RT story: From professional athlete to Treasury Director

A professional athlete in The Premier League of volleyball, Jarno decided to further expand his passion for and knowledge about treasury by participating in the RT program of 2007.

Starting as Treasury Manager at Nike, followed by a role as Manager Group Treasury at KLM/Air France and winning the award of being Asia’s Best Treasurer by The Corporate Treasurer Awards working at AkzoNobel – you can say that Jarno is an outstanding treasurer who must be passionate about his work.

Jarno returned to Nike in January 2018 and started as Director of Treasury EMEA, surrounded by top athletes worldwide. Being a former professional athlete himself, working for Nike is feeling at home. Nike and Jarno are an obvious match.

Why did you start with the RT program?

I started the program because I felt it would elevate me as a treasury professional. I studied economics also at the VU, already positioning myself for treasury. I did that by taking classes like Corporate Finance and the RT felt like a natural next step to improve my treasury knowledge.

How did the education help you in your career?

The completion of the RT definitely helped me in my career. Besides being a more rounded treasury professional also to the outside world it also allowed me to distinguish myself and definitely helped me in my career to get a promoted role in a new company for example.

Therefore, I can for sure recommend every Treasury professional to consider participating in the RT program. It will be an investment you need to put in, primarily in time at the expense of your social life for a while, but it will pay off.

Which topics covered were most interesting?

The program is a strong combination of die-hard deep dives in treasury subjects like cash management and derivatives, but it also brings a nice introduction to overlapping subjects like tax and legal which allows us to have a better understanding of those topics as well.

The program also brings the right balance between theory and practice. Therefore, the second strong element of the program is the ‘mandatory physical presence’ in the classes and sessions. This gives a nice discipline, rhythm and momentum to keep track of the subjects, challenges and tasks at hand.

Are you still in touch with your peers?

Maybe even more important is that the journey you undergo with a group of similar treasury professionals, providing synergies, keeping you motivated and allows you to build up an important network that will last throughout your career. Although I finished the program more than 105 years ago, I still keep contact with many treasury professionals from my year.

So in short, the RT program is about knowledge & network and will definitely elevate your career as treasury professional!