Agenda | The Association of Corporate Treasurers

Agenda

ACT Festival of Treasury Transformation 2021

Join us for three interactive days with individual themes: transforming payments, transforming operations, and transforming mindsets. Each day has been given a subtheme for a more focused discussion.

Please take a look at the draft agenda below and continue to visit this page for future updates and announcements. Times shown are in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Day one

Tuesday 23 November 2021

Transforming payments

09:30

Welcome and opening address 

Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT 

09:35

Keynote address - Zoom’s transformational story: how technology is reshaping the economy and the future of work

  • How Zoom handled the pandemic
  • Working from home: a surprise that it worked so well?
  • The hybrid future: it is being invented now?

Magnus Falk, CIO Advisor, Zoom Video Communications  
Interviewed by: Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT 

Payments

11:00

Announcing a new era for payments

  • Four pain points in payments that just won’t go away
  • The potential impact of decentralised technologies on payments systems
  • The need for a new financial markets infrastructure to ensure resilience, sustainability, security, and stability
  • The role of UK authorities in adapting to these developments
  • What this might mean for treasury functions and liquidity

Tony Craddock, Director General, The Payments Association 
Robert Courtneidge, Payment Industry Expert, The Payments Association

12:30

Payment risk: anomaly detection and sanction screening

Ongoing research in artificial intelligence underpins product development to make payments less vulnerable to interference and falling afoul of sanctions and anti-money laundering regulations. This session highlights ION’s latest work in these areas.

Nick Parfitt, Head of Market Planning, Acuris Risk & Compliance, ION Group
Peter Pippan, Lead Analyst, Product Strategy, ION Treasury

Digital currency

14:00

Digital assets in 2021 and beyond

This session led by Arca and Copper will provide a summary of the areas explored in the previous three webinars in this series, followed by a discussion of what the future could hold. As more treasurers seek to understand digital assets, what preparations can they undertake to make sure they are ready to respond to market developments, as well as requests from the board?

Panellists:

Rayne Steinberg, Chief Executive Officer, Arca
Peter Hans, Chief Strategy Officer, Arca
Ralph Payne, Chief Financial Officer, Copper  
Asen Kostadinov, Head of Strategy, Copper

Moderator:

Naresh Aggarwal, Associate Director, Policy & Technical, ACT 

15:30

Industry debate: is it time to take central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) seriously? 

Central banks all around the world are all considering digital currencies.

  • What are the latest developments in the CBDC space and what do these mean to financial professionals?
  • How will CBDCs have an impact on the global payment landscape?
  • Will CBDCs facilitate more real-time, cross-border payment capabilities for corporates? 

Panellists:

Philipp Sandner, Head of Frankfurt School Blockchain Center, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Diego Ballon Ossio, Senior Associate, Clifford Chance
Chris Ostrowski, Global Head, Public Sector Engagement, cLabs

Moderator:

James Winterton, Associate Director, Policy & Technical, ACT 

 

Day two

Wednesday 24 November 2021

Transforming operations

09:30

Welcome and opening address

Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT 

Cash management

09:35

Driving treasury development through best practice and state of the art technology 

Developing treasury organizations is a multidimensionality subject affecting all companies, regardless of size or industry. Treasury and finance organizations still lack full visibility, accessibility and control to a large extent over financial information and their cash flows. Two important areas that come into spotlight are the handling of payments (including bank connectivity) as well as a granular liquidity forecast. Organically grown structures and the belief that people consider themselves owners are the reason that treasury and finance transformation is not happening at the speed of how business and market demands are developing. The upcoming panel will give you the chance to listen to the subject matter experts sharing their experience in treasury transformation. They will also discuss the multidimensionality of transformation projects and provide firsthand information of how treasury and finance technology will look in the near future.  

Panellists:

Bart Parren, SVP Solution Transformation, Serrala 
Alexander Rehberg, Senior Solution Architect, Serrala 

11:00

Harnessing technology to enable data driven cash forecasting 

In this session, the BearingPoint treasury team, together with their solution provider, CashAnalytics, will demonstrate how a data-driven cash flow forecasting process was implemented by using an automated cash flow platform. The panel will explain how the process helps with cash forecasting optimisation and company-wide cash visibility.  

Panellists:

Conor Deegan, Co-founder and CEO, CashAnalytics 
Eveline Stam, Group Treasurer, BearingPoint
Fynn Krüger, Senior Business Consultant, BearingPoint

Moderator:

Naresh Aggarwal, Associate Director, Policy & Technical, ACT

12:15

Lunchtime keynote - Leadership insights: digital and other transformation in the new world of work

Work has changed forever due to the unprecedented pandemic and digital transformation is undoubtedly one of the trends that will influence the future of work. How can leaders adapt into this new world of work? What proactive role can leaders play to drive technological and other changes? How can leaders and their teams cultivate digital transformation mindsets? What is the human element they need to address?  In this leadership insights session, Caroline Stockmann will have a conversation with Peter Cheese and explore how to build better organisations that are people-led and technology-supported. 

Peter Cheese, Chief Executive, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT

 

Treasury management systems (TMS)

14:00

Powering treasury with a cost-effective TMS 

This session will explore how a TMS can be used effectively as part of an overall technology landscape.

Panellists:

Philip Connell, Global Treasury Manager, The Body Shop  
Diane Barker, Experienced treasury consultant

Moderator:

Naresh Aggarwal, Associate Director, Policy & Technical, ACT

15:30

A treasurer’s role in combatting cyber risk and fraud 

Cybersecurity and fraud protection are key considerations for treasurers in all aspects of corporate systems and operations. 

  • Key challenges faced as new technologies present new cybersecurity risks 
  • Practical approaches to mitigate cyber risks and fraud 
  • Managing cyber risks in the age of remote work  

Nithai Barzam, Chief Operating Officer, nsKnox

 

Day three

Thursday 25 November 2021

Transforming mindsets

09:30

Welcome and opening address

Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT 

Data and reporting

09:35

Improving sustainability through ESG transparency 

Major regulatory advancements regarding sustainability-related disclosures are taking place across the globe. To facilitate the link between treasury and ESG activities, corporate treasurers need to access and collect a large amount of ESG data.

  • What are the key challenges in the process of accessing an adequate quantity of data and verifying the reliability and comparability of this data?
  • What is the role of technology in ESG data collection and reporting?
  • How can corporates build an ESG data-framework? 

Panellists:

Miguel Silva Gonzalez, Senior Vice President & Treasurer, Ahold Delhaize
Tom Bindloss, Head of Treasury, Senior plc 
Pascal Lauffer, CEO and Co-founder, Onbrane 

Moderator:

Adrian Sargent, Founder and Managing Director, ESG Treasury 

10:30

Thinking differently with technology: driving real-time treasury transformation

New technology is continually being promoted to CFOs and Treasurers as the path to digital transformation, hyperautomation, and real-time business intelligence. Artificial intelligence, RPA, and APIs are potentially groundbreaking but without a data-driven strategy these are apps in search of a problem.In this session, we are going to think differently – about data, technology, and treasury transformation. We will explore how APIs unlock a matrix of new technology that can meaningfully improve treasury automation, intelligence, and real-time decisions. Using bank reporting and payments as a backdrop, we will share multiple viewpoints on technology transformation for real-time bank reporting, instant payments, fraud protection, governance and cost reduction.If you’re curious about what AI and machine learning should accomplish, if your treasury needs RPA bots, or wonder how technology is going to protect your team against payments fraud – this is the session for you.

Bob Stark, Global Head of Market Strategy, Kyriba

Risk management

11:30

The changing shape of FX risk management

The management of foreign exchange (FX) risk is core to the role of the treasurer but, whilst execution has altered beyond recognition in the last few years, to what extent has this fed through to FX risk management and corporate strategy more generally?

This session will discuss some of the key trends in the FX markets that may impact the treasurer’s approach to FX risk management:

  • Market outlook – a view of the key FX markets for 2022
  • Developments in market structure
    • FX Global Code & Automation
  • Developments in market operations
    • The use of technology in FX markets
  • Digitalisation & outsourcing
  • The growth of algorithmic trading
  • Best execution – lessons learned from asset management
  • The relevance for corporates (and the ESG Agenda)

Panellists:

Lisa Dukes, Director of Corporate Finance & Derivatives, Drax
Eric Huttman, CEO, MillTechFX 

Moderator:

Sarah Boyce, Associate Director, Policy & Technical, ACT

12:30

Building a digital FX function for 2022

In this session, we will analyse the case for an automated FX risk management function, as Antonio Rami, Kantox Chief Growth Officer and co-founder, discusses why traditional treasury tools are not enough for modern FX needs. 
 
The speaker will walk through the pitfalls and challenges of using TMS, ERPs and spreadsheets, and review the best-of-breed solution that will give treasurers a complete view of their FX risk. 
 
You’ll come away from this session with an insight into the software setups of top companies and a roadmap on how you can drive efficiencies in your business by doing more with less.

Antonio Rami, Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder, Kantox 

13:30

Reframing risk management for the 2020s and beyond

Since the start of the global pandemic, many more treasurers are taking leading roles as the authority on enterprise risk management (ERM). In addition to the core mandate of risk management in treasury (namely FX risk, interest-rate risk, operational risk, and counterparty risk, etc):

  • what other areas should treasurers consider when creating a view of total ERM across an organisation?
  • what tools do treasurers need to effectively mitigate those risks?
  • will risk management take centre stage for treasury in 2030? 

Panellists:

Andrea Sottoriva, Group Treasury Director, SITA  
Latha Visvendran, Group Treasurer, Chemring
Kevin Cook, Founder & CEO, TreasurySpring 

Moderator:

Charlotte Morgan, Non-executive director, SMBC Bank

Business and behavioural skills

14:45

Shaping the next generation of treasury teams

As treasurers’ roles continue to evolve, the demand for talent with cross-functional skills, including technological, operational and ‘soft' skills, has increased. Given technological transformation:

  • what technical skills do treasury professionals need?
  • what advice is the younger generation looking for when coming up through their treasury career?
  • how will technology affect the treasury role and what changes are expected because of it?

Panellists: 

Alison Stevens, Group Treasurer, Thames Water
Huy Nguyen Trieu, Co-founder, Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) 
James Westerby-Jones, Assistant Treasurer, Chalhoub Group

Moderator:

Caroline-Aurélie Corthouts, Associate, Corporate Banking, MUFG

15:30

Closing remarks

Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT 

On-demand

Watch anytime, from anywhere.

Celebrating our students of 2021

In this panel session, Janet Legge, Director of Awarding Body at the ACT, celebrates with our top students from across our qualifications in 2021. We will hear from each of them about their personal journeys through the qualifications, how they faced challenges this year, and provide some hints and tips for other students going through the same experience. Join this session to be inspired and learn from the best of our future talent.

Speakers:

Jeff Snyder, Group Treasurer 
Alex Rutherford, Assistant Treasurer, SGN
Katie Mellor, Associate, Traditional Trade, Corporate and Institutional Coverage, Lloyds Bank
Charlotte Thorogood, Treasury Sales Analyst, Bank of America

Moderator:

Janet Legge, Director of Awarding Body, ACT

In conversation: the view from corporate treasury in Asia Pacific 

As 2021 comes to an end, and with renewed hope of the continued transition back to business, economic and social normality for 2022 and beyond, this session – coordinated with Global Trade Review (GTR) – will bring three treasury experts from different backgrounds and markets across Asia Pacific to discuss the hot topics impacting the region and its treasury community.

Panellists:
Xuelin Chen, Director, Group Treasury, Trip.com Group
Benny Koh, Treasury Services Leader, Regulatory Risk Leader, SEA Risk Advisory, Deloitte
Francis Ho, Director, Group Treasury, CLP Holdings

Moderator: 
Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT

Register for access to the virtual platform

Watch all sessions from the ACT Festival of Treasury Transformation on-demand until midnight 10 December 2021.

Registration is FREE for corporate treasurers, ACT members, and students.

Scroll to top