MEACT’s sixth conference for the region was attended by more than 340 delegates and some prestigious speakers. Peter Matza discusses the highlights.
Our highly successful sixth ACT Middle East Annual Conference attracted treasurers from across the Gulf Cooperation Council. This year we also hosted the International Group of Treasury Association Conference.
Treasurers came together to network, swap case studies and discuss the latest regulatory, technical and career professional development needs of the global treasury profession. We also found time to see the latest problem-solving technologies that bank and technology service providers have to offer.
Our opening keynote speaker, Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State and Director General, Bureau Dubai Expo 2020, held her audience captive with a clever and incisive critique of her leadership in organising the Expo 2020, likening it to the range of competencies that treasurers need in their roles. The challenge of bringing to life an event likely to attract 25 million visitors over six months in 2020, and interacting with one billion or more online can only be described as daunting. Define the process in terms of risk management, operations, controls, governance and people management, however, and the problems take on familiar treasury forms.
Excellent panel discussions on how treasurers can be strategic, tactical, sophisticated and adaptable showed the range and depth of treasury talent that is making its presence felt in the region. Tactical treasurers in the cash management field are having to deal with unprecedented regulatory change affecting their financial service providers in areas such as know your customer, payments and the digitisation of trade finance. Sophisticated treasurers are having to learn the skills and, occasionally, the dark arts of taking a seat at the board table, not just talking about bringing financial and business strategy together, but influencing and persuading C-suite decision-makers.
The challenges of technology featured in many of day one’s discussions. What’s happening in treasury systems? Where are regulators pushing for change in payments or cross-border pooling? How do treasurers cope with the speed of information flows? Plenty of answers were given, lots of experience was shared and there was no shortage of service providers willing and able to make solutions happen.
All this and more points to a theme I have remarked on before. The Middle East treasury profession is rapidly maturing and wanting to take its place in the broader business community.
Day two promised as much as day one and certainly delivered. We kicked off with a question time panel discussion. ACT Middle East Chair Matthew Hurn stirred everyone by supporting the beginning of a UAE tax regime to include value-added tax, personal income tax and corporation tax – a point of view not for the faint-hearted.
The theme of diversifying the regional economy away from hydrocarbons came up in a panel discussion. Other sessions looked at corporate to bank relationships and whether they need qualitative as well as quantitative performance measures on both sides of the table. The need for talent development and retention was eloquently described by Anfal Mahmood, a young Emirati woman in the finance team at Etihad Airways, who achieved a Distinction in her CertTF at the start of her treasury career.
In fact, along with operational themes, such as the changing international tax environment, securing the next generation of treasury talent dominated informal discussions at the conference. Etihad Airways has decided to build its own treasury talent pipeline and announced during the conference that it will launch a two-year international in-house treasury graduate development programme, building on the treasury function’s distinguished success to date, as evidenced in the Middle East Treasurer (winter 2015). It seems an inspired learning and development strategy aimed at building talent from within.
