Johan Kestens facilitates peer groups in the finance function. With a background spanning both business and technology – and senior roles ranging from the boardroom to the C-suite – he brings a distinctive ability to cut through complexity and steer conversations toward what actually matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My career has taken me through roles as MD, CIO, CISO, and Independent Non-Executive Director, backed by an MBA and an MSc in Electronic Engineering. That combination means I can follow a finance problem into its technical or governance dimensions without losing the thread. When a member brings something to the table, I use that experience to ask the question that sharpens the issue – for instance, distinguishing whether a difficult relationship is about perceived lack of competence or about personality. Getting to the right question is often more valuable than jumping to answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The atmosphere in my peer group meetings tends to be informal, expecting, and curious – people arrive ready to engage, not just to listen. When someone hesitates to share a difficult dilemma, I draw on empathy or bring in a story from my own experience where something similar came up. That usually lowers the threshold. If I’ve made mistakes too, there’s less reason to keep yours under wraps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What drives me is that moment after a meeting when participants leave thinking: we collectively got somewhere I didn’t believe was going to happen. That’s the whole point for me. I remember one meeting where a member put an issue on the table framed as a succession question. Through probing questions from the group, it gradually became clear that the real issue was a lack of personal trust between the member and the person being discussed. It wasn’t a dramatic click, but it was a real one. The frame shifted, and with it, so did the path forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"