Treasury Talks podcast series

This year’s Women in Treasury & Finance APAC Forum brought the community together at the Four Seasons Hotel in Singapore on 9th July. In this episode, hear highlights from a fireside chat with Rachel Whelan of Deutsche Bank on her career journey, equity and resilience, followed by a panel discussion with leaders from Clifford Chance, MUFG, SATS and J.P. Morgan covering diverse talent, allyship, difficult conversations and the equity implications of AI in the workplace.

Live from the Adam Smith Awards, Treasury Today talks with Ravi Patel, Senior Director Financial Risk Management at Bristol Myers Squibb and Marianna Polykrati, Group Treasurer at AVRAMAR about treasury's top priorities: automation, cash flow forecasting and where AI is really being used. They also cover real-time payments, ISO 20022 progress, building the next generation of treasury talent, and hedging against geopolitical and supply chain risk.

SEPA Instant has been available since 2017, but corporate uptake has lagged. New EU rules now force banks to process instant payments within ten seconds in an effort to accelerate adoption. Members of Standard Chartered’s Europe transaction banking team, Richard Stansbury, Head, Product Management in London and Felix Orth, Director, Cash Product Manager based in Frankfurt, reflect on the extent to which the legislation will help unlock real-time payments for treasurers and the bottlenecks that remain.

AI is transforming cash flow forecasting, giving treasurers unprecedented visibility into future inflows and outflows to inform their hedging strategies. But rather than reducing the need for humans, as predictive models grow more sophisticated, the treasurer’s role interpreting insights and shaping strategy is becoming even more important. Standard Chartered’s Thomas Kikis, Managing Director and Head of Markets, US and Americas, shares how AI is being used on the trading floor.

In our final chapter of this year’s Women in Treasury & Finance tour, the US Forum took place in New York. This featured a sponsored welcome reception and inspiring fireside chat with Standard Chartered, followed by an awards presentation celebrating our 2025 Within Award winners for The Americas and then a lively panel discussion. Listen to some of the highlights here.

Digital assets like stablecoins and tokenisation are making treasury faster, smarter and truly global. Standard Chartered’s Jennifer Lassiter explains how a new regulatory and legislative framework is finally giving corporate treasurers the confidence to leap into modernising their treasury infrastructure and grasp these new treasury tools.

Our 2025 Women in Treasury & Finance EMEA Forum brought together leading voices from across the region to celebrate excellence, connection and progress in the industry. In this podcast episode, take a walk through the day’s highlights and hear inspiring snippets from our panel discussion.

Our 2025 Women in Treasury & Finance Forum in July brought together our APAC community to celebrate our Within Award winners and discuss the level of progress in the industry. Listen to some of the key highlights from the panel discussion.

AI is transforming everything from liquidity management to regulatory compliance and making treasury functions more agile and forward-looking. Vibhor Narang, Lead, Structured Solutions, Transaction Banking, at Standard Chartered is supporting the banks’ European clients to combine conventional treasury with the cutting-edge technology to deliver smarter, faster and more secure solutions. In conversation with Treasury Today, Vibhor outlines the stunning potential.

The explosive rise in cross-border payments driven by the evolution in e-commerce and new trade corridors has created a new payments landscape characterised by innovations like QR-based payments, FX conversion and multi-currency payments, mobile wallets and account validation. Standard Chartered’s Anand Natarajan and Michael Oskar Kleinsteuber explain the technological and regulatory changes supporting and shaping cross-border payments.

Siemens, a global leading technology company, is using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to make payments in dollars and euros. Blockchain is typically associated with bitcoin, but treasury teams can use it to make payments in traditional currencies and harness the benefits or real time payments, programmability and tokenization.

In our final chapter of this year's Women in Treasury tour, the US Forum took place on 12th October in New York.  This featured a sponsored welcome reception and inspiring fireside chat with IFC, followed by an awards presentation celebrating our 2024 Within Award winners for The Americas. In the panel discussion, four industry experts shared their career journeys and discussed some of the key issues surrounding mental health, culture and personal power.

In September, treasury professionals from across the region gathered for the annual Women in Treasury EMEA Forum to discuss diversity, equity and inclusion and celebrate our 2024 Within Award winners. In the panel discussion, four industry experts share their experiences and discuss the challenge of difficult leadership and dealing with discrimination.

AI is set to transform transaction banking staples including cash and liquidity management and trade finance. The best place for treasury to start harnessing the advantages is developing a map of treasury workflows and developing a data strategy, say Standard Chartered’s transaction banking sales team, Executive Director Amy Beninato and Managing Director Karen Hom. They began by discussing the changes AI promises.

Our 2024 Women in Treasury APAC Forum took place in July, with sponsored welcome reception and special fireside chat with MUFG and a presentation celebrating our 2024 APAC Within Award winners. In the panel discussion, four industry experts shared their career journeys and explored topics such as menopause and neurodivergence.

Marion Reuter, Standard Chartered’s Regional Head of Transaction Banking Sales UK/Europe, and Desiree Pires, Head of Corporate Sales, Markets also in Europe, outline the steps MNCs can take to reduce the risk of trapped cash.

From supplier diversification and ‘China plus’ strategies to unlocking liquidity from the balance sheet, Citi’s Sumanta Panigrahi discusses the latest trade trends in Asia.

Standard Chartered’s Richard Stansbury and Sunday Domingo discuss the industry shift to ISO 20022, the possible use cases corporate treasurers should be looking at, and how companies can prepare for the new standard.

On 12th October, Treasury Today Group concluded their 2023 global Women in Treasury tour with their US Forum, hosted in New York. Our four key industry experts discussed their career paths and offered advice around mentoring and the challenges of career and family life.

On 14th September, Treasury Today Group hosted their eleventh The Women in Treasury EMEA Forum in London. We celebrated our Women of the Year EMEA award winners and presented an exciting panel discussion with four industry experts, discussing equity, leadership and their career paths.

The Women in Treasury APAC Forum 2023, held in Singapore on 13th July, saw treasury experts from across the Asia Pacific region gather to champion female achievement. A new format for the event included a guest speaker fire-side chat and a presentation of our Women of the Year Awards for APAC. Our four key speakers on the panel discussed their career stories and shared their thoughts on diversity and inclusion.

This is awarded to a company which is that little bit different, doesn’t quite fit one of the other categories and is recognised by our judges as a result of the specific field in which the company operates, the particular solution it has implemented or simply because it stands out as being different. [01:51] Overall Winner – Olam Group. Their partner Ricky Kaura, Standard Chartered talks about their winning collaboration and solution.

This category looks at how a company has implemented a treasury related solution, or is in the process of being implemented, on a regional basis – a regional solution is defined as five countries or more.[01:38] Overall Winner – Daniel Teo, Bridgestone Asia with [03:12] Lillian Sim, J.P. Morgan.[05:16] Highly Commended Winner – BYD Company. Their partner Amy Hu, Citi talks about their winning collaboration and solution.[08:32] Highly Commended Winner – Garrett Motion. Their partner Clara Wong, J.P. Morgan talks about their winning collaboration and solution.

This category looks at foreign exchange and could be the use of technology, a new process, change to a hedging strategy or a new FX requirement as a result of entering a new market or dealing with a new currency and/or client/supplier.[01:28] Overall Winner – Xiaomi Corporation. Their partner Ji Yang, Citi speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.[04:07] Highly Commended Winner – Kuaishou Technology. Their partner Carol Wong, J.P. Morgan speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.[07:04] Highly Commended Winner – Nike. Their partner May May Pang, J.P. Morgan speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.

In this episode, we take a look at the overall and highly commended winners of our best digitisation solution, another new category for 2022 to address the emerging digital solutions. Perhaps the company has reengineered its processes, where digitisation is a key enabler. Perhaps the use of API’s is central to the solution, or maybe the company has deployed a mobile technology solution. We have heard much about Fintech revolution, open banking, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, robotics and RPA, API’s, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, but what is really happening with digitisation?[01:46] Overall Winner – DTOne. Their partner Bob Stark, Kyriba talks about their winning collaboration and solution.[03:14] Highly Commended Winner – Nitin Sethi, Adani Digital Labs with [06:10] Allan DSilva, Citi.[10:50] Highly Commended Winner – Chirag Dhoot, Treasury Manager, GSK.[15:24] Highly Commended Winner – TFG Marine. Their partner Siang Hui, DBS talks about their winning collaboration and solution.

Companies in Asia are looking to increase the efficiency of their liquidity management practices while minimising risk. This requires a combination of intelligent systems, real-time solutions and expert guidance, says Citi’s Sandip Patil, Asia Pacific Liquidity Management Services Head and Digital Assets Lead.

This category looks at sustainability and how corporate treasury can play it’s part in addressing ESG issues, climate change and CO2 emissions.[01:23] Overall Winner – Bee Lin, Senior Manager, Investor Relations, Lendlease Global Commercial REIT with [04:48] Melvin Dineshraj, Citi and [06:07] Mark Yeo, OCBC.[08:26] Highly Commended Winner – Louis Dreyfus Company. Their partner Ashish Pandey, Citi speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.[11:54] Highly Commended Winner – Purecircle. Their partner Sean Kim, Bank of America speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.

Technology is a key component in many of the submissions we receive and is always a hotly contested category. We see projects ranging from the use of APIs and RPA to full-blown treasury technology transformation involving TMS and ERP integration and much more.[01:17] Overall Winner – Louis Khoo, Director, Kimly Construction Pte Ltd with [04:42] Poh Yee Ng, UOB.[08:06] Highly Commended Winner – Abbott Malaysia. Their partner Hani Abd Karim, Bank of America speaks about their winning collaboration and solution. [11:52] Highly Commended Winner – Suki Teh, Senior Finance Transformation Manager, Borneo Motors with [16:35] Ricky Kaura, Standard Chartered.[20:19] Highly Commended Winner – e-Bullion India Pvt Ltd. Their partner Yogesh Lakhani, DBS speaks about their winning collaboration and solution.

Local companies growing in the Middle East and Africa need to have the right support in fulfilling their regional – and potentially global – ambitions. Two treasury experts from Citi explain the region’s potential, what the needs of such companies are, and how the bank successfully combines its on-the-ground presence with global knowledge to enable such companies to become emerging market champions.

Trading international can be challenging and the past 12 months or so has really shone a light on supply chains. The buyer seller relationship has never been more important, and we've seen a number of innovative solutions emerge from distributor finance, pre-shipment finance and receivables discounting to forfaiting, factoring and payables finance.[01:18] Overall Winner – Hindustan Unilever Limited, with Rohan Kamra, C2FO.[03:06] Highly Commended Winner – HCL Technologies Ltd, with Rajiv Warrier, J.P. Morgan.[05:33] Highly Commended Winner – Elizabeth Heng, Director, Archipelago Rubber Trading Pte Ltd, with [09:15] Poh Yee Ng, UOB.

This category is extended this year to include short, medium and long term investments that showcase how organisations have optimised and or diversified their investment portfolio, particularly important in a low or negative interest rate environment. We look at how they've addressed the trade-off between the yield, liquidity, cash preservation and counterparty risk, or perhaps consider ESG factors when investing.[01:28] Overall Winner – Ying Xue, Managing Partner, InnoVen Capital with [05:45] Adrian Ong, UOB.[07:34] Highly Commended Winner – Royal Enfield (Eicher Motors Ltd), with Manav Khurana, C2FO.

This is a new category for 2022 which looks at how companies manage/forecast its cash, working capital and how it makes and receives payments whether in a single or multi-purpose solution.[01:32] - Highly Commended Winner – Ivan Tan, Managing Director, SP Digital, SP Group with (05:46) Adrian Ong, UOB [08:40] - Highly Commended Winner – Zhang Lin,  Senior Finance Director, Zoetis with (11:43) Lillian Sim, J.P. Morgan

This category covers any cash pooling solution; notional and/or physical. It could be a simple single currency/single country solution or regional/global, multi-entity/multi-currency solution.[01:37] Overall Winner – Marsh McLennan. Their partner Puja Sherwani, HSBC speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.[05:12] Highly Commended Winner – Socfin Group. Their partner Adrian Ong, UOB speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.

Our most prestigious and always fiercely-contested category. Here we recognise a corporate treasury team that has made an outstanding contribution to its organisation over the past 12-18 months.[01:28] Overall Winner – Sachin Chougule, Associate Vice President, Finance & Treasurer, Infosys Ltd with [06:05] Karandeep Singh Batth, Citi.[09:25] Highly Commended Winner – Shoko Suzuki, Chief Transformation Officer for Unilever Marketplace (Gro 24/7) and Unilever Asia with [11:10] Jason Kim, J.P. Morgan.

As risk continues to be top of every treasurer’s agenda; our winners provide their solutions relating to all aspects of risk which arise in the corporate treasury arena. From foreign exchange risk, counterparty risk, commodity risk and interest rate risk to cyber risk, reputational risk and supply chain risk, all are covered here. It feels like corporates have never had more risks to manage, making this an ever-increasing critical responsibility for the treasury function.[01:28] Highly Commended Winner – Carolyne Maloney, Treasurer, Hypertherm with [03:41] Annie Mao, Bank of America.

In our latest podcast with Standard Chartered, Tarek El-Yafi, Regional Head of Cash Management Sales, and Karen Hom, Managing Director of Transaction Banking, discuss working capital solutions, the importance of technology, and what a well-run treasury should look like.

This category covers any aspect of corporate cards on how to achieve increased control and visibility and how they are being used to improve the T&E processes.[01:28] Highly Commended Winner – Kwek Peck Lin, Director of Planning & Finance, Singapore University of Social Sciences with [03:39] Melvyn Low, OCBC.

This is a new category for 2022 which recognises the efforts of those companies which have embarked upon a transformation of its treasury function. Perhaps this has been the result of a need to replace outdated technology, the integration of a newly acquired company or simply a need to transform the way things are done.[01:24] Overall Winner Yinson Holdings – Guillaume François Jest, Group CFO.[08:51] Highly Commended Winner – BP. Their partner Ricky Kaura, Standard Chartered speaks about their winner collaboration and solution. [11:45] Highly Commended Winner – Yili Group. Their partner Angela Lam, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.

This is a new category for 2022 which looks at how company’s have implemented a treasury related solution, or is in the process of being implemented, in a single country or up to 4 countries and the challenges they have faced.[01:17] Highly Commended Winner – Hariharan Subarmanian, Cognizant Technology Solutions with [03:47] Mahesh Kini, J.P. Morgan[07:24] Highly Commended Winner – Sinopec. Their partner, Siang Hiu, DBS speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.[09:08] Highly Commended Winner – Rajani Modi, Fortum India with [14:16] Nishant Kukreja, BNP Paribas

This category recognises the emerging cash replacement solutions such as e-cash, digital currencies (crypto-currency/bitcoin) and e-wallets.[01:28] Overall Winner – Capitaland. Their partner Adrian Ong, UOB speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.

Many corporates are exploring alternative sources of funding, diversifying and/or refinancing their funding sources. With an increase in M&A activity, we have seen many different types of funding submitted, whether a single transaction, or as part of a company’s overall debt strategy.[01:38] Overall Winner – ST Engineering. Their partner Benjamin Quek, Bank of America speaks about their winner collaboration and solution.[04:50] Highly Commended Winner – Victor Zhu, CFO, Goldwind International Holdings (HK) Limited with [09:50] Aron Li, BNP Paribas.

In the third episode of the Innovation at Standard Chartered podcast, Waqar Chaudry, Executive Director – Innovation, Financing & Securities Services, and Rene Michau, Global Head, Digital Assets, explain why digital assets are a ‘today problem’ that cannot be put off until tomorrow.

This award is a first for Treasury Today and we believe it is worthy of this new award. This award goes to Save the Children to recognise their ongoing work in Pakistan.Overall Winner – Khuram Gondal, Country Director, Save the Children (STC) with Ricky Kaura, Standard Chartered.

Our Woman of the Year category recognises a leading corporate treasury woman who demonstrates real innovation and professional achievement. Typifying the essence of Treasury Today Asia’s Women in Treasury initiative, this award goes to those who, alongside their career journey, also dedicate themselves to inspire others, giving back and using their privilege and access to help other professionals along their journey, opening up the profession to more diverse talent.Highly Commended Winner – Anne Kow, Head of Treasury South East Asia, Mercedes-Benz Group

This category recognises unique talent that is rising up the corporate treasury ranks. The individual may have excelled in a professional qualification and whose trajectory is impressive, with a bright and impactful professional future ahead of them. Perhaps a future Group Treasurer, Finance Director or CFO is identified here.Overall Winner – Gwendolyn Ng, Treasury Manager, Asia Pacific and Middle East Team, Danone.

On 25th November 2022, senior financial professionals from across the Asia Pacific region gathered at Raffles hotel in Singapore for the ninth Women in Treasury APAC Forum. As well as celebrating women in the world of treasury, the annual event has also become a powerful voice in furthering diversity and inclusion.

We are joined by Citi’s Lorraine Donnelly, EMEA Industry Sales Head, Healthcare & Consumer Goods Clients, Treasury & Trade Solutions and Laura Fogarty, Healthcare Industry Head to discuss the latest developments at Citi surrounding the intersection of technology and healthcare as industry sectors and how the bank categorises these different supergroups.

This is a new category for 2022 which recognises the efforts of those companies which have embarked upon a transformation of its treasury function. Perhaps this has been the result of a need to replace outdated technology, the integration of a newly acquired company or simply a need to transform the way things are done. Overall Winner – Hiroyuki Ishiguro, General Manager, Treasury Section, Finance Dept HQ Japan, Gurmeet Jhita, General Manager, Head of Accounting, UK and Terry Vouvoudakis, Assistant Director, New York, Sony Group Corporation with Hirofumi Karata, Citi, Molly Walsh, J.P. Morgan and Lauren Koekkoek, Zanders.Highly Commended Winner – Palle Dedenroth, Assistant Group Treasurer, Danfoss A/S with Rebecca Bjuvling, Citi.Highly Commended Winner – Roberta Eiseman, President, Comcast Capital Corporation with Gaetan Okias J.P. Morgan and Damien McMahon, PwC.Discover the series: https://treasurytoday.com/podcasts/adam-smith-awards-2022Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/adam-smith-awards-2021-winners-podcast-series/id1571739345Read the winning case studies: https://treasurytoday.com/asa-2022-winners

On 19th October, senior financial professionals from across the United States gathered at the Manhattan Midtown Loft and Terrace for the seventh Women in Treasury New York Forum. Our four key speakers discussed their career paths, shared their thoughts on diversity and inclusion and offering advice from overcoming cultural differences, mentoring and the challenges of career and family life.

This category covers any cash pooling solution; notional and/or physical. It could be a simple single currency/single country solution or regional/global, multi-entity/multi-currency solution.Overall Winner – Rene Bustamante, Staff Vice President & Assistant Treasurer, FedEx with Lori Schwartz, J.P. MorganHighly Commended Winner – DS Smith. Their partner Vivek Chikballapur, J.P. Morgan speaks about their winner collaboration and solution