Eelco BilstraEelco Bilstra (1969) is a partner at the Finance Function R&D Center (FFR&D). Before co-founding this company, Eelco was a consultant with Finext for more than 17 years, a controller at Rabobank International for five years, and an accountant at Erns & Young for two years. Eelco has a Masters in Business Economics (University of Groningen), field of study: Administrative Information Services. He has also completed a one-year post-doc course ‘Steering changes in organizations’ at SIOO (Interuniversity Center for Development in the area of Organization and Change, Utrecht). Eelco has more than 20 years of experience in the finance function in all kind of roles—as a business controller, project lead, initiative lead, product owner, advisor and coach—in all kind of companies in different sectors: telecom, banking, insurance, pharmacy, real estate, healthcare, and service organizations. His passion is improving the finance function, and through this helping the organization improve. In his view, finance should function as the spider in the organizational web, using its strategic position impactfully. His assignments are mostly positioned in the triangle of: organizational change, finance and data & IT. Eelco’s areas of expertise are planning and budgeting, management information, cost management, performance management, and intercompany processes. His strengths are in the uncompromising analysis of an organizational dilemma and focusing on pragmatic execution in small steps together with the client, all in order to guarantee the sustainability of the solution and new ways of working in the organization. Eelco publishes on a regular basis about all kind of topics in the finance function, such as financial shared services, management information, and business control. In 2013, he conducted research with André de Waal on trends in the finance function; this formed the starting point of their journey into how to improve the finance function. In 2016, they wrote the first book about the concept of high performance in the finance function, with a strong link with André’s HPO research. In 2019, they developed the HPFF framework, which essentially formed the start of the research and advisory company FFR&D (co-founded with Jacques Bootsman) with the aim of studying various kinds of areas in finance together with a network of finance experts, and to advise clients with an evidence-based and science-applied approach. You can reach Eelco via www.linkedin.com/in/eelcobilstra. Read More Read Less