The Association of Corporate Treasurers ran its inaugural Next Gen Summit on Thursday 17 September, hosted by Shell and facilitated by treasurers from some of the largest FTSE companies.
More than 50 colleagues from banking and FTSE treasury teams met for an afternoon debating the four themes identified and presented in the Developing Bank/Treasurer Relationships: A Playbook published earlier this year.
Building on a similar event held at the start of the year for senior managers, the Next Gen Summit’s purpose was to enable the next generation of banking and treasury leaders to:
As well as:
The event was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, and the facilitators purposely encouraged open and wide-ranging conversations. Straying off topic was actively supported, not only to enable participants to speak about whatever they wanted, but also, importantly, to allow the ACT and the Inclusion working group to identify those topics that really are of importance to the Next Gen group (not necessarily those their seniors assume are important).
Thanks to the use of a complex algorithm, participants rarely joined the same group. After the five sessions (covering each of the four themes in the playbook: Encourage Participation, Support People, Curate the relationship and Working practices, as well as the challenge of demonstrating progress: Accountability), most people had met everyone else, effectively facilitating the networking element of the afternoon. This was backed up by drinks and canapés provided by Shell at the end of the formal proceedings. Many lingered to continue expanding their new networks.
One banker was delighted to meet someone from a large multinational that she hadn't had the chance to engage with; another said how helpful it was to meet bankers from other organisations who had had similar experiences to their own.
Sharing these (experiences and perspectives) in a safe space has given everyone a broader sense of what works and what doesn't always work
There are lots of assumptions about what others would like – whether that is senior colleagues about junior colleagues (or vice versa), or corporates about banks (and vice versa). Part of this process is to identify and challenge those assumptions. The session uncovered that:
Next steps following the meeting are to revisit the playbook and update it where appropriate to reflect the thoughts of the Next Gen group. We’re also going to develop the inclusion programme for 2027. Based on the feedback we received, it is highly likely that this meeting will be rerun, but also that we will expand the programme beyond the initial group of banks and corporates.
As always with a group as large as this, the experiences and perspectives each brought were varied, even with a single focus, yet some clear messages still emerged. Sharing these in a safe space has given everyone a broader sense of what works and what doesn't always work. We expect these conversations to continue after the event. We are always looking to expand our membership of these groups, so please get in touch if you’d like to get involved next year by emailing technical@treasurers.org
Sarah Boyce is associate director, policy & technical at the Association of Corporate Treasurers
