CFO TOP | Financial Media NV

You hold the key to the future of your finance function.

The real key will be revealed on November 20 during the CFO Top. There, you’ll discover how to future-proof your finance function — with scientific insights from leading academics, inspiring stories from experts, and, perhaps most valuable of all, candid experiences from fellow finance leaders who share both their successes and pitfalls.

Everyone talks about AI, machine learning, and digital transformation. But let’s be honest: many CFOs are still stuck with spreadsheets, scattered data sources, and slow processes that add little value. At the CFO Top, you’ll learn how to move beyond the basics and truly future-proof your finance team.

Discover what’s next in:

Transactional finance
Closing, consolidation & reporting
Budgeting & forecasting
Driving business impact

The key is more than just a symbol: it represents the choice to open the door to new opportunities. Which doors will you unlock? And there’s more: participants have the chance to win a real key — one that may open the future-proof gift box with a valuable prize to support the future of your finance function.

What’s certain: you’ll return to the office with fresh ideas, practical tools, and renewed energy. And perhaps even more… The key is within reach. The future awaits.

A must-attend afternoon for finance leaders who want to stay relevant, deliver impact, and embrace the future.

Program overview

12:15 - 13:30

Welcome lunch

13:30 - 13:50

What research tell us about the finance function of tomorrow.

13:55 - 15:20 - choose one the following parallel sessions

Session 1: State of art operational finance

Expert session with testimonials of Umicore and Bekaert

Session 2: State of the art closing, conso & reporting

Expert session with testimonials of Barco and Luminus

15:30 - 16:55 - choose one the following parallel sessions

Session 3: State of art budgetting and forecasting

Expert session with testimonials of Bekaert and IBA

Session 4: State of the art driving decisions

Expert session with testimonials of Umicore and Vandemoortele

17:05 - 17:25

Unlocking the potential of data

17:25 - 17:45

Meeting the future Board's expectations

17:55 - 18:55

Visit Barco Experience Center

18:55 - 19:30

One for the road

Practical

Venue

Barco HQ

Beneluxpark 21

Kortrijk

20 november 2025

Pricing

Subscribers CFO Magazine: 200 euro

Normal tarif: 300 euro

Only people with finance function in the company will get access; participation of commercial profiles will be denied.

Number of seats are limited.

SUBSCRIBE HERE

In partnership with our partners

Program details

13:30 - 13:50

What research tell us about the finance function of tomorrow.

Prof. Dr. Bart Dierynck, Tilburg University - INSEAD

13:55-15:20

Parallel session 1: Operational finance

Expertsession: Sarah Tombal - Deloitte

State of art of operational finance

Testimonial 1.1: Umicore

Over the past few years, we have made tremendous progress in our finance digitalization and automation journey. We've successfully deployed business process automation using existing digital solutions and implemented more than 70 RPA robots. These robots have enabled the saving of thousands of hours, significantly improving data accuracy and boosting productivity across the finance team. Our automation efforts are a cornerstone of our finance transformation, allowing us to focus more on value-added activities and strategic initiatives.

Testimonial 1.2: Bekaert

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, Finance leaders are under increasing pressure to deliver more value with fewer resources. Shared Services has emerged as a powerful enabler—transforming transactional activities into strategic capabilities that drive efficiency, standardization, and scalability across the enterprise. In this session, we’ll explore how forward-thinking organizations are reimagining Finance Shared Services to unlock cost savings, harness digital automation, and provide sharper insights that empower decision-making.

Practices & visions shared by Payhawk

Parallel session 2: Closing, conso & reporting

Expertsession: Robin Detaille - Deloitte

State of art of the closing, consolidation and reporting process

Testimonial 2.1: Barco

Barco oversees a consolidation scope, encompassing around 40 entities across 25 countries on four continents. Despite this geographic and organizational complexity, the finance team consistently achieves fully consolidated financial reporting within just five working days after period close—positioning Barco among the top performers in financial operations.

This steady performance is enabled by a state-of-the-art, thoroughly documented and followed closing and consolidation process. Barco leverages advanced consolidation systems that support essential features like local entity data uploads and seamless integration with budgeting tools, ensuring efficient and accurate reporting.

Sales and order monitoring occurs daily throughout the organization, closely aligning the company with a “continuous closing” mindset. Since sales figures are a primary driver of business outcomes, this real-time visibility is crucial. Data is uploaded daily into the consolidation system, making it available also in between traditional closing periods.

Looking ahead, the finance team is focusing on improving sales forecasting accuracy and pursuing advanced automation. Key priorities include accounts payable, credit management, and forecasting—areas identified as having the highest return on investment.

Testimonial 2.2: Luminus

Luminus is widely recognized as a supplier of electricity and gas, but behind this public-facing role lies a complex and forward-thinking organization. As part of the EDF Group, they operate across five countries and manage a rapidly growing consolidation scope — from just one entity at the start of 2014 to 73 today.

The business spans multiple domains, including energy production (wind, hydro, thermal, nuclear, floating PV, battery storage) and energy services (PV, HVAC, EV charging, battery solutions). This diversity brings complexity, but also opportunity.

Within Finance, the team uphold the core values of transparency, reliability, and progress. These principles guide the decision-making and reporting culture. The finance team deliver high-quality reporting by working day 7, including detailed analyses already validated by the internal leadership.

Thanks to a fully integrated ERP and consolidation tool, they ensure seamless data processing and reporting at both entity and group level. The combined FP&A and consolidation environment enables immediate variance analysis and strong monitoring of key metrics such as EBITDA, net capex, net debt, and working capital.

The closing process is highly structured, supported by a status monitoring tool, and continuously improved through automation, AI, and other technologies. Luminus demonstrates how Finance can be a driver of clarity, control, and strategic value in a fast-evolving energy landscape.

Practices & visions shared by Workiva

15:30-15:55

Parallel session 3: Budgetting and forecasting

Expertsession: Nicolas Van Spilbeeck - Deloitte

State of art of the budgetting and forecasting process

Testimonial 3.1: Bekaert

Traditional annual budgets often become outdated before the ink is dry, leaving Finance teams struggling to keep pace with changing business realities. Rolling forecasts offer a more agile and forward-looking alternative—enabling organizations to continuously adjust assumptions, reallocate resources, and respond to market shifts with confidence. In this session, we’ll explore how leading companies are adopting rolling forecasts to replace rigid budgeting cycles, improve cross-functional collaboration, and provide leadership with timely insights to make smarter decisions. Attendees will gain a practical understanding of the tools, processes, and cultural shifts required to make forecasting not just a finance exercise, but a strategic driver of agility and resilience.

Testimonial 3.2: IBA

AI applications are gradually making their way into finance departments, but trusting algorithms with truly complex tasks remains a major challenge. Most real-world use cases are still limited to process automation or error detection. When it comes to AI as a full-fledged analytical partner, things remain notably quiet. IBA, the global leader in particle accelerators, dares to go further. Stéphane Levratti, VP Group Financial Performance & Digital, is spearheading the development of an AI-powered virtual finance assistant aimed at significantly easing the workload of the finance team. In this keynote, he shares early results of the project and dives into the key challenges: unlocking tacit knowledge that lives in people’s heads, addressing cybersecurity and compliance concerns, and ensuring data quality. How do you build a digital mindset within your organization? How do you deal with the 'garbage in, garbage out' dilemma? And how can

AI support human intuition rather than ignore it? IBA offers an inside look at a bold financial innovation.

Practices & visions shared by Lucanet

Parallel session 4: Management information and driving decisions

Expertsession: Delphine Maeckelberghe - Deloitte

State of art of the driving decisions process

Testimonial 4.1: Umicore

To prepare for the next level of digitalization, Umicore is building a strong data and analytical foundation through the Hermes NXT program. They’ve worked on data governance, standardized tools, and aligned the organization around a unified data strategy across finance, ESG, EHS, HR, and purchasing. Leveraging AI, they are improving data quality — using AI to cleanse, standardize, and validate our datasets. This is the first step: "AI for Data", where AI helps ensure the data is accurate, complete, and reliable. Once the data foundation is robust, they move to "Data for AI" — using this high-quality data to power advanced AI models for smarter analytics, forecasting, and decision-making. Hermes NXT positions us to fully unlock the value of digital transformation through trusted, AI-driven insights across the entire organization.

Testimonial 3.2: Vandemoortele

At Vandemoortele, the finance team plays a central role in supporting management decisions. For years, the focus has been on developing a powerful management reporting tool that enables business leaders to make faster and more well-founded decisions.

The foundation for this data-driven approach was laid over 15 years ago with the launch of the “IBIS” project – Integrated Business Information Systems. What began as an ambitious initiative to better structure and make business data accessible has since evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem of applications and tools. Over the years, IBIS has continuously grown and adapted to the changing needs of the company, enriched with new solutions that turn data into actionable insights.

Today, Vandemoortele’s management reporting stands as a prime example of how self-service business intelligence (BI) works in practice. Employees and managers across the organization can independently access information, run analyses, and generate insights – all powered by the finance function. As a result, finance has become an indispensable and guiding partner in the decision-making process, far beyond its traditional reporting role.

The strength of this approach lies not only in the technology itself, but in the ability to translate data into meaningful insights that help steer the organization. Vandemoortele demonstrates how finance can truly take the wheel.

17:05 - 17:25

Unlocking the potential of data

Olivier Smekens

When we think of e-invoicing, we often focus first on efficiency gains, automated processing, and enabling finance teams to spend their time more meaningfully. While those are important benefits, viewing them as the end goal of an e-invoicing journey—one we’ve heavily invested in over recent months—means missing out on a much bigger opportunity.

The real value of e-invoicing lies in the rich, structured data it generates. This data, when leveraged strategically, can serve as a powerful driver for digital transformation across the entire organization. In this session, we aim to inspire you to look beyond automation and see how invoice data can fuel a shift in your company’s digital mindset—and accelerate it exponentially.

Olivier Smekens will share key insights and lessons learned from the field, drawing on real-world examples across various industries. He’ll also delve into KBC’s own hands-on experience with e-invoicing, offering concrete takeaways on how to turn data into a competitive advantage.