CareersTreasurers embracing a bigger role in the boardroom

Treasurers embracing a bigger role in the boardroom

Corporate treasurers are now well placed to pursue greater career ambitions – even outside treasury

Corporate treasurers have historically always taken a back seat in driving forward corporate operational and strategic thinking, and for many this has led to a long career focused on figures and number crunching.

However times are changing. Today, treasurers are not only emerging into the spotlight in their own companies but forging new career paths for themselves.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, corporate treasurers have taken centre-stage in boardroom discussions, with their advice on access to liquidity, cash flows, and cash forecasts sought on an ongoing basis by the senior management team.

“Low-cash companies, or companies with lot of external financing, are now looking extensively at the treasury function to make sure there is enough cash to pay the bills,” says Patrick Kunz, a former treasurer, and now an external treasury, finance and risk consultant with his own company Pecunia Treasury & Finance. “Nowadays ultra-cash rich companies also rely on the treasurer to make sure cash is invested properly while minimising counterparty risk.

“During Covid-19, this was of huge importance and treasury was a weekly and, sometimes, daily guest at the CFO table.”

Meanwhile, Alexis Wattinne, group treasurer at food company Bonduelle for 11 years, and now its CFO and business development director, points out that treasurers first gained greater prominence and recognition during the 2008 financial crisis.

“During the financial crisis, there was an increased focus on the liquidity available and raising finance. Treasurers had to explain their strategy, and where the company stood in terms of financing, and people at board level realised how important the treasurer’s role is,” he says, pointing out that treasurers always enter the limelight during crisis periods.

“Since the financial crisis, the role of the treasurer has continued to evolve with the board more interested in issues such as managing spare cash in a new low level interest rate environment.”

Wattinne notes that the pandemic forced many businesses into a complete shut down, and this created some major liquidity issues – particularly for companies like Bonduelle that operate in the food industry.

“In situations like this, the treasurer takes responsibility for ensuring that his/her company will be paid, and for us at Bonduelle, we knew that many of our customers were facing huge difficulties,” says Wattinne.

“The treasurer in such scenarios becomes a key actor in ensuring that the company maintains a healthy financial position.”

Treasurers as CEOs and CFOs

The evolving role of the treasurer has seen many treasurers look to develop their own career paths and move outside the traditional corporate treasury space, and sometimes into the boardroom.

According to Kunz, increasingly there are cases where a treasurer has made the move to CEO or CFO, although many are still not realising their ambitions.

“Treasury is only a small – though important – part of the CFO portfolio,” says Kunz. “Usually the reporting and accounting part of a company is deemed more important because it is a bigger function in terms of human resources, so often it is the controller or head of accounting within a company who will have a greater higher chance of becoming the CFO.”

However, this step forward represents a major move into a more operational role.

“Treasurers have a deep knowledge and understanding of finance whereas the CFO will have more knowledge of, and will be more concerned with, issues like tax and accounting,” says Wattinne.

“Treasurers focus on tasks such as managing cash flows and liquidity. They are one of a kind – but lack the operational experience,” he says, adding that this means moving into a CFO role can be difficult.

“Fully-trained treasurers who have worked as a treasurers for a number of years tend to look for new job opportunities in treasury and often move to larger companies.”

According to Wattinne, he wanted to move from a very specialist role to a more generalist role and now would be prepared to move to an even larger operational role.

“One way in which treasurers can achieve this step is to manage internal projects for their companies, which do not have anything to do with treasury,” he says.

He notes that as a treasurer he took the lead in managing internal projects lasting up to five years. One project, on the human resources side, involved organising and attracting talent, while another involved training and educating people internally about finance.

“Leading these types of internal projects enables a treasurer to show that he has other skills. It is important for treasurers to ensure that they do their own personal marketing internally,” he says.

“For many treasurers, this step involves moving outside of their comfort zones and managing projects which bring together people from outside treasury. A treasurer has to get them to work with him/her, show good communication skills and also project management skills.”

Having a high degree of curiosity and demonstrating the ability to learn are two important personal characteristics that will help treasurers move forward, he adds.

A future in consultancy

For many qualified corporate treasurers, another career path increasingly opening up to them is to join a treasury consultancy – or even set up their own consultancy business.

This provides opportunities to work with a broad spectrum of corporates as a consultant, and also step in as an interim treasurer for a longer period of time to broaden their skills base and experience.

“Consultants are used for their expertise in a certain areas such as implementations or temporary support on projects like bank tenders,” says Kunz.

“Interim managers are used when there are gaps in a team for longer period of time such as when a treasurer leaves and the new hire has not yet started or to provide maternity leave cover.

“As a career path, it is always an individual choice – becoming a consultant/interim treasury manager versus having a fixed treasury role. You have to decide if you want to work with different clients on different projects in different locations.”

After working as a treasury consultant and interim treasurer for eight years, Kunz points out that demand for such roles tends to follow the economic environment.

“Currently demand for consultants and interim managers is huge while at the start of the pandemic demand was still very low,” he says.

“Before Covid-19, this type of role meant more travel in some cases, but now most clients are happy with a consultant working from home.

“A consultant can also have more deliverables to meet and face pressure to perform. For example, he/she could be hired to get a certain specialist task done sometimes to set budget and under time pressures.”

Subscribe to get your daily business insights

Whitepapers & Resources

2021 Transaction Banking Services Survey
Banking

2021 Transaction Banking Services Survey

2y
CGI Transaction Banking Survey 2020

CGI Transaction Banking Survey 2020

4y
TIS Sanction Screening Survey Report
Payments

TIS Sanction Screening Survey Report

5y
Enhancing your strategic position: Digitalization in Treasury
Payments

Enhancing your strategic position: Digitalization in Treasury

5y
Netting: An Immersive Guide to Global Reconciliation

Netting: An Immersive Guide to Global Reconciliation

5y