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Be careful what you wish for in crowdfunding

| 02-07-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Over the last decade bankers have taken over from civil servants and public transport employees as the ones to complain about. Yours truly is also guilty and I still meet bankers who do not like to talk about their profession because they are annoyed about the bashing. Nobody is perfect but haven’t we all been too harsh on bankers?

This question popped up last week when I read about crowdfunding developments. This relatively new form of funding is growing quickly. I see at least three obvious reasons for this. First, regular banks are reluctant to fund SMEs. Regulatory requirements, ROI and risk profiles of their potential clients are some reasons for that. Second, there is a lot of liquidity in the market and it is hard to make proper investments. Third and last, various platforms, with easy accessible IT solutions, facilitate investors finding those who need funds. Why my plea to go easier on the bankers?

With crowdfunding platforms building a track record, issues are becoming very visible. There are two very prominent problems. Many SMEs using crowdfunding facilitate the payment of extremely high interests, the term loan sharks already came up. The other prominent problem is that the credit risk process in crowdfunding is often very weak. This results in the funding of unstable businesses and weak plans, ending up with funders empty-handed.

I am a small business owner, the chamber of commerce sells my address to whoever pays. On a very regular basis I receive mail informing me how much I can borrow. Crowdfunding is not regulated like banks are. Process and expectation management is being done quite aggressively by platforms and I understand problems are becoming obvious as the market matures. I invite you to read input from Lex van Teeffelen and others:

RTL Z/ANP: Failliet door crowdfunding: ‘Hoge rentes nekken ondernemers’
Lex van Teefelen: Dalend rendement crowdfunding 2019 / Flitskrediet: meer vloek dan zegen!

This brings me back to where I started with: were we right in bashing bankers? Their processes are more sound, their communication is done with more restraint. There were extremes, mistakes were made and greed was obvious. I think most bankers tried and try to do an honest and professional job. Let’s keep each other informed, educated and ask before we judge. Hopefully we will get better in doing a proper funding job.

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

Why Mathieu decided to explore the World of Treasury

| 01-07-2019 | by treasuryXL | Kendra Keydeniers

I am taking you back to our recent post about the Treasury Management and Corporate Finance program at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We mentioned to share some Register Treasurer (RT) graduate profiles to give you a better insight of treasurer types that are “RT material”. Let’s kick off with the first interview with Mathieu Ummelen.

Mathieu Ummelen is a Treasury and Corporate Finance interim professional who successfully graduated as a RT. We asked him the following questions regarding his ‘world of treasury’ experience:

What was your main reason to start a career in treasury?

My interest in financial markets started when the stock markets crashed in October 1987. As a 15-year-old boy, I was stunned how companies could be worth 20% less overnight. I wanted to know more about that, resulting in a study of business economics at Tilburg University.

I found courses such as corporate finance, treasury management and derivatives the most interesting, so that after my studies I started looking for a position in treasury and I found that as a trainee at FMO. On my first working day I had to analyse the cash position, and when I was allowed to place the excess cash (USD 2 million) on an overnight deposit, I definitely devoted to the profession and I still am.

Why did you start with the RT program?

After a year in the traineeship program, I was asked by the treasurer to quit the program early and join the treasury department. Although I received a great training-on-the-job there, I was also happy to be given te opportunity to follow the post-doctoral Treasury Management course. In the first instance my goal was to gain more specific knowledge about treasury, for example, the legal and fiscal aspects of treasury were not part of the curriculum at the university. But shortly after the start of the course I realized that the interaction with fellow students and building a network of peers were (at least) just as valuable.

Are you still in touch with your peers?

The weekly contact with a group of peers who are in the same phase of their career was one of the most positive aspects of the Treasury Management program for me. It was an ideal way to quickly build a network of peers, and I probably learned more from them than from the theoretical part of the program. The contact has been somewhat diluted over the years, but I still have contact with some.

Did following the program influence your relation with your family, friends and/or colleagues?

Taking the course takes quite a lot of time, not only the number of hours of lecture and travel time, but of course also preparation and studying for the exams. Fortunately, I started the course a year and a half after my graduation, so I was still used to studying. Also, we had no children yet and my wife was also following a course, that made it easier for me to study in the evening or at the weekend than for some fellow students. So, if you are considering to follow the program, my advice would be to do it as soon as you can!

Become a Register Treasurer yourself and apply for the course that will start on 1 September 2019!

More info here

More stories please! Read the RT story of Richard.

Treasurer Test: The advantages of using the Big 5 model

| 20-06-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers | Treasurer Test |

In the upcoming weeks we will take a deeper dive into the Big 5 model. What are the advantages? Why did we select this model for the Treasurer Test? The subjects are shown in below summary, starting the first blog with an introduction:

Introduction
Why a personality assessment in the Treasurer Test?
What do we see in the peer group?
The traits measured
A connection between traits and skills?

Treasurer Test & Big 5: Introduction

The roots of the Treasurer Test lie in the desire to improve selection. A proper recruitment decision is based upon many variables. Often these variables are not objectively measurable: very often apples and oranges are compared. Research shows that knowledge, skills and personality are sound predictors of job success, can be measured objectively and compared to peer groups. This is to inform you about the Big 5 typology that measures personality.

OCEAN

A personality can be defined as a relatively stable set of traits resulting in consistent behavior in various situations and different from behavior of others in the same situation. In the typology there are five clusters of traits defined. Very often the acronym OCEAN (or CANOE) is used to remember the names of each cluster. Below we will describe them and include an example of a trait, projected on potential tasks of a treasurer:

Openness for new experiences. Being innovative, having original ideas can be relevant for treasurers in a build-up situation.
Conscientiousness: goal oriented, organized. A treasurer who is methodical plans, creates a structure and shows predictable behavior.
Extraversion: energy focused externally or internally. A convincing treasurer will focus on influencing others, making sure they will align with the goals of the CFO and/or the treasury team.
Agreeableness: focus on others (also altruism). A treasury manager who scores high on empathy will easily sense the emotions and feelings of his team.
Neuroticism: emotional stability. If a treasury interim director is unfazed, he will not be affected by the crisis situation he might have to act in.

Self-assessment

As this is an introduction, we will not create a comprehensive overview but do want to stress the following; Big 5 does not put people in blue or red boxes but makes sound comparisons with peer groups according to statistically sound gauss curves. This is also the reason academic institutes like to use the model. The traits and scores are without value. High or low scores are only relevant if a specific behavior is desired. Big 5 works with a self-assessment, which is the best method to measure but will never result in an absolute truth.

In the following articles we will elaborate on relevant Big 5 questions like “why Big 5 and not another typology?”, “what are the traits measured and why are these relevant” and “what do we see in the Big 5 results of the peer group?”. We are open for questions and input and will continue to provide further information.

On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

Treasurer Test: The first results analysis and observations

| 14-06-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers |

Do people with many years of treasury experience have more relevant knowledge than those with less experience?

Are treasurers introvert people?

Are detail-oriented treasurers more knowledgeable?

Recently 100 test candidates completed the Treasurer Test, 75 of them working as corporate treasurers, 25 are working in positions related to the corporate treasury field. We asked all of them to take the test in order to build a strong and focused assessment tool. As an added result, we now have an extremely interesting dataset. It is our intention to share our analysis and observations about this dataset with you. Currently we are communicating with data and other scientist in order to present sound research.

Analysis & Observations

What do we have? We have demographic information, the results on Treasury Technical Questions and Personality Profiles (Big5 theory). Therefore, let’s elaborate on the combination peer group – knowledge a bit to give you an idea about where we are working on.

The technical questions are divided in four groups:

Corporate Finance
Risk Management
Cash Management
Treasury Miscellaneous.

The testees are divided in four different experienced peer groups:

No Experience
0-2 years
3-8 years
9 + years

The first quick analysis shows that there is a direct correlation between experience and knowledge in Risk Management: more experience equals more knowledge. Interesting enough, this correlation completely lacks in Corporate Finance, even testees without treasury experience do not score significantly less in this category. Furthermore, there is an indication that the knowledge level in the categories Cash Management and Treasury Miscellaneous is more or less the same for all groups. There is only a significantly difference between the corporate treasury experienced people compared to the Non-Treasurers.

Based upon these observations, we will ask the scientists and industry experts to work on the following hypothesizes (and on others of course):

Cash Management and Treasury Miscellaneous tasks are relatively easy to learn and/or a substantial part of the tasks of a young treasurer
The complexity of Risk Management is not easy to understand quickly and takes time to comprehend
Corporate Treasury is such a small part of the tasks of a treasurer that knowledge is not part of his/her working knowledge.

Given that we just started, we are very much open for your questions and suggestions. What questions do you want to get answered based upon the dataset? Thanks in advance for your input.

On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

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New generation treasurer studies at the Vrije Universiteit

| 13-06-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Research in our candidate files, filled with treasury experts and managers, shows that only a small fraction of the population completed a job specific education. Over time I see the level of impact and complexity of corporate treasury rising and an increase in treasury students. As a member of the so-called Curatorium (management board) of the post graduate program “Treasury Management & Corporate Finance”, I consider it my task to let you know about this education. A task I am of course happy to pick up.

You can get a first overview on the partner page of the Vrije Universiteit on our site and their own Treasury Management and Corporate Finance program page. In the next months we will post blogs with profiles of Register Treasurer (RT) graduates with their motives, experiences and career paths. This will give you better insight in the type of treasurers that are “RT material”. Furthermore we will invite graduates to share thesis and other research summaries that will give you a sample of the level of what you can expect.

Originally the program was in Dutch and aimed at a relatively narrow candidates working in a corporate environment. An important change is that the program now is in English. The student population is a mixture of consultants, bankers, interim managers and experts working in corporate and non-profit environments. As the value of the student peer group has huge impact on the program, this diversity brings a lot extra.

Our continued information flow will hopefully help aspiring students and their managers making a sound decision. The program is not for everybody, we hope to see you soon and find out if you have what it takes.

PS The next information session is at June 26, 2019.

Read stories from graduates who participated the Register Treasurer (RT) program. How does their treasury career look like now?

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

For what audience is the Treasurer Test developed?

| 06-06-2019 | by treasuryXL |

The Treasurer Test has been developed with three different audiences in mind:

Actual Treasurers; those who are already active treasurers
Pre Treasurers; those who have the ambition to become one and
Non Treasurers; those who will not but deal with the function.

Their goals might overlap but there are differences. In this blog we will elaborate.

Actual Treasurer
Taking the test, already being a treasurer, can be useful in many situations. First, wanting to show your hiring manager you are fully capable and have the right personality for the position you want to step into. This is an obvious one. Second, planning your career. The result report will show the candidates treasury knowledge gaps and personality, helping in education and coaching plans. Third and last, as a treasury team you want to be ready for the future of your organisation and prepare. In order to achieve this, you want to know your current status in order to build a development plan with a focus both on skills as well as on personalities.

Pre Treasurer
Aspiring treasurers might have the aforementioned goals and some extra. They might not have done the job, but know a lot and want to prove this. Automatically, the Test will show where development might be started best and if the potential is enough to pick up the position. Taking the Test will also lead to insight what the job is about. It is not intended, but might lead to a candidate treasurer steering his career in another direction. Finally, we are talking with educators to deploy the test at the start and at the end of a program in order to objectively measure progress of students.

Non Treasurer
In finding staff or helping them in development, HR, recruiters and educators will play an important role. It is not to be expected that these specialist benefit from taking the Test. They should know about the Big5 typology and understand how the Test measurers skills.
On the other hand, CFOs, CFO team members, auditors, bankers and other financial specialist and their organisations will benefit from them taking the Test. Many of them consider themselves (unjust) knowledgeable in corporate treasury. Insight in their actual knowledge level is a good starting point. If the non-treasurer knows a lot and can prove this with the Test results, treasury specialists will better accept input. If not, the non-treasurer will better appreciate the expertise of the specialist and put treasury higher on the priority list.

Are you interested how the Treasurer Test can help you? Contact Kendra Keydeniers, Community & Partner Manager.

You can find more relevant information here.

Treasurer Test: We achieved an important milestone!

| 29-05-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers |

This is a shout out to all peer group members of the Treasurer Test: We Are There! Thanks to all of you.
To all aspiring peer group members who intended to do the Test we have to say: thank you for considering but all spots are taken.

We have to admit it has taken much more time than we expected. We learned a lot during this process. All peer group members will be informed about how to download the report shortly and we made all preparations possible. With the data set complete we will now focus on the completion followed by an active market introduction. What have we learned more specifically, also with your input and what is most urgent?

- The technical questions are too complex. As we work with peer group comparison, the results still hold the value we were looking for. As we do not want to demotivate treasury people, we will sit together with data scientists to work on a statistically sound method to introduce less complex questions.

- We will sit together with the experts of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Hogeschool Utrecht and others to gradually redesign the content of the question catalogue.

- The report shows results in (relative) comparison with peer groups, also in absolutes. For example, you could have completed 30 questions, you answered 15 and 10 of these are correct. This deserves a proper reading instruction so readers can find value in the results and prevent misinterpretation.

- We will keep on enhancing the result report in order to better show the number of questions that has been answered versus the number of questions answered correct. Both compared with the peer group. It is relevant to know if a candidate focuses on a high score and/or on a correct score.

- The time to complete the Treasurer Test, both the technical part as well as the personality part, is considered long. We will work on expectation management and enhance the user instructions to preserve the quality.

- Last but certainly not least, we will digest the valuable input of the peer group, in order to improve the Test in many aspects.

We are thrilled that we reached a very important milestone in this exciting project. We will keep you informed and appreciate all input.

On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

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10 of the Best | The ACT Annual Conference 2019

| 24-05-2019 | treasuryXL |

What an incredible two days it has been, action-packed and full of celebrations. Very fitting for the special edition of the 40th anniversary ACT Annual Conference.

With over 1,100 people under one roof at Manchester Central, the ACT experienced so many positive moments. They would like to share the top 10 highlights so far…

1 | A ‘REMARKABLE’ OPENING

The conference opened with an impressive keynote address from leading broadcaster and journalist Jon Snow, during which he said if there were a collective noun for treasurers it would have to be ‘a remarkable’.

2 | LARGEST TREASURY EXHIBITION

This year’s conference boasted over 85 exhibition stands, making it the largest in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe. There were many banks, suppliers to treasury and service providers on tap for our delegates.

3 | BUSINESS OF TREASURY

ACT launched the annual Business of Treasury report at the conference. Based on a survey of senior treasurers around the world, the report paints a vivid picture of treasurers’ priorities, fears and the issues they’re about to face. Read more.

4 | 40TH GALA DINNER

This year’s conference marked the 40th year. They celebrated the ACT’s anniversary during a very special Gala Dinner, filled with entertainment, great food and company. They also took this chance to present to a select group of individuals who became either Fellows or Honorary Fellows this year. Read more.

5 | ACT GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION

This year they were lucky to have the very talented Caroline Chapple illustrating live during a very busy and bustling two days of conferencing. Look out for the finished version – coming soon on the ACT website!

6 | TREASURY HUNT 2019

All attendees had a chance to win an Amazon Echo and Amazon vouchers while collecting points on the event app. Congratulations again to our Treasury Hunt prize winners: Dave Burnside, Fiona Rose and Shujat Mirza.

7 | SPEAKERS’ CHAIR BLOGS

The speakers’ chair, Peter Matza, led two days of insightful discussions on stage, so who better placed to round up the days events (in his own words). Read his blogs here.

Day one blog Day two blog

8 | SUPERB SUPPORT

The ACT is thankful for their sponsors, exhibitors, delegates and speakers. Many great conversations were had and new connections forged over the two days.

9 | #ACTAC19 TRENDING IN MCR

#ACTAC19 generated lots of buzz on social media! According to Twitter, it was one of the top trending keywords in Manchester on day 1!

10 | THE BIG REVEAL

Last but not least, the ACT is really excited to be taking the ACT Annual Conference to the brand new ICC in Newport, Wales on 12-13 May 2020.

What does the hiring manager know about treasury?

| 23-05-2019 | by Pieter de Kiewit |

Among corporate treasurers IPOs are always the icing on the cake and I have followed Adyen going public. Very interesting is that besides the obvious reasons like increased investments, money for the founders and employees dealing with their stock options, the strategic partners and clients play a role. Clients like eBay and Uber apparently work better together with a listed Adyen. Food for thought….

What does the hiring manager know about treasury?

At least half of our recruitment assignments starts with a message from our client like this: “we have this treasurer, I do not understand what he does but he is leaving. Can you help?”. Of course music to our ears, happy to help. In recruitment for permanent positions HR is involved, very often they also contribute in interim assignments. HR not knowing in detail about treasury is understandable. Especially when the candidate we search does not report into a senior treasurer but, for instance, a CFO, we also encounter a lack of knowledge in treasury with the hiring manager. Is this a problem and if so, how can this be solved?

You might have seen we contribute in the build-up of the Treasurer Test. One of the groups of people we asked to do the test are “financials, not being treasurers”. Their measurered lack of knowledge and interest in the field is obvious. This is of course not a surprise. Treasurers are, amongst others, responsible for funding, payments, management of currency and interest risk. Important enough for the continuation of the existence of an organisation. How can we prevent this important job lands with the wrong person? Some ideas:

A track record as shown in a cv is of course a first obvious. A candidate might be too positive about accomplishments, this can be screened by checking references. Screening CVs without knowledge about treasury might be daunting. Simply key word comparison will not work;
Worldwide there are only a few universities that pay attention to corporate treasury. Measuring knowledge through academic qualifications is smart (Register Treasurer, CTP, ACT are the most obvious). Currently less then 20% of the corporate treasury population holds such a degree;
The aforementioned Treasurer Test will be launched shortly presents skill level and personality and compares with peers;
Including knowledgeable experts in the recruitment process will help. We of course are available. Alternatively involving a specialized treasury consultant in the screening process might also work.

I hope you will be able to find the right next treasury team member, secure business continuity and feel confident with your recruitment decision with the above list. We are available to brainstorm and support.

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search

the ACT Annual Conference 2019 starts today

| 21-05-2019 | treasuryXL |

The largest treasury and finance conference and exhibition in the UK will start today in Manchester. Bringing together over 1,100 treasury peers, 100+ expert speakers and 80+ exhibitors.
New challenges need new solutions. That’s why this year the ACT will challenge the audience to think differently, take the leap and embrace disruption with an open mindset for innovation and change.

As the focal point of the corporate treasury calendar, the ACT Annual Conference brings together leaders in treasury and finance to provide you with the timely insights you need in today’s fast-moving market.

All under one roof, over just two days.

Watch the 2018 conference highlights video below for a good impression of the event…

Tag Archive for: treasurer

Be careful what you wish for in crowdfunding