Finance Meeting 2024
The Finance Manager Meeting took place this year in Arad, Romania, the hometown of Systronics. The event started on the 17th of June, unfolded until the 20th and gathered 37 team members from Asia and Europe.
It was a special opportunity, not only to meet new and old colleagues from companies with a history within the Cicor group, but also new colleagues from companies that bring new dimensions, in terms of the activity area, volume and types of transactions, but also of geographical spread.
The first day was a special day reserved for our Asia team colleagues, their specific topics and best practices. On the second day everyone was eager to be greeted by Peter Neumann, our CFO, who also invited us to say a few words about ourselves while presenting a slide with a few personal and professional highlights. It was a great time to get to know each other and a moment when creativity was well put at work by everyone.
We greatly appreciated the virtual participation of Denise Koopmans, Member of the Board of Directors, who shared her perspective and answered questions from the participants.
Splitting in smaller groups and discussing interesting topics such as Customer Profitability, Inventory, Automation of document processing and, of course, Taxes involved each of us in exchanging ideas and experiences and put each of us in the position to both share knowledge and methods we apply already, as well as to learn more from those who have more experience with the approached financial topics.
After lunch, CEO Alexander Hagemann also participated in our meeting, even if virtually, while waiting in an airport for his plane. His energy and perspective on a few of the milestones in the existence of the Cicor group were inspiring and established a solid foundation for the expectations he presented us for the future.
A part of the energy boost we received then will have an impact over the coming weeks and months, but another part of it was put to good use while speaking in smaller groups about the challenges from different regions (Asia) and countries (UK, Germany, Switzerland and Romania) with an emphasis on the solutions to overcome the momentary challenges.
As a suitable ending to such a busy day, we could not have had anything less than a busy evening, so we took a bus trip to a local restaurant near Arad where the General Manager and the entire finance team from Systronics joined us for a special traditional Romanian dinner, seasoned with folk music and dances.
Wednesday, we took a shift from the financial approach of things, while trainers guided us into learning the Art of Shift from John Maxwell, as well as raising our awareness to adaptive communication and the different communication styles people might have. It was an eye-opening experience which helped us recognize not only our profile, but also understand what our colleagues or business partners could better respond to. At the end of the day, we discussed how leading with empathy is, while taking Simon Sinek’s perspective on a leader’s role.
After getting in touch with a different side of being a manager, we took a trip to a vineyard situated on the hills a few kilometers from Arad, where we loosened up and visited some wine cellars, learned a few things about winemaking and had dinner while tasting different kinds of wine.
It almost seemed like a blink of an eye, and yet, we found ourselves spending the last day of the conference, when we took a trip to Systronics. We were greeted by Cosmin Popa, the General Manager, who organized a visit of the production area followed by Peter Neumann’s presentation of the strategic view and the closure of the event.
In addition to the valuable information exchanged, we had the opportunity to see each other, some for the first time, others to deepen existing relationships, so now we have the prerequisites to function better as a team and to stay in tune in the interpretation of the financial score in the orchestra of the Cicor group.
Mihaela Floruti
Contabil Sef
Cicor site Arad
