approach adds significant value from a finance perspective, in addition to maintaining a smoothly running finance operation.’
Arieke also highlights the importance of stakeholder management. ‘Ensure that the CEO and shareholders are aligned with your key findings. They don’t need to dive deep into the numbers, but they should understand your most important conclusions.’
‘Everyone thinks that finance just handles bookkeeping and pays invoices. However, the finance team has a much broader and more crucial role that needs to be recognized within the organization.’
Three tips: after the scaling
And then the next phase comes in place: the foundation is set, the team is in place, cash is under control, and you have a fairly good grasp of your actuals.
Arieke guides us to the next step for a CFO. Cash and management information remain crucial pillars, just as in the initial phase, but now there is a deeper focus. The emphasis shifts to value creation – the next level.
Lesson 1: ‘Creating Insight is Creating Value’
According to Arieke, this is the moment to pull the business plan through by translating it into strategic pillars, KPIs, and then reporting and steering accordingly. As a CFO, you can play a significant strategic role. ‘Your value as a CFO or finance team is to create insight into where you stand versus the business plan, why that is, through good management reporting, and to think about how it can be improved. Ensure that business leaders have the right input to stay in control. They need to know where they are and where they are heading so they can steer effectively. This needs to be done timely and accurately—so involve them in your analysis of the numbers and ensure you can be a worthy discussion partner on content.’
Lesson 2. ‘Claim Your Role as the Finance Team’
Also important: make finance visible! “This is particularly crucial in scale-ups,’ says Arieke. ‘The true added value of the finance team is often not recognized.’
It’s a common issue: everyone assumes you’re just handling bookkeeping and paying invoices. While some of that work is indeed thankless and necessary, ‘the finance team has a much broader and more critical role that should be highlighted within the organization,’ Arieke adds.
Lesson 3. ‘Make risk management a priority’
Arieke: ‘As CFO, you are the one responsible for ensuring that the company is compliant, risks are identified and reduced to an acceptable level by the relevant parties. The foundations of accounting, legal, and risk management must be in place.’
‘Your value as a CFO and finance team lies in providing insight into where you stand compared to the business plan, understanding why that is, through effective management reporting, and contributing ideas on how to improve.’
The Path to CFO of The July for Arieke Bollemeijer
Arieke began her career in audit at Deloitte. She then transitioned to the other side of the table as VP at Morgan Stanley Real Estate. She gained extensive experience scaling financial back-end operations during her time at Suit Supply. Her journey continued with a financial role in the entertainment industry at Stage Entertainment. Since 2019, she has served as CFO at The July, a company that develops and operates apartment-hotels across Europe.
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