Founder
Marina Grimaz
Three decades of finance and transformation across American multinationals, European telecoms and a global Indian industrial group.
Since 2017, independent executive and advisor, combining interim leadership with entrepreneurial ventures in sustainable fashion.
INSEAD Certified Director.
A constant thread
Transformation has been the constant. The context has never stopped changing.
With an academic background in Commercial & Financial Sciences and a focus on Computer Sciences, Marina understood early the potential of technology to transform how companies operate, compete and create value.
Her career has evolved alongside successive shifts in business — from computerisation and telecommunications to globalisation, digitalisation and artificial intelligence. Continuous learning has remained part of how she works.
How she works
Listen before proposing
Challenge assumptions
Clarify what matters
Leave capability behind
The journey
Three decades of transformation across business cultures, industries and scales.
01 · AMERICAN MULTINATIONALS
FINANCE TRANSFORMATION
IBM
Honeywell
A.C. Nielsen
GE Capital
Marina’s professional foundations were shaped in American multinationals, where she developed the financial discipline, Business Planning & Analysis and performance culture that continue to inform her approach.
Finance and BP&A became more than financial functions: a way to understand how a business works, model its economics, challenge assumptions and give decision-makers the clarity needed to act.
GE Capital
CFO Europe ad interim
As a member of the European Executive Committee, led the transformation of the European Finance headquarters following the acquisition of Avis Fleet Services, applying Six Sigma principles to operational excellence and continuous improvement.
02 · EUROPEAN TELECOMS
Transforming business models
Hermes Europe Railtel
BASE
E-Plus
KPN Mobile International
From pan-European fibre infrastructure to mobile communications, Marina worked at the intersection of business modelling, network economics, turnaround, growth, M&A and integration.
At Hermes Europe Railtel, she led network economics and investment analysis for the expansion of the European network, including a $1 billion transatlantic cable joint venture, and evaluated $800 million of network assets following ten acquisitions.
KPN Mobile International
Strategy & Business Development Executive
Reporting to the CEO, she translated complex operational and financial realities into business models, transformation plans and decision frameworks — from the BASE turnaround plans to the E-Plus 100-day transformation programme and the €1 billion Netco model.
03 · INDIAN INDUSTRIAL GROUP
Transformation at global scale
CG Global (Crompton Greaves)
Reporting to the CEO, Marina created the Business Planning & Analysis function across the group, giving leadership forward visibility across businesses, geographies and operations.
As priorities shifted, her work moved from cash generation to portfolio transformation and carve-outs.
Cash for Growth
€161 million of working capital optimised
Her analyses made the case for a cash optimisation programme, which she then led: target exceeded within three quarters; rolling cash-flow forecasting was subsequently introduced across the organisation.
American performance discipline.
European consensus-building.
And in India, a different perspective on business, culture and decision-making.
FROM EXECUTION TO GOVERNANCE
From the executive table to the Board table.
Throughout these transformations, Marina’s responsibilities extended from analysis and execution to executive decision-making and governance.
Sitting at the Board table led her to formalise that experience: in 2016, she completed INSEAD's International Directors Programme and became a Certified Director.
The reality of execution.
The responsibility of governance.
European Executive Committee
GE Capital
Board Secretary
KPN Mobile International
Permanent invitee to the Board
CG Global
Board, Audit & Risk Committee Secretary a.i.
CG Holdings
INSEAD Certified Director (IDP-C)
Since 2016
04 · Since 2017
Two paths. One continuity.
Interim Leadership & Advisory
Alongside CEOs, boards, family businesses, entrepreneurial companies and private equity — as advisor, or in executive roles ad interim when the situation calls for hands-on leadership.
A strategy is only as strong as its execution: strategic clarity must translate into implementation, not stop at the deck.
SELECTED MANDATES SINCE 2017
Finance and back-office transformation · €200 million company (Belgium)
Interim CFO, growth plan and US expansion review · €180 million sustainable fashion company (Belgium)
Interim CFO, sale of a minority shareholding · €70 million company (Belgium & Netherlands)
Sale preparation of assets and companies for Private Equity transactions (Belgium & UK)
Sustainable Fashion Ventures
While completing a master's in e-commerce, Marina saw first-hand the damage caused by fast fashion. She trained in sustainable fashion and wrote her thesis on recycled cashmere.
She then set out to launch two ventures of her own — a recycled cashmere line sourced in Prato and a premium European linen line — and helped a made-to-measure designer develop his business in Venice and Munich.
These experiences brought her closer to product, craftsmanship and the realities of building a business.
Judgement
Knowing when to build — and when not to.
Not every idea should become a launch. In two ventures of her own, the right decision was not to proceed: linen prototypes and recycled cashmere that did not meet the standard she required.
Her role is that of a strategic business partner — making complexity understandable, challenging assumptions and helping leaders turn strategic choices into sustainable value.
The technologies change.
The business question remains:
what should the company become next?
The next chapter
Maison Grimaz
Origin of the Maison
The Maison is named in memory of Marina's parents, and of the values they passed on to their daughters. The gate of the family home in Friuli became its visual thread.
Maison Grimaz brings these experiences together — not to reproduce models from the past, but to apply the judgement developed through them to the questions leaders face today.
Because transformation is not about changing everything. It is about knowing what creates value, what must change and what should endure.
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