Just graduated: Wout Grootte Bromhaar

My name is Wout Grootte Bromhaar, 25 years old and living in Tilburg. In this ‘Just Graduated’ I tell you more about my job as Junior Business Controller at Homefashion group, the parent company of Leen Bakker and Kwantum. First of all, I will provide more information about my background and my choice for the Master Finance at Tilburg University.

From pre-vocational secondary education to WO Master

As you could have read from my last name in the introduction, I am not originally from Tilburg. I was born in beautiful Twente. I first did VMBO-TL in high school and, with a small detour via HAVO, HBO and a pre-master, I was eventually able to obtain my WO Master Finance in July 2022, which I am very proud of!

This means that I did not do my bachelor’s degree at the university in Tilburg, but first studied Finance & Control at Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede. I thought that was a very nice route, as I had already come into contact with the professional field through various internships and thus had my first introduction to Business Control (and yes, I was also able to earn some money, which as a student is of course a is a nice added bonus 😉).

When I graduated from college, I was not yet ready to work full-time. This was partly due to my age (I wasn’t even 22 yet) and my drive to continue studying and get back into school. The pre-master Finance in Tilburg, the mandatory bridging program if you come from HBO, was very tough and cost a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but I was thrilled when I passed it and could start in August 2021. the master’s degree in Finance.

Master Finance

As you read before, I have a passion for Controlling. At the universities in Nijmegen or Groningen you really had master’s degrees specialized in Controlling, so I could have gone in that direction too. However, for me the Master’s degree in Finance immediately stood out, partly because you could choose your own subject package. In addition, I was able to learn more about mergers & acquisitions and corporate financing, which I was very curious about. Through various guest lectures I learned more and more what working in M&A entailed and the assignments certainly helped with this. An example I can give is that for the Financial Statement Analysis & Valuation course we had to create a company valuation for Basic Fit.

I ultimately did my thesis on the performance of family businesses versus non-family businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. I liked that my supervisor gave me a lot of freedom while writing my thesis. And through the course Empirical Methods in Finance I learned a lot about the STATA program, which was very useful during my thesis. Ultimately, I obtained my master’s degree in Finance within one year.

Extended student life

During my studies I became an active member of A&F, where I was the chairman of Faces Online and the Alumni committee. By attending various (in)formal activities I have made friends for life here. I can definitely recommend everyone to join an association, especially if you are not from the city. This way you get to know new people in the fastest and easiest way. However, I was unlucky that the world was in the grip of a pandemic with many social restrictions during my ‘student days’.

It is not without reason that student years are in quotation marks in the previous paragraph. When I found my job in Tilburg, I decided to extend my membership at A&F by joining the Alumni committee. Even though I was already working, by remaining active in the study association, I was still able to catch up on student life by attending various activities that I missed due to corona. And yes, that sometimes cost some sleep when I had to get up early the next morning after a fun evening, but it was definitely worth it!

Finding a job

I have now been working as a Junior Business Controller for the Leen Bakker and Kwantum chains for about a year and a half. The decision to continue in controlling, and not to choose the M&A branch, for example, is also due to my previous experiences. For example, I worked at Aebi Schmidt for about a year in various positions. Aebi Schmidt is a production company in Holten (Overijssel) that mainly produces spreading machines. I started there as a graduate student at HBO and, between obtaining my pre-master’s degree and starting my master’s degree, I also briefly worked as a business controller. Then I experienced how cool it was to provide the business with management information through dashboarding (In Excel or Power BI). Building, analyzing and reporting gave me such energy that I knew I wanted to continue in this direction.

Soon after graduating, I noticed the vacancy of Junior Business Controller at Homefashion group. After 2 good conversations with, among others, the Business Control manager and CFO, I discovered that the culture within the company certainly suits me and the work appealed to me, which made it a very easy choice to work at this company. A choice that I have certainly not regretted so far and 1.5 months after my defense the first working day could start in September 2022!

My daily work at Kwantum & Leen Bakker

The nice thing about Business Control is that you are really a spider in the web. You deal with different departments and facets within the organization. For example, you may still be consulting with management and the sales team about the budget in the morning, but an hour later you can be sparring again with the Leen Bakker/Kwamtum at home managers about gaining better insight into data. for these channels. My duties also include creating business cases for a possible new store, assessing items during the month-end closing and building, integrating and presenting KPIs in Power BI.

The best part is that you are really a sparring partner for the business. For example, you may be asked to analyze the shopping evenings of Leen Bakker and Kwantum. If decisions are ultimately made based on your analyzes and advice, and it also makes a positive contribution to the result, it gives you a kick!

One challenge is that I work for two companies. Although Leen Bakker and Kwantum fall under Homefashion Group, they are two independently operating companies. Because I have multiple sparring partners, my work can sometimes be very busy and my email sometimes fills up faster than I would like. However, this hustle and bustle also gives me a great opportunity to develop myself well, test your stress resistance and learn to set priorities.

So I am very happy with my choice and I enjoy the working experience. My main advice is that you should do things that give you energy, and not the things people expect you to do. If you have any questions after reading this article, feel free to contact me.