How did you get into treasury, and what has been your career path to date?
After studying through The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) in 2005, I began my treasury journey as a graduate in Malaysia, at HSBC. I was hired into the cash management department, facing off with corporate treasuries, in the area of implementing solutions for customers. So that was the first stage of my career.
Following HSBC, where I worked for two and a half years, I moved on to a series of roles in various organisations. From 2006 to 2010, I was at Accenture, primarily handling IT and finance projects for customers across multiple locations and industries. Then I moved into the buy side, working directly with a corporate treasury department for the multinational paint and performance coatings firm AkzoNobel, where I was in charge of transforming treasury for the region of Asia. That took me to Singapore, where I was based from 2010 to 2012: the first part of my career at the firm.
For the second part, I relocated to the Netherlands, where I worked on projects related to finance transformation. From 2013 to 2014, I had a global project role in which I travelled to quite a number of countries to deliver the transformation efforts to all the target locations.
In 2015, I relocated back to Singapore to start with Deutsche Bank in the area of corporate cash management, focusing on the product management department. So you could say I have gone in a kind of circle: starting at HSBC and working with corporate treasuries, then moving into the slightly different capacity of consulting, then going into an actual corporate treasury role – and after that, moving to Deutsche Bank.
Let’s talk about your current role – what does it involve and what are the key challenges?
In my current role, I oversee the design and set-up of products and solutions for customers, and that’s part of an innovative mandate I was given when I was hired into the organisation, in recognition of my customer-focused background.
My first key challenge, I would say, is to uphold the customer agenda as our top priority, considering that we are a banking organisation. There are so many different priorities in the bank, so putting the customer agenda at the top is really challenging. There tends to be a lot of focus on winning big customer deals. That often creates a distraction, whereby you’ve got a major customer with a big mandate, which drags resources – and the effects may not necessarily fall in line with the requirements of many other customers.
On a related theme, the second challenge is dealing with new topics. Many innovations will lead stakeholders into a position of friction, which I have encountered a lot in the past one and a half years. Often, when you have clients that deal with different parts of the organisation, there will be a roadblock involving something that hasn’t been done before. That puts a strain on the conditions required for a well-running engine. It’s also important to note that banks are also quite traditional in their way of working, in the sense that they are accustomed to doing things the way that they have always done them – mainly because of regulatory and compliance considerations. So, friction with stakeholders around innovation is an area that needs to be managed, rather than walked away from.
The third challenge, for me, is securing the wholehearted support of top management. This can be difficult because there’s often a focus or emphasis on existing business models and products. But the arena of creating new services for customers is in many ways a proving ground. And acquiring the complete support of top management is definitely not something that can be achieved in the first instance. It takes time.
I’d imagine that requires some sharp negotiation skills.
Yes, I would say negotiation – and also the ability to engage the entire organisation. In my area of product management, the challenges come from perceptions about innovative projects. And the way to overcome those perceptions is to work with all the stakeholder groups that are directly impacted – for example, the customer-facing part of the organisation, and the sales department, which has a primary focus on revenue – and to deliver on clients’ requirements. Gathering support from a larger pool of colleagues is imperative for driving change forward. I overcome most of these challenges bit by bit over time.
Which of your career moves do you consider your most significant, and why?
Definitely moving from Accenture to AkzoNobel. It was a key milestone to make a formal move into corporate treasury since qualifying with the ACT back in 2005. It was also groundbreaking for me, because it was when I began to work internationally and travel globally. That’s much more prevalent in treasury than other parts of the finance function.
In treasury, you tend to have a small group of people covering a specific geographical area, and in my first phase of working at AkzoNobel, I had the opportunity to span myself across Asia-Pacific. For those two years, I travelled across 10 or 11 countries to deliver the single treasury standards and procedures – and related systems – across the region. And it didn’t stop there: following the Singapore opportunity, I was invited to be part of a significant finance transformation project in the Netherlands to reduce as much as $500mn in running costs within multiple finance projects we identified.
After getting that work under way in Amsterdam, I worked globally for around two years. It was an interesting and eye-opening time, moving across from Singapore into a very different location in Western Europe. Being able to work as a local individual together with my local colleagues there brought about lots of changes of perspective.
My wife was with me, too, so aside from my work-related travel, we also travelled for personal enjoyment. It was a one-off, unique opportunity.
During your ACT studies, you passed the International Cash Management certificate (CertICM). What did that certification bring you as a professional?
It brought me a couple of things. The first is that sometimes we focus only on the parts of our work that are directly related to our day jobs, which can limit our appreciation for the wider subject matter. But after studying for CertICM, my appreciation improved. I got much more engaged with the desire to move into a treasury capacity in one of my future careers. So that was definitely one benefit.
The other was that I had the qualification under my belt when applying for my first treasury role. At that point, I was in the situation of not being a treasury specialist, but being considered against other candidates with significant treasury experience. That came from the privilege of taking the CertICM paper – plus another one through the Association of Finance Professionals (AFP): the Certified Treasury Professional paper. That gave me a definite advantage in scoring the job. It got me into AkzoNobel.
One piece of assurance I would offer is that when you study for a qualification, it will work out at some point in the future. If something doesn’t come up in the near term – say, one to three years – it can always come up later on, because as a candidate, you will be recognised for having a qualification that indicates a serious interest in the subject.
You’ve been active in the ACT as chair of the Future Leaders in Treasury group, and as a panellist and speaker. What do you most value about your ACT involvement, and why is it so important?
I’m struck that the ACT has grown from what used to be a primarily European curriculum, during my time studying with them back in 2005. Today, it is really an international network of treasury professionals, as well as a set of corresponding curricula. And that is a positive development to say the least – over the past 14 years, the organisation has really grown.
It provides a platform that covers all the essential needs of learning, and gives you options to proceed further with courses such as CertICM, the risk paper and so on. It also provides treasurers with a means of networking with fellow professionals. And based on what I have seen, that is as relevant in Asia as it is in Europe, because treasury comes with the challenge of working not just across different countries and regions, but across different banking standards and regulations, too.
In my time as chair of the Future Leaders group, I had the privilege of encouraging this unique collection of people to keep constantly engaged with key aspects of our profession. I did this by updating them on technical changes, along with best practices at our respective employers. In my view, that’s a key aspect of the treasury profession, which, for some in the group, may prove to be a lifelong career. The dynamics of setting up a treasury function present us with a plethora of choices that could be quite daunting in the absence of a support group to advise on any decisions that may have significant organisational impacts.
With its unique curriculum and framework, the ACT enables students to be versatile – just look at my own example of starting off in Asia, but having the opportunity to move over to Europe. I would say that the openness in the syllabus to an international perspective, plus a future-progression perspective when it comes to technical knowledge, is quite exemplary. And I’m more than happy to see that the ACT now has premises in Singapore. Back in 2005, it was only based in London.
Nicholas Chong is vice president, Payment Automation Solutions, Corporate Cash Management at Deutsche Bank
Matt Packer is a freelance business, finance and leadership journalist