I’ve been an ‘accidental treasurer’ once or twice in my career; and it can be an uncomfortable position to be in.
What do I mean by that? I mean that, as a qualified accountant, but without specialist treasury training, I was faced with treasury-related decisions in several of the organisations I worked for. In some cases, I’d make those decisions throughout my tenure. In other cases, I made them until the point where I had built a specialist treasury team, such as with Save the Children International.
So, I was thrown into something that I didn’t have huge experience or training in, despite being an FCA, which meant that all I could do safely was ‘vanilla’ treasury or treasury 101, as I didn’t have the expertise to risk doing anything more.
In this situation you might hedge against your budget FX risk. If you are, for instance, a not-for-profit or another organisation with a low appetite for financial risk, you might invest funds via an established investment manager, as long as you are comfortable adopting a low-risk/low-return approach, as it wouldn’t be wise to do anything more. And you might leave acquisitions and their related funding to a third-party advisory firm, or else to the M&A team, if your organisation actually has one.
Many organisations have people in roles that are not treasury roles, but where they are expected to carry out some element of treasury activity. These are the accidental treasurers, who have no special training in the profession. The roles might range from financial assistant to financial controller to CFO.
Clearly, at the junior role level you would not be performing the tasks I mention above, and you’d be more focused on, for example, making payments. At the most senior levels, you would be taking on more, potentially. Whatever the position, however, you have not been given any training to prepare yourself for that part of the role – and if that’s the case, you’re the type of person we’re thinking about here when we say you’re an ‘accidental’ treasurer. Maybe you’d like to become one, or maybe there’s nothing further from that idea in your mind, but if you have treasury elements to your role and you have not been prepared, then that’s where the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) wants to help.
We are seen, certainly by our members, as the global professional body for treasurers that helps people become really excellent in their roles. But there is a need as well for us to reach out to others who never intend to become a group treasurer, but who nevertheless need to gain the knowledge we are able to share, in line with our vision – to ensure organisations and economies remain financially sustainable.
Many organisations have not yet come around to the view that they need professional treasurers, not realising that in the best case they will be missing opportunities, and in the worst, serious mistakes will be made. COVID-19 has raised awareness of the importance of treasury skills, we believe, and we are seeing organisations that never had a treasury before, now creating treasury positions and teams. However, not everyone feels they can afford that, and that’s a reasonable perspective if you are quite small as an organisation. So, what does the ACT offer to help in this latter situation?
Our public training courses, such as our one-day Treasury in a Day or The Nuts and Bolts of Cash Management, can be the perfect solution for the busy finance professional, who just wants to know a little more about the treasury aspects to their role. Or, as a qualified accountant, our Certificate in Treasury (which has exemptions for certain modules) can give a greater depth of understanding, as can The A-Z of Treasury, a three-day course. Our eLearning series of seven modules presents another alternative.
Another great option is to become an eAffiliate of the ACT. This gives a membership that includes our magazine The Treasurer, in PDF form, access to the wealth of articles and knowledge residing on our website and career hub, and much more.
You can find out more at treasurers.org/membership/become-a-member/eaffiliate
So, if you know someone who you think is an accidental treasurer, please direct them our way, as we’d love to help.
Caroline Stockmann is chief executive of the Association of Corporate Treasurers