Think Outside the Box of Finance - Denis Ranke

Think Outside the Box of Finance - Denis Ranke
22 February, 2022

We were delighted to welcome Denis Ranke, CFO/COO at Xovis, to the EMEA Recruitment podcast.

“I believe in the potential that everyone has, then I try to find the trigger points to get the team to their best potential.”

Speaking to Paul Toms, our Founder, after almost two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Denis explains the routine he’s put in place to ensure a healthy mindset during working from home. These new habits have also enabled him to balance his work and family life.

Denis actually started his new role during the pandemic, meeting the business face-to-face just once during the process. Now that he’s been in the role a few months, he feels like he’s landed in something he always wanted to do.

Denis isn’t an educated Finance professional; his first degree was in Engineering. Ending up in Finance was a “coincidence”, but served his desire to be closer to decision-making in the business. Leveraging data to analyse business situations and find improvements is where he finds commonalities with Engineering.

Denis’ aim in his role is to get the financial basics under control as quickly as possible, so that he can get the value out of the Finance and Operations functions that go beyond Finance-driven activities. In fact, he spends 50% of his time on the basics of Finance and 50% on driving other areas.

As a tech scale-up, Xovis is a “whole different world” from Denis’ time at eBay, where he spent seven years of his career. Each stage of his path so far has equipped him with certain skills and experiences that have built upon each other.

Looking at the impact of data on Finance, Denis argues that business intelligence shouldn’t simply be a “collection of metrics”, but professionals should think outside the box of Finance to add value.

Nevertheless, Denis is still committed to coaching his team, getting them out of their comfort zone and pushing them to reach their full potential. He also finds it important to help the team understand their part in the wider business.

When finding the right people to join his team, Denis looks ahead for a candidate who can take the next step and go beyond the original job description. He enjoys the process of expanding the team with new talent and working with specialist recruiters that can bring insights to his business.

We end the episode by finding out what Denis’ goals are for the next three to five years – you can listen to the full episode below: 

The EMEA Recruitment podcast is also available on your podcast app, or at: https://emearecruitment.libsyn.com/emea-recruitment-podcast-122-think-outside-the-box-of-finance-denis-ranke

You can also listen via YouTube:

Use the timestamps below to find a particular part of the episode that interests you the most:

01:26: Finding a healthy routine during the pandemic
03:25: The last thing that made Denis smile
04:48: How to balance work and family
06:16: Changing roles remotely
09:21: Being closer to decision-making
16:01: Breaking away from the basics
18:04: Working in different company cultures
22:13: What pushed Denis into Finance
23:44: Driving value with data
25:50: Denis’ management style
28:14: Understanding the bigger picture
31:30: The recruitment journey
34:23: Expanding the team with new talent
36:41: Gaining valuable insights from recruiters
38:52: Denis’ long-term goals
40:18: How to reach out to Denis

If you’d like to connect with Denis, you can find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisranke/


EMEA Recruitment is a proud partner of Operation Smile, an international medical charity that provides children and adults with life-changing surgery. You can find out more about how we support this cause on our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/pages/operation-smile


The EMEA Recruitment podcast is hosted by Paul Toms, our Founder, and Rose Jinks, our Senior Marketing Executive.

Full details about our specialist recruitment services are available through our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/

You can also keep up to date with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emea-recruitment-limited/

If you’d like to connect with Paul, you can find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paultoms/

Or Twitter: https://twitter.com/paul_toms


To share your thoughts on the EMEA Recruitment podcast, please email Rose: [email protected]