Frans Cuppen

“People describe me as an atypical banker, but that is an understatement. If someone in my team ends up covering walls with post-its in the form of Einstein or accountmanagers are sending proposals in used pizza boxes, so be it. It works! I trust my teams and love to fuel their creativity. All I do is bring a bit more happiness while delivering exceptional performance to upper management. With more purpose, fun and enjoyment, quarterly meetings become the place to be, hitting targets turn into competitions and proposals end up as creative masterpieces.”

How to build an exceptional team?

Frans Cuppen brings more than 35 years of his own leadership experience in building exceptional teams from the ground up. As Partner of Fuel for Innovation, Frans uses this tacit knowledge to find the drive within each unique team. Frans is often asked to lend his experience to other organizations as an advisor or member of the supervisory board. Being a seasoned executive in the corporate environment, he knows how to get things done. He can seamlessly spot the ‘elephant in the room’ and confront dysfunctional teams.

After finishing his Masters in Civil Law at Leiden University in 1986, Frans started his career as account manager  at ABN Bank one of the largest multinational banks in the Netherlands. He was and is member of several supervisory boards and founded ECONIC (2016) an innovation accelerator for ABN AMRO in Eindhoven. In 2008 he became part of the Management Group (top 100) of ABN AMRO. After an extensive career at different banks and in animal feed, he concluded his time at ABN AMRO as General Manager Commercial Clients South (2018). Besides being stationed in the Netherlands, he has worked in Belgium, France, Hungary and Luxembourg.

Since the beginning of his career, Frans has always pursued his interests in creativity, innovation, leadership development and team development, which led to the many certifications in his portfolio. Combined with his hands-on experience, Frans decided to change track in 2019 so he could pursue his passion and interests with Fuel for Innovation.

Next to his work, Frans is currently member of the advisory board at Alius (2020), member of the supervisory board at Langezaal en Inniger (2019) and member of the advisory board at Oerlemans Packaging Group. In his spare time he loves to play golf and is a practitioner and lover of art.

Azwin Ressang (Partner Fuel for Innovation) about Frans:

“Frans is a very experienced (atypical) banker, analytical, averse to hierarchy, always looking for distinctive quality/capacity and cannot only make you slow down, but also takes you “to the moon” to distance yourself. He knows from experience how to create a high performance culture.”

Got an exceptional team in need of guidance?