Dr Dietmar Scheja
Financial Leadership
» I head restructuring initiatives and guide your finance & admin teams through transformations, crises and challenging projects. I deliver ambitious improvements and help you achieve sustainable cost reductions, while ensuring robust day-to-day operations. «
Dr Dietmar Scheja
Financial Leaderhip
» I head restructuring initiatives and guide your finance & admin teams through transformations, crises and challenging projects. I deliver ambitious improvements and help you achieve sustainable cost reductions, while ensuring robust day-to-day operations. «
Financial Leadership
Financial leadership is a systematic effort to make business decisions fact-based and sound, lend them consistency and rigor and keep the underlying assumptions honest. It’s further the practice of taking decisions along these lines and doing with care and urgency the things thus decided.
Financial Leadership sets out to ground any position or decision a company takes in as rich and unbiased an understanding of reality as it can achieve. In a world where certainty can seldom be had, this confers a comparative advantage to organizations which systematically and efficiently sift and distil facts.
As important is a second aspect: Financial leadership helps an organization communicate. If adding a feature to a product increases purchase intent by 2% but causes a 3% loss of manufacturing efficiency, financial evaluation translates the two effects into a common language and makes them comparable.
In short, Financial Leadership gives an organization a superior way of acquiring, debating, and acting on, superior insight.
This is the foundation on which my work is based.
Leadership Principles
» Six principles inform my work as a leader. They help to clarify expectations and roles and promote the collaborative and focused way of working that is essential for success. «
Vollständige Zielerreichung
Zeitgerecht, budgetkonform und vollständig.
Radikale Positivität
Fokus auf die größte Verbesserung.
Klarheit und Konsequenz
Entschiedenes, konsequentes Handeln auf der Grundlage klarer Ziele und Aufgaben.
Führen heißt Dienen
Alle Arbeit, auch Führung, ist Dienst. Führung dient der erfolgreichen Arbeit des Teams.
Respekt wahren
Wir begegnen uns mit persönlichem Respekt.
Offenheit, Wahrhaftigkeit & Vertrauen
Bilden die Basis einer starken, wirksamen und belastbaren Zusammenarbeit.
To lead is to serve
All work, including leadership, is service. Leadership promotes the successful work of the team.
Be respectful
We treat each other with personal respect.
Complete achievement of goals
On time, on budget and in full.
Clarity & consistency
Determined, consistent action based on clear goals and tasks.
Radical positivity
Focus on the greatest change for the better.
Openness, honesty & trust
... Form the basis of strong, effective and resilient collaboration.
Vollständige Zielerreichung
Zeitgerecht, budgetkonform und vollständig.
Entscheidende Unterschiede machen
Für das Unternehmen und für das Team.
Konzentration auf das Wichtigste
Fokus auf die Hebel, die größte Wirkung erzielen.
Klarheit und Konsequenz
Entschiedenes, konsequentes Handeln auf der Grundlage klarer Ziele und Aufgaben.
Führen heißt Dienen
Alle Arbeit, auch Führung, ist Dienst. Führung dient der erfolgreichen Arbeit des Teams.
Respekt wahren
Wir begegnen uns mit persönlichem Respekt.
Offenheit, Wahrhaftigkeit & Vertrauen
Bilden die Basis einer starken, wirksamen und belastbaren Zusammenarbeit.
Blog
The Servant as Leader
On Re-Reading Hermann Hesse’s Morgenlandfahrt (The Journey to the East) – A Lucilius Interim Weekend Special
New Mandate
Proud to be serving Thieme Group as interim CFO during its transformation into a digital-first enterprise.
Mission Complete
Once more it’s time to leave an organisation close to my heart. Thank you, Charité CFM, and all the best to you!
The Servant as Leader
On Re-Reading Hermann Hesse’s Morgenlandfahrt (The Journey to the East) – A Lucilius Interim Weekend Special
New Mandate
Proud to be serving Thieme Group as interim CFO during its transformation into a digital-first enterprise.
Mission Complete
Once more it’s time to leave an organisation close to my heart. Thank you, Charité CFM, and all the best to you!
Wishing you a happy 2025!
Sending you best wishes for a happy 2025 and many new beginnings from pristine Patagonia.
Resources
Gaining height: relocating fragmented finance functions
Wie Finanzbereiche die Vorteile von Machine Learning nutzen können
Come as You Are: My Content Strategy
About me
I was fortunate to gain my formative professional experience at Procter & Gamble: Business acumen, quality, and absolute integrity are principles to which I feel committed ever since. When I joined Wella AG's corporate controlling department, I became the leader of a team whose vitality and energy was virtually unstoppable, even during the many night shifts spet implementing HFM. Rock on, UCP! My work as CFO DACH & BENE for The Nielsen Company and subsequently as CFO for Cofresco, was characterized by restructuring exercises, which were instrumental in returning both businesses to profitability.
Setting up the multi-tower business service organization for Melitta presented me with a steep learning curve, and I wouldn't have missed any part of this journey for the world. Most of all, it was a pleasure and an honour for me to lead a management team that embodied the finest qualities of Mittelstand corporate culture with determination, without fuss, and with a passion for their work. Godspeed to you, Anja, Charlotte, Christian, Martin, and Steffi!
It was during the first year of the pandemic that I started Lucilius Interim. ‘Committed, yet free’ (in Mary Midgley’s words), I felt better able to use my experience effectively, stand up for my beliefs, and learn. My Interim CFO roles over the next five years, with Esprit, ARGEN Dental, Wolford, Innok Robotics, Charité CFM (2x), Dr. Wolff, and finally Thieme, brought me into contact with exceptional people: owners, leaders, and colleagues.
In January, I joined my last client, Thieme, on a permanent basis, as Group CFO. I have come to see more clearly that pairing full commitment with inner autonomy is always central to the CFO role, regardless of contractual conditions. And Thieme is a wonderful place to work.
I earned my Dipl.-Kfm. and Dr. rer. pol. at the University of Paderborn spending a period at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and I earned my M.A. at the University of Hagen.
My wife and I live in Frankfurt am Main. Reading keeps me mentally agile, and I try to keep physically fit through marathon and fitness training.
My motto remains: Let the deed show.
About me
I was fortunate to gain my formative professional experience at Procter & Gamble: Business acumen, quality, and absolute integrity are principles to which I feel committed ever since. When I joined Wella AG's corporate controlling department, I became the leader of a team whose vitality and energy was virtually unstoppable, even during the many night shifts spet implementing HFM. Rock on, UCP! My work as CFO DACH & BENE for The Nielsen Company and subsequently as CFO for Cofresco, was characterized by restructuring exercises, which were instrumental in returning both businesses to profitability.
Setting up the multi-tower business service organization for Melitta presented me with a steep learning curve, and I wouldn't have missed any part of this journey for the world. Most of all, it was a pleasure and an honour for me to lead a management team that embodied the finest qualities of Mittelstand corporate culture with determination, without fuss, and with a passion for their work. Godspeed to you, Anja, Charlotte, Christian, Martin, and Steffi!
It was during the first year of the pandemic that I started Lucilius Interim. ‘Committed, yet free’ (in Mary Midgley’s words), I felt better able to use my experience effectively, stand up for my beliefs, and learn. My Interim CFO roles over the next five years, with Esprit, ARGEN Dental, Wolford, Innok Robotics, Charité CFM (2x), Dr. Wolff, and finally Thieme, brought me into contact with exceptional people: owners, leaders, and colleagues.
In January, I joined my last client, Thieme, on a permanent basis, as Group CFO. I have come to see more clearly that pairing full commitment with inner autonomy is always central to the CFO role, regardless of contractual conditions. And Thieme is a wonderful place to work.
I earned my Dipl.-Kfm. and Dr. rer. pol. at the University of Paderborn spending a period at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and I earned my M.A. at the University of Hagen.
My wife and I live in Frankfurt am Main. Reading keeps me mentally agile, and I try to keep physically fit through marathon and fitness training.
My motto remains: Let the deed show.