Finance Monthly CFO Awards Winners Edition

Finance Monthly CFO Awards 2020 www.finance-monthly.com 17 UNITED KINGDOM Finance Monthly CFO Awards 2020 Tell us a bit about your role with Lidl GB. Last year, we celebrated our 25th Anniversary after opening our first 10 stores on 17th November 1994. Since then we’ve experienced continuous growth with over 800 stores across Great Britain, and a grocery market share of 5.8%. We are continuing our rapid store expansion and aim to have 1,000 stores by the end of 2023. We have always been committed to giving as many people as possible access to great quality food at prices they can afford, and our discount model has revolutionised grocery shopping in Great Britain. Through innovation and investments, we’ve continuously challenged people’s perceptions of a discount supermarket. Investing in and developing our workforce is a huge priority for the business, ensuring that they have the tools and motivation to be the best in the industry, and are rewarded accordingly. We are incredibly proud that, in 2015, we became the first supermarket to adopt the voluntary Living Wage, and have continued to match this every year since making our colleagues some of the best paid in the industry. We currently have 25,000 colleagues and are creating new jobs with every store and warehouse opening. As CFO for Lidl GB I am directly responsible for about 300 colleagues across the following business areas: • Finance, Accounting and Tax and the relevant processes from the till in the store to cash in the bank account; • Controlling business partners, Business Intelligence, Reporting and Analytics; • IT; • Legal and Compliance, Data Protection, Risk Management and Insurance; • Corporate Governance, Project and Process Management and BCM; • Internal Audit; and • Customer Care. Dirk Kahl is the Chief Financial Officer of Lidl Great Britain and is based at their Head Office in Wimbledon. Dirk joined the Lidl Group as Global Finance and Accounting Director in 2008 and was subsequently appointed as Board Executive for Finance, Accounting and Tax for the German operation before joining the Lidl GB Board of Directors in 2014. In his current role, Dirk is responsible for the Financial and Administrative operation of Lidl GB, which has over 25,000 employees in Great Britain. He is currently a non-executive Member of the Board and the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of Kingston University in London. Prior to joining Lidl, Dirk held the Position of Chief Financial Officer for Group Lagardere’s German travel retail division, HDS Retail. As a Qualified Chartered Accountant in Germany, Dirk worked for KPMG out of Frankfurt, Shanghai and Singapore for almost ten years while also lecturing at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt. Dirk earned a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Mainz and is a Certified Fraud Examiner. Tell us a bit about this award and what it means to you. It is always special to receive a peer award and I feel honoured to receive it on behalf of my team here at Lidl GB. Every single individual has been working incredibly hard to support and steward the business, which is one of the fastest-growing in Great Britain. As a team, we measure the success of the business very precisely, in some instances even on an hourly basis. There aren’t however many reliable metrics to benchmark ourselves, the Corporate Services department. This tangible award, therefore, helps to reaffirm that collectively we are doing an outstanding job. Tell us about your own career path. What brought you to Lidl? I started my professional career as a KPMG auditor in Frankfurt and after qualifying as a German Certified Public Accountant (Wirtschaftsprüfer), I was seconded to Singapore as Head of the German Desk. After another secondment to Mainland China, I returned to the Frankfurt office to work on some of KPMG’s largest German listed clients. When a French retailer offered me the position of CFO for their German operations, I left the accounting profession for good. In 2008, Lidl was looking for a German qualified accountant with retail experience and prior exposure to Asia – there weren’t too many of us - so they reached out. We had an initial conversation and I was very impressed by my hiring managers and their humble, professional spirit, along with the business’ success of course. I was convinced that they were getting a lot of things right and that I had found an environment in which I could learn a great deal. They also offered excellent international development opportunities. So, I didn’t hesitate and joined as Group Finance and Accounting Director, later becoming Finance, Accounting and Tax Director of the German business. About six years ago the opportunity arose to join the Board in Wimbledon as CFO for Lidl GB. Great Britain is not only the second biggest Lidl market outside of Germany but also one of our fastest- growing countries, so it was a great opportunity! Q Q Q