Programme

Rohitesh Dhawan is a Global Macro Strategist at Eurasia Group, the world’s premier geopolitical research and analysis firm. He is a noted commentator on critical geopolitical topics, including US-China relations, Brexit and European affairs, Southern Africa, the Middle East and India. He has particular expertise on the implications of geopolitics for financial markets and the Energy & Natural Resources Sector. He is also Eurasia Group’s lead analyst for social, environmental and economic sustainability issues. In this role, he publishes original research on climate change, responsible investing, social development and philanthropy. Rohitesh is a trained Economist and Geographer from the University of Oxford, and is a Senior Faculty member at the Africa Leadership Initiative. 

Fred Schacknies is Senior Vice President and Treasurer for Hilton, based in McLean, Virginia. He oversees a team of 28 staff with responsibility for global treasury matters and chairs investment committees for Hilton’s US and UK pension plans. Prior to joining Hilton in 2009, he held various treasury roles with Constellation Energy and Lucent Technologies.

Fred currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and has served on Client Advisory Boards for Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. He has presented at events hosted by the AFP, the Financial Times, the Economist, EuroFinance, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups. His teams have been recognized with an AFP Pinnacle Grand Prize, an Adam Smith Award and four Alexander Hamilton Awards for various treasury projects in financial risk and liquidity management.

Fred holds a BA in international relations and economics from Brown University and an MBA in finance from New York University. He has lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He currently resides in Ellicott City, Maryland with his wife and three children.

Lord Dr (Michael) Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE, began his career as a teacher moving into government service in 1986 supporting policy initiatives to bring employment and development to Britain’s inner cities.  

In 1990 he started working for TVAM on education programming and then GMTV as its Chief Political Correspondent. In 1994 Michael moved to the BBC as a presenter on the weekly Around Westminster programme before joining its Corporate Affairs division. In 1996 he became the BBC’s head of Public Affairs and then its first head of Corporate Social Responsibility in 2003. 

Michael is a Trustee of the Vodafone Group Foundation and a Vice President of UNICEF UK and Tearfund. He is also a Patron of Free the Children and a Director of Junior Achievement Worldwide. In 2014, Michael was conferred with a Doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Kent, Canterbury in recognition for his leadership and for his work in international development and corporate responsibility. In 2017 Michael was installed as the Chancellor of Regent’s University London. 

Lord Mark Malloch‐Brown is a former number two in the United Nations as well as having served in the British Cabinet and Foreign Office. He is active both in business and in the non-profit world, and also remains deeply involved in international affairs.

He serves on a number of commercial boards for business with global markets. He also chairs Best For Britain, an advocacy group engaged in the debate about Britain’s relations with the EU.

He served as Deputy Secretary‐General and Chief of Staff of the UN under Kofi Annan. For six years before that he was Administrator of the UNDP, leading the UN’s development efforts around the world. He was later Minister of State in the Foreign Office, covering Africa and Asia, and was a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet. Other positions have included vice-chairman of George Soros’s Investment Funds, as well as his Open Society Institute, a Vice‐President at the World Bank and the lead international partner in a political consulting firm. He also has served as Vice-Chairman of the World Economic Forum. He began his career as a journalist at The Economist.

He chairs or is on the Board of a number of non-profit boards including the International Crisis Group and the Open Society Foundation.

Lord Malloch-Brown is also a Distinguished Practitioner of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and an adjunct fellow at the Queen Elizabeth Programme at Chatham House. He was formerly a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation. He has a number of honorary degrees. He was knighted in 2007 for his contribution to international affairs.

He is the author of “The Unfinished Global Revolution” that casts an autobiographical lens on the state of the world. In 2005 Time Magazine put him on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He continues to write, broadcast and lecture about international issues.

Adrian Is a Chartered Accountant (ICAS) with a career in Treasury spanning over 20 years. He has held senior Treasury roles at a number of financial services companies (Morgan Stanley, HBOS, Tesco Bank, BlackRock, Virgin Money) and has extensive experience in building and developing Treasury capability.  He has a passion for Sustainable Finance and its growing relevance in a Treasury context, which was ignited when researching his dissertation topic on Sustainable Bond Issuance for the ACT’s Advanced Diploma in Treasury Management. 

Director of Finance Transformation in Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), leading the Finance Strategic Initiatives team. Primarily focused on large scale change management and transformational programs, driving increased efficiency and effectiveness enabling the Finance function to become a more customer centric focused business partner. This has included the set-up of an In-House Shared Service Centre (SSC) in Bulgaria along with an FP&A Reporting & Analytics Centre of Expertise (CoE). Currently leading a major transformation across the whole Enterprise, focusing on Enterprise Performance Reporting, touching Commercial, Supply Chain and supporting functions, the goal of which is to standardise, simplify and automate management reporting to drive increased business performance, adding value to the end-2-end processes across the organisation. Prior to joining CCEP, Daniel held a number of Commercial Finance roles across a number of sectors including Telecommunications, Financial Services and IT for EE, Avaya, Citigroup, 3Com and Fujitsu. Daniel is married and has 2 children, Hannah (13) and Kara (3). 

Winny graduated from the University of Cambridge with an MPhil Distinction in Management Studies. She started her finance career with professional accountancy firms, including Arthur Andersen and Deloitte, where she completed her ACA training. This provided valuable experience, leading Winny to working for the Global Media Enterprise, Viacom, where she travelled extensively, accumulating further expertise whilst working in different business environments and cultural settings.

Almost twelve years ago, Winny joined the fast growing pharmaceuticals company PPD, where she contributed to the significant growth of the company. She took on further professional training with ACT and helped PPD set up its current global treasury function. PPD is now a leading global contract research organization providing comprehensive, integrated drug development, laboratory and life cycle management services. PPD has 20,000 employees and operates in 100 + countries.

In a recent interview, Winny was described as ‘[having] a willingness to up sticks and move to where the action is, plus a strong commitment to the treasury discipline, Winny Li’s career has all the hallmarks of the exemplary 21st-century treasurer.

A global leader in Finance, Guillaume de Pommereau excels in driving business value at enterprise level and leading financial organizations across complex multinational environments.In leadership roles with Hitachi Europe, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe, Newell, and Dell Computer, he has delivered significant value while developing strong business partnership and maintaining the highest standards of compliance.Leading a team of 70finance expertsat Hitachi Europe, he focuses as much on the revenue side as on the cost side, with a view that Finance is at the heart of a company’s performance ability. Guillaume started his career in audit in PwCin Paris 26 years ago. He worked in France, Germany and is now based in the UK.His experience covers the technology sector at Dell and KPNQwest, the consumer goods sector with Parker Pen, Waterman, Papermate, the health sector with Takeda Pharma and Alliance Healthcare and the industry sector with Hitachi.Guillaume is a graduate from EM Lyon Business School and holds a Master in Econometrics from Paris University. In 2009, he graduated from TRIUM, a Global Executive MBA delivered by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and London School of Economics.

Mike Richards is the CEO & Founder of the Treasury Recruitment Company.

Established in 2002, The Treasury Recruitment Company is the only truly Global Treasury Recruitment firm in the world. They recruit at all levels within Corporate Treasury from Treasury Analyst to Treasury Director for multinational corporates, consultancies and a range of financial institutions.

Mike regularly speaks at Treasury Recruitment conferences around the world such as the EuroFinance International Treasurers Conference, the Windy City Summit – Chicago and AFP USA Treasurers Conference, discussing a range of topics relating to the world of Treasury and Treasury Recruitment.

Mike is also a regular blogger and podcaster, and runs a very popular podcast www.TreasuryCareerCorner.com where he interviews treasury professionals across the globe about their treasury careers and their views on key topics relating to the treasury industry as a whole.

Their company website is www.TreasuryRecruitment.com

As Head of Client Relations and Marketing, Kaufmann leads sales and marketing for Fides, including customer relations and partnerships. Kaufmann has more than 18 years of experience in banking, including a combined 11 years with Credit Suisse and Fides. Simon joined Fides as a client relationship manager in 2014. In 2017, Fides formed a new department designed to improve and extend customer service under Kaufmann’s leadership. Simon holds besides a comprehensive banking background a Bachelor degree in Business Administration from HWZ, University of Applied Sciences Zurich, Switzerland.

Darren is a Partner and Head of Mercer’s Covenant Consulting Group. Darren transferred from Kroll’s Corporate Advisory and Restructuring Group to Mercer in 2006 to establish Mercer’s covenant capabilities.

He is a chartered accountant and former insolvency practitioner.

Darren advises trustees and corporate sponsors on all aspects of employer covenant, providing quantitative analysis and strategic advice for input into scheme funding discussions under the statutory funding regime and in respect of corporate transactions and major scheme events.

Darren has developed a number of tools and processes that integrate covenant ratings into Mercer’s actuarial standards, providing a direct link between employer covenant strength, the setting of Technical Provisions, the establishment of affordable Recovery Plans, and establishing tolerance for investment risk.

Darren represents Mercer on the Employer Covenant Practitioners Association, a professional body set-up to promote the covenant industry and to publish best practice guidance on covenant work, liaising as appropriate with the actuarial and legal professions and pensions regulatory bodies.

Tim is dedicated to providing advice to corporate sponsors of UK pension schemes. He is the lead adviser to a number of UK and overseas pension scheme sponsors with asset sizes ranging from £50M to £2BN.

Prior to joining Mercer, Tim spent almost a decade at Aon Hewitt where he was a member of the M&A team, providing due diligence and integration advice to a range of clients. During this time, he was the lead advisor to a number of corporate sponsors in relation to non-M&A advice.

Tim advises clients on their strategic direction with a clear focus on turning this into positive actions. His particular areas of interest include funding and investment negotiations, strategic decisions regarding the future direction of DB schemes, corporate accounting, benefit reviews and M&A advice.

Examples of projects in recent years include:

• Advising the sponsor of a large UK pension fund on a new reward strategy, which included changes to pension benefits as well as to broader rewards.
• Advising on the buy-out of a pension scheme, including delivering a liability management exercise to bring the cost of the exercise within the sponsor’s budget.
• Supporting the US sponsor of a UK pension scheme in funding negotiations. This resulted in significantly improved outcome for the sponsor when compares with the Trustees’ original proposal.
• Advising a large multinational on the UK pension aspects of a global M&A deal.
• Providing strategic and implementation advice to a corporate client with five defined benefit pension schemes which was seeking to streamline operations at the same time as developing a long term financial strategy for the schemes.

Tim is a member of Mercer’s corporate advisory group and leads the Defined Benefit Pensions team in Bristol within Mercer’s Wealth business. He also contributes to a number of internal working groups responsible for leading Mercer’s UK Wealth business.

Outside of the office, the majority of Tim’s time is spent entertaining his three young daughters. He is also a keen cyclist and triathlete.

John is a Principal and Actuary in London and a core member of Mercer’s Efficient Financing team.  He has been with Mercer for seven years having spent ten years in a Big 4 professional services firm, focusing on providing corporate advice to finance DB pension plans in the most efficient way to increase shareholder value.  

John’s approach to financing DB pension plans is to view it as a business issue, not just a pensions issue in isolation.  By viewing pensions through the businesses’ lens, he is able to find solutions that reduce cost for the Company, whilst still being positive for the security of members’ benefits and therefore more acceptable to the Trustees.  

John’s experience covers the full range of pensions advice from the corporate perspective, including accounting; M&A; Trustee negotiations; and SPVs, escrow accounts and other non-cash funding solutions. 

Recent projects include: 

• Advising a top tier global investment bank on the funding valuation of its £2bn UK pension scheme, resulting in reducing the cash requirements from c.£200m to zero and reducing regulatory capital requirements by more than 50%. 
• Advising GKN on the hostile bid defense from Melrose, which focused on negotiating an outcome with the Trustees that removed pensions as a blocker to business separation, and maximize shareholder returns as part of a deal with a trade buyer. 
• Advising a top tier global insurer on its c.£10bn UK pension scheme covering the full range of advice, including funding, investment, covenant, liability management and alternative pension vehicles. 

Ben Walters is currently deputy treasurer at Compass Group PLC, the world’s largest caterer and a FTSE25 constituent.  Having had two spells as acting Group Treasurer and being part of a lean Group function, he has over the years gained exposure to the whole host of issues a multinational of this size deals with.  Ben completed his MCT qualification in 2012, gaining distinctions in each element of the course and resulting in him being named ACT student of the year.  He has had several articles published in the professional press covering his ideas about value measurement, hurdles rates, and the enormous potential for financial analysis to support and challenge corporate strategy.    

He passionately believes the Treasurer can lead the charge into new areas of financial innovation.   

He can be contacted on [email protected]     

Ion Sclifos, Head of Treasury & Financial risk of Orange Romania (covering five entities), the domestic subsidiary of the Orange group (leader of the Romanian telecommunication market), passed fourteen years of experience in the area of corporate finance ( treasury, financing), business development and controlling in the telecommunication sector. 

Fionn O’Brien serves as an FX Sales executive for the UK and Ireland at INTL FCStone Ltd’s Global Payments Division. His primary responsibilities include managing and developing relationships with multi-national Corporations, international aid and developments organizations, NGO’s and financial institution customers.  Mr. O’Brien is a passionate advocate for the local currency funding model in cross border business and has a keen understanding of the many foreign exchange challenges facing the modern Treasurer.

Kevin is a co-founder and the CEO of TreasurySpring.

He started his career in 2002 as a lawyer with international law firm, Weil, working as a corporate finance lawyer in the firm’s London and New York offices.

In 2006, he joined Pentagon Capital Management Plc, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, where he met his TreasurySpring co-founders and went on to become co-General Counsel and a member of the firm’s investment committee.

In 2010, Kevin and his co-founders established Autumn Capital, an FCA-regulated advisory firm where they advised on more than $10 Billion of short-dated assets before selling the business to AgFe, a European fixed income specialist, which they joined as Partners, in late 2013.

Kevin led the short-dated investments group at AgFe from 2014 until he departed to establish TreasurySpring in 2016.

Kevin is admitted as a Solicitor in England & Wales and holds a law degree from the University of Manchester and a Legal Practice Certificate from Nottingham law school.

Philip Wielenga is a certified ex-treasurer with 15 years of hands-on experience, working at international companies. During the last 8 years, Philip worked together with Trinity and helped many corporate clients with the streamlining of their treasury- and payment processes.

Sally has over 18 years’ experience within multinational retail businesses, currently Head of Group FP&A and Treasury at Whitbread, a FTSE 50 best known for its Costa and Premier Inn brands.  Her role gives a unique view across the organisations’ business planning along with the funding of the group world wide.  In recent years, she has raised £1.6bn of debt through USPP’s, Public Bond and RCFs, whilst implementing Whitbread’s Treasury Operating Model including a new TMS.  Across her 14 years at Whitbread she has been promoted from key operational business partnering finance roles focussing on challenge and delivery of targets, to more strategic roles streamlining planning processes, driving capital allocation decisions and adding value through clear insights.  Whilst qualifying as a Management Accountant, she worked in the pricing and treasury functions at Volkswagen Financial Service (UK) before moving to Scottish & Newcastle Retail as a Finance Manager for three years.

Kevin is responsible for designing and executing the sales and go-to-market strategy in EMEA and the US. In his role, he develops new clients and market areas, and focuses on regions with high growth rates. 

Kevin has a proven track record in international business development in the financial technology sector. At Serrala, he helps clients to adopt intelligent automation solutions for their financial processes as he implements Serrala’s international sales strategy.  

Before joining Serrala, Kevin held senior positions in a number of leading companies. Most notably, he was CEO of IT2, a global treasury solutions provider. In addition, Kevin was recognized as one of the ‘100 Most Influential People in Finance’ as published by Treasury & Risk magazine. Kevin holds a BSc in Computer Studies as well as an MBA in Project Management and Finance from Henley Business School, Oxfordshire, UK. 

After working as an asset liability manager in a small Swiss bank, Felix Meyer’s background in Treasury started as a financial consultant implementing Treasury management solutions for large corporate clients at the solution provider Trema Treasury Management Systems (now ION/WallStreetSystems). This experience led him to join the corporate Treasury department of the Swiss/Swedish corporate ABB, where he was responsible for both technical and business sides of the treasury management solution. His skillset expanded into project management, where he led several successful upgrades of the treasury management system.

In his latest position as IS Business Engagement Manager for Treasury, he served as the senior product manager of treasury solutions (areas include insurance/captive/trade finance/pensions/treasury operations) as well as head of the Treasury IS organization.

His background includes certifications in Treasury (ACT), project management (PMP), product management (certified scrum product owner) and technical areas ( SQL server administration). Felix is currently adding to his skillset by pursuing a cyber security certification; he is currently seeking his next challenge in the treasury/IT space.

After initially starting my professional career in the UK in credit control for 6 years, I moved into the IHG Business Service Centre looking after cash management for EMEA.  I then had to opportunity to join the IHG Front Office team as a Treasury Analyst 13 years ago, and now run the IHG Front Office team as Group Treasury Manager.  In this role I am responsible for all aspects of treasury including liquidity management, Fx, risk as well as the strategic element of cash management for IHG PLC. IHG is one of the world’s leading hotel companies with 5795 hotels worldwide, with well-loved brands such as InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn, a world-class loyalty programme, and a purpose to provide True Hospitality for everyone.

Brenda Schreuder, currently working as Treasury Manager for Amgen for 6.5 years in the Netherlands, mostly occupied with Treasury projects involving payment automation, global expansion, SAP Treasury projects including SAP IHC and SAP Money Market,  intercompany processes, and global cash positioning and forecasting. Before Amgen I have held several other Treasury positions in BearingPoint and Aon. Outside of my treasury activities, I am a busy mother with 4 kids and have a lovely husband from Venezuela 

Nick is the Founder and Chairman of CheckRisk, a RiskTech firm that advises on over £80bn of pension, insurance, and fund management assets globally.

Nick was educated at Haileybury College & ISC and the George Washington University in Washington DC. He was an individual member of the London Stock Exchange with Kitcat and Aitken and Scrimgeour Vickers.

He was then director in charge of International Equity and US Equity sales with James Capel Pacific in Tokyo. Nick then worked at Goldman Sachs on the US Equity desk in London. In 1990, he joined TIR and as President managed its expansion until it was sold to E*TRADE. Nick was Chairman and headed the risk management committee of Investor Select Advisors (ISA), a fund of funds, and headed the sale of that business to Duet Group in London.

He was a non-executive director for risk at Zurich Bank and Dunbar Bank both part of the Zurich Insurance Group. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (FCSI).

Nick is a guest speaker on risk at the University of Bath as well as being an external reviewer for the Applied Psychology and Economic Behaviour course at the University. He is also a regular contributor on Newstalk Ireland, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Sunday Business Post, and CNN. Nick has published a short paper with Dr. Richard Fairchild on emotional finance, a study of behavioural economics.

Nick holds an Airline Transport Pilot’s licence and has flown the Atlantic solo six times.

Dipl.-Kaufmann Jörg Wiemer, MBA, is co-founder and CEO of TIS. Jörg draws on more than 20 years of experience in the treasury and corporate finance area, with his most recent previous appointment being Senior Vice President and Head of Global Treasury at SAP AG, where he and his team were responsible for international treasury management.

Christof joined International Personal Finance plc in 2019.  

He was Global Group Treasurer at Willis Towers Watson plc based in London from 2010 –  December 2018. In his role, Christof led treasury as well as the insurance function. Earlier positions include Head of Treasury at Fiberweb plc, leading corporate treasury as well as risk management, Group Treasury Manager at Novar plc, where he re-engineered the treasury function, and European Treasurer at Kellogg’s, having set up the European Treasury Centre. 

Christof holds a dual degree in European Finance and Accounting, and an MBA from Manchester Business School. He qualified with the Association of Corporate Treasurers. 

Willis Towers Watson plc was the winner of TMI’s 2017 Corporate Finance and Funding Award under Christof’s leadership, and  were shortlisted in the 2018 Treasurer’s Deals of the Year Awards in the category of Large EMEA Treasury Team of the Year. 

Yemi Jackson is a solutions-focused Senior Executive and dynamic leader with more than 20 years of success in finance, across retail, logistics, housing and property, commercial, and education industries. Areas of expertise include accounting, change management, performance management, business process improvement, and project management. A member of the Association of Chartered Management Accountants (ACMA) professional body and completing an Exec MBA from Warwick Business School, London. As a seasoned team leader and finance executive, Yemi has worked extensively with executive teams to optimise sustainable business solutions.

Yemi is now CEO and Founder of Engage Transform a recruitment and talent developing company assisting organisations in increasing the diversity of talents they attract, developing these talents and optimising output. As a female BAME with children she has first-hand experience of gender and race equality issues at senior management level in Finance departments of major corporations. Tenacious and relentless she refused to take a lower grade role as a working mother and rose in her professional career to CFO in multi-national company. This wealth of life and professional experience has made Yemi a voice amongst Finance and Treasury professionals, challenging them to transition from back to the front office working in partnership with rest of business to optimise organisations objectives.

Hilary is part of the Sheffield University Management School lead research consortium for “Next-Gen Services” which is one of the first wave programmes to be funded by Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) within the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This project seeks to understand and address the challenges facing mid-sized professional services firms in law and accountancy in adopting and implementing AI technologies. Focused on addressing the needs of mid-size accounting and law firms to deliver high value client-focused professional services, the project uses a ‘design thinking’ approach to identify and develop strategies for evaluating, adopting and implementing AI.  

Hilary has worked within professional services for over 15 years having been a former Chartered Surveyor and Member of ATT.  Often with a lens of the West Midlands, Hilary has had extensive involvement in consulting with accountancy sector on matters of growth, productivity, economic policy and more recently industrial strategy for West Midlands Combined Authority and Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP.  Her areas of interest include innovation, skills, diversity and inclusion as well as championing the sector and region more broadly. 

Klaas Springer is Global Director Treasury at Royal FrieslandCampina N.V.  Treasury is responsible for financing, cash management, financial risk management (incl. insurance) and bank relationships. Klaas Springer has a Ph.D. in Economics and has earlier held various treasury positions at Royal Friesland Foods, Royal Ahold, ING Investment Management, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Robeco Group.

With more than a decade of experience in the banking sector, having held a number of cash management and foreign exchange technology focused roles at Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) and Morgan Stanley, James has all the knowhow to help you understand what next generation financial services innovation can mean to your business.

Andrew joined Graff Diamonds 7 years ago as Group Director of Finance. One of the first decisions he made was to implement Kyriba. Prior to that he had qualified as ACMA with Diageo plc which also allowed him to work overseas in Miami and Cape Town before finishing as Commercial Director for Guinness in Continental Europe. Prior to that he was the European CFO for 4 years at Hudson, a US quoted staffing business. 

Ian Kirkpatrick joined the London Stock Exchange Group in 2010 and has worked exclusively as part of the Group’s Treasury team since 2014. He is responsible for managing the operations and relationships associated with the Group’s funding, foreign exchange, interest rate and credit risks, as well as cashflow management for the Group. Born in South Africa, Mr. Kirkpatrick has 12 years of industry experience, holds a Business Science degree, is a Chartered Accountant and a Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Auna Dunlevy is Head of Front Office for Royal Mail based at their Treasury Department in Chesterfield.

On a daily basis she is responsible for management of the overall liquidity of the Group as well as the mitigation of the key business risk arising from its exposure to FX and commodity pricing.

After joining Royal Mail in 1998 Auna has worked in various roles within the Treasury team including working on the privatisation of Royal Mail.