Stepping In Mid-Crisis: Trust, Pressure, and the CFO Role, with Niels Boon
Stepping into a CFO role is never easy. But stepping into a company that is already under pressure is a very different assignment.
In this episode of The Growth-Minded CFO, hosts Alex Louisy and Lauren Pearl speak with Niels Boon, CFO of Cint - a Stockholm-based, Nasdaq-listed tech company and the world’s largest survey exchange.
When Niels joined, the business was navigating leadership change, debt and covenant pressure, public market scrutiny, and the unfinished integration of a major acquisition. It was not a stable entry point. Confidence was fragile both inside the company and among external stakeholders.
He was also the sixth CFO in four years - a signal to everyone watching that stability had been hard to find.
In that environment, the CFO role became less about optimization and more about restoring stability and credibility.
A Focus on Career Learning
Niels’ approach to the CFO role has been shaped by a career that didn’t begin in accounting. He started in strategy consulting, working in corporate finance and private equity diligence across industries, where he learned to step into unfamiliar situations, get up to speed quickly, and make sense of complexity.
Later, working inside high-growth tech companies, he shifted from advising on numbers to understanding how numbers are actually created - how processes, systems, and people shape financial outcomes.
He does not come from a formal accounting background, and he sees that as increasingly common for modern CFOs. As he explains:
“You don't necessarily have to have a finance background… I don't have an accounting degree myself. So that's possible to do as long as you know what your weaknesses are… and you keep on learning. Then at some point you've seen so much that you can credibly be CFO.”
That mindset - knowing your gaps, building the right team around you, and learning fast - underpins his leadership style. It’s why he is comfortable entering complex situations, asking questions before acting, and focusing not just on financial reporting but on systems, operations, and people.
The CFO as a Stabilizing Force
In high-pressure environments, like the one Niels joined at Cint, stakeholders are not looking for polished confidence - they are looking for realism and leadership.
Niels describes how the role quickly shifted beyond reporting and forecasting. The company faced refinancing pressure, investor scrutiny, and internal fatigue. The way forward began with acknowledging the situation clearly and building credibility through transparency.
That shift in posture helped rebuild relationships with lenders and investors, because candour signaled control. Trust, in this context, came before performance improvement.
Fixing Foundations Before Optics
Turnarounds often appear strategic from the outside, but inside they start with operational fundamentals.
Cint’s complexity stemmed from years of acquisitions that had left the business with duplicated legal entities, fragmented systems, and process inefficiencies that slowed financial control. Accounts receivable was climbing even as revenue declined, highlighting structural issues that had to be addressed first.
Niels explains that progress required focusing on unglamorous but foundational work before introducing more visible improvements:
" The right thing is to then take a step back and see 'in what order do we need to do it?' Because you could point at problems easily and you just walk in and you hear it within five minutes. But then where do you start?... I could see that there were a couple of structural things that needed to change before we could think about the nice optical changes that you could do at the end."
Listening as a Leadership Strategy
Rather than arriving with a pre-built transformation plan, Niels starts new roles with curiosity and conversations.
In his early weeks, he meets widely across the organization and asks simple but revealing questions about where people are blocked and how finance can help. This approach surfaces patterns and perception gaps that numbers alone do not reveal. It also signals that finance is there to enable, not just enforce.
His philosophy is straightforward:
“Just be humble. Listen, ask questions, and again, learn.”
But listening, for him, is not passive. It’s investigative. As he puts it:
“What is important is what you see on the surface, and then you need to find out why that problem is so persistent.”
Surface issues - slow reporting, cash pressure, process friction - are often symptoms of deeper structural problems. The goal of those early conversations is to trace visible pain back to its root causes.
This listening phase helps identify both root causes and quick wins, building trust while deeper structural work continues in the background.
Leading Teams Through Pressure
Transformation under pressure places the greatest strain on finance teams. They must maintain reporting accuracy while supporting change and operating with limited margin for error.
When Niels joined Cint, finance had the lowest engagement scores in the company. Yet this was the team responsible for important work like executing refinancing, supporting a rights issue, implementing cost reduction programs, and driving system improvements - all while continuing public reporting obligations. The eventual shift in morale and improvement in engagement scores came from clarity, not comfort.
He emphasizes the importance of shared direction:
“As long as you are on a journey and people see the end goal, and it becomes credible that you're on a real path towards that, then you can motivate people.”
Trust Translates Into Outcomes
The focus on structural fixes, transparency, and team alignment ultimately delivered measurable results.
The company refinanced its debt, completed a successful rights issue, reduced net debt significantly, and moved toward cash generation after years of cash burn. Accounts receivable performance improved, and the organization became simpler and more manageable from both a legal and systems perspective.
These outcomes were not driven by a sudden rebound in growth but by discipline, operational simplification, and restored trust.
The Takeaway: Finance as a Builder of Trust
This episode illustrates how the CFO role evolves when a business is under strain. The CFO becomes a stabilizing force, a translator between reality and stakeholders, an operator willing to fix foundational issues, and a leader who carries teams through pressure as well as success.
In stable periods, finance manages performance. In pressured periods, finance helps manufacture trust — and without that trust, no turnaround plan can gain traction.
Full Episode
If you are a CFO or finance leader stepping into a complex, high-pressure environment, this episode offers a grounded and practical perspective on what the role demands when credibility matters most.
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