March sees a number of ACT initiatives moving forward and a further strengthening of the management team here in Ocean House. Our European thought-leadership event, the talkingtreasury forum, takes place in Prague on 23 March. We are delighted that we have a truly pan-European list of participants and the event marks a significant step in our commitment to work with other European treasury associations. This extends not just to events but also (and most importantly) to collaboration on technical output – we are, for instance, working very closely together on all the issues associated with the SEPA initiative and the New Legal Framework under the Payments Directive. For the Prague event, we will incidentally be formally documenting the content of the discussion and the conclusions reached and I am hopeful that this will represent a real contribution to the ACT’s knowledge base.
Jacki Heppard has now joined us as our Commercial Director looking after the events, training and publishing side of the ACT. Jacki brings considerable experience of publishing as well as events, and I hope that many will have a chance to meet her over the next few months. Kate Hoyle moves across from the commercial role to be Director of Communications. I am also particularly pleased that an MCT qualified member, Jim Tapper, has joined us on secondment from Vodafone as a Technical Officer. Jim will be working closely with Martin O’Donovan and John Grout, as well of course as James Lockyer; James is another MCT qualified member who joined at the beginning of January to provide a dedicated technical resource in the education area. I continue to be convinced of the importance for the ACT of putting additional resource into the technical field.
Members should have received their copies of The Treasurer’s Handbook and the Directory in February. For the Handbook, we have reviewed all country profiles to ensure they are of a consistent quality and have added new guides for Bulgaria, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Slovenia, and the Ukraine. We have also reviewed all of the articles from last year’s edition to ensure they have remained topical and have added a number of new articles. If you have any comments on the Handbook please do contact mhenigan@treasurers.org
We are working with Mercer Oliver Wyman on a very important initiative looking at the role of the treasury area in wider risk management within the corporate organisation. This study is based on individual interviews not just in the UK but also across a range of European companies. I am very hopeful that the output will provide a benchmark statement on how risk management is being approached; it will also help us to formulate our own thinking internally about how wider risk management should be reflected in our approach to the ACT’s professional qualifications. If any member (or non member) has views on this specific issue I would be most interested to hear them.
Voting has started for this year’s Council election. There are two vacancies on Council for the three year term commencing 1 May 2006. I do encourage members to exercise their vote – which you can do either by post following the mailing we have done or through the website at www.treasurers.org/membership/election
Finally, a reminder that the ACT’s Spring Paper is on 30 March and we will be hearing the Pensions Regulator, David Norgrove. The whole subject remains highly topical and I encourage you to join us at that event.
