Without question the best event the ACT has held on the Continent, bar none.
Why do I say that? Simple, really: a terrific line up of highly experienced and committed speakers, a series of topics that got to the core of treasury concerns, some serious networking and for the ACT team (apologies to vegetarians and pescatarians), ridiculous meat consumption at a classic Dusseldorf Brauhaus!
To open the day up, Rather cheekily we asked our continental audience which way they would vote, if they could, in the Brexit referendum. Overwhelmingly the vote would be IN; even more cheekily we asked them if they wanted a similar vote for their countries: overwhelmingly the answer was NO. Your correspondent draws no conclusions!
O
n practical matters, our audience was cautious on cash (expecting to keep just a little more in the books) and the economy, perhaps true to form not being enthusiastic about business prospects. That set us up nicely for our Fireside chat with the CFO of Medigene, Peter Llewellyn-Davies on his career transition from Banking to corporate treasury and the C Suite. Peter’s advice was straightforward: treasurers should speak plainly, forcefully and with conviction on risk management and stick to their guns!
The conference then heard from Lee Foulger from the cabinet of commissioner Hill, who is working on CMU (Capital Markets Union) and the delegates seemed to appreciate the efforts of the Commission to understand the real economy and its need for capital markets stability. Up to a point.
Subsequent sessions and workshops reinforced the key issues. Treasurers have a responsibility to their colleagues, their stakeholders and their community to reinforce the importance of bringing together business and financial strategy and the key element of risk management which knit the two together. So when given options between workshops on regulation, tech impacts and treasury leadership, we had a 3 way split which rather suggests we should have run the conference until 7pm to keep everyone happy!
On a practical note, we know what really works is treasurers sharing their experiences and knowledge. In two panel discussions treasurers from major German corporates discussed corporate strategy, professional development, the future of the euro zone and the regulatory environment. It seemed to your correspondent that treasury is the right place to be today for a varied business, financial and management challenge. Maybe that’s something for a psychologist to work on!
We will be back in 2017.
