On 4 September 2026, it will be my third anniversary of joining the Association of Corporate Treasurers as Chief Executive. In many ways, the time has flown by – but this anniversary has prompted me to pause and reflect on the distance I, and more importantly the ACT as a whole, have travelled over the past 36 months.
When I joined the Association three years ago, the priorities in a post-Covid environment seemed very clear: rebuild the organisation’s financial resilience, and show the relevance of membership, treasury qualifications and having a voice in financial regulation & policy. So have we achieved what we set out to do?
Membership
We now represent a broader cross-section of the treasury community, with the introduction of a clearer Affiliate membership category. This has also helped highlight the distinct benefits of becoming a qualified member of the ACT, including the professional development an ACT qualification provides, as well as voting rights at the ACT and a recognised designation for your resume and profile. More importantly, we have seen engagement from our members and beyond growing – with record attendances at our flagship conferences and Annual Dinner in 2025 & 2026, and an increasing number of volunteers contributing to the ACT’s work in many diverse ways.
We’re also working on how we hear from the next generation of treasurers coming through, and the recent resetting and re-focusing of our Tomorrow’s Treasurers member panel will help to shape how we stay relevant and useful to treasurers whose careers are likely to stretch well into the second half of the 21st century. And we have laid the groundwork to take forward a proposal for a Chartered designation for treasurers in the future.
Education and Qualifications
Complementing our membership structure, we set about radical modernisation of our flagship qualifications. It’s no small task to break down long-standing curricula and structures into microcredentialised modules that can stand alone, but which together still meet the standards and breadth of the conventional qualification. Credit to the ACT Education team that today we offer both the Certificate in Treasury and the Certificate in International Cash Management in traditional or microcredentialised format. And the MicroCredentials for the Diploma in Treasury Management will be launched in 2027.
Even if all you want to do is brush up your learning in a specific area, we have kept moving with the times. We are on to our second generation training course in AI – and it will keep evolving for obvious reasons, with our first AI hackathon scheduled in December 2026. Currently, we are also busy developing a new course in stablecoin and digital assets (in partnership with the Middle East Stablecoin Association (MESA)), which will be coming soon.
Policy and Regulation
The ACT has always had strong connections with the key financial regulators and brings the voice of the ‘users’ of corporate financial services to regulatory debates and developments. More recently, we have recognised the importance of also influencing the policymaking that informs those regulations, helping officials, ministers and shadow ministers to understand the role of treasury and the strategic financial decision-making that sits with treasurers in many organisations. Earlier this summer we welcomed the ACT’s first Director of Policy & Public Affairs, Henry Thompson, to ensure this part of our work gets a voice at the top of the ACT’s agenda.
But what about the financial resilience that was so central to our goals three years ago? We won’t know our progress for sure until the end of this financial year, but so far we have delivered against each year’s financial plan and increased the ACT’s reserves back to a sustainable position, rebuilding its ability to withstand external shocks as it did when Covid happened back in 2020.
And I should also mention that you are likely to be reading this on our new – and still evolving – website, which has been no small investment of time, expertise and resources behind the scenes for quite some time.
Less visible, but equally significant, was the wholesale review of our governance processes, which we undertook in 2024 & 2025 (in partnership with Linklaters), and which resulted – among other things – in expanding the size of the elected ACT Council and moving from four Officers to two, who now serve two years in each role of Deputy President and President.
A Personal Reflection
For me personally, it’s been three years of broadening my knowledge and understanding – of treasury, of membership organisations, and of leadership – and enjoying some amazing and inspiring meetings, partnerships, events and opportunities along the way. It’s taken me from Singapore to New York, from Copenhagen & Brussels to Bucharest & Athens (to name just a few of my ACT passport stamps!), as well as all over the UK and regularly to the Middle East to meet with ACT members, represent the ACT at international meetings of treasury associations and global finance bodies or speak at conferences and panels on the value and the emerging trends in treasury and treasurers. And while the external environment has continued to offer regular and new challenges – from tariffs and trade wars to geopolitical conflicts, and three UK prime ministers in as many years – the wider ACT team has adapted to every challenge with a focus on members at its heart.
I am grateful to my colleagues, Council members, current and past Presidents, ACT members and partners across the treasury community for their support – and their constructive challenges – over the past three years. The progress I have described above is only possible with this broad team effort and strength in depth.
Pausing to reflect is important, but so is looking forward. And so we face this autumn focused on developing the next three-year strategy (2027-2030) for the ACT, continuing the work to keep membership and professional development relevant, and sharing the importance of treasury as a strategic discipline shaping business and economic progress in the UK and around the world.