Dr Christian Thywissen – a CFO’s Point of View

The role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in any large company is to provide financial stability to the organisation through leadership in financial planning, accounting, budgeting and reporting. But as this far-reaching profile of Dr Christian Thywissen, CFO of Veridos, shows, the role can take you into many other areas of business activity.

After successful finance management roles at Symrise, Infineon, EADS and most recently as the Managing Director Finance at the Palm Group of paper making companies, in April 2022 Dr Thywissen joined the senior management team of Veridos – the joint venture between Bundesdruckerei and G+D.

His career experiences had exposed him to plenty of international operational finance planning which was good preparation for the government ID sector.

‘The government ID business is an industry with mostly long-term contracts. At first glance, this is positive, since long-term planning always provides a sense of security,’ Dr Thywissen said, but this brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. ‘They always include a lot of service and maintenance. There are many opportunities here to offer excellent service and strengthen customer relationships, but also to generate continuous cash flow. We want to be a full-service partner so that the customer enjoys peace of mind.’ 

This also opens the prospect of engaging with local partners to help stimulate local economic development. ‘In this respect, we are also happy to involve local service providers or employees,’ Dr Thywissen said. ‘They help us better understand local practice and respond quickly if things don’t go according to plan. This regional approach is another building block that has a positive impact on our balance sheet. It definitely makes us more agile.’ 

Being able to work across borders and cultures is not just a financial issue for Dr Thywissen; he also sees it as a competitive advantage for the company.

‘Veridos is a diverse family. Due to our globally oriented portfolio and our cooperation with governments, we have to understand regions far away from Germany and know local conditions and needs.’

It’s something that Dr Thywissen feels passionately about. ‘We can only succeed if we work together at all levels with representatives from all cultures and social classes. A colleague once mentioned that ‘Veridos is the first place in Germany where I don‘t feel like a foreigner’. This is important feedback and real success.’ 

A testament to Veridos’ emphasis on working with local partners to provide customer fulfilment is the longstanding relationship with the Bangladesh government. ‘Bangladesh has been our customer since 2018 and is currently the 8th most populous country in the world. The country is in a major economic upswing and needs a functioning structure as far as ID management is concerned. Also, many Bangladesh citizens work abroad. Mobility therefore plays a major role.’ 

Always with one eye on the balance sheet, he added: ‘we have implemented many different projects here, such as ePassport infrastructure or the eGates at the airports. So many different projects are of course challenging from a financing point of view, but attractive.’ 

But Dr Thywissen is acutely aware that the business needs new, as well as existing, opportunities.

‘Veridos would like to continue growing organically as well as through acquisitions. There are many potential customers out there whose ID infrastructure is not yet state-of-the-art. The main thing there is to establish modern identity management systems and bring them to all regions of the country and to introduce documents such as the ePassport. As a result, citizens are more mobile, can enjoy their rights securely and sustainably (right to vote, inheritance rights, access to social systems and education) and thus enable economic growth.’ 

And what about those acquisitions? ‘Yes, in 2022 we invested quite a bit in M&As, such as Valid. This acquisition was important to expand our US footprint. The US is a growth market for us, which we would like to develop further and in which we see a lot of potential.’ 

Later, getting a little carried away, Dr Thywissen had to admit that ‘M&As are of course particularly exciting for a CFO. They are diverse, involve business aspects that we need to adapt to and bring new people into the team. As CFO, I have a lot of work ahead of me, but it is very holistic and gives me a lot of pleasure’, before returning to a more measured tone. ‘But organic growth is the first priority. However, if other good options arise, then of course we‘ll look into the details.’ 

As you might expect, much of Dr Thywissen’s time is spent on internal planning matters, but he also has views on a whole raft of external factors affecting the ID and secure document industry.

On the physical/digital transformation of the sector, he had this to say: ‘at Veridos we are convinced that the physical document will be with us for quite some time – for example because the security features cannot yet be digitally reproduced 1:1, because the infrastructure is not yet complete or there is not yet mobile network reception everywhere that would be necessary for the use of digital documents. Or simply because some people do not want a digital document.’ 

He sees the transition as not being a choice between either physical or digital, but ‘rather, we believe that there will be more and more digital ‘add-ons’, such as a digital version of the driver‘s license that is sufficient for everyday use. However, the basis remains the physical document.’ 

And on the elephant-in-the-room issue of sustainability, Dr Thywissen had this example to share. ‘The passport industry is a manufacturing sector, so production is an important aspect of sustainability. Our factory in Athens, Veridos Matsoukis aims to be completely CO2-neutral by 2040 which is an overarching goal for the whole G+D Group. The electricity purchased is guaranteed to be 100% renewable and comes from a wind farm in the Greek region of Phocis.

‘These are just the first steps, we know there is still a lot to do.’