Chaired by:
Robert J. Novaria, EuroFinance Tutor & Partner, Treasury Alliance Group, USDavid Blair, Senior EuroFinance Tutor & MD, Acarate, Singapore
The big picture out there really matters to treasury because disorder caused from geopolitical risk, and uncertainty caused from uneven growth and technological disruption are promoting rethinks about the global business environment with knock-on effects for FX, interest rate, tax, regulatory and political risks. But how can you predict the effects of this on your business? How do you know which signals to read? Best-selling author Pippa Malmgren, a former presidential advisor on the impact of terrorism on the economy, and named as one of the top five women in finance, will argue that economic signals are everywhere and in the most unlikely places -- everyday signals that can help empower you in decisions to navigate troubled times. As a well-known trend-spotter, Malmgren also advises the UK government on Brexit and the Ministry of Defence on global strategic patterns. Focussed on innovation as well, she can offer insights into how technologies will solve new problems created by a changing world.
Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Trendspotter, Bestselling Author, Co Founder, H Robotics, UK Moderated by:
Sebastian di Paola, Partner, PwC, Switzerland
Naomi Holland, Assistant Treasurer, Intel Corporation, Ireland
Deluged by 24/7 news and analysis? We have the key themes you need to understand covered by the most respected experts in their respective fields.
Ten months of Trump: After the radical promises of his campaign, Donald Trump’s presidency has prompted some radical activity in Congress, but how much real economic and regulatory change? And how are his interventionist, protectionist tendencies playing out in practice? What can we expect to be the impact on trade?
Jamie Thompson, Head of Macro Scenarios, Oxford Economics, UK
Europe on the brink?: The Eurozone recovery continues to gather pace. EU elections in France and the Netherlands have boosted confidence. But do Brexit and the Greek and Italian experiences mean the Eurozone needs a rethink or a redrawing?
Erik Berglof, Professor & Director of the Institute for Global Affairs, London School of Economics, UK
Brexit bumps: The initial lack of a ‘Brexit effect’ surprised economists but the economy is now delivering their worst fear. And the June election has created yet more uncertainty. So how should companies prepare for Brexit without making key changes too early? Will there be treasury impacts on tax, payment and liquidity structures?
Daniel Franklin, Editor 'The World in 2018' & Executive Editor, The Economist, UK
Inflation: In the US, the Eurozone and China inflation is the conundrum. Are core inflationary pressures real? Should central banks adopt higher inflation targets? What about increasing levels of household and corporate debt? We provide a roadmap for corporates and their treasurers.
Jeffrey Franks, Director, IMF Europe Office, Brussels
Emerging markets: A rising tide floats all boats. But what about the ebb? Does a stronger dollar hurt emerging economies and make borrowing more difficult? Which markets are most exposed to US policy shocks? And where is political risk the most highest?
Philip Worman, Managing Director, GPW Ltd, UK
When the Big Picture is so uncertain, it’s easy to take your eye off the basics. Trump, blockchain and artificial intelligence will undoubtedly change the world, but you still need to make payments and manage your bank accounts. So what are the problems that still plague treasury and what are the latest solutions to fix them?
It's hardly ground-breaking, but the true centralisation of all core treasury processes is the single most important step on the road to efficiency and visibility. It is also critical in ensuring cyber-security. More subtly, a rolling programme of centralisation ensures a continuous focus on wringing efficiencies from every single underlying process. It breaks "efficiency" into a series of identifiable projects, each of which delivers measurable gains as treasury is updated and re-engineered. So what are the key pain points for treasury today? Which structures are becoming outdated and need to be replaced? Which processes can benefit from proven technological innovation - as opposed to those which require investment in the cutting edge? And where do those big picture issues impinge on key processes now and force treasury to react?
Steven Gomes, Treasury Operations Manager, Bose Corporation, USCan treasuries really deliver strategic insights? It's a rare treasurer who sits on the board and even a seat on the ExCo is not a given. One reason for this is simple: if treasury could gather and analyse all the data that flows through it in anything approaching real time, it would indeed be able to deliver the insights claimed. But most can't. Digitalisation changes all of this. Fully digital, straight-through systems make real-time payment, collection and cash management analysis possible; accurate daily cash forecasts; global customer order and payment patterns; procurement and inventory management. With this information not only can treasury deliver strategic insights, it can push back against businesses tired of waiting and eager to exploit the latest tech and opportunities. The problem is, delivering this type of process change is painfully slow in most large corporations. So what can treasurers do to create significant change and have any companies been able to make the transformation. This treasurer says "yes".
Martin Schlageter, Head of Treasury Operations, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, SwitzerlandBank rationalisation is like centralisation: first, everyone should have done it; second, there are "good reasons" why they haven't; third it's the foundation of efficiency and visibility across a key area of treasury activity. The basic rule is simple: don't hold bank accounts where it isn't necessary. The problem, generally, is determining what the existing system is, why it evolved and what is necessary. For any sizeable MNC, unnecessary complexity evolves through acquisition, new market penetration, the creation of business entities for tax and regulatory reasons - the list goes on. Companies end up with, 100s or even 1000s of accounts, creating problems down the line in terms of reporting and analytics. So how should companies go about auditing and rationalising these accretions? What other techniques can be overlaid - virtual accounts for example - that can then reduce numbers further? And will the rationalisation process have any unintended consequences in terms of tax or even bank relationships? Here is a template for initiating a rationalisation programme.
Romain Douady, Head of Global Treasury, Sephora, FranceOnce rationalised, bank accounts still need to be actively managed to prevent inefficiencies developing anew. Opening and closing accounts and maintaining mandates are time consuming and costly, as well as a source of error and, potentially, fraud. And in many regions, where multiple local bank relationships are still necessary, the process is harder still. The core solutions are structural: centralised treasury centres are a basic minimum; better still a payments and collections factory, or at least shared service centres, that can 'see' both ends of the payment/collection cycle; and for some, large corporates, the in-house bank represents the ultimate solution as it can hold all accounts and acts on behalf of the other group legal entities. And there are the basics: maintain up to date authorisation matrices, ensure that a central record of all bank accounts exists and use existing processes to identify unnecessary complexity in bank accounts and connectivity. But which solutions suit which types of company? And what about the Cloud - are there new technology solutions to the problem?
Bruno Lawaree, VP & Assistant Treasurer, Eaton Corporation, USVisibility is easy to say but harder to obtain. Just as technology promised us the paperless office but in fact gave everyone a printer, it promises us transparency but creates myriad ways to create opacity through complexity. Most corporates have evolved a tangle of TMS, ERP and bank portals and may struggle to corral them into a single, transparent information flow. So what are the options? External suppliers such as Swift, the Cloud and other FinTech providers can bring order to specific parts of treasury workflows. But they all come with costs and caveats. And they tend to require that core work on process simplification, implementation of industry standards and interface building has already been done. This treasury took a deep-dive on all its systems and processes as the prelude to a treasury-wide digital transformation programme. In this session the treasurer explains what the process revealed, the solutions they chose and why.
Amit Singh, SVP & Treasurer, Newell Brands, USAnyone who has run a (non-finance) division will have a story about trying to explain their business to central finance or the auditors. They will remember being annoyed by questions like, "What's your sales forecast for next year? What about profit?" And they will have been tempted to answer, "Most likely +/-10% of last year, give or take." That disconnect between a function that seems to want to impose a spurious accuracy on real-world uncertainty can be a real problem - and that problem will lead to poor forecasting and a limit to how much treasury can really support wider business goals. Bridging the disconnect is partly a question of work: treasury must take the time to properly understand the nitty gritty of selling engine parts in Thailand or advertising in China. It's also a question of personality: uncertainty and unpredictability are normal. People drawn to finance often don't like that. So is the answer more data and better analytics? This treasurer thinks so. How can the forecasting accuracy pain point be solved?
Graeme Williamson, Assistant Treasurer, Boston Scientific, USAre SSCs treasury’s friend or is it how treasury disappears? Companies are increasingly spinning off functions such as AP/AR reconciliation, daily liquidity management and FX into SSCs, leaving treasury teams smaller and handling fewer tasks. Some SSCs even have a veto over treasury policy. So what is the right balance?
FinTech, the Cloud, de-globalisation, outsourcing, regulatory complexity, harmonising global wages – there are so many possible reasons to write off the shared service centre and yet companies are still setting them up domestically and internationally. So why does it still make sense to open SSCs? What functions are best transferred to an SSC and why? And is treasury still a prime mover in these programmes or just a small part of wider business process re-engineering?
Lesley Rogers, Director, Treasury, Banking & Cash EMEA, AT&T, UKThe trend towards shared service centres was greatly helped by another trend: the relaxation and global harmonisation of financial, tax and compliance regulations. Regional initiatives, such as those in Europe, were part of a wider, competitive move by countries to make it easier for multi-national businesses to operate in them. The question is: is this trend going to continue or have we entered a phase of protectionism and de-globalisation? And if we have, do we face a global business environment increasingly fragmented by regulations designed to boost the local at the expense of the international? It is very early days, but would that kind of environment alter the cost/benefit equation for SSCs? Just as today it is hard to centralise in fragmented regions like Asia, would a splintering global business environment stymie treasurers’ continuing drive for centralisation and harmonisation?
Bas Rebel, Senior Director Corporate Treasury Solutions, PwC, The NetherlandsCyber-security has moved to the top of board, finance and treasury priority lists. And these key stakeholders are finding that creating a cyber-secure environment is a great deal harder than it may first have appeared. This is true even in those business areas that they control directly. It is much more of a problem in tech-heavy standalone units often situated in emerging markets. First, the need for global connectivity creates opportunities for cyber-criminals. Second, high staff turnover is typical in low-skilled, offshored jobs, making training difficult. Third, low wages create incentives for dishonesty: banks are finding that it may be more cost effective to move call centres and any operations that handle personal data back onshore rather than expose staff to the temptation of large payments to steal information. So is re-onshoring the answer to SSC cyber-security or are there better solutions? What are the critical risks and what are the best remiediations for them?
Nico Bruno, Senior Treasury Manager EMEA/APAC, Citrix, Switzerland Tom Durkin, Managing Director, Digital Channels, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, USThe success of an SSC is predicated on how well corporates can migrate treasury processes into them. A typical sequence of migration starts with bank reconciliations and bank account management, followed by cash forecasting and bank guarantee management, with additional functions being transferred from in-country OpCos after that. The later process migration is not simply a case of moving transactions and their associated processes, but one of breaking down and re-designing existing on-shore jobs. This company set up its first SSC in 1998 and the first treasury activity took place a decade later in 2008. Now 20 years in it has recently gone live on its latest, more complex phase of migrated work. So, from this experience in managing this process, what has treasury learned? What has gone well and why? What improvements could still be made? And when it comes to complex migrations, what are the key challenges and solutions?
Frances Hinden, Vice President, Treasury Operations, Shell International Ltd, UKDeciding on the location of any centralising business structure is still a critical step in the process. In general, companies still centralise by region (with the US often counting as one). In Europe, a number of countries compete to be the most attractive, and this event is sitting in one of the most successful. Barcelona – and Catalonia as a whole – have increasingly been recognised as candidates for the delivery of centralised finance, IT, asset management and customer care services to MNC’s European and worldwide customers. As well as the standard claims of high internationalisation, skilled staff and a business-friendly environment, Catalonia does also have a genuine claim to be a centre of technological innovation. The ALBA Synchrotron and the Mare Nostrum Supercomputer require high-level IT infrastructure to function and this is available to any companies in the vicinity. So in the digital era, in which the SSC is part of business transformation and not a low-cost, low-skill processing centre, how has the priority list changed when it comes to SSC location? What are the three most important attributes of a geography now? And what does the fact that Barcelona is so popular tell us about those priorities?
Katarzyna Stefanska-Balos, Treasury Operations Manager, Colgate-Palmolive, PolandIn one sense, treasury has never been more strategic. Given current levels of volatility and uncertainty, its protection of the business against them, and its help in exploiting them, is business critical. Digitalisation requires the re-engineering of every system and process in the business: treasury is a key partner in this transformation.
This case study will look at how treasury can play a role in the strategic aspects of business partnering. Treasurer Johan Nystedt, fresh from turning treasury into a more strategic role at Levi Strauss, joined Conagra Brands in April 2016 as the Treasurer and head of Investor Relations, looking for ways that his department could work with the business to create more value. This has included the centralization of FX, the spin-off of the Lamb Weston business, various sales and acquisitions, and the renegotiation of the company’s credit facility. Treasury participates in the Audit and Finance Committee meetings of the Board and chairs the Risk Oversight Committee, oversees Investor Relations and has made some significant changes to the company's debt profile. He will talk about creating a step by step recipe for success.
Johan Nystedt, VP Treasurer & Chief Risk Officer, ConAgra Brands, USSituated on front-line of digital disruption, the retail space has been bombarded with disruptive forces from digital payment methods, new payment providers and new consumer demands and shifting expectations. This session explores:
• The origins and driving forces behind the rapid evolution of e- and m-commerce
• The impact of e-commerce on traditional retailers
• Payment as part of the customer experience
• Consumer financing - a new battle ground?
• End-to-end processing across platforms and payment methods - The Holy Grail?
• A changing competitive landscape and the outlook for payments and e-commerce over the coming years.
Rapid business growth is a test for all business processes from sales to HR. For treasury it puts particular pressure on existing systems especially where multiple acquisitions create additional integration issues. So what are the key pressure points on treasury when the underlying business races ahead? What can go wrong most quickly with the most damaging consequences? And how can treasurers ensure the continuity and accuracy of core treasury functions across the group without getting in the way of the business? This company has used growth as the catalyst for a treasury transformation project, which included insourcing treasury operations, redefining treasury technology, building talent and teams and developing a flexible organisational framework. In this session, the treasurer explains how they have continued to deliver overall treasury excellence at a time of profound change and global expansion.
Pedro Batista, Director of Banking, OPTAL, UKCommodity and currency risk are typically managed separately by treasury and procurement. Worse, while financial risk management is usually highly sophisticated, commodity exposures are still often managed on an ad hoc, manual basis through supplier contract terms. And the correlations between FX and commodity prices are ignored. The high volatilities seen in both the currency and commodity markets make this approach untenable. Not only can corporates be caught out by price swings through poor commodity risk management (losing margin and/or market share), they can also find their hedges working against each other over non-contiguous time periods and quantities. Businesses that manage their commodity and currency risk in a more centralised and sophisticated manner gain an edge over rivals that don’t, as this treasurer demonstrates. Here’s how to marry up the two.
Rob McAnally, Group Treasurer, Associated British Foods, UK Mark O’Toole, VP, Commodities & Treasury Solutions, Openlink, USThe challenge of managing a global treasury in today’s dynamic regulatory landscape – particularly its rapidly evolving tax reforms – is substantial. Regulation continues to increase the cost to banks of providing core corporate services: in mature markets, there is increased emphasis on making sure each local entity of a bank is fully capitalised and controlled locally, which puts extra pressure on banks maintaining international networks; global regulations are increasing the cost of risk management transactions and changing liquidity in key markets such as FX, leaving new players to fill the gap. What does this mean for treasury decision-making, strategies and structures?: full fat, onshore, local trading and treasury activities? And then there is BEPS: how will it affect cross-border supply chains and the treasury and cash management structures which have arisen on their back? Is a de-centralised, 1960s version of treasury the future? In the age of instant global communication and networking, are we going to find ourselves living again with the inefficiencies of cash piling up in some countries, while others have debt?
Damian Glendinning, VP & Treasurer, Lenovo, SingaporeAnyone who has ever been involved in a merger or acquisition, especially of a public company where the data room is limited, knows that information gained at the start of the deal pays back with interest. Is the target business performing as described? Are there issues that will derail expected synergies? Are there unusual tax and accounting structures or other financial engineering that obscure the true profitability of the operating business? And what is the real trade-off between buying the business and organic investment? Getting treasury and finance in right at the beginning is a crucial step in getting the answers to these questions. So how can treasurers make sure their contribution is understood and asked for?
Alexander Foltin, Corporate VP, Finance & Treasury, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany'Best practice' can be a nebulous term, but what does it really mean when applied to treasury? What concrete, measurable steps can treasurers take to ensure that they are meeting the highest standards? And what does 'best practice' look like in the different contexts of particular sectors or business scales?
A key problem with the current drive for digital transformation – as well as less ambitious attempts to upgrade treasuries – is understanding which structures will stand the test of time and which costs are just funding transitional arrangements. In this session three treasurers will discuss how they have undertaken transformations in the following areas of treasury and how they have tried to avoid transitional technologies:
High-growth companies face the same problems of transitional technology as any other treasuries, but multiplied by the need to build in capacity to cope with expansion. They cannot afford to overspend on disposable solutions but equally the business cost of non-robust, non-scaleable solutions is unacceptable too. So how can treasurers at these companies build a flexible, modern treasury able to cope with the often unexpected twists and turns of a growing, possibly acquisitive, business? When building a treasury essentially from scratch to cope with rapid expansion, what should they focus on first - banking partners, cash management, AP/AR, risk management, tax structures? And what traditional treasury stages can they skip? Three companies give their stories.
Douglas Tropp, Corporate Treasurer, The Priceline Group, USFor a business that handles approximately one order per second globally that Oriflame picks and packs and ships to customers (all of its systems and handling of these are global) and 95% of business done online, the company has undergone a critical and essential digital revolution. How does a company manage such a transformation with the complexity and challenges it faces? Meanwhile, Oriflame has a lot of business cycles every year (17), and this requires close monitoring of cash handling / management and its international flow of funds. Its Swiss-based treasury hedges around 70% of its exposures and it maintains cash pools, the primary purpose of which is to keep the cash with its core banks in Europe and thereby to minimise the risk of having it trapped in local entities and local currencies. This treasurer will talk about the change in business model and the impact on finance.
Georgi Karapanchev, VP Tax & Treasury, Oriflame Cosmetics, SwitzerlandThe generic pros and cons of in-house banking are well known. The main con is the expensive, multi-year project that is needed to put one in place. The main pros are centralisation of control, concentration of funds, reduced reliance on external funding and investment instruments and cash visibility. In addition, an in-house bank provides treasury with a way to determine company-specific lender and borrower rates and terms. But in these uncertain times, the in-house bank's most valuable function may be that it allows corporates to isolate themselves from bank counterparty and sovereign risk. If customers pay foreign subsidiaries not into local bank accounts but accounts those subsidiaries hold with the in-house bank, located in a secure market, the local risk is eliminated. As banks are buffeted by political and regulatory risk, and face disintermediation by technology, counterparty risk is a significant issue. This treasurer explains how in-house banking works for their company and looks at how elements of the in-house bank philosophy can be applied in companies that cannot afford the full solution.
Jeremy Hamon, Head of Group Treasury, Primetals Technologies, UK Michael Bach, Consulting Director, BELLIN, GermanyA holistic approach to liquidity that encompasses cash management, loan portfolio management and the supply chain avoids the inefficiencies that silos can bring and improves FX risk management. Best practice treasuries concentrate cash efficiently and then structure that cash to meet the short- and longer-term needs of the company, ensuring that the mix leaves only what is necessary in the lowest yielding bucket. They also work to improve the efficiency of FX risk management across all areas. Beyond three or four currencies, getting FX risk in liquidity structures can become expensive and unwieldy. In pooling structures, both short-dated FX swaps or notional conversion to a base currency can create problems. . And it's not just in cash management. Most large MNCs operating in multiple countries will have evolved large portfolios of financings and inter-company loans in multiple currencies and conflicting terms and conditions. Many will no longer match the original need and they too will be tying up liquidity and creating FX risk. Re-organising cash management and financing structures can have a significant effect on long-term cash flows.
Paul Buck, Director Treasury EMEA, PPG Europe BV, The NetherlandsNon-core operations are a drag on management time and a distraction from the strategies that will drive the core business forwards. Divesting these businesses is simple in theory and complex in practice. Add to that the often very compressed timescales – three to six months is common – and the differences with larger M&A transactions become clearer. The creation of a spin off treasury may well fall to the treasurer alongside minimizing business disruption and the cost-cutting required post-deal if the remaining business’ cost-structure is now awry. And treasury itself may have made things more difficult: the trend towards highly-integrated businesses, shared services, and common ERP systems makes converting a business line into a stand-alone business difficult. This company shares their experience of a carve-out, the check-list they built, and how that blueprint helped provide readiness to build integrated treasury operations, processes and applications, in a near simultaneous merger.
Mario Del Natale, Director, Treasury Operations, Systems & Applications, Johnson Controls International, BelgiumWhile it is true that the current political upheavals create their own complexities and event risks, treasurers are still really faced with managing the same exposures they always have: FX, interest rate and counterparty credit. What's really changing is how technology is enabling the better management of these risks and how, increasingly, businesses are changing the way they think about them.
No matter how sophisticated their risk quantification and identification, most corporates end up with layered hedging strategies, risk by risk, in a way that has not changed in 20 years. This methodology ignores concepts such as risk appetite, risk bearing capacity and risk budgeting that have become normal in the financial sector and which have begun to help in hard-to-measure risks such as cyber. Best practice corporates are currently changing the way they look at risk to examine the overall impact of interest rate, FX and credit risk on their long-term competitiveness. So, instead of looking at FX gains and losses as line items, instead companies can decide to risk manage their EBITDA footprint in currency and interest rate terms. Conceptually this sounds easy but it has profound impacts on financial and management accounting. So how does it work? And why is it different to more traditional methods?
Ayca Arisoy Kilic, Treasurer for Europe, Middle East & Africa, Bunge, The NetherlandsTreasury isn't just about process efficiency and the latest payments software, treasurers are still called upon to fund and hedge large, complex transactions. This company was keen to pursue one of the last remaining strategic deals available in a rapidly consolidating sector - a multi-billion dollar cross-border acquisition. For the treasury team, the first job was assembling the bank group and arranging first a bridge loan and then a multi-currency refinancing package. Given the size of the exposures, the company wanted an FX hedge in place that would attract hedge accounting treatment. It also wanted the hedge to be contingent on the deal taking place, and there were regularity issues: the nightmare scenario of being locked into FX forwards without an underlying transaction. So how did treasury work with the banks to devise the overall funding and hedge strategy? Why was hedge accounting so important? And how did they come up with a pricing structure that reflected the deal dynamics?
Jacques Molgo, Group Financing & Treasury Director, Air Liquide, USSensational payment frauds observed around the world in the last 18 months involve reputable names, with people on the inside scratching their heads as to how ‘rock solid’ processes were exploited. How can technology support you and where do you start in securing business payments across your enterprise? How can you monitor, alert and report suspicious or unusual behaviour in financial transactions real-time? In this session we will explore how other organisations are acting, and how industry-wide security programmes are starting to change the behaviour. If you want to learn about the latest trends in cyber fraud, and how to improve both control and compliance within the finance and treasury function, this session will help you understand how best to secure payments in today’s climate.
Robert Scriven, Group Treasurer and Planning Manager, Cairn Energy PLC, UKThe ability to model "what ifs" is key to strategic business decision-making. So treasurers continually need to understand how the risk to performance changes as a consequence of choices in hedging, funding, market volatility and other variables. Value-at-risk (VaR) is one methodology, tailored to financial institutions; cash-flow-at-risk (CFaR) is a better fit for treasurers who need to model the levers they control. CFaR's role in helping treasury navigate increasing volatility and uncertainty is becoming more significant as a tool for better competitive positioning as well as tactical treasury. So how can treasurers on limited budgets implement the methodology quickly and cheaply to evaluate its usefulness? In this session learn why CFaR is a key risk management tool and explore the core elements of the underlying calculation. See how CFaR is directly relevant to treasury and how to create a working CFaR system with limited external resources, directly in Excel, and how to use the result in making key business decisions.
Vincent Delort, Global Treasury Risk & Reporting Manager, JTI, SwitzerlandAfter 10 years of exceptional growth, in many new countries, the LEGO treasury team was faced with an altered foreign exchange landscape. A review of the traditional “bucket hedging” approach proved that a more structured approach to portfolio correlation and driving greater value from hedging activities was needed. In addition to a new hedging approach, the business looked for more active involvement from its FX Risk team. What were the practical learnings, risks and opportunities of moving to a portfolio (VaR) based approach? And in which areas can the FX team be an active sparring partner to the business and impact decisions in a consumer driven organisation?
Jesper Broskov, Group Treasurer, The Lego Group, DenmarkData compiled by the Frontier Strategy Group says that in 2016, $51bn was lost by the 211 European and North American companies it surveyed due to the direct impact of currency volatility. However, this type of statistic masks the No. 1 myth of hedging: MNC’s exactly know their exposure. Complexity of most MNCs' operations generate different forms of FX risk and the economic implications of these across a portfolio of businesses and currencies is not easily modelled. Thus treasury's job is not simply to hedge, it is to understand these exposures and the business implications of altering the FX mix. So, given recent large movements in core currencies, does translation risk exposure merit a re-evaluation? Does this extended period of volatility mean treasurers should look at extending the maturity of hedges[ or “enjoy” more flexibility in hedging? Do lower margins or the need for strategic change, driven by new business models, mean that the business needs more cash flow certainty while it invests in innovation? If so, how can treasury help develop the natural hedges that best achieve this?
Frank Waechter, Senior Head of Group Treasury & Insurance, PUMA SE, GermanyTechnology is the answer to every problem and the cause of most of them – at least that’s how it can seem. Treasury in particular seems to have become a never-ending IT project. So is the treasurer’s main job to manage the technology transition from spreadsheets and legacy systems to redundancy as humans become unnecessary? In this process, what are the key steps from now: TMS upgrades, the Cloud, single-instance ERP, AI, RPA? And which systems and suppliers suit which types of corporate?
Treasurers face a bewildering array of potential solutions, across a large number of process areas and delivered on a variety of platforms and cost bases. To make things more complicated, the vendors themselves must cope with a rapidly changing marketplace and disruptive competition and some will not make it. The best way to identify the solutions that meet your needs is to see how your peers have made these choices and to look at how those choices turned out. So in this session treasurers will explain how and why they chose between:
Treasuries are challenged by constant change as their companies continue to grow and face more complexity. As treasuries and their companies continue to evolve, successfully digitalising treasury to ensure efficiency and control risks becomes paramount, particularly as many treasuries are asked to handle more operations with less people. But exactly how is this achieved? This case study session will look at how Willis Towers Watson improved its treasury function amid constant change, taking a holistic approach to digitalisation from vision to vendor selection and implementation.
Caroline Cundill, Director of International Treasury, Willis Tower Watson, The NetherlandsTo develop and lead a global treasury organisation, you need to have a vision that the team believes in. It starts with a total review of all policies and procedures and a team that challenges everything. Benchmarking, gap analysis, identifying the resources to get to world class and developing a road map are all critical components. Harley Davidson will share their 5-year road map of which world-class technology was a key feature. The company implemented an all new payroll system, a TMS, OCR and global AP/T&E system in order to achieve efficiency, globally and visibility. The treasurer will discuss the vision, the results and the benefits.
Darrell Thomas, VP and Treasurer, Harley-Davidson, Inc., USEveryone agrees that technology is critical to the future of companies yet many treasury functions still rely on spreadsheets. Technology is the backbone of effective treasury management, and despite it looking like a marathon task to decide and implement, it is actually getting easier than ever to install, maintain and measure its effectiveness. This workshop will look at what you need to know. What technology makes sense and how do you get a project off the ground? Are you looking for best of breed or a one system only solution? In fact, which would make more sense for your corporate objectives? How can treasurers differentiate between available TMS systems and providers? How do they evaluate a TMS versus, say, an ERP-based solution before buying? What are the considerations you need to make in your selection? Do you really need a full-blown RFP or is that something of the past?
Staff in technology departments are often not notably well remunerated and departments are generally understaffed and reliant on consultants or contractors. In this kind of environment, how can treasurers persuade the board to buy the best, not just the transitional make-good? Can they identify the best? And can ‘best’ be translated into metrics that relate to business value or competitive advantage? What can you expect from a systems implementation?
Plus, what are the current trends in TMS technology? What are providers developing for the future? How do you ensure scalability for the future? Vendors will be on hand to answer your questions.
In this workshop you will learn:
Treasury’s success and perhaps its existence, will be determined by advances in technology. But how can treasurers hope to keep up with advances in so many different fields and still do their day job? The best way to understand the many strands of digital and FinTech innovation is to hear from the people doing the innovating. Treasury Lab will take place in the exhibition hall. Sessions will be interactive and led by experts from corporate treasury, FinTech providers and banks
The most successful FinTechs won’t necessarily be those with the most backing, but investor enthusiasm is one gauge of where FinTech will impact treasury most significantly in the near future. That said, successful FinTech solutions need to address real treasury pain points and problems. They may integrate multiple existing systems for better data visibility or solve key connectivity issues; they may automatically create budgets, forecasts, and data visualisations; or they may offer functionality to SMEs previously only available to the largest MNCs. Hear the accelerators explain what they think is coming down the pike.
Alex Puig, Founder of Fintech Barcelona, SpainThe blockchain will affect corporates first in payments, right? Maybe not. Innovations will be adopted most eagerly where they solve the most pressing problems, and payments work pretty well. Trade finance, supply chain finance, identity management, collateral management and other inefficient, partly manual, sometimes insecure processes are more likely to be transformed simply because new solutions will be easier to sell where they are needed. Which solutions are ready for roll-out?
Aarti Rao, Managing Director, LiquidX, USPSD2 plus fintech equals bye bye banks? That is certainly one view – and book title. But giving third-parties access to bank data via APIs does raise the possibility that previously automatic relationships, lending, FX and cash management for example, break down as products and services become unbundled. The short-term benefits may be cheaper or easier to use products; but in the longer term, if customers abandon the concept of wallet and cherry pick services across banks and FinTechs, will their core lenders and payments infrastructure still be there? What does the latest snapshot of the FinTech ecosystem tell us about the future of corporate banking?
Craig Ramsay, Global Innovation Lead, Global Liquidity & Cash Management, HSBC, UKFinTech or next generation SCF providers are one example of how successful FinTech grows where it is most needed. Traditional SCF has proved unwieldy and unpopular, full of manual and paper processes. The new solutions are trying to address the key issues: making finance available to all of suppliers, not just the largest; solving the problems of supplier on-boarding; reducing the workload of standalone programmes by integrating with ERP systems to create fully automated and scalable programmes and maximising the ability to customise programmes to individual lender and borrower needs while lowering risk. Here’s how and here’s who.
Andy Nash, former SVP Finance Transformation, Royal Ahold Delhaize, SwitzerlandA number of surveys have shown that relatively few even large companies have significant Big Data projects. Worries over costs and the difficulty in predicting the value of these projects up front derail initiatives; and SMEs assume that this kind of investment puts Big data Data out of reach. Again, FinTech solutions that deliver Big Data aggregation, cleaning and analysis in the Cloud are the answer to these problems. So which products are available, who is using them and what results are they achieving?
Aniket Kulkarni, Director – Treasury & Trading, PwC, SwitzerlandTrade and trade finance are still among the most arduous, manual processes companies face. No surprise then that FinTech players have focused on everything from invoicing, bill of lading, border crossing and receivables financing. A number of these solutions use the blockchain to reduce the risk of documentary fraud, to create self-executing contracts, to provide traceability and authenticity of products in the supply chain and to provide a secure transfer of value and deliver a solution to the trade finance problem of endorsement. But with so many solutions in development, should treasurers watch and wait, or help with proof-of-concept? At the very least, understand these new developments by listening to the firms that are building them.
Daniel Cotti, CFO, TradeIX, UKMany countries present unique challenges for corporate treasury, whether from volatile macroeconomic and geo-political constraints or because of shifting regulatory landscapes, underdeveloped banking infrastructure, exchange controls, and liquidity and FX constraints to name but a few. How can companies navigate these environments, mitigate the risks and the impacts to the bottom line as well as to identify opportunities?
Join these small, interactive workshops with market briefings from the Economist Intelligence Unit and practical insights from corporate treasurers and banks active in these markets. There may be no outright solution to all the problems these markets pose, but this series will help you to benchmark your operations and question our panellists on how to do more effective business.
Moderated by:
Patrick Peters-Bühler, EuroFinance Tutor & CFO, Grupo Phoenix, US
Taking place in the exhibition hall, these 15 minute sessions are designed to give you the latest updates on important regulatory changes and top trending topics. Stay ahead of the game, understand the latest issues.
MiFID II is supposed to create a safe environment where the trading of derivative instruments will be transparent. What implications are there for companies and their risk management approach? What are the IT issues?
Vincenzo Dimase, Head of Market Development - Trading, Continental Europe,Thomson Reuters, ItalyWhat are the latest developments of the revised and simplified hedge accounting rules under IFRS 9? What are the practical challenges and opportunities from implementation?
Harald Fritsche, Director - Global Treasury Advisory Services, Deloitte, GermanyNew regulation and intraday liquidity principles: challenges, new opportunities and key impacts of instant payments on global cash management.
Domenico Scaffidi, Principal Solution Consultant Immediate Payments, ACI Worldwide, UKAre banks simply taking a reactive approach to PSD2 compliance and missing the point? There is a societal shift where decoupled services are integrated across multiple providers and therefore your customers will thrive whether you remain in business or not, no matter what the regulators enforce. This update will shed light on the longer term implications for corporate treasury.
Fredrik Lindström, Executive Vice President, CIO Corporates & Institutions, Danske BankFrom May 2018 most companies that do business within the EU and hold personal data about EU residents will have to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This means it impacts companies globally not just in Europe. The risk management issue is massive. If companies fail to comply, the end result could be bankruptcy.
Colm Murphy, Director, Cybersecurity and Information Resilience, BSI Group, UKArtificial intelligence has moved from science fiction to business tool in the blink of a robot's eye. Across sectors as diverse as finance, law, healthcare, transport and energy, the practical applications of AI are becoming increasingly clear: AI is the only way organisations can make sense of the huge volumes of data they now generate and it can deliver fast, actionable insights. AI can drive automated financial advisors and planners in banking and across corporations this technology can be used to deliver the answers to complex data-intensive questions direct to senior management. So what does this mean for treasury? Is AI the technology that frees treasurers from the problems of data overload and solves core problems of Big Data analytics and visibility? Or, since strategic treasury is all about delivering business insights derived from its visibility into enterprise data, does AI look more like a technology that threatens the existence of treasury altogether.
George Zarkadakis, Digital Lead, Willis Towers Watson, UK Adam Rutherford, Writer, Broadcaster, Scientific Adviser on AI & Robotics for films Ex Machina, Life, Annihilation, UKIt’s easy to think of Big Data as just more data – a bigger dataset to plug into existing analytics to deliver more accurate results. And it is true that better data gathering, automation and digitalisation, as well as new data sources such as social media, are creating vast new data flows. But it would be more accurate to think of the data revolution in terms of Big Analytics. It is advances in statistical and computational methods, the development of ‘Big Algorithms’, that can generate new insights and allows machines to outperform even the most knowledgeable groups of experts in fields as diverse as medicine, cosmology and the law. Hear how these general principles can be applied to any data to drive more accurate forecasts and valuable insights which previously would have remained hidden.
Chris Wigley, Partner, McKinsey & COO of QuantumBlack, UKDespite high-profile initiatives such as R3 and the individual endeavours of individual banks and companies, usable blockchain products have been thin on the ground. But is that about about to change? In finance, HSBC has proclaimed that ‘blockchain technology could revolutionise trade’; seven of the world’s leading global banks, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Société Générale and UniCredit have announced an agreement in principle to develop a shared blockchain platform to make cross-border commerce easier for SMEs and Citibank has invested in post-trade blockchain innovator Cobalt. Away from pure finance, companies including Bosch, BNY Mellon, Cisco, Foxconn, and Gemalto have joined a collaborative effort with a number of startups to develop a blockchain-based Internet of Things protocol; in the legal industry blockchains transform the entire contract process; and Accenture has called blockchain the ‘perfect technology’ for the airline industry. If 2017 is the year that blockchain initiatives finally begin to generate real-world applications, where are they most likely to appear and how will they affect treasury
Simon Taylor, Co-Founder, Director of Blockchain, 11:FS, UKThe FinTech revolution poses significant risks to the stability of the financial services sector, says Bank of England governor Mark Carney, and may require new regulation. One issue: FinTech’s disruption of the business models of traditional banks could increase liquidity risks for the broader financial system and “the opening up of the customer interface and payment services business, could, in time, signal the end of universal banking as we know it.” But the promise of FinTech also means lower pricing, better efficiency and even potentially more robust security for the finance function and your banks. Authorities around the globe are pushing innovation and creating safe spaces to understand and promote the right development. At the same time they are promoting their countries as key players that will shape the future of FinTech and banking. Here they share their views.
Moderated by:When the Big Picture is so uncertain, it’s easy to take your eye off the basics. Trump, blockchain and artificial intelligence will undoubtedly change the world, but you still need to make payments and manage your bank accounts. So what are the problems that still plague treasury and what are the latest solutions to fix them?
For all the talk of innovation, many corporates’ cross-border payment infrastructure remains largely unchanged. Treasurers’ problems are much the same too: visibility on FX rates used for conversions; use of offshore subs simply to make foreign payments; difficulty in reconciling payments and invoices because of limits on payment information; a lack of real-time visibility into transaction status. Before treasurers worry too much about bypassing banks through the use of e-wallets or focus too much on the blockchain, they need to solve these bread-and-butter problems. For a start, have you quantified how changes to your existing payment processes could reduce costs, the risks of fraud and reconciliation failures? SWIFT’s global payments initiative should help with transaction progress reporting but what are the other priorities for payments? And who needs to be involved across the business? How can you streamline your payments processes?
Laurent Marret, General Manager Operations, ArcelorMittal Treasury, FranceKnow your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations continue to create problems for both corporate and their banking counterparties. As the demands of regulators escalate, the requirements around KYC have become extensive and the volume of requested personal and legal documentation to corporates has increased exponentially. Combine this with inconsistent regulatory interpretations and then multiply it by each institution that a corporate has, or wants to have a relationship with – the result is a time-consuming, complicated and highly-repetitive administrative headache that needs to be brought under control. The KYC Utility model is emerging to support both financial institutions and corporates streamline and simplify the management and distribution of KYC documentation from through a single, secure platform. In this session we explore the KYC Utility model and listen to how one treasurer has leveraged it to minimize the impact of responding to KYC requests on critical treasury function.
Damian Glendinning, VP & Treasurer, Lenovo, SingaporeCorporates are doing more business in Africa. So how can treasury support these initiatives while maintaining some version of best practice across a vast and diverse continent? One answer is to set up a regional treasury centre and the three leading contenders at present are Dubai, South Africa and Mauritius, each with their own particular pros and cons. Even with an RTC, the diversity of regulations and tax regimes makes even basic cash management difficult, with trapped cash a significant problem. However, as this treasurer will explain, the environment is changing rapidly not least because of the rapid adoption of new digital and mobile solutions in banking and payments. Just as happened in telecommunications, Africa looks set to leapfrog an entire ecosystem of legacy technologies and move straight to digitalisation. What does this mean for corporates operating in the region and are there lessons to be learned here that can be taken back to the so-called ‘developed’ markets?
Andrew Mills, Group Treasury Manager, MultiChoice, South AfricaAccounts receivable (AR) management can be one of the weakest areas of treasury. Poor planning and enforcement, plus conflict with the business, can mean cash is tied up with customers for far longer than necessary. Even when bills are paid, companies often take too long to recognise the fact. So before embarking on the complex road to a collection factory, treasury must make sure the basics are in place: do all customers have defined credit and payment terms and are those terms recorded so that they are acted on? Is invoicing accurate and timely? When cash is received how quickly and accurately is it reconciled with invoices and recognised? If any of these processes are weak, working capital suffers and the task of extracting cash late payers is made even more difficult. If treasury is happy with the KPIs of the core AR system, then it’s time to look at virtual accounts, automation and STP and how to maximise the benefits modern ERP systems can bring to collections. Finally, treasurers must understand how innovations in payments feed through to the collections process.
Aroon Dasappa, Senior Vice President Finance, Tata Communications, Mumbai, IndiaIn the funding markets, investors are worried about the price of corporate bonds; treasurers are worried about rising rates and issuing as much as they can. When it comes to excess cash, the roles are reversed. Treasurers fret about inflation and rates, structural changes to core investment vehicles and political risk. In this stream hear how your peers plan to negotiate the challenges in capital raising and liquidity management.
With interest rates still near all-time lows and macro-economic uncertainty increasing, surely now it a good time to review capital structures and funding programmes and prepare for rising rates? This is partly an economic question: if uncertainty is going to hold rates down, then restructuring makes little sense; if inflation and politics pushes rates up, it does. But it's partly a market question and one way to gauge the market's mood is to look at changes in the covenants in the bond and loan markets. In 2016, covenants in both were extremely lax, reflecting the easy conditions. However, in 2017 we may be seeing the first signs of a lender/investor pushback. In the bond markets, borrowers scrapped language in new bond offerings that would have spared them from paying a make-whole premium in the event of a default (from a simple covenant breach to actual bankruptcy). In the loan markets, lenders are starting to rebel against ever looser definitions of EBITDA and have been shaken by events such as J Crew's transfer of IP into an unrestricted subsidiary. Are the good times over?
Ravi Jacob, Vice President & Treasurer, Intel Corporation, USIt is a market assumption that because most investors are limited to buying rated paper, and still value the transparency that a rating confers, obtaining a rating will lower funding costs. So the standard evaluation nets the savings to be made by having a rating against the cost, work and management time involved with obtaining one. However, this isn't always true! This debate will cover companies that are both unrated and rated, why they made the decision they did; how to analyse the implications for funding costs and the processes involved in funding with or without a rating. What are the key considerations? How can treasurers analyse their own positions? And at what point does a company think it will be compelled to obtain a formal rating? This panel will feature an unrated company talking about why they made that decision alongside others that chose to be rated.
Andrea Talpo, Group Vice President - Corporate Treasury, STMicroelectronics, SwitzerlandGetting companies to view working capital strategically has been slow. This has partly been because without an accurate global picture of cash, and without the structures in place to maximise it, working capital optimisation has been more theory than practice. But today, with the 2,000 leading US and European companies having an estimated trillion dollars or more tied up, and with the tools available to get that number down, boards have noticed. They’ve also noticed the studies that show that every $1 locked up in net operating capital is worth 52 cents less for shareholders than $1 held in cash that can be invested in growing a business. CEO business reviews now routinely include elements of working capital as metrics, pushing WCM into operations, supply chain, procurement, IT and even sales. Treasury’s job is to turn this newly strategic imperative into results. In this session this treasurer looks at some of the new tools and techniques that have boosted working capital at their firm
Jan-Martin Nufer, Director, Treasury & Funding, Borealis Group, AustriaIn the wake of substantial money market fund reform, with rates and inflation rising, and, in the US at least, the possibility of changes to the tax constraints that trap cash offshore, treasurers face a particularly uncertain outlook for their cash portfolios. Treasurers need to keep abreast of all the available options, including the use of money market funds. Having gone through an extended period of reform, now is an excellent time to assess what the changes will mean for you. What fund products will be available to help in the new world? This session takes an in-depth look at money market fund reform and the impact this will have on treasurers’ liquidity management strategies in today’s uncertain times
Jane Lowe, Secretary General, IMMFA, UKIn one sense, treasury has never been more strategic. Given current levels of volatility and uncertainty, its protection of the business against them, and its help in exploiting them, is business critical. Digitalisation requires the re-engineering of every system and process in the business: treasury is a key partner in this transformation.
HP’s recent split into two new independent and publicly-traded companies was undertaken to optimize financial growth opportunities, and to enhance capital allocation and future cash flows. Zac Nesper, VP & assistant treasurer, HP will detail the journey, looking at works streams such as banking, technology and systems, capital markets, FX risk management and others. This session will provide valuable lessons learned that are applicable equally to those setting up treasury as to those doing spin-offs. What were the insurmountable obstacles? What were the lessons learned? How would they do things differently is they were to do the process again? What were the accomplishments of which treasury was most proud?
Zac Nesper, VP & Assistant Treasurer, HP, USOne of the commonest conflicts within businesses is that between the centre and the frontline. Sales people struggling to open new markets do not take kindly to central dictats on KYC or payment terms. Business unit chiefs chafe against the constraints of corporate risk management policies. To change this perception, central functions such as treasury must deliver solutions with obvious business benefits. That way, instead of being seen as ”computer says no”, they become partners from whom the business seeks advice. Often overlooked intermediaries in this process are your banks. As well as delivering the core services that can relieve administrative stress and improve business processes, large transaction banking specialists have long experience in helping to deliver strategic advice and business change, from helping with TMS and ERP systems to explaining the most effective ways to borrow, move cash and manage risks in difficult new markets. Here’s how one treasurer leveraged their bank’s expertise to build a better relationship with the business.
Albert Grifols Coma-Cros, Managing Director & Global Treasurer, Grifols Worldwide Operations Ltd., SpainWe’ve all heard the pitch: SCF is a win-win, with suppliers gaining predictability of cash flows and MNCs increasing DPOs and boosting working capital without increasing risk in the supply chain. Usually it sounds too good to be true. Often seems little more than a way to make suppliers pay their large customers for paying before 120 days. That aside, establishing and ensuring utilisation of SCF facilities is not a simple process. Simply choosing from the complex array of programmes is difficult; winning over stakeholders with a vested interest such as treasury, procurement, legal, accounting, audit and IT departments can stop an SCF programme in its tracks. And then there is the question of single or multi bank solution. In this session the treasurer will go through the opportunities and challenges of setting up a SCF program. What are the typical goals? What stands in the way? And how to measure success? He will also give practical examples that quantify the operational and financial impacts and will look at structuring, pricing, supplier onboarding and platform/process set-up.
Andrew Wilson, Global Finance Process Lead, AstraZeneca, UKAn often overlooked variable in the ‘strategic treasury’ discussion is visibility. The strategic treasury should be aligned with the company’s mission and financial priorities, as defined by the board and c-suite. The development of treasury dashboards, themselves a spin-off from the improved financial technology spreading through corporates, for the first time gives senior management a regular and easy-to-understand insight into core treasury activities and their performance. But, Treasury must define KPIs that support company’s strategic objectives and avoid the distraction of its own operational mechanics and the pitfalls of data fatigue. Typical KPIs include debt, cash visibility, counterparty exposure, value at risk, cost of funds. This process is easiest for larger firms with sophisticated IT infrastructure, with a TMS linked to the ERP and other systems. However, every treasury can benefit from developing KPIs and ensuring that they reach senior management, as this treasurer explains.
Fred Schacknies, SVP & Treasurer, Hilton, US'Best practice' can be a nebulous term, but what does it really mean when applied to treasury? What concrete, measurable steps can treasurers take to ensure that they are meeting the highest standards? And what does 'best practice' look like in the different contexts of particular sectors or business scales?
Amazon treasury has had to keep pace with a company that has grown from $6 billion to $136 billion in revenue between 2004 and 2017. Here they tell their story about how treasury has been involved and what that has meant in terms of managing cash, foreign exchange and associated systems and processes as well as the implications for financing the business. Hear about the direct organizational impacts and changes that treasury was required to undergo during this journey of building scalable infrastructure for the future.
Sean Patterson, Assistant Treasurer, Amazon, USTurning round treasury post-merger in a private equity hothouse is one of the toughest tests. The lessons learned have applications across all treasuries, especially those struggling with centralisation and technology issues. This company, formed by a three-way merger in 2014, has the typical leverage and need for cash generation of a PE-owned business with the additional challenges caused by the merger. Initial problems included a de-centralised organisation with some finance teams abroad; a time consuming and error prone cash reporting and forecasting process; a TMS in place but not exploited to its full capabilities and hundreds of bank accounts at a double-digit number of banks with no central overview. The basic project objectives will be familiar to every treasurer: daily global cash positioning; automated or semi-automated, bank-independent cash pooling; enhancing the cash reporting and forecasting processes; gaining better insights into FX risks and authorisation policies; a streamlined payment process; and making savings in both interest and direct costs via process optimisation. In this session the treasurer explains how they have begun to solve these issues by selecting a new TMS system, benefiting from newly available technologies, reinforcing the treasury team and overcoming the leverage problem that made bank relationships harder. And they show how treasury rationalisation can be seen as a template for the rest of the organisation.
Albert Hollema, Group Treasurer, Endemol Shine Group, The NetherlandsBest practice centralisation is beginning to demand heavy tech lifting. After the easiest inefficiencies are removed, the next steps can be expensive and complex. If you don't have a single-instance ERP, should you move straight to a hybrid Cloud ERP? How feasible is full payment centralisation through POBO for your organisation and what types of payment factory or shared service centre can act as a stepping stone? And then there is the receivables piece of the jigsaw: what problems do virtual accounts solve and which do they leave? And is COBO a realistic proposition for most companies? In this session our cross-sector experts will take you through their thinking on how to come up with a new blueprint for global treasury management:
While it is true that the current political upheavals create their own complexities and event risks, treasurers are still really faced with managing the same exposures they always have: FX, interest rate and counterparty credit. What's really changing is how technology is enabling the better management of these risks and how, increasingly, businesses are changing the way they think about them.
Country risk is no longer an esoteric pursuit of academics at supra-national lenders. The violent political lurches seen in the developed world, and the inability of some developing countries to manage their public finances have turned it into a core operating problem for any multi-national. For treasurers, the challenge is to create actionable data and commentary from which business decisions can be made. In this session, this treasurer explores how they have developed a country risk framework that defines ‘high-risk’ countries using quantitative and qualitative assessment and how the companies can approach the framework of ‘risk adjusted return’ allowing management to compare the cost of doing business in different countries on a level playing field. How is this assessment communicated to stakeholders? What are the right scorecards for them? What are the challenges of implementing such a framework? And what are the key elements of a ‘play book’ – the actions needed to mitigate the country risk proactively before the ‘trapped cash’ problem hits home and enable businesses to continue transacting in this difficult environment?
Ahmet Gokcen, Director of Financial Risk Management EMEAI, Dow Chemical Company, SwitzerlandThis panel will investigate known and potential third party cyber risks and opportunities for corporate treasurers.The discussion will be based on the results of a new global EIU survey of corporate treasurers across industry sectors which examines their preparedness for the risks posed by cyber criminals. This Deutsche Bank sponsored report, now in its third year, examines how criminals are increasingly capable of exploiting internal and third party system weaknesses to access company platforms, data, and potentially even financial accounts.The panel will cover a number of relevant questions including:
Given the current unpredictability of both developed and developing markets, it is better to model for a number of possible outcomes, rather than develop risk management and operating plans for just one or two. In this double session, our panelists will lead an interactive discussion around key treasury scenario planning issues:
Brexit: Should companies model a two-location strategy? What are the possible outcomes in cross-border payments and banking? What if the UK government pursues a low-tax strategy? Here the panel will work through the Brexit checklist: payment system access, withholding tax, passporting, other tax issues arising from changes to EU/UK tax treaties and cross border trade. US radicalism? Again tax is a key issue: lower corporate tax rates and a possible amnesty on offshore cash, versus protectionism and penalties for offshoring jobs. With boosts to energy, defence and infrastructure, is the new US enough of a growth market to make foreign risks less attractive? China/Asia: Aside from the perennial issue of a Chinese slowdown, there is now the risk of a trade war with the US. The solar power industry shows one possible result: US firms forced to move to China. What other examples can treasurers use to try to figure out the unintended consequences of political action? Europe at a cross-roads: Greece is still bust; Italy's banks are still shaky; the political far-right is still a threat and the elite still seems unable to break from outmoded solutions. Do treasurers have to model the unthinkable – a European break-up – or is it too complex? In the meantime then, are the key issues country-specific or regulatory? Frances Hinden, Vice President, Treasury Operations, Shell International Ltd, UKTechnology is the answer to every problem and the cause of most of them – at least that’s how it can seem. Treasury in particular seems to have become a never-ending IT project. So is the treasurer’s main job to manage the technology transition from spreadsheets and legacy systems to redundancy as humans become unnecessary? In this process, what are the key steps from now: TMS upgrades, the Cloud, single-instance ERP, AI, RPA? And which systems and suppliers suit which types of corporate?
Traditionally, working capital finance has been provided by intermediaries with little incentive to create transparency or to make cash readily available for all companies. In this old model, borrowed working capital is risk-based and requires underwriting by third-party financial institutions. Traditional SCF programmes are part of this mechanism, with terms imposed upon suppliers by larger buyers. Called a win-win, users clearly do not agree: with around $40 trillion of invoices due for payment at any point in time globally, just $2-3 trillion of invoice finance is available from financial institutions. The ideal SCF solution would allow dynamic discounting tailored to suit the exact requirements of the borrower and the risk appetite of the lender. It would eliminate most risk by being based on approved invoices and it would operate as a transparent marketplace in which lenders’ and borrowers’ needs are transparently matched. Such a platform exists. Here a treasurer explains how it is helping to bring liquidity to business supply chains and to give companies visibility of their entire chain, enabling them to pay suppliers early, utilising excess cash to generate a return.
Piyal Fernando, Implementation Manager, DHL Inventory Finance Services, GermanyGlobal treasury transformations are nothing new in an ever evolving and increasingly automated world. While various major corporations have gone through this exercise in the last decade following the financial crisis, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution with every journey presenting its own challenges and sources of insights. How does a company define a global treasury strategy for a decentralised conglomerate organisation that operates brands and businesses across retail malls, real estate development, retail companies, automotive distributors and financial services? How do you develop a target operating model in the midst of large-scale corporate growth, accompanied with ongoing integration strategies? How to account for geographic and developmental specifics of the GCC, Asia and Africa? Cuan Duncan, Head of Treasury and Corporate Finance at Al-Futtaim offers insights on the ongoing Al-Futtaim Treasury Transformation journey as well as lessons learned from strategy definition to organisational design and TMS implementation.
Cuan Duncan, Head of Treasury & Corporate Finance, Al-Futtaim, UAEMicrosoft need no introduction. They have been a treasury leader for decades and a past winner for the EuroFinance Award for Excellence in International Treasury. The session will look at their best practice approach to in-house banking, POBO/ROBO, as well as cross entity/border cash and funding. Never standing still, now Microsoft are harnessing the power of Cloud, machine learning, blockchain, business intelligence and other technologies to use visualisations and interactive dashboards in order to provide real time visibility to minimise risks, make appropriate investment decisions and add genuine value to the business.
Jim Scurlock, Group Treasury Manager, Microsoft, USCompanies want increasingly centralised, digitalised and automated processes. They want controllable technology costs. And they want to focus resources on their core businesses, not worrying about the virtualisation of the data centre or advanced persistent threats. This corporate wanted to improve visibility into global cash, enhance the accuracy of cash forecasting and optimise its use of cash. They were also keen to implement a global, in-house banking program to optimise cash movement, reduce bank fees and FX translation costs and minimise physical cash movements. By moving to a Cloud-based Software-as-a-Service treasury management system they achieved their core goals as well as generating significant time savings from automating previously manual tasks such as logging into bank portals and calculating cash positions. In addition, implementing the Cloud solution has introduced scalability to the treasury team – and allows them to run more efficiently than larger peer organisations.
Yves Gimbert, Group Treasurer, Engie, FranceTreasury’s success and perhaps its existence, will be determined by advances in technology. But how can treasurers hope to keep up with advances in so many different fields and still do their day job? The best way to understand the many strands of digital and FinTech innovation is to hear from the people doing the innovating. Treasury Lab will take place in the exhibition hall. Sessions will be interactive and led by experts from corporate treasury, FinTech providers and banks
The evolution of the payments ecosystem has become so rapid that few outside the race itself can fully understand it. And focusing on the innovations in B2C user experiences can mask the far more profound changes in the underlying plumbing of the payments system. PSD2, other regulatory changes, real time payments and SWIFT’s GPII are all part of a tipping point in the development of global payment infrastructure. But where does treasury fit in? The end-user payment experience is determined by third-parties, not the corporate producer of the product or service. So what role should treasury play in the new digital channels? Should in-house banks take control of commercial flows and digital development? Or will companies outsource more and more of their interaction with customers, leaving treasury to just plug in to third-party apps? If so, what are the risks?
Brian Hanrahan, Chief Commercial Officer, Nuapay, UKThe payments landscape is changing and in just a few years will be unrecognisable. Banks are under threat from nimble Fintech companies popping out of the woodwork at an alarming rate and many will not survive. Many believe that new technologies like blockchain will render old ways obsolete. In this panel session we will look at some of the innovation in this space; who is competing with who and who are the likely winner: you decide when they put their case to the test. SWIFT GPI (global payments innovation) is the payment network's response to the dramatic changes in the market. Already more than 100 banks are actively using the service. Critics say it is clinging to an outdated correspondent banking model while supporters say the trust and security of using SWIFT is what corporates demand. Meanwhile nipping at its heel is Ripple with a blockchain offering that will offer flexibility, immediacy and better efficiency although detractors would say that it is not clear if new technologies are viable and scalable to the amount that large corporates would need. This panel will discuss the environment, the innovation and what its likely outcome might be.
Simon Taylor, Co-Founder, Director of Blockchain, 11:FS, UK Marc Delbaere, Head of Corporates and Supply Chain, SWIFT, BelgiumThe time of sailing in the dark seems to finally come to an end. Indeed, the OECD faces the summer heat in a frantic attempt to meet its deadline for the publication of the first ever official draft guidance on the transfer pricing aspects of financial transactions. This guidance could impact each and every multinational on how they structure their intercompany treasury operations. What can be expected?
During the workshop, we will have an interactive discussion on how the new trends impact your treasury organisation and our views what the future will bring?
David Ledure, Partner, PwC, BelgiumTaking place in the exhibition hall, these 15 minute sessions are designed to give you the latest updates on important regulatory changes and top trending topics. Stay ahead of the game, understand the latest issues.
Optimising customer interaction and the infrastructure to support payment and settlement - particularly in multiple markets - is often testing. Fraud prevention, scheme fee rules, Merchant Category Codes and local payment preferences, to name a few, can be daunting obstacles for merchants of any size.
Callum Godwin, Head of Knowledge and Product Development, CMSPI, UKHow quickly are bitcoins and other crypto currencies being adopted and what are some of their innovative uses in the corporate world? What is the situation with regulators?
Thiago Cesar, CEO, Bit.One, BrazilLibor will be phased out as the main index in the market by the end of 2021. Could this be the start of a completely new vision for how banks lend to each other or to companies? Everything else is changing in finance so why not this benchmark?
Joshua Roberts, Financial Risk Consultant, JCRA, UKBanking is being disintermediated by FinTechs, right? Well, what about the re-intermediation of banks by the providers of “global ACH” networks? What about the bank-driven accelerators producing bank-owned FinTech innovators? What about bank-FinTech collaboration? Yes, PSD2 throws open banks’ customers to third-parties via APIs, but it is not at all clear that the disintermediation seen in consumer financial services extends in the same way to the corporate world. It seems equally likely that banks, co-operating in new networks, and offering a new level of plug-and-play products and services via their own FinTechs or in collaboration with new players, will hold on to their key roles in the provision of transaction services. Few people have the breadth of knowledge to look across the whole of FinTech and banking to see the trends, the winners and the losers. One of them is Brett King, bestselling author, founder and CEO of Moven (the first downloadable bank) and a consultant to companies such as Google, Microsoft and Oracle. He is also host of the popular Breaking Banks radio show. You may not care too much about how the world’s financial plumbing will be transformed, but you do need to know which banks will win the innovation wars, which FinTechs to watch and how to identify them and what you need to benefit from the next generation of transaction banking products and services. He can tell you.
Brett King, World-renowned Futurist, International Bestselling Author, Founder & CEO, Moven, USFor people, societies and businesses, the world seems an unstable place. Political and economic certainties are being swept away; globalisation and democracy seem under threat; new technologies are undermining traditional notions of the company, the job and even the government. But are we getting carried away by connectivity and digitalisation? Are we instead going back to an era of hard power, the nation state and zero-sum game competition? And in a de-globalising, protectionist world, does business need to re-learn old methods? On this panel, we pit representatives of the key theories against each other: those who believe the future will be shaped less by countries than by connectivity, those who believe globalisation has gone too far and those who believe we are entering an era of resource conflicts. They can’t predict the future, but their insights into the key big-picture trends of the present will give you pause for thought.
Marcos Troyjo, BRICLab Director, Columbia University, USThe annual EuroFinance Treasury Award for Excellence is the benchmark for treasury. Every year the theme changes to reflect a key trend that has emerged in treasury over recent times. This year the theme is The Intelligent Treasury. Treasury is no different than any other function. From manual, de-centralised and heterogeneous, it must standardise, centralise and digitalise. But that is not enough. Even before most businesses have worked out how to execute a digital transformation, the ability to use digital information flows intelligently, the incorporation of robotic automation and artificial intelligence and the concept of ‘smart’ – networked intelligence – are already becoming key differentiators. This year’s treasury award looks at a company who have recognised the need to be ‘smart’ and have made progress in the journey towards the intelligent treasury. New this year: we are awarding a winner in each category:
Dr Adam Rutherford is a scientist, writer and broadcaster. He's written several books and presented television programmes on science and culture, and presented many radio programmes including most recently, on the rise of AI and robotics over a 3000 year history. Adam also acted as scientific adviser on AI and robotics for the Oscar-winning film Ex Machina, as well as other films, including Life (2017), and Annihilation (2017). Adam's latest book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is the story of the whole of human history, retold with DNA as a text, everyone and everything from Neanderthals to serial killers, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics. Adam is the presenter of the flagship science programme on BBC Radio 4, Inside Science, as well as The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry, and a host of other Radio 4 documentaries on subjects ranging from the inheritance of intelligence, MMR and autism, epigenetics, human evolution, astronomy and art, science and cinema, scientific fraud, and the evolution of sex. He’s also a regular guest on the Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox and Robin Ince. On television he’s written and presented many documentaries, including The Beauty of Anatomy – a five-part series for BBC4 (2014) on the story of anatomical art. Horizon: Playing God (BBC2, Jan 2012) on genetic engineering and synthetic biology (winner of Golden Dragon Awards, Shanghai, 2012); The Gene Code (BBC4, Apr 2011), and The Cell (BBC4, Sept 2009) - a three-part series charting the story of biology- (winner Best Documentary at the ABSW awards (2010) & listed in the Daily Telegraph’s list of 10 Classic science programmes.) Adam’s background is in genetics and evolution. He did a PhD at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond St Hospital, studying the role of genes involved in the development of the eye. He worked at the science journal Nature, during which time he launched and presented the award-winning Nature Podcast and produced and directed many short films, including a music video tribute to the retiring Space Shuttle. As a result, he has an Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number of 15. Adam has also worked on many films as scientific adviser, including LIFE and Ex Machina. Adam lectures extensively at UCL, where he has an Honorary Fellowship, and in public all around the world, including prestigious events such as the Douglas Adam’s Memorial Lecture, the British Humanist Association’s Darwin Day Lecture, The BFI, the Hay Festival, and the Cheltenham Literary and Science Festivals. He co-authored a study on the effects of video games on adolescents and violence in 2016.
Ahmet Gokcen is the Director of Financial Risk Management, EMEAI, for Dow Chemical and is based in Zurich. He joined Dow in 1996 and held various positions in the US and Europe covering a broad range of financial activities including cash management, credit management, corporate finance and financial risk management. He holds a master’s (magister) degree from Vienna University of Economics and Business (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien).
Alexander Foltin is the Group Treasurer of Infineon, the Munich-based global semiconductor manufacturer. His global responsibilities include corporate finance, bank relations, cash and liquidity management, risk management, credit and collection, insurance, pension asset management and M&A valuations. Mr. Foltin has worked in different roles at Infineon since 2004 and has been instrumental in a variety of financial transactions and projects. Previously, Mr. Foltin has been a strategy consultant for five years at The Boston Consulting Group in Munich and Madrid. His broad experience also includes general finance roles at start-up companies. Mr. Foltin holds a degree in Business Administration from WHU Koblenz School of Management and is a CFA charterholder.
Andreas Resei is the European Treasurer of the Mondi. After his studies and several years of gaining experience in a bank, he worked in corporate treasuries mainly in the paper and packaging industry. He joined Mondi in 2001. In recent years he was deeply involved in the development and implementation of centralized payment solutions.
Cathy has been involved with Treasury or Treasury related functions in a multi- national environment for 30+ years. As the Assistant Treasurer and Director of Global Risk Management at Hitachi Data Systems, she is responsible for Global Treasury Operations including Banking, FX, Cash Forecasting and Liquidity, Debt, Investments, Financing Solutions, Insurance and anything else Treasury needs to do to support the company’s continued growth throughout the world.
Chris became the Chief Executive of The Economist Group in July 2013, he has been with the Group for ten years. Prior to becoming CEO, he ran the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for three years, overseeing its growth in customised bespoke solutions, Asia and healthcare markets. He had previously been the Chief Financial Officer for the Group. Before joining the Group, Chris had various roles in finance, business development and general management in varied organisations such as Pearson, ICI and Incisive Media. He graduated as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young in 1989 and is also a Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers
David Blair puts his 25 years of treasury and management experience to work for a broad range of clients through Acarate in Singapore. After starting his career with Price Waterhouse, David went on to set up international treasury operations for ABB and Nokia. David became Group Treasurer at Nokia, and subsequently Vice President of Treasury at Huawei.
Doug joined The Priceline Group Inc. in 2014 as Corporate Treasurer. Doug oversees funding, investments, cash management, share repurchase, insurance, risk management and bank relations. Priceline’s brands include; Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, Agoda.com, rentalcars.com and Open Table. Prior to Priceline, Doug spent 7 years at GE Capital, 7-years at IBM, 2-years at the Hertz Corporation and 8-years as a money markets trader at Fuji Bank Ltd.
With broad Treasury experience, Francisco de Barros has been working with IHB implementations since 2009 and has played a key strategic role in the IHB implementations at Tyco International, Pentair Inc. and most recently at Abbvie Inc. where he has helped to design the TMI award winning Treasury operations model for Abbvie upon its spin-off from Abbott Laboratories.
Dr. Pippa Malmgren is a trend spotter who advises investors and governments about economic policy and investment strategy. She anticipated the Financial Crisis in 2007, the slowdown in China, Brexit, Trump and the return of inflation. She is also an economist who manufactures, having co-founded), H Robotics which makes commercial-use aerial platforms (drones). She was named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Economists by Richtopia and one of the Top 5 Women in Finance by Rise in 2017.
She is a Non Executive Board Member of the new Department of International Trade in the UK, advising on Brexit. She also serves on the British Ministry of Defence Working Group on Global Strategic Trends and briefs Britain’s top Generals at Sandhurst. She serves on several advisory boards and working groups: She Chairs the Lewis PR Advisory Board (LAB) and is an advisor to Real Vision TV, on the board of Ditchley Park, the Greater London Authority Infrastructure Advisory Board and Indiana University School of Public Policy and Environmental Affairs as well as the Indiana University Manufacturing Initiative.
As an economist, she is focussed on innovation across the board, but keenly explains how new technologies solve old problems and generate new forms of growth. In 2015 she won the Intelligence Squared Debate on Robotics alongside Walter Isaacson, which was broadcast by the BBC to 80 million homes worldwide. Dell featured her on their Dell Entrepreneur Spotlight Series. The BBC has interviewed her on science and technology on Hardtalk. She began her career at the OECD in Paris in 1992 in the Science and Technology Directorate.
In 2016 her book Signals: How Everyday Signs Can Help Us Navigate the World’s Turbulent Economy became a best-seller on Amazon in four categories after being crowd-funded on Indiegogo (249% of the target in just 15 days). She also wrote Geopolitics for Investors, which was commissioned by the CFA.
She is a former Presidential Advisor who served on The National Economic Council in the White House where she was the point person on Enron and Terrorism Risks to the Economy after 911. She was the initial negotiator on Sarbanes Oxley and the Patriot Act and was on the President’s Working Group on Corporate Governance and the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.
She founded DRPM Group, an economic advisory firm helping global firms understand the economic landscape. She was the Deputy Head of Strategy for UBS and the Chief Currency Strategist for Bankers Trust. She also ran Bankers Trust’s Asset Management business in Asia from Hong Kong. She was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum.
She has written on technology and economics and has been published in Wired Magazine, Monocle, The International Economy, Economia, Institutional Investor Die Handelsblatt, and The New Statesman other publications. She has an M.Sc. and a PhD from LSE. She completed the Harvard Program on National Security and participated in the Pentagon’s Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC). She has lectured at Tsinghua University in China, LSE, INSEAD and the Duke Fuqua Global Executive MBA Program. She is a regular guest anchor for CNBC, Bloomberg and often on the BBC (radio and TV). She gave the Commencement Address at the graduation ceremony for the London School of Economics in 2013 and 2016.
Frank Waechter joined PUMA 6 years ago as Senior Head of Treasury & Insurance and is an active member in the Risk Management working group of the German Treasurers Association. In 2016 the PUMA Treasury Team won the European Innovation Award in Supply Chain Finance of the SCF-Forum and was shortlisted as “Treasury of the Year 2016” of the Treasurer magazine. At PUMA Frank is responsible for all Treasury and Insurance matters within the Group and heads a team of 7 specialists based in Herzogenaurach / Germany. Before this he worked 6 years for a pharmaceutical company where he established the mid office function and was promoted later on to company’s Head of Global Treasury. Frank started his career as a consultant with Bearing Point where he finally became a manager in the Corporate Treasury Solutions team. Frank holds a business administration degree of the university of Wuerzburg / Germany and has done an apprenticeship at former Hypobank.
George Zarkadakis is the Director of Willis Towers Watson’s Digital Incubator; as well as the leader of the Future of Work Strategy Advisory Services for GB and Western Europe. He has over 25 years’ experience in management consulting, media, marketing and communications, as well as in digital strategy and innovation. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and is the author of “In Our Own Image: will Artificial Intelligence Save Us or Destroy Us?” (Rider Books). He blogs regularly in the Huffington Post on Artificial Intelligence and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Currently, Graeme serves as Assistant Treasurer at Boston Scientific where he oversees corporate financing strategies and the foreign exchange risk management program. Previously at Boston Scientific, Graeme oversaw global treasury operations managing the company’s global treasury services and implementation of a global supply chain finance program Prior to Boston Scientific, Graeme served as Treasurer of Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm as.
Jeremy Hamon is a board member of Primetals Financial Services & Corporate Treasurer for Primetals. He joined Siemens UK in 2008 as Treasury Manager prior to joining the Headquarter in Munich. He accompanied the carve-out of the Metal Technologies division from Siemens to become Primetals Technologies, a newly formed joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 2015. The leading Steel engineering company is present in 20 countries with 32 legal entities.
Johan Nystedt has joined Conagra Brands over one year ago where he leads Global Treasury and Enterprise Risk Management, including Capital Markets, Risk, Treasury Operations, Insurance, Credit and Benefit Investments. He is also a member of the Finance Leadership Team and chair the Risk Oversight Committee. Prior to Conagra Johan spent 5 years as Global Treasurer, Head of IR and Business Development at Levi Strauss & Co. in California. Before joining Levi’s he has held treasury and risk management roles at Kraft Foods Inc., Altria Group, Inc. and Philip Morris International.
Mr. McAnulty was appointed Group Treasurer of Richemont, one of the leading luxury goods companies, in 2000 and is based in Geneva. In addition to coordinating all treasury activities he is responsible for overseeing the Group’s global pension and insurance programmes. Prior to joining Richemont, he worked from 1989 for SmithKline Beecham plc undertaking a variety of roles in finance and strategy development. From 1985, he worked for the Midland Bank group, first in its leasing subsidiary and subsequently in the banks central finance function. Born in the UK, Mr. McAnulty holds a degree in business studies and is a Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
Marcos Troyjo is co-founder and director of BRICLab at Columbia University, where he teaches international affairs. He is an op-ed columnist for Folha de S. Paulo and a regular commentator for global media outlets such as CNN en Español, The Huffington Post and Financial Times. He writes extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, rising powers, globalization, Brazil's political and economic prospects and Brazilian foreign policy. Professor Troyjo is also the president and founder of the Center for Business Diplomacy, a global advisory firm. His latest book, Deglobalization: Chronicle of a Changing World, was published in 2016.
With a career in banking spanning over 25 years in Africa, Maria joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2012, to head up Transaction Banking, Global Corporate Sales in Africa. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, she was at JP Morgan where she headed the Global Corporate Bank segment, with responsibility for building the Multinational portfolio in Africa. She also spent over 10 years at Citibank in Global Transaction Services. During this period she was responsible for Client Sales Management in Africa, across different segments. She started her banking career at ABSA Bank, in risk management and financial institutions. Prior to joining banking, Maria worked at Procter & Gamble’s Latin American Head Quarters in Caracas, Venezuela.
Mark O’Toole joined Openlink in 2006, and helped establish the Commodity Intensive Corporates (CIC) business within the company, responsible for treasury and commodities solutions. He has more than 20 years of experience working with Fortune 100 companies helping solve complex commodities risk. He previously worked at Dow Jones, SunGard Energy (formerly Caminus) and RiskMetrics (now MSCI). Mark is a regular speaker at EuroFinance and at numerous other industry conferences. Regularly quoted in the Wall Street Journal. Articles frequently published in: Treasury Today, GT News, Accounting Today, Manufacturing Global, Treasury Asia, Bob’s Guide, TMI Magazine, AFP Exchange, Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine, Risk Magazine & Co-Author of several commodities related white papers.
Treasury Director at Spotify. Spotify is the digital music service that provides on-demand access to a catalogue of more than 30 million tracks. My major responsibilities include rolling out and managing the company’s FX hedging program and the company’s financial investment portfolio. I joined Spotify 2015 after holding a Group Treasurer role at Dometic and various roles within treasury at Ericsson
Peter is a Senior EuroFinance tutor and experienced transaction banking professional with detailed knowledge of payment and settlement systems and financial market infrastructure. During 21 years at Citibank, he held senior roles in product management and has been chairman of the SWIFT Overseas Bank User Group and the UK APACS EDI Expert Panel. Since leaving Citibank in 2003, he has provided advisory services to banks and multinational corporates on best practice treasury and payment solutions, including co-ordinating the Payment Systems Vision 2020 strategy on behalf of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Peter holds a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Robert is the Group Treasurer for Associated British Foods plc, a diversified international food, ingredient and retail group with diverse funding requirements and extensive currency and commodity risks and operations in 50 countries around the world. Robert has a background in investment banking and corporate finance and holds a PhD in quantitative finance.
Bob has more than 30 years of corporate treasury experience in the roles of treasurer, credit director, finance manager and controller at BP America and Amoco Corporation. He has successfully managed post-acquisition integrations, technology upgrades and corporate restructurings. Currently, Bob is a partner with the Treasury Alliance Group, leveraging his corporate experience in client engagements dealing with global treasury, risk and crisis management; cash management and cash flow forecasting; working capital management; shared service operations and general management. He also shares his experiences by tutoring others in courses such as international cash and treasury management, corporate risk management and cash flow forecasting, as well as by chairing, moderating and speaking at treasury conferences worldwide.
Thomas Dunn is Chairman of Orbian and has over 20 years’ experience in financial services including banking, insurance and private equity. Prior to joining Orbian, Tom worked for 16 years with JP Morgan in London, Melbourne, Sydney and Tokyo. His experience was most focused upon debt capital markets, corporate finance and credit markets; and he was ultimately responsible for each of these businesses for JP Morgan in Asia Pacific. Tom is also the Chairman of Raglan Capital Limited, a Bermuda based private equity firm. Tom has a Masters of Arts Degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
Vincent Delort is a Risk and Reporting Manager in the Treasury department of Japan Tobacco International, responsible for FX risk management of future cash flows, as well as reporting the monthly Treasury results. He has been working in JTI since 2012.
Zac is Head of Finance, Assistant Treasurer responsible for the company’s Financial Markets, Global Treasury Consulting Services, and Enterprise/Global risk management teams. Financial Markets includes debt issuance, share repurchase, interest rate risk management, rating agency relations, cash forecasting, working capital programs and foreign exchange hedging. Zac also runs HP’s global banking infrastructure, cash positioning, and investments along with HP’s Enterprise risk management and insurance departments. Previously, Zac was VP & Assistant Treasurer of HP and prior to that held roles as Senior Director of HP’s Financial Markets Group, Fx Director, and Treasury Manager in Capital Markets. Prior to that, Zac managed the Imaging and Printing Group’s (IPG) Financial Planning and Analysis team (FP&A), and he also spearheaded an initiative to quantify the economics of IPG’s customer segments and routes to market. Zac also spent several years at ConAgra Foods where he led the company’s strategic and short-term planning processes as well as holding various roles in sales finance and accounting. Zac holds a B.A from Northwestern College in Economics and Finance where he graduated summa cum laude and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also a CFA charter holder. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters, and swimming. He has also completed two Ironman® Triathlons.
Sebastian leads PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Treasury Consulting practice. He is based in Geneva where he is responsible for a multi-disciplinary team of consultants, advising corporates on all aspects of their treasury activities, including risk management, treasury policies, processes, system selection and implementation, controls and accounting. Sebastian is a UK Chartered Accountant, a member of the ACT and has an MA in Law from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Tor Stian Kjøllesdal is Head of Internal Treasury in Corporate Finance in Statoil, responsible for cash management, internal bank and subsidiary treasury. He has been working in Statoil since 2005, and since 2008 held various management positions within cash and treasury management in Statoil’s SSC and corporate functions.
As VP, Treasury Operations, Frances is responsible for liquidity and foreign exchange, cash management, intra-group financing and treasury advice for the Shell Group. She joined Shell from Cambridge University in 1994 as a mathematician. She has had a variety of roles including financial modelling, MI, planning, and Pensions, joining Treasury in 2006. Frances plays bridge to international standard and enjoys skiing and walking.
After 21 years with IBM, Mr. Glendinning joined Lenovo in 2005 as Group Treasurer, following the acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business. He was IBM’s Director of Global Treasury Operations in New York. Mr. Glendinning is an FCCA and has a degree in French and Italian from Oxford University. He is president of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (Singapore).
Zanny Minton Beddoes is the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, appointed in February 2015. She was formerly Business Affairs Editor overseeing the paper's business, finance, economics, science and technology coverage. From 2007 to 2014, Ms Minton Beddoes was Economics Editor, based in Washington, DC, where she led the paper's global economics coverage. She has written special reports on the world economy, Germany, Latin American finance, global finance and Central Asia. Ms Minton Beddoes joined The Economist in 1994 after spending two years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Previously, she worked as an adviser to the Minister of Finance in Poland, as part of a small group headed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University. Ms Minton Beddoes is a frequent television and radio commentator on both sides of the Atlantic, including on the “Bill Maher Show” (HBO), “Fareed Zakaria GPS” (CNN), “Newsnight” (BBC), “Newshour” (PBS), CNBC and “Public Interest” (NPR).
Director of Treasury for the EMEA region based in Redditch, in the UK with regional responsibilities for cash & liquidity management, bank relationships, multi-currency notional pooling, entity capitalizations, cash repatriation and inter-company loan management for 60+ legal entities in 37 countries and 23 currencies. My career spans 31 years with AT&T with 16 years in my current role having previously held the position of Cash and Banking Manager responsible for the daily operations of bank accounts, payments, reconciliations etc, managing a team of 15. Led the migration of all banking from Brussels in 1998 to Redditch to formally establish the SSC.
Chris has over 20 years experience in the payments business, working in treasury, cash management, transaction services, trade, e-commerce and card acquiring. In 2003 he set up transactionbanking.com, a treasury and payments best practice training and consulting business. Prior to this, Chris has worked in senior roles for Citibank, Bank of America and founded the treasury workstation company, Swallow Business Systems. As global solutions head and a European product director for Citibank’s GTS, he worked with many leading clients and innovative product solutions. He was part of the Citibank Cash Management Europe Management team and had product responsibilities for liquidity, payments and FI products. He has a broad depth of experience in the trends and development of the payments business across many local markets.
Albert joined Endemol Shine Group as Head of Treasury & IR at the end of 2016 and is responsible for treasury, investor relations and insurance. Albert is a seasoned finance executive with extensive experience in treasury, corporate finance, investor relations and related areas. Prior to joining Endemol Shine, he held several senior roles across different sectors at VimpelCom, NXP, AkzoNobel, Danone, Numico, GUS and Robeco. Albert was the chairman of the Dutch Association of Corporate Treasurers (DACT) from 2002-2009.
Dave is Deputy Treasurer at Endemol Shine Group since March 2017. Besides being generally involved in treasury matters and acting as back-up for both Head of Treasury & IR and other team members, he is currently responsible for the roll-out of Endemol Shine’s Treasury Transformation Project. In combination with previous roles he gained broad and solid experience in both treasury and other relevant finance areas in listed/PE-backed firms and across different sectors.
Sekar Sundaram is the Director of Corporate Treasury at PAREXEL International Corp, which is a leading global biopharmaceutical services company based in Waltham, MA with presence in over 52 countries. Sekar’s major responsibilities include managing the company’s global hedging programs including foreign exchange & interest rate risk management, executing strategic financing structures to support M&A, share buy-back programs and other key capital structure initiatives for the company. He is also actively involved in managing a large syndicate credit facility, long range liquidity planning and implementing efficiency improvement projects in the payments & cash management space. Sekar has a MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a MS in Mechanical Engineering. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Mario Del Natale is Directory Treasury Operations, Systems and Applications at Johnson Controls International plc., a global diversified technology and multi industrial leader with 130.000 employees operating in more than 150 countries. Mario joined Johnson Controls in 1997. He is based in Brussels where is responsible globally for Treasury Operations and Treasury Applications and processes. As well, Mario provides strategic recommendations on global Treasury IT applications to the VP Corporate Treasurer and to the Treasury’s leadership team. Before joining Johnson Controls, Mario worked for several years in IT solution deliveries at GE Capital and Corporate Sciences Corporation.
Darrell Thomas is Vice President and Treasurer for Harley-Davidson, Inc. based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Harley-Davidson Financial Services, Inc., its wholly-owned finance subsidiary, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Darrell is a member of Harley-Davidson’s Senior Leadership Group, and Chair of its Retirement Plans Committee and Finance Committee. Darrell joined Harley- Davidson in June 2010. Prior to joining Harley-Davidson, Darrell was with PepsiCo, Inc. in Purchase, NY. During the almost 7 years that Darrell was at PepsiCo, he served as its Vice President and Assistant Treasurer (Jan 2006 to May 2010), and Director Capital Markets (Nov 2003 to Jan 2006). During his tenure at Pepsi Darrell was responsible for managing global pension assets of $9 billion, which were spread across 6 countries. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Darrell had a nineteen-year career in banking with Commerzbank Securities, Swiss Re New Markets, ABN Amro Bank and Citicorp/Citibank where he held various capital markets and corporate finance roles. Darrell has a MBA in Finance from The Wharton School and a BA degree in Economics from Tufts University. He has served on the Board of Directors of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee since 2011.
Jacques Molgo is Group Financing and Treasury Director of Air Liquide. He has joined the Group in 2011, after having held several positions in the Treasury and Financing area within the Alcatel-Alsthom Group, and then as International Treasurer of Publicis Group. More recently, he was in charge of structuring and executing risk hedging solutions at Société Générale. Jacques has a Masters’ degree of Financial Engineering from University Paris I Panthéon- Sorbonne. He is also graduated of the French Society of Financial Analysts (SFAF), and a member of the French Association of Corporate Treasurers (AFTE) since more than 10 years.
Peter is Consumer & Healthcare Head for Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions business in EMEA and works very closely with leading industry players within this sector to establish best in class treasury structures. During his 20 years at Citi, Peter has worked in Product Management, Sales and Relationship Management roles across Trade Services and Cash Management in EMEA and North America. Prior to his current role, Peter was responsible for the Technology, Media & Telecoms sector in EMEA. Peter studied Economics and French at the University of Birmingham and Sorbonne, Paris and is Cert ICM qualified with the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
Martin joined the German entity of the Roche Group as Head of Treasury in 1993. In 1998 he became European Head of Cash & Credit Management in Switzerland for the Vitamins Division where he built up a Shared Service Center in this area. After the divestment of the Vitamins Division in 2004 he joined Roche’s Group Treasury as Head of Treasury Operations where he implemented the InHouse bank. Before joining Roche he worked several years in foreign exchange trading in Frankfurt, Singapore and Paris. M. Schlageter holds a degree of the University of Applied Sciences, Rendsburg (Germany).
Bart is Managing Director at Greensill Capital and has over 20 years of experience in Treasury, Corporate Finance, Purchasing, Supply Chain, Structured Trade Finance and Working Capital Solutions. Previously, Bart was Global Head Business Development for HSBC Global Trade and Receivable Finance, before he headed Supply Chain Finance for Europe, Middle East & Africa at Citibank. Prior to banking Bart was at the corporate side, at Philips he held various positions including Global Head of Treasury Risk consultancy and CFO of Philips Supply Chain and Purchasing.
Sirkku Markula, SVP, Corporate Treasurer, is responsible for the KONE Treasury operations in 60 countries and heading the Corporate Treasury in Finland since 2009. Sirkku has close to 30 years of experience in Corporate Treasury in various international companies e.g. ABB and extensive experience in various Treasury areas.
Fiona Mackie is Regional Director for Latin America at The Economist Intelligence Unit. She leads a team of analysts producing political and economic analysis, macroeconomic forecasts, and sovereign and operational risk assessments for the Latin America and Caribbean region at the EIU. She has a strong background in sovereign and operational risk and many years' experience covering Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and the Caribbean. Fiona has a BA in political science from the University of Chicago and an MSc in financial economics from the University of London (SOAS).
Duncan heads a team of analysts covering Asia, in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Analysis division and is personally responsible for compiling economic and political forecasts for a number of countries in the region, most notably China. He has helped to produce customised research and analysis on many topics, ranging from a long-term forecast of the outlook for Asia to 2050 to the impact of China's leadership changes in 2012-13.
Duncan is a frequent commentator for news services such as the BBC and CNN. He often presents at conferences, and has also been invited to share his perspectives on Asia with a number of senior corporate executives, academics and diplomatic officials.
Duncan joined The EIU in 2005. He has a Master's degree in Pacific Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies and a BA in Chinese Studies from Oxford University.
Since 2000, Pratibha Thaker has directed the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa team, which publishes regular country reports and forecasts on macroeconomic, business and political conditions. Working with a substantial pool of external contributors and an internal team of regional and country specialists, she provides the intellectual leadership necessary to ensure the EIU forecasts for the Middle East and African economies are among the most accurate and insightful available to international decision makers. She is responsible for ensuring that the forecasts and analysis for the Middle East and African economies are closely integrated with the EIU’s global macroeconomic outlook.
Agathe Demarais is a regional manager for the Europe team and the lead analyst for Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Prior to joining the EIU, Agathe served as an economic advisor for the French Treasury in Moscow for the CIS and Beirut for the Middle East. She holds Master's degrees in international finance from Columbia University and in government affairs from Sciences Po Paris. She speaks fluent French, English, Russian and Arabic.
David combines his 20 transfer pricing and international tax experience with a passion for treasury and financing. Hereto, he focusses on treasury activities, banks and insurance sector. Already long before the BEPS era, he assisted groups to develop consistent and economically robust transfer pricing policies. Today, he assists groups on strategic aspects related to their overall transfer pricing models, their financing set-up and the related policy aspects. He carries-out economic analyses covering all aspects of financing and assists groups in the execution of all aspects of their intercompany financing. Thanks to his wealth of experience in transfer pricing and international taxation, he can connect the dots of the every changing tax rules and practices of today’s world.
Fred has over 20 years’ experience in international treasury management. He is currently Senior Vice President & Treasurer at Hilton, supporting all corporate treasury functions, as well as global pension investments and energy risk. In recent years, Hilton’s Treasury team has received an AFP Pinnacle Award Grand Prize, an Alexander Hamilton Award in Liquidity Management (silver) and an Adam Smith Award in Risk Management (highly commended). Prior to joining Hilton in 2009, he held various treasury roles at Lucent Technologies and Constellation Energy. Fred holds an MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BA in economics and international relations from Brown University.
Michael Bach is consulting director at BELLIN with 20 years of treasury experience, managing more than 30 globally-focused implementation and consulting projects. Prior to joining BELLIN, Michael was with Deutsche Bank focusing on corporate clients as Manager Trade Finance, Interest and Currency Management, Senior Manager in Corporate Treasury and Risk Management and Senior Manager eFX and Cash Management Solutions.
Paul’s career includes 11 years banking at ABN Amro International Cash Management; and 20 years corporate Treasury, amongst others at NCR as Manager EMEA Treasury Center, Priority Telecom as Director Global Treasury, ViaNetworks as Interim Director Global Treasury, Orchard Finance Consultants, Taqa Abu Dhabi National Energy Company as Global Head of Treasury, Amgen as Sr. Manager Treasury International. His current position is with PPG as Director Treasury EMEA. In many of his corporate positions, Paul has been leading Treasury teams and has been conducting & driving change processes towards centralization of the Treasury functions.
Steven Gomes is the Treasury Manager at Bose Corporation. He manages a team which oversees the company’s foreign exchange risk program, global cash liquidity and investments and cash flow forecasting. He is also part of a team managing the pension and has participated in other special projects including global tax planning, value chain optimization and global banking strategy. Steven joined Bose Corporation in 2012. He previously worked Charles River Associates and The TJX Companies, Inc. Steven is a Certified Treasury Professional and received his MBA from Framingham State University in 2008. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from the University of Massachusetts.
Vanessa Manning joined Standard Chartered Bank in January 2015 as MD, Head of Product Management Europe. Prior to joining, she was EMEA Head of Payments & Cash Management and Global Head of TBFX, with responsibility for SEPA deployment and migration, global head of global TBFX and owner of the regional cash and liquidity proposition. Vanessa has held a variety of international roles across the ABN AMRO network since 1998, spanning global treasury outsourcing sales; structured finance / SPV general management, global TB FI strategy and global liquidity product and advisory lead across Ireland, Hungary, the Netherlands, UK and the US.
Louise currently holds the position of EMEA Treasury Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for NCR Corporation. She manages the companies cash operations in the region, bank relationships, credit facility and FX exposure. She holds the board of Director role in most of the regions subsidiaries and is a trustee on the major pension funds. Before joining NCR 17 years ago, previously held positions in Banking as Senior Credit Officer, Audit and Accounting roles, and held the post as Credit Controller. She is born in South Africa and graduated from Wits University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. She now lives in Europe.
Brett King is a world-renowned futurist and speaker, an International Bestselling Author, and a media personality who covers the future of business. He has spoken in over 50 countries, at TED conferences, given opening keynotes for Wired, Singularity University, Web Summit/MoneyConf, The Economist, World of Watson, CES, SIBOS and more. He has appeared as a commentator on CNBC, BBC, ABC, Fox, Bloomberg and more. He advised the Obama administration on Fintech policy and the Future of Banking and advises regulators and bank CEOs around the world on technology transformation. King hosts the world's first and #1 ranked radio show on FinTech called "Breaking Banks" (140 countries, 3.6 million listeners). He is the CEO and Founder of Moven, a successful mobile start-up, which has raised over US$24 million to date, with the world's first mobile, downloadable bank account, available in the United States, Canada, UK, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Named "King of the Disruptors" by Banking Exchange magazine, King was voted American Banker's Innovator of the Year in 2012, voted the world's #1 Financial Services Influencer by The Financial Brand and was nominated by Bank Innovation as one of the top 10 "coolest brands in banking". He was shortlisted for the 2015 Advance Global Australian of the Year Award for being one of the most influential Australians living offshore. His books have been released in more than a dozen languages and he has achieved bestseller status in 20 countries. His fifth book Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane is an international bestseller and has remained in the top-10 on Amazon for over a year. He is currently working on Bank 4.0 for a late 2017 release.
Global Head of Cash Flow Management since 2010
Head of Treasury Operations and Cash Management at Assa Abloy
Head of Unit, Prudential Supervision Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority
Head of Treasury Support and Cash Management at Swedish Housing Financing Corporation
VP, Head of Financial Administration and Cash Management at Skanska Financial Services
Head of Treasury Operations and Cash Management at Securum Treasury
Professor Erik Berglof is the inaugural Director of the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The IGA, its Global Policy Lab and eight constituent centres bring together LSE faculty and students from across departments to design research-based and locally rooted solutions to global challenges. Prior to joining the LSE, Professor Berglof was the Chief Economist and Special Adviser to the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Previously, he was Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) and Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. He was Assistant Professor at Universite Libre de Bruxelles and has held visiting positions at Harvard, Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has also served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Sweden.
Mike Dolan is Reuters’ Markets Editor for Europe, Middle East and Africa and has worked as an editor and correspondent at Reuters for the past 22 years - specializing in global economics, policymaking and financial markets across the G7 and emerging economies. Mike is currently based in London, but has also worked in Washington DC and Sarajevo and has covered news events from dozens of cities across the world. A graduate in economics and politics from Trinity College Dublin, Mike previously worked with Euromoney magazines and Bloomberg news covering a variety of foreign exchange and Treasury news beats. Mike has received Reuters awards for his work during the financial crisis in 2007/2008 and for innovation in covering frontier markets in 2010. A Irishman from County Kerry, he has one teenage daughter and is a fan of Liverpool FC.
Kurt is Amazon's Treasurer, a role he has held since 2014. Kurt provides leadership for Amazons global cash and portfolio management, debt financing, foreign exchange, global insurance and treasury related technology infrastructure. Kurt was Amazon's assistant treasurer from 2004 to 2014. Prior to Amazon, Kurt was the Treasurer of ProBusiness Services from 2001 to 2003 and the Treasurer of Wind River from 1997 to 2001. Kurt holds BAs from the University of Pennsylvania in Economics and Political Science and an MBA from the University of Washington.
Helena Huang joined ICBC Standard in June 2016 as China Economist in Global Markets Department. Prior to this role, she has worked as senior research officer at Bank of China and researcher in international economics department at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) since 2011 in London. Helena’s main research interests include macroeconomic analysis on China and its RMB internationalization strategy, the international monetary system and capital flows. At ICBC Standard Bank, Helena provides frequent market commentary on China macro and the RMB, produces leading China markets and strategy research at the Bank and develops content for clients across fixed income, currencies and equities. She also leads the Bank’s flagship thought leadership initiative, ICBCS Belt and Road Economic Indices, in joint efforts with Oxford Economics. Helena holds degrees in economics and international public policy, and was educated at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Pennsylvania and University College London.
Christian Bauwens joined Flextronics in May 2012 as Corporate Treasurer. Prior to Joining Flextronics, Mr. Bauwens served as the Chief Financial Officer of Estrella International Energy Services from August 2010 to April, 2012 Earlier in his career, Mr. Bauwens worked at General Motors for about 15 years in Finance roles of increasing responsibilities, including Treasury Manager for Asia Pacific, Director Capital Market Risk Management for Europe, Director of Overseas Finance and Capital Planning, Treasurer for GM do Brazil, and finally Chief Financial Officer for General Motors Argentina including responsibilities for Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia. He later moved to Nissan where he served as Treasurer for Nissan Motor North America and Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. Mr. Bauwens holds a Bachelor in Economics, a Degree in Political Science & International Relations and a Master of Arts in Economics and Finance, all from the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Yves Gimbert has been Group Treasurer of ENGIE since 2005. He has held previous Treasury and Financing responsibilities with Petrofina, Allied Signal and Faurecia. Recent interests and corporate projects include a worldwide deployment of a TMS / Bank com platform and Tech in Banking and Finance (open banking, payments evolution, compliance solutions and others).
Daniel Franklin has been Executive Editor of The Economist and Editor-in-Chief of Economist.com since June 2006. He is also Editor of The Economist’s annual publication, “The World in…”. He joined The Economist in 1983, was Europe Editor, Britain Editor, then Washington Bureau Chief. From 1997-2006 he was Editorial Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Jori McCuskey is Director of Treasury at Symantec. He is currently responsible for the company’s capital markets, liquidity management and foreign exchange activities. Since joining Symantec in late 2015, Jori has supported the company through a number of significant events including completing the separation of Symantec’s information management business (Veritas), returning a substantial amount of capital to shareholders, supporting strategic financings from sponsors, completing financing related to two transformative M&A transactions (Blue Coat Inc. and LifeLock Inc.), and supporting the separation of the company’s Website Security + PKI business. Before joining Symantec, Jori was at Dell since 2007, where he focused his career on various areas of increasing responsibility which covered capital markets (including the take-private transaction), cash and liquidity management, treasury shared services center development, FX risk management, and global treasury systems implementations. Most recently before joining Symantec, Jori led the securitization program at Dell’s captive finance company, Dell Financial Services. Prior to Dell, Jori started his career at Navigant Consulting in its Disputes, Investigations and Economics practice area. Jori received a BBA of Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and is a CFA charter holder.
Ravi Jacob is corporate vice president and treasurer of Intel Corporation. He was named treasurer in April 2005. In this role he manages Intel’s cash and investments, capital markets activity, currency and other financial risks, credit and collections, retirement assets and risk and insurance.
Prior to his appointment as treasurer, Ravi was Vice President, Finance and Asst. Treasurer, M&A. For seven years he led a worldwide team of approximately 50 treasury professionals responsible for structuring and executing Intel Capital’s acquisitions, divestitures and strategic investment transactions.
Ravi has held several management positions within Intel’s treasury organization. From 1994-1998 he worked as assistant treasurer, Europe. Based in Paris, he was responsible for Intel’s credit, foreign exchange, investments and financing activities in Europe. In prior roles he managed the company’s retirement investments portfolio and the overseas cash management activities.
Ravi received Intel Achievement Awards, Intel’s highest recognition for individual and team achievement, in 2003 and 2004 for innovative and creative transactions that generated over $600 million in cash benefits for Intel.
Ravi joined Intel in 1984. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from UCLA.
Tim directs LyondellBasell’s European Treasury Operations and Cash Forecasting group, responsible for global IC financing, FX risk management, the European In House Bank, liquidity, and investments. Previously Tim held positions in Process Technology, Safety, Corporate Taxes, Internal Controls and Treasury at Bayer. Tim is Board Member at ATEB, the Belgian Corporate Treasury Association, as well as co-developer and lecturer of an International Treasury Management Course at Vlerick Business School.
Sean Patterson is Assistant Treasurer, Director of Global Cash Management for Amazon.com, Inc. He’s has 16 years of experience at Amazon of which 13 years has been in their Treasury department. Sean holds a BS in Economics from University of Washington.
Aroon Dasappa, Sr-VP (Finance) in Tata Communications Ltd. is an MBA in Finance with 30 years career in finance behind him. Aroon has diversified experience of working in Manufacturing sector, Services industry, NBFCs, Public Sector Organisations & Regulatory Body (SEBI). Areas he has handled along his career are Treasury, Global banking, International & Domestic resource raising, Forex Management, Investments, Trade Finance, Investment Banking, Risk Management, special projects on cost reduction & M&A assignments. He has played an instrumental role in transformation of Tata Communications as a global player from an India centric organization and has won highest performance awards in his Company for excellence. Currently he is Director on Board of Subsidiaries in Switzerland, Middle East, Thailand, Beizing, Nordic and Spain
Anne Friberg joined The NeuGroup in 2006. Ms. Friberg oversees relationships, planning and research for the NeuGroups for European and LatAm regional treasury, and the two FX risk management groups. She also writes for The NeuGroup's flagship newsletter, iTreasurer. Prior to joining The NeuGroup, Ms. Friberg worked for several years in corporate planning, international treasury and investor relations Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri.
James helps organisations reduce their fraud risk and secure their critical payments. James has worked in the Payments industry in an ever changing landscape for over 15 years with Financial Institutions and Corporates of all sizes. He leads Bottomline’s European Consultancy team, helping customers by sharing insight on Enterprise SaaS & software offerings in Payments, Financial Documents, and Cyber Fraud & Risk Management Solutions. With ever increasing threats in internal and external frauds, he regularly presents at conferences, panels and on webinars sharing experiences from organisations on how they can reduce their exposure.
Rob graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1989 with a degree in Economics and joined KPMG. After qualifying as Chartered Accountant in 1992 (ICAEW) he left KPMG in 1996 and worked in the Media and Publishing industry prior to joining Cairn in 1998. After many roles in Cairn covering planning, statutory reporting, accounting services and treasury he was appointed Treasurer in 2008 and became Group Treasurer and Planning Manager in 2010. In 2013 he joined the committee of the Scottish regional group of the Association of Corporate Treasurers. Rob’s Treasury role at Cairn covers foreign exchange, interest and commodity risk management, international cash management and payments, investment portfolio strategy and management and funding with overall Group responsibility for negotiating and management all Group facilities. In addition through his planning role he manages the Business Plan, Group budgeting and forecasting and all aspects of corporate management information and decision support.
Enrico Camerinelli is a senior analyst at Aite Group specializing in wholesale banking, cash and trade finance, and payments. Based in Milan, he brings a strong European focus to Aite Group’s Wholesale Banking practice. Mr. Camerinelli has been widely quoted by publications ranging fromAmerican Banker to the Financial Times. He has contributed editorial content to publications such as Supply Chain Europe, and serves as a consulting editor withgtnews. He has spoken at leading trade shows and conferences in Europe, including Sibos and EuroFinance. Mr. Camerinelli has extensive experience within his areas of coverage as well as in providing research and consulting services to clients. Most recently, he served as a senior analyst with Celent, focusing on the financial supply chain and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Prior to that, he was the European director and chief analyst at the Supply Chain Council, a non-profit serving the logistics and supply-chain industry. In that capacity, Mr. Camerinelli provided independent research and advisory services as well as business development and budget control for the organization. Before that, he was a vice president and research leader at META Group’s Electronic Business Strategies service, tracking trends in supply chain management, product life-cycle management, e-procurement, and sourcing. He also spent 10 years working as a supply chain manager at various manufacturing and automotive companies. Mr. Camerinelli graduated from Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza with a degree in Business Engineering. He speaks fluent Italian and English and is proficient in Spanish.
Ayca Arisoy-Kilic is the EMEA Treasurer of Bunge, based in the Netherlands. Bunge is one of the leading agricultural commodities, food & ingredients companies in the world, operating in more than 40 countries with over 30,000 employees. Bunge corporate headquarters is in White Plains, New York.
In addition to being responsible for all Treasury activities in the EMEA Region, Ayca is also the leader for the technology agenda of Bunge’s Treasury function globally. Prior to joining Bunge in 2016, Ayca worked for Royal Dutch Shell for 10 years. During her career with Shell, she had a variety of Treasury and Finance roles in London and in the Netherlands. Following her Deputy Treasurer role for Downstream Business in London, her last role with Shell was the Head of Finance position for Oil&Gas Exploration Business in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ayca started her career in corporate banking and worked for Citibank and HSBC Bank before joining Shell. She holds a B.A. in International Trade from Bogazici University in Istanbul and is a Chartered Accountant with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the UK
Simon is co-Founder and Blockchain Lead at 11:FS, he is one of the most recognised thought leaders on Blockchain and DLT. Previously at Barclays, he established the bank as one of the leaders in blockchain thought and action, Simon also serves as an advisor to central banks and governments, in addition to consulting the top 20 banks on blockchain. He's helped a variety of startups flourish through the Barclays Accelerator. He also co-hosts Fintech Insider, #1 business podcast on iTunes, listened to in over 152 countries and Blockchain Insider a brand new podcast launched in July.
Bruno Lawaree is the EMEA Treasury Director at diversified power management company Eaton. He joined Eaton in 2009 as treasury manager. Prior to joining Eaton, Mr. Lawaree held various positions within treasury management and consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Levi Strauss, and Accenture.
Aashish Pitale is Group Treasurer for the Essar Group of Companies managing Currency, Interest Rates, Commodities and Liquidity Risk. Aashish has been associated with Financial Markets for over 20 years with experience spanning across Fixed Income, Institutional Sales and Derivatives Structuring. Prior to joining Essar, Aashish as Managing Director with Standard Chartered Bank was responsible for the FICC Structuring business across South Asia and Middle East. He has held senior level positions with JPMorgan driving their Relative Value strategy in the AEJ region based out of Singapore and with ICICI, heading their Fixed Income and Economic Research team. Aashish was instrumental in developing Government Bond Indices for Singapore, India, South Korea as part of JP Morgan’s GBI Broad.
Ashley Kemball-Cook leads Business Development for Qadre, a blockchain company focussing on the application of blockchain technology in a number of sectors. Ashley has worked with industry leaders across finance, energy, and healthcare, including FTSE30 and Dax30 businesses and has advised, UK Government, Magic Circle law firms, regulators, and multiple trade bodies on their technology strategy. Qadre specialises in the development, scaling, and commercialisation of blockchain and cryptographic solutions for large enterprise. We tackle how enterprise onboards, quantifies, and manages trust; enabling a world where accountability is a natural part of the digital world. Ashley is also Head of Business Development for a blockchain company called Disberse. Disberse is a fund management platform that drives the transparent, efficient, and effective flow and deliver of development and humanitarian aid. Ashley’s previous role was as Head of Research and Communications for a boutique consultancy. He advised on the core strategy of a number of leading organisations, including: easyJet, Unilever, Vodafone, EDF energy, and UK Government.
Andy is in the process of changing from executive to non-executive roles and is currently on the Advisory Board of C2FO. Until December 2016 he was SVP at Ahold Delhaize responsible for Finance Transformation, from 2007 to 2015 he was the Group Treasurer at Ahold having headed up M&A and strategic analysis from 2004. Prior to Ahold he held executive roles at the Mulliez Family Office, IKEA, JP Morgan and Price Waterhouse. A Chartered Accountant, he has an MBA from City University, London.
Jeffrey Franks is Director of the IMF Europe Office and Senior Resident Representative to the European Union, based in Brussels. A 24-year veteran of the Fund, he has held numerous other assignments, including heading the resident representative offices in Ukraine and Ecuador, and leading teams on Pakistan, Romania, France, Belgium, and Paraguay. He received his Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard, and has Master’s degrees from Princeton and Oxford universities.
Andrea Talpo, Group Vice President – Corporate Treasury joined ST Microelectronics in 2008. His current responsibilities cover, on global basis, bank relationships, funding and capital markets, cash management, rating agencies, treasury control, key treasury initiatives and treasury involvement in M&A and other extraordinary transactions. Before joining ST Microelectronics, Andrea gained extensive experience in the banking industry for 13 years in London and Milan for Banca Intesa and BNP Paribas in their Corporate and Investment Banking Division. Andrea holds a BA from Bocconi University, a Master’s in Finance from the London Business School and executive degree in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at Grenoble Graduate School of Business.
Paul has almost 20 years of experience working within treasury software businesses. In his role as Co-CTO at ION Treasury, he currently manages product roadmaps and development teams for several ION Treasury solutions. Paul is also responsible for business development and client success for the IT2 product. Paul is passionate about software user experience and continually innovating to find fresh new ways to deliver value to ION’s corporate treasury customers.
Christopher Donohoe, is Assistant Treasurer for Ingersoll Rand plc, responsible for Global FX, Guarantees and EMEIA Treasury Operations. With over twenty years of financial experience, he has worked within the corporate treasury environment across a number of industries as well as within banking. Christopher has a B Sc. in Business, an MBS in Finance, is a Chartered Accountant and an AMCT with the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
Jamie joined Oxford Economics in 2015 as Head of Macro Scenarios. As well as leading the production of macro-economic scenarios for the Oxford Economics Global Scenario Service, he identifies and writes about key risks to the global economy. Jamie has presented his views on radio and television networks, including the BBC and CNBC, and is regularly cited in leading financial and business publications. Jamie joined Oxford Economics from the Bank of England, where he worked for 17 years on a range of monetary and financial stability issues to support both the Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Policy Committee. Most recently Editor of the Bank’s Financial Stability Report and Financial Stability Papers series, Jamie has written and edited extensively for the Bank’s flagship publications, including the Inflation Report. He has also worked directly for two Bank of England Chief Economists, running the private offices of both Charles Bean and Spencer Dale in the role of private secretary.
Brice Zimmermann was appointed Global Head of Treasury at Puma Energy a year ago and is based in Geneva. In this role, he oversees all activities related to cash and liquidity management, currency risk management and compliance with internal control requirements and external regulation. Prior to this, he was Head Treasury Control & Reporting for Novartis for 13 years. Born in France, he is a Certified EFFAS Financial Analyst and holds a Certificate in International Cash Management (Cert’ICM) from the ACT.
Christopher Van Woeart is Head of Treasury at Stripe, the innovative technology platform at the forefront of expanding internet commerce. Before joining Stripe in 2016, he was Head of Platform Balance at peer-to- peer lending company Lending Club. Prior to that, he spent many years at Goldman Sachs, including five years as Vice President, Corporate Treasury, where he was responsible for firm-wide liquidity management, liquidity stress testing, regulatory relations and compliance, and prime brokerage risk management.
François Masquelier has been Head of Corporate Finance and Treasury with RTL Group since November 1997. He is Doctor in Tax Law and has degree in Economy and Administration from the University and Business School of Liège and has a post degree in Management from the Solvay Business School. He is the President of Association of Corporate Treasurers of Luxembourg (ATEL). He is also Honorary Chairman and Founder of Euro Associations of Corporate Treasurers. François Masquelier is a regular contributor to different corporate finance and treasury magazines and newspapers. He is Editorial Director of the “Magazine du Trésorier”, quarterly publication dedicated to Treasury and Corporate Finance issues.
Tony McLaughlin joined Citigroup in August 2004. He is responsible for Emerging Payments and Business Development, based in London. He has been Core Cash Head for Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong and GTS Head for the United Kingdom. Tony was responsible for the design and development of ABN AMRO’s Third Party CLS offering. At HSBC Holdings, he fulfilled a key strategic planning role for the global Payments and Cash Management business. Before that he was a Senior Product Manager for Barclays Bank with responsibility for electronic collections products.
Jags heads Sales for Middle East, Pakistan, North Africa and Turkey, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi, UAE. This role covers providing both onshore and cross-border solutions to fortune 500 names, top tier local corporates, public sector and financial institutions. He has led and successfully established Citi’s growing business in new markets such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Jags has been with Citi for more than 15 years and comes with international work experience across India, US, UK and the Middle East. He has held progressively responsible positions and is highly proficient in leading and managing growth, innovation & cross-sell.
Matt is responsible for leading Taulia’s marketing function, enabling Taulia to scale and grow through engaging with different audiences globally and helping businesses across the supply chain free up cash. Matthew has previously held a number of senior marketing roles including European Marketing Director Bottomline Technologies, Marketing Director, Software Capita plc. and Executive Marketing & PR Director CORGI Group. Matthew is a member of the Institute of Directors and holds an MBA from Henley Management School.
Christian Mnich is working in Finance Solution Management as a Solution Owner for Treasury Solutions at SAP AG, based out of Walldorf, Germany. In this role he is responsible for the Global Solution Management and Go-To Market for the Treasury Applications from SAP including SAP Treasury and Risk Management, SAP Cash and Liquidity Management, SAP In-House Cash, SAP Bank Communication Management and SAP Integration Package for SWIFT. In his previous role, Christian was Product Manager for EPR Financials, and in that role responsible for the topics Payments, Cash Management and Bank connectivity. Furthermore, he was in charge of developments around global payment formats such as ISO20022 and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Christian is a regular speaker at international treasury conferences and author of articles in specialist publications on a variety of treasury related topics.
Jane Lowe was appointed Secretary General of IMMFA in November 2015. She spent the first half of her career in the City working for large corporates, before moving to the UK financial services regulator. There she had oversight of the London Stock Exchange and subsequently the derivatives exchanges and clearing houses. She then became a lobbyist for the asset management sector, working on a broad range of EU legislation.; She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and a history post-graduate.
Tim has over 35 years banking experience from trading, to frontline sales as well as back and middle office. Tim joined the HSBC UK Liquidity Solutions Team in 2015 having worked in Liquidity Product businesses for other major, international banks. With HSBC Tim works closely with the Sales Team to develop cash management solutions for international clients from all segments and ranging in size from top publicly quoted companies as well as companies and organisations with smaller turnovers. In the evolving regulatory environment, the focus has shifted from traditional cash management products to the more innovative and digital offering.
Bob has 18 years’ experience in treasury technology, working for many of the best known technology providers in the industry. As VP of Strategy at Kyriba, Bob is responsible for global product strategy and market development, and works with clients, partners, and industry influencers to ensure Kyriba is at the forefront of treasury technology. Bob has provided treasury management strategy to some of the world’s largest companies, and is a frequent speaker and author on treasury, risk management, and the cloud.
Jerome Albus is senior vice president of product for treasury, payments and messaging for FIS’ corporation solutions. In this capacity, he is responsible for driving our corporate payments, our SWIFT and bank connectivity and treasury SaaS businesses, supplying comprehensive software, services and cloud solutions to large corporations globally. Jerome has substantial business and technology experience relating to corporate treasury and risk management. He joined SunGard (which was acquired by FIS) in 2000 and has worked in a variety of consulting and sales management roles, helping us expand across EMEA with new solutions and into new market sectors. Prior to SunGard, Jerome worked at KPMG Information Solutions/GIS and Thales. He holds a BA in econometrics and a master’s degree in finance from the University of Paris Dauphine.
Mr. Veenman is Head of Treasury for Yanfeng Global Automotive Interior Systems headquartered in Shanghai, China holding office in Neuss, Germany. Mr. Veenman has responsibility for Treasury in EMEA and the N.A. markets. Prior to joining Yanfeng Mr. Veenman held sr. Treasury positions at Huawei, Office Depot Inc., Dover Inc., Getronics N.V. and Equant N.V.
Laurent Marret is Head of Operation department of ArcelorMittal Group Treasury. This include Cash Management, Finance and market Back Office, IT/IS, accounting/reporting of the Treasury company.
This function include the definition of the model used by the group to operate all his cash, including but not only corporate needs like cash pooling, and its implementation in all its parts.
In this context, the treasury of the main European operational companies (more than 100) are managed is his department.
He has 20 years’ experience of these functions, operate in the challenging environment of the Steel Industry, but also 7 year’s as CFO of Business Units
As Corporate Vice President and Treasurer, George Zinn is responsible for investing and managing over $50 billion of Microsoft's corporate assets. He leads a group which manages the company's worldwide financial and corporate risk, investment portfolio, strategic portfolio, foreign exchange, corporate and structured project finance, dilution management, cash and liquidity, customer financing, and collection activities. Zinn led Microsoft’s inaugural debt issuance with a recently awarded AAA credit rating.
Andrew is an experienced treasury and finance executive having worked in both the building industry and broadcast media. He has a passion for music and numbers and takes a solution-centric approach when working with customers within and outside of the organisation. Andrew is a Chartered Accountant and is a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers in South Africa.
Andrew Betts has been Head of HSBC’s European Global Trade & Receivables Finance business since October 2014. He previously served as a Managing Director and Global Head of Supply Chain and as Global Custody Head for Custody and Fund Services Business at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Prior to this Andrew was Global Head of Trade Finance & Supply Chain for GTS at Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC where he was responsible for RBS' global product offering in international trade and supply chain financing, executing a proactive global trade advisory approach to structuring transactions for clients across a network of more than 50 countries. Andrew joined RBS during its acquisition of ABN Amro as Global Head of Supply Chain Finance. Before entering the banking industry he served as Director of global trade services for DHL, within Deutsche Post World Net, the world's largest logistics and supply chain provider.
In addition to his role with HSBC, Andrew serves as a General Partner of Kardia Capital Partners, a director of Mardil Medical, Inc. and previously served as a director of MFC Industrial Ltd.
He is married with two sons.
Geoffrey Gursel is currently the Sales and Implementations Head for Citi in Sub-Saharan Africa. Spending the past decade working in Gabon, South Africa and Kenya, Geoffrey Gursel is responsible for creating streamlined cash management and trade service solutions for the Corporate and Public Sector looking to enter, expand and re-strategise across Citi’s 11 Sub- Saharan Africa markets. Based in Johannesburg as Citi’s Treasury & Trade Solutions Sub-Saharan Africa Sales and Implementation Head, Geoffrey’s primary responsibilities include showcasing and implementing the relevant Regulatory, Government, Banking, and Technological changes across the continent that impact the treasury and banking relationship framework of Citi’s clients in and outside Africa for improved working capital management. Geoffrey is a frequent speaker at industry conferences in and outside Africa, has published several articles on Corporate Treasury in Africa, speaks French, and prior to working in Africa, worked in New York and London always within Citi’s transactional banking division.
Sophia Wikander has spent 20 years in leadership positions covering a variety of industries and business functions, including IT-, Strategy Management- and Marketing/Creative- consulting firms, banks and startups. Among her previous positions Sophia has served as CEO, COO, area/unit head and project manager. She has an international outlook with experience from working in the Nordics, Baltics, Australia and US with strong focus on business development and change management. Sophia’s current position is as Head of Business Innovation in Transaction Banking in Nordea Bank. The core of our mission is to enable digital transformation and develop business concepts to reach #1 in customer satisfaction through customer co-development initiatives, cross-functional cooperation with internal stakeholders and external partners, contribute to the acceleration of innovation in Transaction Banking by innovation arbitrage & business intelligence and enhance Nordea as thought leader and key player in an ecosystem.
Amer Qavi is Founder & CEO of Swipezoom, a fintech company that develops and markets SaaS-based solutions for the B2C and B2B sectors. Amer’s experience as a problem solving entrepreneur spans 27 years across several industries such as healthcare, hospitality, telecommunications and IT and include notable exits from businesses he founded along the way. Prior to that, he has held numerous positions within the healthcare industry. As a certified clinical specialist, he has trained Ophthalmic, ENT and Neuro surgeons on the use of minimally invasive surgery and laser based procedures; has been involved in setting up master distribution networks for ICU Medical, 3M, Alcon and Johnson & Johnson and helped architect numerous government-backed healthcare initiatives, most notably in the area of laser surgery and infection control. He is a regular speaker at entrepreneurship, e-commerce and technology industry events; is an e-exporting advisor to the UK Department for International Trade (DIT), has held steering positions in entrepreneurship organizations, such as the EO and MBRE, and is a mentor to several technology startups. Amer studied Bioengineering at Texas A&M University.
Craig joined HSBC in 2014 and is Head of Innovation for Payments and Cash Management. In this capacity, his role is focused on identifying new opportunities for HSBC to leverage new technology from the Fintech community to deliver value to HSBC’s corporate clients. His experience of delivering innovation within Financial Services gives him a great perspective on the challenges that Fintechs face in working with international banks. Craig has over 12 years of experience of leading innovation and change within financial services. Prior to joining HSBC Craig was responsible for technology delivery at Citi. Prior to Citi, Craig was part of the Innovation team at Barclay’s where he launched the first integrated contactless credit numerous first-to- market innovations in consumer and merchant payments. Craig attended the University of Hertfordshire where he obtained a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is a regular guest lecturer on the topic of Innovation and Change at the London Business School.
Greg Day is vice president and regional chief security officer, EMEA, at Palo Alto Networks. In this role he oversees Palo Alto Networks regional security operations and is responsible for regional cybersecurity strategy and the development of threat intelligence, security best practices and thought leadership for Palo Alto Networks in EMEA. With 25 years’ experience in the area of digital security, Greg has helped organisations, large and small and across the public and private sector, to understand risk posture and put in place strategies to manage it. He is widely acknowledged as an industry thought leader and experienced practitioner, capable of translating technology challenges into actionable business solutions. Greg began his career with Dr Solomon’s, later part of McAfee (now Intel Security) as a technical support analyst, and in a career that spanned 20 years he held a number of positions including information security consultant, global best practices team leader, security analyst and director of security strategy. During this time, he led a range of initiatives to support customers, partners and sales teams, authored a number of papers on topics across the security landscape, directed key cybersecurity initiatives and provided guidance to governments and malware forensics training to law enforcement authorities. At Symantec he held the post of Security CTO for EMEA, managing a team of security strategists and driving Symantec’s regional cybersecurity strategy. Most recently as VP and CTO EMEA at FireEye, he was responsible for technology strategy and thought leadership. Greg currently sits on the UK National Crime Agency steering committee, the UK-CERT/CISP advisory team and the VFORUM research community, having formerly held the position of vice chair of the techUK cyber security group. He has been part of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime and has participated in a number of industry and advisory groups. He is widely acknowledged as an industry thought leader and is a familiar face at many cybersecurity events, as a regular on the speaker circuit and has also been an active media spokesperson across much of the EMEA region. Greg holds a BSc (Hons) in Business Information Systems from the University of Portsmouth.
Jim Scurlock manages the Global Cash management & Venture Integration teams at Microsoft. The teams are responsible for managing the Treasury and banking activities for more than 400 subsidiaries in 128 countries. The teams is also responsible for managing the treasury integration activities for acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures. Jim has over 13 years of cash management experience across Asia, Europe, Middle East and North America.
Ali is the regional head of cash management for the ASEAN & South Asia region at Standard Chartered Bank and is based in Singapore. He has 19 years of experience in corporate client coverage and transaction banking across South Asia, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East
Ignacio Sanchez-Miret is Chairman of AFTE Fintech Commission. He moved to France to take up the position of head of treasury at HMY Group in 2010 and promoted to Risk Manager of the group. He was previously based in Spain with one of the Spanish subsidiaries of the group, as Credit Manager for Southern Europe. Prior to this, Ignacio worked in treasury and risk management in the PHILIPS Components and Banking sectors where he obtained many years’ experience in Treasury, Financing Transactions and Risk. Ignacio holds a Master in Treasury from Options & Futures Institute, certificate of ARM54 for Risk Management, a Degree in International Business from ESIC and studied business economics at Zaragoza (Spain) & Lille (France) University.
Terry is a fin tech executive with 20+ years’ experience in the treasury & capital markets space. Most recently the Global Head of Corporate Treasury for Bloomberg, he developed new business strategy for corporates & brought ground breaking products to market. Previously he was the Managing Director at Wall Street Systems, leading the corporate treasury, government institutions & global services business. A Chartered Accountant, Terry was also principal in the PwC London Capital Markets management consulting practice, specializing in treasury & capital markets systems integration.
Thierry is responsible for corporate finance and treasury for Central and South America and North West Africa at LafargeHolcim. He is based in Zurich and joined Holcim in 2014. Prior to joining LafargeHolcim, he was Head of Treasury at Forbo Ltd and held various roles in finance and treasury at ABB, Bombardier and Cablecom. Thierry has a Master degree in Business administration from the University of St-Gall.
Alexander Botsiev is a Senior Vice President with the Global Transaction Banking (GTB) at VTB Bank. Alexander manages Cash Management sales team that provides innovative payments & collections, cash, liquidity, and commercial card solutions to Corporates both in Russia and globally. Alexander joined VTB in 2011 from J.P. Morgan where he was an Executive Director with the Treasury Services EMEA, responsible for Treasury Services business for Institutional and Corporate clients throughout Russia and CIS region, managing TS sales team in the region. Prior to that, Alexander led Payments and Cash Management Sales team at ING Wholesale Banking in Russia.
Christian Kammann is Managing Director of Trelleborg Treasury AB and has been Group Treasurer at Trelleborg since 2008. As such, he is responsible for the in-house bank as well as the financial risk management and funding of the Trelleborg Group. Before joining Trelleborg, Mr. Kammann worked in a number of audit, controlling and corporate treasury roles in Belgium, Germany and the UK. Mr. Kammann holds a degree in Archaeology & Anthropology from the Univeristy of Cambridge and a degree in Business Studies from the George-Augustus University, Göttingen. His latest book is on Renaissance gardens in the former Duchies of Bremen-verden in Northern Germany.
Natalie Willems-Rosman is head of Payables and Receivables and TFX, Global Transaction Services, for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She is responsible for product development, product management and business growth of the Payables and Receivables across 21 countries. These products cover Low value payments, Wires, Direct debits, Cash and Cheques, as well as Merchant Acquiring. Additionally she leads the GTS Transactional Foreign Exchange business as well as the innovation practice for the region. Before joining the bank Natalie spent 10 years in various management positions in GTS Operations and Servicing, at ABN AMRO and at RBS. She has worked out of London and Amsterdam, as well in India and Romania on assignment basis. Natalie holds a Masters in Business Administration from Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Stefan Leijdekkers is managing director and head of Regional Sales, Asia Pacific at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Corporate & Investment Banking. Based in Singapore, Stefan is responsible for growing relationships with Multinational Clients by providing value added working capital solutions to Regional and Global MNC clients. Between June 2015 and March 2017, Stefan was head of Asia Pacific Corporate Banking Subsidiaries,. Until June 2015, Stefan was head of Regional Sales, Asia Pacific of Global Transaction Services and head of the GTS Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT). Prior to joining the Bank in 2011, Stefan spent 14 years in Citibank in roles across Corporate Banking and Global Transaction Services in Japan, Singapore, Jordan, Egypt and the Netherlands. Stefan holds a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, specializing in International Marketing Management.
Working at CEMEX for 12 years, started in Budapest to build up a Treasury Team in the newly created Cemex SSC Budapest in 2005. In 2008 promoted to Treasury Director for CEMEX France based in Paris. At the end of 2010 we moved my position to the Budapest SSC as part of a new, high level treasury centralization project. Performing this way for 7 years now from Budapest.
Simon Jones is responsible for treasury solutions in the EMEA region to support our clients around the world. Simon’s team has the expertise to partner with clients to establish global best practices for their treasuries according to their sector dynamics and the macroeconomic environment they operate in. Prior to this, Simon was Head of Corporate Sales in EMEA from 2012 to 2015 and Asia Regional Executive for Treasury Services from 2006 to 2010. Under his leadership, J.P. Morgan Treasury Services expanded their franchise rapidly both in EMEA and Asia which resulted in impressive double digit year-on-year revenue growth. Simon joined Chase Manhattan Bank in Singapore in 1996 as an International Treasury Consultant, and held a number of sales and consulting positions in Asia. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan Chase, he began his treasury management career with the London International Group Plc and Omnicom Group in London. Simon is acknowledged as an industry champion in the Asia Pacific and was voted by Finance Asia in 2009 one of the top 50 Asia Masters of Finance. He is a Fellow of Association of Corporate Treasurers (UK).
As Senior Divisional Treasurer Heinz Jeranko is globally responsible for the Retail business of the COFRA Group. The group operates close to 2,000 stores in Europe, Brazil, Mexico and China under the C&A Brand. In his role Heinz supports the business with financial risk management, cash and liquidity management, corporate finance and working capital and supply chain financing solutions. Prior to COFRA Heinz held several Treasury positions at Philips Electronics in Amsterdam and São Paulo. Heinz is an Austrian citizen who grew up in Brazil and started his career in the capital markets department of Banco BBA Creditanstalt in São Paulo.
David O’Rourke is Group Trade Finance Manager with Ornua Co-operative Ltd., with responsibility for global Trade Finance across the Ornua Group. He led the world’s first global electronic trade transaction using Blockchain technology following a collaboration involving Barclays Bank and the Innovative start-up company Wave.
Gadi Ruschin is an active member in the international trade industry. For the past 12 years he managed a buying office in China and took an active part in his family's sourcing activities in Egypt and India. He is currently the CEO of Wave, a company which allows members of the supply-chain a direct exchange of documents in a decentralized environment. It supports paperless trade for all members of the supply-chain without changing any current workflows or documents. Using the blockchain technology, Wave tracks the ownership over shipping documents without damaging their negotiability or the need to trust a third party
Caroline Cundill joined Willis as Group Treasury Manager in London in May 2015. In February of this year Caroline moved to Amsterdam where she is setting up a global treasury centre for the combined Willis Towers Watson group.
Joy Macknight is deputy editor at The Banker, covering transaction banking and technology. Previously, she was features editor at Profit & Loss, a foreign exchange and derivatives magazine and conference producer. Before that, she was editorial director at Treasury Today and editor at gtnews, which cover corporate treasury. She also worked as staff writer on Banking Technology and IBM Computer Today, as well as a freelancer on Computer Weekly. She has a BSc from the University of Victoria, Canada.
David Watson is the Global Head of Digital Cash Management for Deutsche Bank’s Global Transaction Banking (GTB) business, responsible for overseeing and driving the strategy and planning for digital business models and client connectivity products for Cash. This entails identifying disruptive business opportunities, investments and collaborations. In addition, he is responsible for the bank’s Cash Management franchise in the Americas region. Prior to this, David was the Global Head of Product Development for the GTB. In this function, he was responsible for the development of the bank’s transaction banking products across cash, trade and securities. This also included overseeing GTB’s investment process and the delivery of its strategic platform transformation. David joined DB in 2002 and since then held a variety of strategy and delivery roles across the front and back office. He has a degree in Business from Edinburgh University.
Luis Martínez Jurado has more than 15 years of experience in management positions at multinational corporates, with a focus on Treasury, Financing and Capital Markets. Luis is currently Senior Vice President at NH Hotel Group, managing the Corporate Finance, Treasury, Credit Risk Management and Insurance teams. Luis has a bachelor´s degree in Economics and MBA at IE Business School. Past professional experience includes working for relevant multinational companies including Degremont (Suez), Telvent-Schneider Electric, and Prosegur where he was Finance Director.
Philip Worman runs GPW, a political risk, intelligence and government relations consultancy based in London, Dubai and Singapore. He has spent over 20 years working on risk issues for clients with emerging market investments. Philip also leads the firm’s sanctions practice focused on Iran and Russia. Prior to joining GPW Philip was the founding director of Eurasia Group’s London office. Previously he worked at Deloitte’s Forensic and Financial Advisory group in London. Philip read Modern Languages at Downing College, Cambridge; he speaks Russian, French and elementary Farsi.
Michael Dietz is Deutsche Bank’s Global Head of Trade Finance Flow business and regional Head Trade Finance EMEA. Over the time of his career at Deutsche Bank Michael covered various senior position in Corporate Coverage functions across Germany, Switzerland as well as the United States of America. Prior to joining the current role, Michael has developed the EMEA Coverage for Commodity Traders as well as Swiss Corporates for Deutsche Bank in Zurich. Michael has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Economics at Darmstadt University, Germany. He is a certified Dodd-Frank Securities Trader.
Mark van Ommen is a Principal at Zanders and part of the company’s management team. He joined Zanders in 2005 and has been based in London since 2011. Mark has a focus on treasury transformation projects, specialising in in-house banking, SSC’s, payment factories and bank connectivity. He holds an MSc in Business Administration and obtained the CFA designation in 2009.
Amit heads the Treasury function at Newell Brands, a $15B fast growing Fortune 200 Consumer Products firm. His responsibilities span capital markets, risk management, cash management, treasury operations, international treasury, insurance and pensions. In his previous role at Pfizer Treasury, Amit managed $45B+ cash investment portfolio for interest rate, credit and currency risk. His mandate also included managing Pfizer’s short term liquidity needs and working capital strategies. Earlier at Pfizer, Amit focused on capital structure and long-term liquidity planning, business development support and various corporate finance issues. His personal interest topics include valuation of path-dependent derivatives, corporate cost of capital, liability driven investing, valuing early stage pharmaceutical assets and executive compensation design. He is a two-time Alexander Hamilton Award Winner for his work on Capital Structure Design and on Practical Approach to Managing the Liquidity Risk of a Defined Benefit Pension Plan. Amit began his career as a field engineer for Schlumberger Technology in the Gulf of Mexico and worked in the Oil Field Services Sector for 5 years in Gulf of Mexico and Oklahoma. He is a Petroleum engineer by background and has an MBA from Wharton School.
Pedro Batista is Optal’s Director of Banking, a key role focused on building and managing a global banking network to support new payment products. He draws on 10+ years’ experience working for Fortune 500 banking firms including Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Despite a busy schedule, he’s managed to find the time to train as a private pilot, complete the gruelling Ironman triathlon twice and become a certified PADI diver.
More than 20 years corporate finance experience in Oriflame, with responsibilities like, business area financial controlling, group treasury, group tax, internal control, company legal structure reorganisation, business risk and compliance.
Luciana Kang joined BNP Paribas in 2014 as Senior Cash Management Officer in Brazil, being responsible for originating, structuring and developing inbound and outbound Cash & Liquidity Management products strategy for corporate clients. She has more than 15 years of experience in the financial market and previously worked at various banks such as Citi, Santander, ABN AMRO and HSBC, covering local, regional (Latin America) and international cash management.
Joshua is a Financial Risk Consultant on JCRA’s Private Equity and Corporates team. He assists asset managers and their portfolio companies in assessing their interest rate and foreign exchange exposures, and designing hedging strategies to mitigate these risks. Prior to JCRA, Joshua worked at VTB Capital and Odey Asset Management. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.
Thiago Cesar is the co-founder and CEO of Bit.One. Holding an MSc from the University of London, Thiago produced one of the first academic thesis about Bitcoin, while also being a researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) within the field of digital currencies. His company, Bit.One is a payment solution responsible for processing over USD 2 million per day in transactions related to digital assets and cross-border payments between Europe and Brazil, providing an innovative solution to international transfers.
Stewart Harris is the Group Head of Treasury, Tax & Insurance of the Givaudan Group, based in Geneva. Prior to joining Givaudan in the role of Group Treasurer in 2009, Stewart spent many years working for a large Swiss pharmaceutical company in operational finance roles in the UK, Switzerland, Australia and China. Stewart is a UK qualified accountant having completed his training with KPMG in the UK.
Paul is a qualified account and corporate treasurer (MCT) working in Deutsche Bank’s Cash Management business advising client’s and developing solutions.
Paul joined Deutsche Bank from KPMG where he headed the UK Treasury team providing advisory, audit and assurance services. Prior to KPMG he worked in the Treasury functions of Cadbury and Diageo
After 8 years in different Financial positions in the Tourism Industry within TUI and Thomas cook in France, Romain has been appointed at Sephora as Head of Treasury for Europe, Middle East and Asia in 2011 . Promoted in 2015 as Head of Global Treasury, Romain is driving the Cash management, liquidity and funding strategies to support the business growth of Sephora around the globe.
Financial professional with background in two Fortune 500 US corporations: Hewlett Packard and Colgate Palmolive. Worked in several finance departments (Treasury, Tax, Credit and AR, business finance). Experience in transitioning teams to Service Centres (2 successful transitions: UK to Poland for HP and Switzerland to Poland for Colgate). Knowledge and understanding of Shared Services’ culture and requirements. Currently working for Treasury department for Colgate Palmolive with main responsibilities including cash management (forecasting, analysis and reporting), WW Inter Company Netting and payments on behalf of, bank relationship, month end closing and reporting to Division and Corporate.
Aarti Rao joined LiquidX in January 2016 and is responsible for on-boarding and managing the relationship of Corporate clients on the platform. Prior to LiquidX, Aarti worked at Barclays Bank for 11 years where she held a number of senior client coverage roles in the US, UK and India. During her time at Barclays, Aarti primarily focused on the Healthcare and Industrial sectors working with Investment Grade and High Yield Multinational Corporate clients. She specialized in cross border banking related to debt finance, trade finance, risk management, cash management and card services. Aarti holds a Bachelors of Commerce from the University of Pune, India, and a Masters in Finance and Management from the University of Essex, UK.
Philip Pettinato is Chief Executive Officer of ION Treasury with responsibility for managing several treasury product lines including Reval, IT2, ITS, City Financials, Treasura and Treasury Services. Prior to this, he was Chief Technology Officer at Reval where he managed all of the research and development activities for the company. He has more than 25 years of experience in financial software and previously held positions at EXIS Consulting and JP Morgan.
Michael Juen is part of the BELLIN Managing Director Team and responsible for business operations in the areas of Consulting and Sales, as well as the interdepartmental cooperation between Consulting & Implementation, Coordination, Advisory and Sales. Prior to joining BELLIN, Michael was a partner and shareholder in a consulting company specializing in treasury for 12 years. His main focus was on selecting and implementing TMS as well as consulting for cash management, liquidity planning and risk management. Michael has a degree in business informatics from Vienna University.
CIO for Corporates & Institutions at Danske Bank. Driving the digital strategy for C&I and Transaction Banking. More than 15 years of dedication to banking- and treasury technology across 4 continents.
Principle Solution Consultant Instant Payments
Having Joined ACI in 2016, he is performing the strategic role of Principal Consultant Immediate Payment, supporting the ACI’s worldwide and European Financial Institutions in the Instant Payments field, in the Cross-Board Payments, in the Liquidity and Settlement Management and helping Banks and PSPs building their Instant Payments business case.
Former experiences and WGs
Head of Payment Systems and International Business Applications Department constituted by 50 employees, supporting the Cooperative Banks Payment Business Unit, developing, promoting all initiatives related to Payments Applications, Payment Regulation and foreign business, accountable for delivering the current products and future developments specifically aimed at increasing the presence in International markets
• Italian Banks representative at the ”EBF TARGET2 Working Group” - European Central Bank – TWG Frankfurt
• Member of the European Payment Council – Brussels
• Italian Banks Representative at EBA STEP1 and Euro1 UAG – Paris/Brussels
• Italian Banks Representative at EBA STEP2 BWG - Paris
• European STEP1 Banks representative at EBA OTC UAG - Brussels
• European Association of Co-operative Banks Member – Brussels (EACB)
• Future Development Group EBA STEP 1 Member – Paris.
Colm is a Director of BSI Group's Cybersecurity and Information Resilience professional services business. Previously, as a Director of Espion, Colm was a key member of the management team responsible for growing the company to international success and to its eventual acquisition by BSI Group in April 2016. He holds a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin, and a Post Graduate Diploma from Dublin Institute of Technology. He has 20 years experience working in Cyber Security, Information Resilience, eDiscovery and Digital Investigations. He has lead and managed a range of projects in Ireland, the UK, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Vincenzo Dimase is Head of Market Development Trading, Continental Europe at Thomson Reuters, a role he assumed in January 2017. Vincenzo began his Thomson Reuters career in Dubai in 1997 and then moved to several roles in the company, always close to the foreign exchange and trading community. Leveraging market knowledge and expertise on OTC derivatives regulations, Vincenzo delivered several workshops across Europe and is also a teacher and co-president of the MiFID II commission at ASSIOM FOREX in Italy.
Tom Durkin is a Managing Director for Global Transaction Serivices. He is the Global Head of Channels Product Management at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Durkin leads his team in developing client focused strategies and technology intitiatives across Mobile, Online and Connectivity Channels for the bank. Durkin is taking an active role in the industry by becoming a leading advocate for thought leadership with CyberSecurity, Global Standards (ISO XML) and industry collaboration topics. Tom has spoken at the following conferences: SIBOS 2016, AFP 2017 Global Treasurers Forum, Eurofinance, and technology conferences such as SAP Sapphire and Treasury Management Conferences.
Laurent is serial Fintech Entrepreneur. He is founder and CEO at NEO Bnk in Barcelona. NEO Bnk reinvents cash management with simple and on-demand solutions for collection, international payments and Fx risk management. Previously, Laurent co-founded one of the first Peer to Peer Fx fintech where he has been CFO during 6 years in charge of finance, operations and regulation. He previously worked 10 years as a financial advisor on tax lease financing for major transportation companies in Europe. Passionate about digitalization of financial processes, automation and integration, Laurent acts as advisor of several fintech start-ups. He holds a master in Banking from Paris Dauphine University and a Msc in Economics and Finance from Brandeis International Business School.
Daniel Cotti is the CFO of TradeIX and has has over 30 years of experience in Global Trade Finance, Transaction Services, Banking and Technology. Daniel was the European Trade Finance Head at Citibank and Global Head of Trade Finance and Transaction Products at ABN AMRO/RBS. Subsequently, he managed and build out the Global Trade Finance and Loans business at JP Morgan. In 2015, he founded Cotti Trade & Treasury, a consultancy firm for global trade finance. Daniel is a Trade Finance industry expert and had industry wide, global engagements with SWIFT, BAFT, ICC and WTO organizations and is currently the non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Bolero Intl. Ltd.
Innovation consultant and tech entrepreneur with a global knowledge on how technology can impact in our economy. Alex is the founder and leader of Digital Currency Summit, the first conference about virtual currencies for the financial world, focused on licensing and compliance, government advocacy, and strategic market development for banks and finance ecosystem
Gordon has worked in Data Analytics for over 30 years, and has seen its journey from the early days of Decision Support Systems. As CEO, he lead Digital Aspects from start-up to trade sale and he is now responsible for MindBridge Analytics European growth.
Stefan Windisch has been working at F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. in Switzerland for the past 8 years in several Finance roles. Since 4.5 years he is working in Treasury Operations as Cash Manager, overseeing the European region, its bank relationships and is responsible for the Groups short term liquidity planning. Prior to Roche he worked as Controller for a FMCG company and a leasing company in UK and Germany.
Chris is a Partner at McKinsey & Company and Chief Operating Officer at QuantumBlack, responsible for ensuring our machine learning and AI work delivers real impact for our clients. He is also a trustee of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, and on the Advisory Board of deep-tech VC Entrepreneur First.
Finance Professional with 14 years of experience in Corporate Finance. In charge of Corporate Treasury, Accounting and Tax Department of Nelt Group – International FMCG and Production Group based in SEE. Successfully implemented centralized Corporate Treasury concept - cash flow management, financial strategy, working capital and liquidity management processes as well as integrated treasury procedures.
Angus is head of FinTech at Simmons & Simmons. He is a commercial IP specialist with over 15 years’ experience of advising on technology issues in the financial services sector. Angus is one of the Contributing Editors of the first edition of Getting the Deal Through: FinTech. He is also member of the Bank of England’s FinTech Community, a Techstars mentor on the Barclays Accelerator programme in London and a judge on the Nesta “Open Up” Challenge Prize.
Vishal leads the cash banking at GE for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region. He has been with GE for over 6 years in multiple roles within the Corporate Treasury organization. Prior to GE, he worked extensively in the banking sector with HSBC and ABN AMRO. He holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from Delhi University and a MBA from the Narsee Monjee Institue of Management Studies, Mumbai, India.
Harald Fritsche is co-leading the German Treasury Advisory practice of Deloitte and is responsible for advisory services around treasury strategy and transformation, treasury accounting, treasury technology, reporting & analytics as well as treasury M&A. He has more than 10 years of treasury experience. Deloitte Global Treasury Advisory Services is a leading provider of functional, regulatory and technological treasury advisory with more than 500 treasury experts worldwide.
Jan-Martin is responsible for the Treasury, Funding, Financial Risk Management and Credit & Collections operations of the Borealis Group which he joined in 2006. Jan-Martin is a graduate from Mannheim University, Germany and a trained banker. He has been with Bayerische Landesbank before starting his career in Corporate Treasury with VIAG AG (now E.ON). He has been subsequently working in e.g. telecommunications (ONE), airline (SWISS) and petrochemicals (Borealis) industry as well as in investment banking and financial advisory. Jan-Martin has been in finance for more than 19 years and led corporate treasury departments ranking from start up situations over restructurings to mature companies.
Daniel L. Blumen, CTP is a founding partner of Treasury Alliance Group where he leads consulting engagements dealing with working capital management, systems integration, liquidity and risk management and other global treasury issues. Prior to co-founding Treasury Alliance in 2002, he was Managing Director of Knowledge Management Applications, a firm he founded in 1998. Dan was with Bank of America in Chicago and Singapore, where he managed the ASEAN region of the Global Payment Services Group. He also worked for Citibank in Chicago and in London where he had pan-European management responsibility for cash management business development. He has worked with large multinationals and emerging international companies and shares his experience as an author and as a frequent speaker at cash management gatherings worldwide.
Matthew Davies is co-Head of EMEA Product Management for Global Transaction Services (GTS) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In this role, Davies has product management responsibility for payments, receivables, virtual accounts, transactional FX, commercial cards, channels and information services. Prior to joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch in August 2010 as head of Corporate Sales for GTS EMEA, Davies worked for Citigroup for 12 years. He joined the company in London in 1998 as a management associate and after completing basic training, went on to work in cash management sales in Chicago. From there he returned to London as a senior project manager within the implementation department before moving to Amsterdam, The Netherlands to work as a GTS client manager. In 2006, he returned to the UK as a GTS client manager focusing on Consumer & Healthcare clients before moving to the Middle East as the regional sales head.
Gulru Atak Gundem is Treasury & Trade Solutions Innovation & Dublin Lab Head. Her primary responsibilities are defining and delivering TTS Global Innovation and Digital Strategy, as well as leading Dublin Innovation Lab and the innovation agenda for EMEA TTS.
Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions, a division of Citigroup's Institutional Clients Group, offers integrated cash management and trade services and finance to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations around the world. With a network that spans more than 100 countries, TTS supports over 65,000 clients.
Prior to her current role, Gulru was the Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions for Turkey and Non-Presence Countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus since April 2014. Gulru joined Citi Turkey in 2002 and has 15 years of experience in banking. She has assumed various responsibilites in product and business management. Before joining Citi, her career started at PriceWaterhouseCoopers as an associate in Assurance & Business Advisory Services at September 2000. Gulru holds a BA degree in Business Administration from Bogazici University in Istanbul Turkey. She is married, and has a five year old daughter.
Gulru is passionate about mentoring, especially inspiring women in achieving their potential…
Kush Patel is the co-founder and CEO of Tallysticks. After a successful career on Wall St. and as a diplomat with the US Government, he decided to venture out on his own. Kush has start-up experience in a range of industries, including: investments, pharmaceuticals and, now, financial technology. He is an outside-the-box thinker with a talent for crafting efficient business strategies.
Aniket Kulkarni leads PwC’s Treasury and trading technology practice in Switzerland. Prior to joining PwC, he worked as a global product manager for treasury and commodity risk management in SAP. Aniket has a team of experts, helping corporates and trading companies in implementing treasury and commodity trading systems and processes. He holds an engineering degree and a post graduate diploma in finance, and is certified treasury manager CTM
Marc Delbaere is Head of Corporates and Supply Chain markets at SWIFT. Previously, Marc was Head of MyStandards at SWIFT, a role in which he imagined, initiated, launched and grew MyStandards into the central financial services industry platform for standards management and customer onboarding. Marc joined SWIFT in 2008 as Head of Standards Strategy and Architecture from IBM where he worked for 13 years. While at IBM, he was in charge of the IBM Industry Models portfolio, an intellectual property offering at the crossroads of business and IT. Marc studied Business Engineering at Solvay Business School and received a post graduate degree in Actuarial Sciences – stochastic finance from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).
Marcus Treacher is Global Head of Strategic Accounts at Ripple. He has over 30 years of
experience in transaction banking and payment technology, including 12 years in global leadership
roles at HSBC. He is also an independent non-executive director of CHAPS Co. Prior to joining
Ripple, Marcus was HSBC’s Global Head of Payments and served as a member of the Global
Board of SWIFT from 2010 to 2016.
Susana is a Certified Treasury Professional (C.T.P.) and holds an MBA from HEC Montreal. Susana joined Bombardier Corporate Treasury in Montreal in 2005 and later transferred to Zurich to head the Cash Management department for Transportation Group. Since 2012, Susana is Assistant Treasurer overseeing Treasury Operations, FX, Cash Management and Treasury Controlling.
1999-2006 Statoil Group (Denmark and Belgium) Several positions within Finance and Treasury 2006-2011 Danske Bank Group (Denmark 6 Ireland) Corporate ALM/Corporate Solutions advisory 2011- The LEGO Group Director Group Treasury (Denmark) Financial Risk Management, Global Cash Management, Capital Structure 2012-2013 Executive MBA Cranfield School of Management (UK).
Elizabeth Kleinveld is an ecosystem builder linking various parties in the value chain from startups and scale-ups to regulators, investors and large corporates. Kleinveld spent fifteen years working in the banking sector and joined Startupbootcamp’s Fintech & Cybersecurity accelerator in 2016. Kleinveld is responsible for the corporate partners (banks, insurers, pension processors), ensuring that they get the most out of the accelerator program by learning how startups work and how to collaborate with them.
Oscar currently serves as VP of Product Strategy at Strands. Strands is a Bank Fintech Partner that helps banks to become every days' bank of their clients, empowering people to understand their financials and take smart life decisions. Strands is a global company that serves more than 500 banks world wide providing white label Digital money Management Solutions based on AI, with offices in Barcelona, Mexico, Miami, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur. Co-Chair of OpenBanking WorkGroup at MobeyForum -a global industry association empowering banks and other financial institutions to lead the future of digital services- which aim is to help banks take advantage of PSD2 and other regulations, to enable a new digital banking paradigm, promoting Fintech and Banks collaboration. Oscar has over 15 years experience in Banking and Retail sectors Digital Transformation. On the past he contributed to Caixabank group Digital Transformation launching new Digital Banking services and served in CaixaBank Innovation Group analysing FinTech landscape to disrupt digital banking services. His experience is related to mobile payments, biometrics, digital money management solutions, innovation management, new business models and aggregators.
Bas Rebel is Senior Director at PwC the Netherlands and heading up the Corporate Treasury Solutions team. During his career he worked in corporate and transaction banking, corporate treasury, IHB software and business development. Since 2004 he advises organisation on treasury strategy, organisation, processes and systems.
Nico is Sr. Treasury Manager for EMEA/APAC at Citrix Systems. His main responsibilities are managing cash for the region, administering regional bank account and payment card programs as well as managing regional bank relationships for EMEA & APAC. Nico also supports worldwide tax and compliance functions. He joined Citrix in 2012, before that Nico held various treasury roles at EGL AG and Timberland in Switzerland.
Janko Hahn is Head Treasury Operations at Autoneum in Winterthur, Switzerland, since 2011. Before he joined Autoneum, he acted as Treasury Manager at Rieter since 2010. Prior to that, he worked for Timberland Switzerland GmbH in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in various Treasury roles since 2005. Janko is married and has three kids.
Part of Sentenial's founding team which has brought the company from concept to its current position as one of Europe's leading payment solution providers, profitably processing €35 billion annually for Banks (including JP Morgan, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, AIB and ING), Corporates (including Worldpay, Western Union and BMW) plus more than a thousand SMEs. Currently Sentenial's Chief Commercial Officer (Group) and General Manager (Nuapay, our FCA regulated Payment Institution subsidiary).
Colin serves as SVP EMEA for C2FO and is a member of the C2FO executive committee. He is responsible for the continued expansion and growth of the company in the region, focused on the success of C2FO’s customers helping them to generate meaningful returns while supporting their supply chains. Colin has a strong track record with more than twenty years’ experience in the industry holding a variety of leadership positions in some of the world’s most respected organizations. Prior to C2FO, Colin spent six years at SAP in EMEA leadership roles, he also served as a member of the SAP UKI Executive Board. Colin holds a B.Eng in Engineering and a M.Sc in Computing and lives outside London with his wife and two children.
Naomi is responsible for Treasury Operations, Foreign Exchange Risk Management, Fixed Income Investment, Banking and Regulation, internationally. Her team is located throughout EMEA and Asia. Naomi joined Intel in 1996 and held a number of positions within the Treasury Organization, culminating in her role as ‘Assistant Treasurer – EMEA’, prior to her departure from Intel in 2007. During the period from 2007 to 2015 she held a number of Non-Executive Directorships and focus on her family commitments. She then rejoined Intel Corporation in her current role in 2015. Naomi holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland, having completed her training with PWC.