Speakers 2019

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. 

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. 

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.

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]     

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 

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. 

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). 

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.

After initially starting my professional life as a research scientist I decided to retrain as an accountant with Horwarth Clarke Whitehill in London, gaining my ACA qualification in 2008. Shortly after, I relocated to the South West to work for Capita Financial Group managing a range of listed private equity funds before moving to work for Babcock’s Martine & Technology Division. During the 7 years I was at Babcock I held a number of management position across Central, Operational and Divisional finance. With increasing responsibility for divisional Fx management I decided my broaden my knowledge, gaining my AMCT qualification in 2014. In 2017 I joined Flybe, the largest independent airline in Europe, as Head of Treasury. In this role I am responsible for all aspects of treasury including liquidity management, Fx and commodity trading, risk, compliance and counterparty management. I also overseeing the revenue protection and fraud teams.

Frank Rust is in charge of Bucher group’s centralized financial risk management. Since Bucher is a worldwide operating manufacturer of niche market machinery and systems managing the foreign exchange exposures is the most challenging task of group treasury. He is also responsible for the inter-company financing, the cash and liquidity management and the group’s external funding.Prior to joining Bucher in 2010 he was heading treasury and trading businesses in the Swiss banking industry for more than six years. Frank Rust started his career as trader of interest rate derivatives in Frankfurt, Germany and holds a  Master of Business Administration from the University of Cologne, Germany.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

Since graduating with a degree in Mathematics in 1987 I have spent my working life in Corporate Treasury roles.  Having filled several different treasury roles including in a variety of multinational companies, I then spent some time working for Deloitte as a Treasury Consultant and then spent some time doing interim roles.  I moved back into a permanent role as Deputy Treasurer with Centrica where I have been since 2015.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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

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.

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.