Treasurer Test, you can be one of the last peer group members!

| 22-11-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

“Under 20% of the treasury population completed a formal treasury education. And over 50% of decision makers in the recruitment of treasurers does not know about the discipline.” We are one of the launching partners of the Treasurer Test that can bring an objective measurement that can tackle problems resulting from the described issue. Others are the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam), the University of Applied Sciences of Utrecht, software & assessment developers and law experts.

Key element of the test is the comparison with peer groups. These groups are defined by number of years of experience in treasury of its’ members. Our role as launching partner is asking 100 relevant peer group members that will create the benchmark that future testees will be compared with. Peer group members do not pay the €595 the test will cost when ready, but only €1. We carefully invited most, but there are still a few places left, especially in the group with under 9 years’ experience. If you are interested, please contact Roy Baaten, the community manager of treasuryXL at [email protected]

When the number of 100 is reached, reports will be sent out and the Treasurer Test is ready for use. We expect a lot. At Treasurer Search we will use the test in our committed searches and many other situations, when relevant. First expectation is to further improve the match making process. Also in choosing education, coaching, outplacement, team formation and salary benchmarking the test can come in handy. Perhaps even showing a CFO about the complexity of the discipline can be done. There is a peer group “no treasury experience”.

We look forward to the analysis that can be made after a bigger group of people completed the test What will we see in the correlation between age, education level, nationality on one hand and treasury skills level on the other? We expect to further contribute in raising the level of corporate treasury and hope you will join us.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Real and fake risk control – Treasurers and recruiters benefit and suffer

| 25-09-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

As owner of a small company I have been listening to people complaining about regulatory and compliance affairs for a long time. 2018 will be the year these affairs have a substantial impact on my business and now I can understand the complaints. Both treasurers, recruiters and, I expect, many others in our society, struggle finding the balance in correcting what goes wrong and the hassle of too many rules. Some simple examples: 

  • ING is punished hard for money laundering and I suspect just so. The rules are in place but not applied. My assumption is that target setting beats following the rules;
  • Some large corporates nowadays hire recruitment outsourcing parties that do the procurement of my services. One of them required me to inform them about the payrolling of my staff because: “in Bangladesh there is child labour and we want to prevent you make the same mistake”;
  • One of my clients is a subsidiary of an international conglomerate and decided to implement the services of a new cash management bank. The project has been on hold because the HQ of the conglomerate and the bank cannot agree upon the know your customer (KYC) regulations, much to frustration of all involved;
  • GDPR is implemented, also to control the power of large internet firms. Of course these regulations also apply to my business but did any of you read my new privacy statement or actually read cookie statements? Bureaucracy rules!

I think 99% of us know what is the right thing in 99% of the cases. This is what our parents taught us. That does not mean we will do the right thing. In the current situation, regulators want to solve issues by creating new rules. I am happy that applying the rules with consequences, as with ING, is being done increasingly. I think the structural solution does not lie in more rules.

Hopefully we can all start a dialogue about what is right and act upon it. Customers and clients, family members, colleagues, countries, teachers and students. Not blindly following the rules, but following them because we understand and agree. I am aware that this sounds might sound soft and is not possible in all situations. With many of our clients we cooperate successfully based upon a few bullet points in an email. That’s the way I like it.

Will you share your thoughts?

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

 

Testing Treasurers for Integrity

| 06-09-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Last month Dutch newspapers published about two convictions that made me further think about the combination of treasurers and integrity. In the Vestia case, derivatives fraud within the largest social housing corporation of The Netherlands, the treasurer and broker were sentenced to time in jail. With ABN Amro, staff was being let go for falsifying signatures in mortgage documentation. The severity of the two cases is very different, but integrity of staff was relevant. Could these cases have been prevented? 

In the development of the Treasuer Test (https://www.treasurersearch.com/blogs/3/s66ebd-getting-ready-to-launch-the-treasurer-test!), one of the most asked features is an integrity test of the testee. The development partners have scanned the market for the availability of such a test and received very mixed messages. Some parties offer questionnaires that pretend to measure this personality trait, others say it cannot be measured at all. Between these two there are service provider that do full day assessments, not just questionnaires, and claim good results. We have pondered on the subject and decided not to include this element in the test.

In recruitment we rely on past behaviour when wanting to make a statement on integrity. Reference checks and screening of documents by companies that offer private-investor-like services will bring the most solid results in my opinion. In The Netherlands one can ask for a “verklaring omtrent gedrag (VOG)” at the municipality that report about criminal behaviour. That would be proof something is not good, not proof things are good.

All in all it is a tricky subject. One thing one can be sure of: the candidate that lacks integrity will not inform you about this. Furthermore one can ask if integrity is solely in the person or that an environment can create non-integrity. Perhaps pushing for results and at the same time doing the right thing is a hard task. I would like to read about your thoughts about the subject.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Getting ready to launch the Treasurer Test!

| 07-08-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit | treasuryXL |

Roughly 60% or more of the hiring managers we work with does not have experience in corporate treasury. Less than 20% of people working in corporate treasury received extensive professional treasury education. The rest did not. How can we measure whether a candidate has the knowledge to be able to do the job? Currently this is done, also by us, by looking at their experience: screening CV’s, checking references, etcetera. I think there is room for more thorough measuring.

After talking with many experts the idea of the Treasurer Test arose. We created a group of enthusiasts and started building. The core of the group consists of:

  • academic treasury experts of VU University (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam, responsible for the Register Treasurer Program, and The University of Applied Science (Hogeschool) Utrecht, organizer of the Minor Treasury Management;
  • assessment psychologists with a degree in test development;
  • IT experts using software and methodologies also used by dozens of international universities who can build an on-line assessment environment;
  • treasuryXL, their and our network of corporate treasurers as well as professional bodies.

Within a month we will start with the first test of a new and I think exciting measurement tool. It combines measurement of treasury knowledge & skills with a Big 5 personality test. The results of the treasury part of the test are presented both with absolute scores, as well as with a peer group comparison. Peer groups are formed upon experience: up to two years, three to eight and over nine. The results of the personality test are compared with a general population as well as the treasury population who already did the test. This way we can make statements like “he didn’t answer a lot of questions correctly on the topic cash management but others with less than 2 years’ experience score even worse” or “she is an introvert in comparison to general population but in comparison to other treasurers she is quite extroverted”.

We are close to asking the first peer group to do the test and expect a larger scale introduction around October 2018. treasuryXL will be the home of the Treasurer Test. I am quite excited about this project and think it can all help us in making career / recruitment decisions, choose proper education and shape treasury teams. There is a lot more to tell about the project, I will keep you updated and am available for questions or input.

On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Heeft u een bankkosten strategie?

|23-07-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Als niet-benoemd ambassadeur van het corporate treasury vak wil ik een lans breken voor de bewustwording over bankkosten. In mijn beleving wordt hier te weinig aandacht aan gegeven met onder andere als consequentie grote risico’s, te hoge kosten en onnodige afhankelijkheid van de huisbank. Een les die we, denk ik, allemaal wel hebben geleerd intussen is dat we niet moeten kopen wat we niet begrijpen. Laat me een paar voorbeelden geven.

Sinds de Vestia bom barstte is er veel gebeurd rond het thema derivaten. Niet alleen grote organisaties bleken deze bankproducten te hebben afgenomen. Soms werden ze aangeschaft omdat er klakkeloos werd geluisterd naar een bankier (die werd beloond voor het zoveel mogelijk verkopen). Soms omdat er werd verwacht dat de rente zou stijgen, terwijl hij verder daalde, met grote kosten tot gevolg. Soms goed doordacht en volledig terecht. Deskundigen met enig begrip van het Uniform Herstel Kader verdienen nu een goede boterham met de reparatie van de derivaten chaos.

Tot op heden kopen veel ondernemingen hun vreemde valuta bij hun huisbank zonder te vragen naar transactiekosten en het verschil tussen aan- en verkoopkoers. Men gaat ervan uit dat de bankier de oprechte adviseur is en negeert dat hij wordt beloond op marge omzet. Intussen zijn er diverse partijen die betere koersen bieden, wat mijns inziens niet direct betekent dat ze de betere partij zijn.

Het laatste voorbeeld dat ik wil benoemen is dat iedereen begrijpt dat een piano vervoeren geld kost maar dat men niet beseft dat een betaling doen, oftewel geld vervoeren, ook met een prijs komt. Mogelijk wordt dit veroorzaakt omdat retail banken in Nederland van oudsher geen kosten aan hun klanten berekenden voor het aanhouden van een rekening courant, terwijl dit in het buitenland wel de standaard is.

Hoe hiermee om te gaan? Vanzelfsprekend kan ik hier niet uitputtend over zijn. Een goed begin is nadenken welke financiële producten uw organisatie afneemt: financiering, cash management en risk oplossingen. Heeft u ze daadwerkelijk nodig, wat kosten ze en waarom worden ze afgenomen bij een specifieke partij. En let wel, kosten overwegingen hoeven niet de dominante te zijn. Gemak, expertise en, ook al klinkt het onzakelijk, het goede gevoel zijn ook belangrijk. Boerenverstand is een goed startpunt en van daaruit kan overwogen worden expertise in te kopen. Dat kan zeer laagdrempelig (zie de Flex Treasurer) tot en met zeer hoogwaardige consultants. Sommigen bieden hun diensten no-cure, no-pay aan.

Ik nodig u uit om kritisch te zijn en stel mijn netwerk graag tot uw beschikking.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

Highlighted partner: Treasurer Search

| 3-7-2018 | treasuryXL |

Over the last two years treasuryXL built a community with and for corporate treasurers and all interested in the profession. Starting from the Netherlands our network expands into surrounding countries and we cooperate with more and more partner organizations. In the summer months we will present the most prominent ones.


Treasurer Search

In 2009 Pieter de Kiewit founded Treasurer Search after an international career of 15 years in consultancy and management of two prominent recruitment companies. In the first he learned about executive search of, amongst others, group treasurers of listed firms. In the second he was responsible for building a number of international subsidiaries of the Dutch market leader in the mid segment recruitment market. The German the most prominent one. Approaching 40, he decided to continue as entrepreneur.

Treasurer Search finds candidates for interim assignments and permanent positions. From graduate level to group treasurer of a listed firm. Clients are headquarters of large corporates, international treasury hubs, treasury consultants, non-profit organizations and some companies in financial services. In the Netherlands and increasingly international: recent recruitment has been done in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. Job types include cash & treasury operations management, risk, corporate & project finance, treasury IT and treasury control.

By now, Team Treasurer Search holds 6 members, 3 of them recruitment consultant. With their niche market approach they invest in thorough job content expertise and a very warm network. Over 90% of the placed candidates already had a meeting with Treasurer Search before the assignment was landed where he or she started in. The team is stable, something the recruitment industry is not known for.

Having a keen interest in what’s happening in treasury and knowing not each contact with a candidate and client can be about job openings, Treasurer Search takes a proactive network role. Most often as a courtesy Treasurer Search connects people with expertise with those seeking treasury knowledge. For this team members are in constant contact with educators, professional bodies and other suppliers of treasury solutions. All this makes Treasurer Search an obvious partner of treasuryXL.

For more information check out:

Pieter de Kiewit
[email protected] / +31 6 1111 9783

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Best read articles of all time – This is why corporate treasury is great – The laymen introduction to corporate treasury

| 26-06-2018 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

My father was a civil engineer and would have liked one of his kids to follow in his footsteps. Regretfully for him we all went in different directions, me landing an engineering degree of the wrong type. What I did like to learn from my first business management professor was about creating bridges between various functional areas. That is what I have been doing as a recruiter for almost 25 years, the last 8 solely in corporate treasury. Why treasury?

All organisations, even the small ones, can benefit from good treasury. Only the bigger ones hired permanent experts. The main three areas, perhaps oversimplified, they focus on are:

  1. Money logistics: opening and closing bank accounts, doing (bulk) payments, forecast money coming in and going out;
  2. Managing (treasury) risk: understand and manage the implications of interest or currency fluctuations. If your manufacturing costs are in Euro and you sell in Dollars and the price of the Dollar drops, what to do? What to do if you have excess cash on your current account;
  3. Funding: where do you get your money for new or current business? Bank loans, equity, mortgage, leasing?

This does not sound sexy, does it? But do understand that during the crisis treasurers found solutions for companies how to survive. They found funding to pay salaries, helped sales finding creative funding solutions to make complex transactions achievable, helped prevent companies going belly-up due to currency exposures, forced banks to offer better solutions at a more acceptable price.

Treasurers manage huge amounts of money and operate very close to the CFO. They are involved in mergers & acquisitions, reorganisations and international expansion. They act in small numbers but have huge impact if they would stop doing their work. And the job type evolves continuously. Creating new treasury bridges to traditional job types like accounting, tax, sales helps all doing a better job. The academic world is showing increasing interest. In the Netherlands the post graduate education at the Vrije Universiteit is becoming more prominent in the treasury community. Corporate treasury is very dynamic!

What I love doing is helping CFO’s, HR, internal recruitment and senior treasury managers with their staffing questions. What qualifications and personality type matches best with your current and future business situation. If you only hire one treasurer per year, what do you need to know to choose the best candidate? I hope now you can understand my passion for creating bridges in treasury and recruitment.

I look forward to your thoughts to the above and further contact,

Pieter de Kiewit
[email protected] / +31 6 1111 9783

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Geld ontvangen uit het buitenland: wat zijn de kosten voor een webwinkel?

| 13-06-2018 | by  Pieter de Kiewit |

Cash Pooling

Dat leek me een relevante vraag in de opbouw van een nieuwe e-commerce activiteit. Wat betaal ik, wat betaalt mijn klant? Een tamelijk frustrerende exercitie waarover onderstaand meer.

Als leek heb ik geleerd dat in de wereld van webwinkels er vele softwares worden gebruikt. Gelukkig is er al veel gestandaardiseerd en zijn interfaces in grote hoeveelheden aanwezig. Websites, voorraden, bestellingen, klantbestanden en ook boekhouden en betaalsystemen worden modulair aan elkaar gekoppeld voor verrassend lage prijzen.

Partijen als Adyen en Mollie, ook wel PSPs (payment service provider) genoemd, leveren plug & play oplossingen die het mogelijk maken dat je klanten kunnen betalen via kanalen die jij kiest. Hierbij kan je denken aan credit card, ideal, paypal en vele anderen. Internationaal is er een lappendeken aan kanalen ontstaan die voor een individuele ondernemer niet te managen is. Dus je geeft je eigen rekeningnummer aan de PSP, zij leveren software die je in je website integreert en het geld van je klanten stroomt naar jouw rekening.

De verdienmodellen van PSPs bestaan uit variaties in maandelijkse abonnementen en betaling per transactie. Redelijk transparant. Nu weten de meesten van ons dat je credit card gebruiken geld kost. Minder van ons weten dat ook degene die geld int via de credit card, bijvoorbeeld een winkelier, ook substantieel afdraagt aan de credit card company. Als privé persoon zijn we in Nederland niet gewend dat we moeten betalen voor geld overmaken, zakelijke bankklanten doen dat wel. Verder is het zo dat valuta omzetten geld kost. Vaak wordt een service fee in rekening gebracht, daarnaast is de aankoopkoers anders dan de verkoopkoers: als je naar de bank gaat en €100 omzet naar $ en het op dezelfde dag terug wisselt, hou je veel minder dan €100 over. Zelfs als er geen service fee is.

Met deze kennis klopte ik als MKB-er aan bij diverse PSPs en legde hen de volgende vraag voor: “als mijn product €500 kost en een klant koopt het in de US met $ via credit card, wie verdient er dan hoeveel aan?” en “zal ik in dit scenario minder dan €500 krijgen of zal de desbetreffende klant omgerekend een opslag moeten betalen?”. Geen van de aangeschreven PSPs kon of wilde me beantwoorden.

Ik heb besloten in de opstartfase niet door te vragen, ook omdat de uitwisselbaarheid van PSPs gemakkelijk is en mijn verkoopvolume in deze fase laag zal zijn. Voor hen die, net als ik, e-commerce ambities of al succes hebben, lijken me dit relevante vragen. Hou er rekening mee en ik benieuwd naar ervaringen en expertise. Bij voortschrijdend inzicht meld ik me weer.

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

 

CREDIT CARDS EN BUITENLANDSE VALUTA: WAT ZE JE NIET VERTELLEN

| 23-05-2018 | Pieter de Kiewit  | treasuryXL|

Weet jij welk deel, van wat je betaalt aan de buitenlandse winkelier, naar financiële dienstverleners gaat? Het vakantie seizoen is weer gestart en de economie draait goed. Toeristen en zakenmensen vullen de vliegtuigen en Schiphol draait vast. Mede op basis van dit artikel: https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreymorrison/2014/07/30/pay-in-local-or-home-currency/#778b32b73307 wil ik jullie met mijn beperkte-leken-blik informeren over de financiële keten die hoort bij jouw aanschaf van een kop koffie in London, New York of Rio de Janeiro.

Allereerst heeft winkelier een deal met een bank en vaak ook nog met een credit card company. Een vast bedrag per maand en een percentage of vast bedrag per transactie is de standaard. Een pinpas (debit card) is goedkoper dan een credit card voor de winkelier. Voor jou als consument maakt het niets uit.

Als je besluit die buitenlandse kop koffie met je credit card betaalt waarbij je alleen geïnformeerd wilt worden over jouw euro’s, dan betaal je daar een service fee over. De meesten van ons hebben geen ponden- of dollarrekening, dus daar ontkom je niet aan. Als je bijvoorbeeld een Mastercard hebt bij de ABN Amro en de winkelier handelt de credit card deal af met zijn bank, bijvoorbeeld de RBS, dan is, afhankelijk van de afspraken tussen die partijen, er een scenario mogelijk dat alle drie de partijen een transactie fee berekenen. Zijn er verschillende valuta in het spel, dan zullen partijen deze fee verhogen.

Dan hebben we het nog niet gehad over de koersen die worden gehanteerd. Wellicht weet je dat de prijs die je betaalt bij de bank voor een dollar hoger is dan wat de bank je er voor terugbetaalt als je hem terug wisselt. Terecht, iedereen verdient zijn marge. In deze deal weet je wat de koers is. Weet je wat de koers is als je je credit card gebruikt? Wie bepaalt deze?

Met deze blog wil ik niet aansluiten bij de vele bank bashers maar je wel uitnodigen door te vragen. Ik heb het gevoel dat sommige partijen misbruik maken van ons kennisgebrek en onzorgvuldigheid. Weet iemand hoeveel van een kop koffie van $2 er bij de US verkoper blijft? Of het verschil in kosten tussen een pinpas en een credit card?

Heb een goede vakantie,

 

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

 

Make room for the treasury controller!

| 01-05-2018 | Pieter de Kiewit |

Cash PoolingLately we have received an increasing number of calls from companies asking about treasury controllers. For various reasons this is understandable, but they are not the easiest to find and there is appears to be quite a wide variety. Let’s elaborate.

Over the last few years, many corporates have been quite frugal in their investments, also in treasury. Times were hard. Now funds are getting available, there is willingness to hire, also treasury controllers. The rising investments in treasury IT, also related to aforementioned funds, often leads to less work for the back office and possibly also the front office. Platforms like 360T or FXAll are examples, but also algo trading. Choosing the system and taking care of what it should do and what it actually does, is often one of many tasks of the treasury controller.

The chaos in the financial markets made regulators increase the number of rules that banks and also corporates have to follow. Furthermore companies expanding globally, and funding their subsidiaries have to following strict internal and external  (fiscal and banking) rules. Implementing this framework and being compliant can also be an important task of a treasury controller.

F&A and corporate treasury have been quite well at co-existing in separate worlds and not bothering each other. F&A wants to be in control and appreciates predictability. Treasury is motivated by the dynamics of the markets and adrenaline. But companies integrate functionalities and the treasury controller will build the bridge.

Now why is the search quite hard? First of all because of the drivers mentioned in the last paragraph: the treasurer does not like too much predictability and the controller does not (want to) understand the financial markets. And having thorough knowledge of several functionalities: bookkeeping, IT, regulatory and risk management and make them work well together is not easy. Finally not many corporate treasuries are big enough for a qualified treasury controller. This leads to well paid Big4 auditors and bank controllers. And us having search assignments. Any thoughts and are you interested?

We would like to hear from you,

Pieter, Heleen and Kim

Pieter de Kiewit
[email protected] / +31 6 1111 9783

Pieter de Kiewit

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search