FinOps X Amsterdam

Hosted in the heart of Amsterdam, the event brought together FinOps practitioners, tech leaders, and cloud cost management enthusiasts from across Europe for a full day of learning and sharing best practices. 

Here’s a recap of the day’s highlights and key themes that stood out. 

Keynote: A Warm Welcome and Strong Start 

Ruben, the FinOps Foundation’s Director of Community, set the tone by celebrating how far the movement has come - from early-stage curiosity to a global network of 85,000 members, 62,000 certified professionals, and nearly every Fortune 100 company practising FinOps in the last 6 years.  

There was a strong focus on the evolution of FinOps, with the latest version of the Framework released earlier this year introducing the concept of Scopes, FinOps maturing to include more technologies than just cloud, and inclusion of FinOps for AI (and AI for FinOps!). FinOps is expanding beyond cloud cost optimisation into managing broader technology spend: SaaS, AI, data platforms, and even private data centres are now being brought under the responsibility of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation’s three core pillars (community, education, and best practices) remain at the heart of this evolution, but their scope is widening to encompass the entire technology value chain. 

Executive Director J.R. Storment discussed how FinOps has matured from a reactive cloud management practice to a proactive, strategic discipline. He also highlighted a growing trend of FinOps in the Executive Suite. Many companies now have senior vice presidents or CTO-level sponsors overseeing integrated FinOps functions across all infrastructure types. 

Case studies from Disney, HSBC, and a major U.S. insurer showed FinOps teams helping leadership make smarter technology investments, negotiate better vendor contracts, and align tech spend directly with business outcomes. 

One section of the Keynote of particular interest to us at Synyega was Martin Thomson of the ITAM Forum’s reinforcement of how ITAM and FinOps are converging. ITAM brings governance, lifecycle visibility, and risk management, while FinOps contributes value realisation and financial accountability. 

The session closed with FinOps Fellow Vas Markanastasakis and Benjamin van der Maas of Johnson & Johnson sharing how Scopes have reshaped their FinOps practice.  

Their advice to new practitioners: start with what matters most to the business. FinOps is not just about saving money, it’s about enabling value creation, storytelling, and strategic decision-making. 

Together, they form a complete picture of technology value and control, helping organisations optimise not just cloud, but every digital asset in their ecosystem. 

Internal FinOps for Engineering Platform – built on FOCUS - Clara Gonzalez (The LEGO Group)

Clara shared how LEGO built a multi-cloud FinOps platform in Power BI, built from the ground up based on what engineers need to see to make informed decisions on their cloud usage. FinOps practitioners can fall into the trap of building dashboards & reporting based on their own perception of stakeholder requirements, but Clara’s lessons learned on this journey were an excellent example of strong collaboration between FinOps personas driving success. LEGO’s use of the FOCUS framework was especially interesting - standardizing data and metrics so engineering teams can make cost-aware decisions without extra overhead. It was a great reminder that FinOps isn’t just a finance function; it’s part of the engineering culture.

PxQ: Managing Tech Spend Beyond Public Cloud - Wim Kuijvenhoven & Harsh Jadwani (Randstad)

This talk broadened the conversation past the “big three” cloud providers. Wim and Harsh broke down their Price × Quantity (PxQ) model for everything from SaaS to on-prem infrastructure, and how Randstad are working towards moving all technology spend to consumption pricing. We came away with practical ideas for capturing and normalizing cost data across scopes.

Automating Cost Allocation & Unit Economics?- Marc Diensberg (Amadeus)

Marc’s session dove deep into automation. By tying cost allocation to real-time usage and “North Star Metrics”, Amadeus can surface unit economics that add valuable business context to those making product decisions. It’s a powerful example of how FinOps unlocks the business value of cloud and technology, enabling timely data-driven decision making.

Container Cost Allocation: Visibility in Shared Environments - Rob de Groot (Bol)

The next talk looked at allocation more specifically in relation to Kubernetes, for which cost visibility remains a tricky puzzle. Rob shared Bol’s approach in their quest for full visibility for container costs, including how a ‘simple’ objective has many ‘not so simple’ considerations. 

Optimising Databases & Storage for Value – Pascal Urban (NORD/LB) 

Pascal Urban delivered a sharp and insightful session on how to drive value-focused optimisation of databases and storage. 

Instead of focusing purely on cost-cutting, Pascal emphasized aligning infrastructure decisions with business outcomes, particularly in a regulated industry like banking. 

This was a standout talk that reminded us that some of the biggest FinOps gains come from foundational, often overlooked areas. A great session for anyone looking to mature their FinOps practice. 

From FinOps to Customer: How Customers should drive your cloud strategy - Savina Stoykova (Snyk) 

In her insightful talk, “From FinOps to Customer: How Customers Should Drive Your Cloud Strategy,” Savina Stoykova from Snyk offered a strategic, customer focused approach that ties cloud decisions directly to business value.  Savina Stoykova’s talk emphasized that FinOps should start with the customer, not just the cost. Since cloud usage is ultimately driven by customer behaviour, aligning FinOps with customer needs and product value is far more impactful than focusing solely on internal savings. She also challenged the traditional obsession with cutting spend, advocating instead for a focus on improving unit economics and gross margin. Cost decisions should support overall growth and profitability, not just reduce expenses. A key point was the importance of shifting cloud cost awareness earlier in the product lifecycle—getting FinOps involved before launch to avoid costly architectural missteps. 

Key Takeaways

• Culture: The best FinOps outcomes happen when engineering, finance and business teams collaborate.

• FinOps Scopes: FinOps is being expanded to cover AI, SaaS, on-prem, and everything in between.

• Automation Is Essential: Many difficult or repetitive manual tasks can and should be automated away in the journey to mature FinOps practices.

• Education Matters: Empowering engineers with clear, actionable data drives real change.

It was great spending the day listening to FinOps practitioners share their journeys and experiences. If you’re exploring FinOps, events like this are invaluable for seeing how different organisations tackle similar challenges.