Tag Archive for: interview

Meet our Experts – Interview Olivier Werlingshoff

23-06-2020 | Olivier Werlingshoff | treasuryXL

Our Expert Olivier Werlingshoff specializes in the following fields:

His focus is to help the business improve their working capital and cash management processes to release trapped cash, to reduce costs and to be “in control”. Get to know him better:

We asked him 9 questions, let’s go!

1. How did your Treasury journey start?

After working at banks as cash management consultant for several years I was asked to set up a treasury department at a corporate.  The company was a combination of retail, real estate and development and active in the whole of Europe. Besides the set up of a new department they also wanted to optimize different working capital processes and increase the cash awareness. Coming from banks this was a total different environment. Instead of telling companies how to optimize their working capital, I had to do it myself together with different departments. My sales experience helped me to increase the internal cash awareness and to promote optimization of working capital processes.

2. What do you like about working in Treasury?

Treasury is the oil in organizations where all cash related departments comes together. By optimizing those processes you can get a grip on your cash, decrease risks and release trapped cash.

3. What is your Treasury Expertise?

Operational cash management, liquidity forecast (direct- indirect), risk management, (international) bank account structure,  cash pooling, working capital optimization.

4. Do you have examples of risk mitigation, creation of opportunities and/or cost savings?

Yes, a lot of cost savings examples and also release of trapped cash. Decrease bank transfer pricing, introduction of new payment methods to increase the turnover, implementation of cash pools and optimize working capital processes to release trapped cash to mention a few.

5. What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?

By showing the benefits of treasury to colleagues by increasing the cash awareness. By doing so, new ideas comes out of the organizations itself and are more easy to implement.

6. What has been your biggest challenge in treasury?

The implementation of a new payment system in a complex organization. You have to focus on stakeholder management and get the operational department behind you with support of the board members.

7. What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a treasurer?

Treasury is a supporting function. You have to help other departments and the CFO to achieve their targets.

8. The coronavirus is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis. In general, can you elaborate on the impact this virus has on treasury from your perspective?

In a lot of sectors the sales dropped due to the Corona lock-down. Companies need to have a clear view on their cash and be able to pay their invoices on time. Forecasting is more than ever very important and key to be able to forecast funding needs on time.

9. What is your best advice for businesses without a Treasurer?

Not all companies need a dedicated treasurer. Controllers need to have more focus on cash related items and risks (liquidity, FX, Interest and audit). Furthermore it will be good for controllers to focus more on forecasts instead of the reporting of past activities.

 

 

Olivier Werlingshoff

Owner at WERFIAD | Working Capital | Cash Management |

 

 

 

 


Does your business need support in Treasury or a Treasury QuickScan?

We have treasurers available, go to Rent a Treasurer for all information.



Meet our Experts – Interview Michael Ringeling

16-06-2020 | Michael Ringeling | treasuryXL

Meet our Expert Micheal Ringeling, an experienced Treasurer with a unique combination of corporate treasury, corporate control and banking expertise. A solid base in finance (Stork, TenneT) and banking (ABN AMRO Bank) contributed to his specialisation in treasury. Being hands on, trustworthy and creative with a can-do mentality, Michael worked as independent interim treasurer in the past nine years for various companies like TNT, Vion, TomTom and Unit4.

Knowing all the ins and outs in the world of treasury, he will hit the ground running and provide efficient and effective solutions on every operational and strategic level in the following areas:

Treasury and Cash Management

  • Cross border cross currency cash pooling, efficient banking infrastructure
  • Finance agreements
  • Intercompany loans, in house bank and intercompany netting
  • Interest rate and foreign exchange (FX) risk management and deal execution (hedging)
  • Treasury policies
  • Cash flow forecasting
  • Establish an optimal relationship between organisation and financial institutions

Treasury Control

  • IFRS, financial instruments and disclosures in the annual report
  • Alignment between Treasury and Control.

We asked him 11 questions, let’s go!

1. How did your treasury journey start?

I started my career in controlling and worked as a corporate controller for the national high voltage grid operator in the Netherlands (TenneT) when the finance director asked me if I would be interested in arranging a bridge loan facility for the acquisition of a company. The answer was obviously yes and that is how my treasury journey started.

2. What do you like about working in Treasury?

The interaction with various people in the business, managing liquidity and funding, finding smart solutions to optimise payment processes, deal with foreign exchange risks. In short, all different aspects of treasury that contribute to the company’s success.  

3. What is your Treasury Expertise?

I am an experienced treasurer with a unique combination of corporate treasury, corporate control and banking expertise.
Finance agreements, Liquidity management, Cash pooling, Efficient banking infrastructure, Intercompany loans, In house bank and intercompany netting, Interest rate and FX risk management, Deal execution, Treasury policies, Cash flow forecasting, IFRS, Financial instruments and disclosures in the annual report and establishing an optimal relationship between organisation and financial institutions are the core of my expertise.

4. Do you have examples of risk mitigation, creation of opportunities and/or cost savings?

For multiple companies, I have advised and executed numerous FX, interest rate and commodity hedges, mitigating the underlying business risks. I have arranged finance agreements enabling companies to pursue new business growth opportunities and implemented cash pools, optimising the cash positions and reducing finance costs.

5. What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?

I would say the entire journey is one big experience.

6. What has been your biggest challenge in treasury?

Being an interim treasurer, every assignment has its challenges that need 100% attention. The biggest one was a time critical refinance to safeguard business continuity.

7. What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a treasurer?

As a treasurer you are responsible for safeguarding one of the most valuable assets: cash. So be trustworthy at all times, communicate and make sure to always have access to sufficient liquidity.

8. How have you seen the role of Corporate Treasury evolve over the years?

Yes and no. The most important role of a treasurer is safeguarding liquidity. That has not changed much since the concept of money was invented in ancient history. What did change is that we no longer need well armored knights to physically protect the cash. Today’s defense mechanisms are more and more about automation, digital security and regulatory frameworks.

9. The coronavirus is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis. In general, can you elaborate on the impact this virus has on treasury from your perspective?

Disruptive events like the COViD-19 crisis increase focus on business continuity. Protect your people and your liquidity! Many companies obtained additional (stand-by) credit facilities to make sure sufficient liquidity is available should the business be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Cash is king again.

10. What developments do you expect in corporate treasury in the near and further future?

Increasing importance of automation, digitalisation and regulatory frameworks to safely operate corporate treasuries.

11. What is your best advice for businesses without a Treasurer?

Contact treasuryXL and call me.
Most small and mid-size companies will not have a full-time treasurer on board. That does not mean they don’t have treasury risks. Think about finance agreements and their terms and conditions, interest rate risk, foreign exchange risk, payment processes, electronic banking, bank guarantees and bank relationships. Some of these can be efficiently managed by the controller or finance director. However, some treasury topics can be handled better by a specialist. Ad interim, part-time, on a project basis or in an advisory role to support the finance director. Interested in how I can support? Please contact me, I’m just one phone call or email away.

 

 

 

Michael Ringeling

Treasurer

 

 

 


Does your business need support in Treasury or a Treasury QuickScan?

We have treasurers available, go to Rent a Treasurer for all information.



Meet our Experts – Interview Aastha Tomar

09-06-2020 | Aastha Tomar | treasuryXL

Aastha Tomar has joined treasuryXL at the beginning of 2020 as expert and already published 3 great blogs:

Aastha has been responsible for setting up of Treasury teams for her organizations from scratch and has been a founder member of FX Treasury in a Bank. Being in front office role throughout her career has made her indispensable for her organizations due to her business development and stakeholder management skills. She has single handed led transactions to the tune of USD 5Bn.
Aastha is an Electrical Engineer and master’s in finance, both from premier institutes in India. Her inquisitiveness to learn something new and accept challenging work is responsible for her stints in Software development, Investment banking, Banking and Entrepreneurship.
In her free time Aastha loves to write blogs/ articles on various topic ranging from leadership, life experiences and sustainability, her latest love.

 

We asked her 9 questions, let’s go!

1. How did your treasury journey start?

My first exposure to how Treasury actually works was quite early during my internship in my MBA. I was lucky enough to do internship in one of India’s largest Corporate Treasury. It was then I decided that I want to make my career in Treasury. Therefore my career choices after MBA were always made while keeping in mind that I have to move towards being a corporate Treasurer.

2. What do you like about working in Treasury?

Treasury is a very fascinating department, there doesn’t goes even a single day where you don’t learn something new. Every day brings a new aspect to the profile. You have to be on your toes always to be up the curve which is the best part. You are always on top of what is happening in the world and how it is impacting the business. You can always make a positive impact on organisation’s bottom line by being always ready with action of any kind of impact.

3. What is your Treasury Expertise?

I have worked in Corporate finance, fixed income financing through loans and capital markets and have worked in FX Treasury which included risk management, interest rate risk management and FX risk management.

4. Do you have examples of risk mitigation, creation of opportunities and/or cost savings?

I was responsible for ISDA negotiations where we always made sure that default covenants for the counter party are strict and always made sure that the covenants are adhered to and did frequent monitoring for the same. This always kept us informed and saved us from any shocks from covenants default which in turn would have led to default in the derivatives done with the counter party.

5. What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?

I was the founder member of Treasury in my previous organisation. I joined the organisation before the bank was formed. The initial few months were very demanding as it involved infrastructure set up, documentation, informing corporations about our bank.  After much hard work and after few months I cracked one of the biggest deal for that year for my bank. It was such a nice experience where all your efforts which you put in finally bore fruit.

6. What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a treasurer?

Time is for essence for a Treasurer, we have to take actions swiftly and seamlessly. Each day is different and bring new challenges therefore a Treasurer should be ready to face them  . Always think out of the box- what new products can be used, how to make most use of technology, how make a team which is self motivated and work towards a common goal.

7. The coronavirus is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis. In general, can you elaborate on the impact this virus has on treasury from your perspective?

The corporations with strong risk management approach, with clear understanding potential risk on business through risk evaluation tools, such as sensitivity analysis, shall be the best place during the current scenario. They would have their foreign currency exposure hedged to an optimum limit, sufficient cash to work with and therefore, during these times, would be able to direct their efforts to improve operational efficiency, carry out M&A evaluations  rather than trying to learn swimming after being thrown in the waters. Business Continuity Management came into play and the organisations which has BSM only in theory in their policy books took lot of time to adjust to the new normal. Thus, COVID 19 brings additional responsibility of treasury towards ensuring corporations not only survive but thrive during the new normal.

8. What developments do you expect in corporate treasury in the near and further future?

One thing has been proved that there is no running away from the Technology. You may be in finance field but you got to know the technology as well. The major development which now will take place will be to reduce as much human intervention as possible in the working of Treasury which will make sure that if at all any such scenario is faced in future work can go on without much impact.

9. How have you seen the role of Corporate Treasury evolve over the years?

I answered this question in my article “The Missing Part of a Treasury Job Description“:

” Gone are the days when a Treasurer was just involved in risk management and ensuring liquidity. In current scenario of news going viral each action creates a ripple effect. As famous Jane Goodall once said : “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”. A Treasurer has to take an active role in policy making and lead her organization towards sustainability and protecting consumers  ”

 

Aastha Tomar

FX & Derivatives | Debt Capital Markets | MBA Finance |
Electrical Engineer | Sustainability

 

 



Does your business need support in Treasury or a Treasury QuickScan?

We have treasurers available, go to Rent a Treasurer for all information.



Meet our Experts – Interview Wim Kok

02-06-2020 | Wim Kok | treasuryXL

This week you will meet Wim Kok, a Trade Finance Specialist with decades of experience.

Wim started his financial advisory company recently after a long career in the banking industry (> 40 years). During his banking career his interest and focus was always connected to the commodity & trade finance industry both in sales and product innovation. Activities in various senior roles, including relationship management, head of department, change management and start up business (internationally).

Nowadays Wim is involved as independent advisory in supply chain management and digitalisation of the logistic industry. Building bridges, simplifying (trade) finance and logistics. Closing the gap between procurement and finance (treasury).

We asked him 11 questions, let’s go!

1. How did your treasury journey start?

I started working in Treasury (assistant treasurer) during the late 70 ties i.e. my 1st job was with Continental Grain  a New York based grain trading company with a strong foothold in Europe.

The Rotterdam Harbour, at that time, was the physical entry point for US grain coming to Europe.

I worked with 3 merchant banks (Slavenburg, Bank Mees & Hope & Albert de Bary) pooling and netting bank accounts (manually) to optimise currency and debit/credit interest positions for the Rotterdam company.

2.  What do you like about working in Treasury?

I see the treasury operations as a pivotal function within an organisation meaning that you have to know the cash generating mechanics of the company inside out. Seamless use and coordination of cash contributes to a seamless treasury function and an added value for the company.

3,  What is your Treasury Expertise?

I started my career in the late 70ties as assistant treasurer with an American global grain trading company in the Netherlands – My main task was to streamline and optimise the money flows in 8 different main currencies between 3 banks. This was the early start of the cash management development. Later on I moved into the trade and commodity structured finance direction.

4.  Do you have examples of risk mitigation, creation of opportunities and/or cost savings?

Very simple netting and pooling arrangements (interest risks). Discounting receivables, Bills of Exchange, Documentary L/C’s or insurance arrangements, making use of swaps and FX derivatives (currency risks) etc. on the payable side – supplier finance structures making use of the rating of the corporates.

5.  What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?

That’s difficult to mention as my treasurer career was rather short, but I have seen the position and function grow over the years bridging the silo’s within a company (especially within the bigger corporates).

6.  What has been your biggest challenge in treasury?

At my time with Continental Grain is was the perception of the people. Hugh silo’s between booking /audit and sales / marketing we started to change the perception and managed to bridge the different worlds of finance and commerce by showing that a good treasury function earned additional income.

7.  What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a treasurer?

My most important lesson learnt (and that seems a bit odd having worked within banks for almost 40 years) is: as a larger corporate always make sure you keep your independence in other words select more providers to support you.

8.  How have you seen the role of Corporate Treasury evolve over the years?

Very much in such way that in the bigger Corporates you see nowadays a lot of inhouse banks and for mid & large corporates a treasury function is more or less the standard.

9.  The coronavirus is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis. In general, can you elaborate on the impact this virus has on treasury from your perspective?

In this respect I would like to refer to the article I recently wrote for TreasuryXL: ”How to simplify procurement and finance in the supply chain” – I think a lot of companies will have to reconsider their current (disrupted) supply chains and financial systems. Companies going into 2021 will have to adopt to the fast changing pace in any discipline or a combination be it digitalisation, IoT, Blockchain, AI, robotics or the Cloud

10.  What developments do you expect in corporate treasury in the near and further future?

Definitely transparency, efficiency and speed will improve dramatically due to interconnectivity of systems and transactions, data protection (and use) and cybersecurity will become a more important factor.

11.  What is your best advice for businesses without a Treasurer?

Try one because a good treasurer will always earn (at least) himself back for the company.

 

Wim Kok

International Business Consultant

Trade Finance Specialist

 

 

 


Does your business need support in Treasury or a Treasury QuickScan?

We have treasurers available, go to Rent a Treasurer for all information.



Meet our Experts – Interview Bertus van de Kamp

26-05-2020 | Bertus van de Kamp | treasuryXL |

In the upcoming weeks, you will meet some of the treasuryXL Experts more personally. We will publish interviews, in which we reflect upon their Treasury journey , their experiences and the challenges they faced.

This week, you meet Bertus van de Kamp, Senior Business Consultant and owner of Van de Kamp Consultancy. Bertus has more than 25 years of experience as Cash management Consultant with a leading bank in the Netherlands in the Mid- and Large Corporate segment. Since a couple of years he works as an independent consultant. He underwrites the importance of a well designed and managed cash-conversion-cycle, sees the interaction with his environment as one of his strengths and is very structured in his work. Next to this he is very interested in recent developments with regard to e.g. Blockchain, Open Banking and Instant Payments.

 

We asked him 9 questions, let’s go!

1. How did your treasury journey start?

In my over 30 year working with a Dutch bank I learned to know the Treasury business when I was active as Transaction Banker for the Corporate Market.

2. What do you like about working in Treasury?

I really enjoyed working as Transaction Banker for Corporate Clients and advising them to get better insights in their cash and currency positions and structuring their international Trade Business.

3. What is your expertise in the field of Treasury?

My experience with Treasury consists mainly of advising clients on how to hedge their currency and interest risks. Next to this I provided an RFP for a client for a Treasury Management System and guided the complete selection process.

4. Do you have examples of risk mitigation, creation of opportunities and/or cost savings?

I advised companies to set up international cash pools and get more insights in their cash flow via Electronic banking platforms, Payment Hubs or Treasury Management Systems (TMS)

5. What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?

For a company I accompanied the selection of a TMS via a Request for Proposal

6. What has been your biggest challenge? Can you share your story

My biggest challenge has been to guide the complete RFP process for the Treasury Management System for the client mentioned before. Together with the client I composed the RFP and we selected five suppliers to fill in the RFP. After they completed the RFP we invited all five for a live demo. After judging the demos we made a selection of two of them. These two suppliers were invited to make a final offer and finally the best proposal has been chosen

7. What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned in your career?

During my career I learned that honesty and real attention for your clients does pay off. By listening actively and attentively to the clients I learned to know what their questions and problems were and gave them a sincere answer, even if this did not answer their questions or solve their problems.
What I learned with respect to Treasury and Cash management in particular is that companies are not always aware of the importance of a good overview of the liquidity position of their business. In my opinion a company has to be able to get, with a ‘push on the button’, immediate insight in their cash position and even better their total cash conversion cycle

8. How have you seen the role of Corporate Treasury evolve over the years?

In my opinion it has become a more ‘technical’ role, where a Treasurer not only has to cope with cash-, currency-, interest- and/or loan positions within their company, but also with all kind of technical applications (bank, trade, treasury, ERP and so on) and their inter connectivity. Not to forget the recent developments with cloud services, API’s and blockchain.

9. The coronavirus is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis. In general, can you elaborate on the impact this virus has on treasury from your perspective?

Corona leads to strong falls in turn-over and because of that to problems with the cashflow of companies. Every treasury department will have to focus on improving the cashflow and be aware of the risks of a negative cashflow

 



Senior Business Consultant