The story about Peter van Dongen, CFO at Centric
I’ve been sitting at an oval table in Centric’s large conference room for two hours when Peter van Dongen, the financial man on the board, states his motto: ‘happiness is something that you create yourself’. He does so with conviction and yet, I can’t help myself from thinking that it sounds a little naive coming from a man, with his extensive responsibilities and his personal story, who knows that prosperity can be fragile. He chuckles and catches me by surprise.
‘In the 90s’, he says, ‘there was this popular Dutch band called Het Goede Doel. One of their songs was titled Ik ben geboren voor het geluk, I was born for happiness. I believe in that.
Back home, I look up the lyrics of the song. A fragment:
I walked down the stairs rather quickly
because the doorbell kept ringing
I always feel guilty
leaving people out in the cold
I broke my leg in many places
because I forgot the last step
but I could have broken my neck
so it didn’t turn out that bad
Followed by the chorus:
I tell everyone
everyone who wants to hear it
I am born, born for happiness
Peter van Dongen beams: ‘It can always be worse. Everything is relative. Happiness can be created.’
This Friday afternoon, it’s very quiet at the spacious headquarters of the international IT company Centric. The quietness in the building is in stark contrast to the 2022 excitement among the hundreds of employees and dozens of governmental organisations who relied on Centric for their IT. The company plunged into a deep management crisis and the Enterprise Division of the Court intervened unprecedentedly harshly by firing the founder and owner.
I drove to Gouda for an interview with Peter van Dongen (1961). He is one of the people who was going to lead Centric to calmer waters. He is trained as a chartered accountant and has forty years of experience as the controlling master of numbers. He was the financial man of publisher Audax and retail chain Etam, amongst others. Peter van Dongen has been the interim CFO of Centric since August 2022.
Why did I want to speak with him? I know many people within the Centric organization, but I hadn’t met Peter yet. I’ve heard enthusiastic stories about him from so many people and from all sides. ‘A very positive guy’, said one. ‘He’s clear and straightforward’, said another. It was remarkable, because a CFO usually isn’t an organization’s most likable person. You work incredibly hard to gain new business and your financial boss starts talking about escalating expenses and budgets that aren’t met. This quickly and understandably leads to grumbling. About Peter, however, I heard nothing but positive stories. How is that possible? Who is that man? And how does he remain cheerful as treasurer of a company in distress? Let’s go to Gouda and find out.
Peter van Dongen – an enthusiastic speaker with a round face and narrow glasses – appears to be a well-balanced personality. He doesn’t look up to people, even when they are high in rank. He doesn’t look down on people, even when they’re lower on the social ladder. He is pure. He shows respect, always, and that works both ways.
He tells me that he grew up in Zuidwijk, a Southern Rotterdam district. Not in extreme poverty like elsewhere in that neighbourhood, but it wasn’t great either. He did well in school, so, after his parents had put him through a posh elementary school on the other side of the Maas river, he went to grammar school. Many of the parents took their children to school by car, but Peter’s parents didn’t own one. During military service, he also joined the elite force of an intelligence and reconnaissance regiment, founded in 1813 at the end of the Napoleon era. Peter van Dongen was trained as a reserve officer and lived with boys who had posh double surnames: Van Voorst tot Voorst and Van Hövell tot Westerflier. He had a great time there. He states: ‘Whether it’s the chairman of the board or a lady selling magazines, I’ve always felt comfortable in all social circles’.
Peter drives a Renault Clio. He says: ‘Everybody thinks it’s crazy, nobody understands. The other day, someone asked: “geez, do you come to the office in your wife’s car?” I was in Germany, the country of premium cars. Mit welchem Auto fahren Sie, Herr Von Dongen? Mit einem Clio, I said. They thought it was hilarious. Yes, that Van Dongen guy has a sense of humour. Oh well, I don’t long for grandeur. It has probably something to do with the place I grew up in.’
His mother was a housewife, his father a carpenter. They felt a sense of doom: their daughter had died young from a heart defect. Noone talked about her death at home. Father was Dutch reformed, but abandoned his faith out of grief for his dead child. Peter and his mother were very close. They had a telepathic link. Peter: ‘she would write a number between 1 and 100 on a piece of paper, fold it and sit on it. “Tell me, Peter”, she would say. Nine out of ten times, I was right.’
In a way, he had been put on this earth to replace his deceased sister. He had been protected on all sides. Never again that misery, was the unspoken message. At the same time, all that protection embedded a task: make something of your life, use your talents. Peter van Dongen: ‘They didn’t put it that way, but it sure felt that way. I guess my work ethics can be traced back to it.’
I listen to his story and think that many people would experience it as a burden: you shouldn’t have been here. But Peter simply turns it around, without forcing himself. Life was granted to him and he thinks: seize that opportunity!
We talk about his task perception as a CFO, especially in relation to the CEO. I find his vision interesting: he is ambitious, but not pretentious. It makes him not having to play the first fiddle. He offers a few valuable observations. For example: ‘I like to play the second fiddle and try to pull the strings from there. Another one: numbers have a binding force. In addition, the CFO has specific knowledge about legislation and taxation. Others usually can’t compete there. You can and must convince and influence people that way. It’s all part of a CFO’s final responsibility.’
‘It is often said that the CEO and CFO work in tandem. They have to be strongly connected. I belief that’s true. It means that I sometimes share issues with the CEO that I don’t mention to the management team. It also implies that I occasionally hit the brakes when interacting confidentially with the CEO and without telling the managers: Stop… we’re not doing that, no way.’
He mentions that he sometimes has to put his foot down. ‘You have to be honest and tough once in a while’, he says. Tough, I understand, I tell him. But why do you explicitly mention honesty? His answer illustrates that norms and values are his top priority. He states: ‘Oh, being honest is the easiest thing there is. It can be tricky for a CEO, I realize, because a CEO sometimes has to manoeuvre. To me, the CFO is the conscience of an organization. I have always addressed painful issues. It’s my job.’
‘I don’t have to lie, I don’t have to bargain, I am the internal supervisor, that’s my role. My mother taught me that honesty is the best policy. I think it would be uncomfortable not being honest. It reminds me of my former mother-in-law, who consistently used to compromise to keep all parties satisfied. That always ends up in a conflict.’
‘There are times when you think: OK, I get paid very well here, the company is interesting, but the issue they’re addressing has to be taken off the table now. Otherwise, you should leave. And make sure to follow through then. I’m aware that it sounds rigid, but I’ve always lived by that rule.’
‘It’s simple: if I start tossing the truth around as a CFO, what kind of a base is that for the CEO to work with? Then, we’re lost.’
I’m looking for The Happy Leader and it seems that I found one in Peter van Dongen. In his professional world, he’s really one of the very, very few. All CEOs he has worked with are raving about him.
I ask him which qualities he thinks are needed to fill the position of The Happy Leader. He doesn’t have to think about it for long. He says: ‘you have to stay close to yourself. A happy leader is someone who is true to himself. I see people around me that adopt a role, who are different at home than at the office. That makes me sick, it’s unhealthy. It’s about morality. When you, as a leader, know that things get forced through that are inappropriate, not right, it’ll eat at you sooner or later. When you overstretch and pretend to be a different person, you’ll definitely get sick.’
I ask him what he does to stay true to himself. He says: ‘Now, you assume that I make a conscious effort to do so. If that were true, it would just be a trick or something you could learn by practicing. It’s essential that you are intrinsically true to yourself and therefore independent.’
Such a straight-out answer surprises me. I realize that most of us work hard and deliberately at an effective strategy of self-development. Peter, however, states an purely pragmatic approach: ‘I do what I do, I am who I am.’
Ik ben geboren voor het geluk, I was born for happiness, the band Het Goede Doel sang. Early October 2021, Peter van Dongen suffered a massive heart attack. He barely survived. He wrote in his diary that he kept following the malheur ‘I was lucky to be exposed to such important life lessons that resonated deep in my inner self in such a short time.’
He says: ‘I’m basically convinced that things always work out. The band’s singer could have broken his neck. He broke his leg. It could have been worse. If you have to take difficult decisions in your professional life, if you have to accept the consequences of the resulting conflicts, trust that it is going to be alright.’
‘I am happy. Not always, of course. Sometimes, you have to adjust the feeling of happiness to reality. That’s how you make yourself happy again. I didn’t have a moped as a kid. All boys in the neighbourhood did and were happy. Fortunately, I got to ride their mopeds once in a while. That was a pleasure, it made me happy.
