Daniel Setiawan
CFO, Poseidon Ocean Systems
Elevating Finance for Growth and Strategic Execution
Daniel Setiawan brings nearly three decades of leadership experience across Asia, Europe and North America, spanning agriculture, food manufacturing, salmon farming and ocean technology. His career includes leadership roles at Cargill and Cermaq, a Mitsubishi joint venture, and experience in restructurings, acquisitions, divestments and public-to-private transactions.
Building a Scalable Finance Function
For Setiawan, leading finance means treating every dollar as if it were his own. Named one of Indonesia’s Top 10 Best CFOs in 2019, he brings that ownership mindset to Poseidon Ocean Systems, where he looks beyond functional boundaries, identifies opportunities to improve performance and takes personal responsibility for delivering them.
Setiawan’s immediate focus is clear visibility into cash, working capital, project commitments and future funding requirements. An active cash-management process spots pressure early, giving management time to act rather than react.
In eight months, Setiawan built a scalable finance operating model spanning stronger month-end reporting, forecasting, performance management and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The transformation improved traceability across costs, inventory, projects and service activities while supporting international expansion and more integrated operations. He also negotiated the implementation’s commercial terms himself, securing better payment timing and added functionality.
Balancing Financial Discipline and Innovation
Setiawan does not see financial discipline and innovation as competing goals. Strong financial discipline creates the capacity to invest in the right innovation. He evaluates investments based on strategic and commercial value, cash requirements, implementation risk and downside scenarios.
While assessing growth initiatives, Setiawan maps commitments, costs, grants and investor funding through scenarios, enabling Poseidon to pursue innovation while maintaining liquidity and managing risk. Uncertainty is shown openly, never hidden inside a single forecast.
" Reports by themselves do not create value. Decisions, actions, and accountability do. "
His objective is not to become the person who simply says ‘no.’ Instead, he helps the business work out how important initiatives can be delivered responsibly, what conditions must be met and which risks require management.
Turning Financial Insight into Action
Setiawan sees finance as the link between sales, engineering and operations, bringing their views together to support better decisions. At Poseidon, finance helps evaluate equipment sales, rentals, financing structures and project-specific funding, with a focus on how quickly capital can be recycled into the next opportunity.
Setiawan has worked on finance system modernization since 2002, starting in Germany. He is now developing an AI-enabled CFO operating model spanning cash forecasting, risk review and board communication, and uses it daily himself. Speed without judgment is not progress, he says, so governance, confidentiality and human review are built in.
A long-time advocate of the 24-month rolling forecast, Setiawan replaces the static annual budget with a view that keeps moving forward, linking revenue, margins, costs, working capital and funding. The question he asks is not “Why did the number change?” but “What does it tell us, and who needs to act?”
Advice for Aspiring CFOs
Having served on professional accounting boards for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Southeast Asia and Canada, Setiawan believes lasting value begins when CFOs think and act like owners by understanding the entire business, from products, customers and operations to people, technology and risk. That means moving easily between the boardroom and operational detail, and owning the step from strategy to execution. He stresses that lasting change depends on people and culture.
He measures finance’s impact not by its output, but by how much better the organization understands its position, makes decisions, executes priorities and prepares for the future. In his view, the future CFO is not the organization’s scorekeeper, but the architect of clarity who turns uncertainty into coordinated action.
