Public Company CFO of the Year
Diane Holland
POSSIBLE
Diane Holland is the Global Chief Financial Officer at POSSIBLE, a creative agency.
At POSSIBLE, Holland is responsible for the agency’s global financial and operational management. She leads the agency’s planning and growth, including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships.
Many CFOs are competent, but few distinguish themselves to be strategically oriented with an innovative mindset and are truly compassionate leaders who inspire and empower others to strive to achieve their highest potential the way Holland does as a CFO. Over the span of 10 years, her team, which encompasses Finance, Accounting, Legal, Procurement, IT, Facilities, and HR, has grown from 1 to roughly 100 people around the world. Her team includes three regional CFOs (Americas, EMEA, APAC), Global Controller, and Global CIO. Holland is also a member of the Executive Leadership Team and partner to the Global CEO in setting POSSIBLE’s overall company strategy and building the business. Since 2011, Holland has led POSSIBLE in the merger of one other company (ZAAZ) and completed 7 acquisitions (Germany, UK, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, and 2 in the US). In total, she has led the merger of five entities and acquisition of seven entities globally. This is while setting the strategy to be one agency — POSSIBLE — not a network of agencies with legacy brand names. Strategy, culture and integration were key. Under Holland’s financial stewardship, POSSIBLE’s average year-on-year topline growth over the past 5 years has been roughly 15% (organic and acquisition). The agency stretches across 19 countries with 19 locations and 1500 employees strong.
Holland inspires and empowers her team to be innovative by engaging them to think creatively in areas of client solutions, operational efficiency, and the appreciation of human capital with the ultimate goal towards an extrinsically motivated yet intrinsically fulfilled corporate culture.
