Data Security within Treasury with Eva Åkesson

So welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next this week's show, I'm joined by Eva Ackersson, experienced Treasury Director from Sweden. We're going to go through a lot about her career. She's got a career that spans many years within Treasury. So we've got bank consulting at Unisys through to Group Cash Manager sapa, then we've got Arrow in there. We've got, most recently group treasurer with Transcom. So I'm going to get Eva to discuss her, talk about her career rather, and talk about how she's grown. We're going to then cover some of the usual areas that we do about how Eva then sort of went into different areas, some of her interest about security, cyberware and things like that. Maybe we'll cover that and then we'll, you know, as always, we'll sort of give the top tips at the end of the show, but for now, as always, I'll shut up. Let's let Eva do the talking. Eva, talk to us about how you got started in treasury, because again, from my show notes, you said you didn't plan on it. It was completely accidental. How did it all start off over to you?

I was working in. I started on the bank side of the university, working with international payments. When there I saw that Unisys IT company were looking for programmers and I wasn't interested in programmers, but I read that they were doing bank programs. So I sent in just a notice of interest asking if they had something for me. And it turned out that they actually had a position and that I would start in London even if I was hired in Sweden. And then I worked as a bank consultant on a project where we were only two people from the bank side and everyone else were on the people, more or less. And we were developing a system for bank of Scotland. And when the project started to come to an end, I came back to Sweden and moved to Stockholm. I realized at that point that I needed to get a new job because they were not doing that well on the selling new systems to Swedish banks. So I sent in just a request to a recruitment company saying I was interested in something and they came back saying that we have a treasurer position. And, and to be honest, at that point I didn't even know what they were doing at the treasury, but I thought, I can Always apply. It doesn't hurt. And I actually got a job, surprisingly. And so that was how everything started.

And you say you got the job. Why do you think you got the job? What was you. How did you sell yourself in there?

I was selling myself in that I had experience from the payment side because that was part of my responsibility. And I also knew a bit from the FX side after working at the bank and that was at that point enough. So I don't think the competition could have been very fierce about the position then. And of course it was a very steep learning curve at the beginning and very challenging. As I started the same week everyone went on their summer holidays, so there wasn't anyone to ask in the office. I had to call my manager every time I run into a problem. So that was how everything started.

You discovered your early bits of treasury and started to build some of your. Your career, if you like, in Treasury. But that was an early grounding foundation. But then you made a move to Arrow. How did that come about? And again, you sort of started. You had 18 months in treasury, now you're a treasurer. So how did you sort of broaden your experience or how did you make that next move?

I simply had to ask. I have to try to find out how other people have done in the past, talk to the banks, go to the euro finance conferences. Simply trial and error. That was more my thing, how to improve myself and to improve the work.

And so how did the role then at Arrow come about?

It was a time of change. When I was there, they started quite quickly. I was hired to be working for the Nordic and the Swedish company. But a company for the big customers were moved to Sweden as Ericsson was your biggest customer of them. So I got the large customer company and then the other Nordic companies and then there was a change of organization. So the UK was my responsibility after a while. And at the beginning I was working a lot with the forecasting, especially handling the positions because we had a lot of currency exposures in different countries and of course reporting this to the us that was where our head office was.

Were you quite sort of independent? And what I mean by that is you handled all the risks and they just gave it or was it managed at the center and they sort of delegated responsibility to you guys. How was it sort of organized at that time? I know Arrow now and we've done work with the group and stuff like that, but that stage was it. You're a far flung place in northern Europe and you get on and manage it or Was it sort of much more from the center at the start?

Of course I had the policy to follow what we hedged and not hedged at the start. I was doing most of the things myself and I took the responsibility for it. In the last couple of years they change it. So they made a lot more of the hedges centrally. So then I only sent in the numbers and did all the hedges that involved the local currencies locally because they could not do anything on the group level with that and a good role.

Sort of, you know, you're there seven years and developing your treasury expertise. What was it like when you started and what were you like when you started there and you know, how did you develop? Because you did a number of different projects there and things like that.

Yes, since I didn't know much at the beginning, I of course had to learn a lot actually really understand what hedging was and what the effect was and what we should include because this we changed over time. But then when you, after a while you get the structure. I also had staff responsibility at this time who were doing more the bookings and the reconciliation of the accounts and so on the month end of the bank accounts. And then after some years there was a big project where we were going to change the ERP system for the whole group and we were going to start in Northern Europe. But as we had the company for the large customers, it turned out it wasn't very, it was very, very complicated. So we started in Southern Europe instead and a lot of the project organization were just switched from Northern Europe to Southern Europe. So I was responsible for the like treasury part, the cash management, the banks and so on for when the Southern Europe implementation was.

And then you made a move back to banking sort of thing. So you'd been in banking, you did the corporate side and then you went to Sweatbank. You know, what was the sort of. What led to that? Because a lot of people, you know, because you've done, you know, corporate bank back to corporate, you know, which is quite unusual if you like moving the both sides. Because sometimes people will, you know, start off in a bank and then move to corporate and that's it. And then they carry on their corporate career. But you sort of been between both, which is great. So you've got sort of, you stand between both camps. Talk about that move, if you would.

Yes. When I've done Southern Europe, the project was going on to the Central Europe and I felt that I have been traveling so much for a very long time. Plus I didn't Want to do the same thing one more time. Daily work I was doing with my left hand so, you know, it comes on the side of the project. So there wasn't that much left of the daily work. So I decided I want to do something else. And there was actually an advert that swedbank looking for a lot of different product managers. And I saw cash pooling, I saw International Payments and I felt I really wanted to do something different at that point. So I applied and on the paper I got a job for the group Common International Payments. But when I started in reality I also got the product manager job as cash pooling because I was called into all those meetings and the first year I did both and then my manager asked me after a year, which I preferred and then I prefer the cash pooling because that project was much more challenging and it was still very, very different from working in a Treasury department because here, you know, you have to go out, you procure a system which could be the same as the Treasury Department, but then you have a different way of looking at security in a bank, have a much more formal procedure. Things take a bit longer in the bank due to this. And here I did marketing material, I did the contracts and a lot of other things, even configuring the system when my system responsible was on holiday because we needed to do something. So it was very, very broad.

And did you find it really helped you that you'd understood corporate treasury and that side of things? Because again, people will be listening today and they might have, you know, been they might be in the corporate treasury side thinking about move to banking or vice versa and saying, oh, I'm in the bank and you know, I should get a better understanding for my customers. You'd been that side of the fence. So, you know, what insights did that give you, as it were?

For me, it was really the customer's viewpoint when people said things like we can't do this. And I said as a customer, you don't care, you just want to, you just want to have it fixed. It's not. Other banks can do it, of course we can do it. And you also really got you very, very good understanding for all the different, in my case, all the different cash pooling versions in detail and what they meant. And then I had the other side that what does the customer want to know? They don't care about the technicalities behind it, they want it to work and they wanted to of course be in line with the country's regulations and so on.

That was the key Thing and things.

Yes.

And so you did. You did your four year journey within the bank and then you. You came back to the. From the dark side. As I joke about it. I don't mean that guys. I'm only joking listeners. But then you. You were tempted back into corporate treasury. Talk about that.

Yes. I started to realize that a lot of things in the bank goes quite slowly and I'm not a slow person, I'm a quick person. We bought the system, I had it implemented. We started to get the first customer onto it and I felt that I'm not the person who sits and maintain things. I'm more a person who changed things. So it was either looking for a new position in the bank but then. Or go outside then I decided no, I go back to the corporate side instead.

Yeah.

And I found the position as cash manager and trader at SAPA and tell.

Us about that role. And you know the group. I don't know the group but you know some people will.

But was an aluminium extrusion company. It's been hydro in Norway have after joint venture that took place after that bought the whole company and now it's in their name instead. It was a global company as well and with bistro business in Asia, America, Europe mainly. There was a lot of. We had a lot of cash pools. Several cash pools. I think there were six and then there was lots of trading on the FX but also on aluminium side. So it was. We did financial hedges of the aluminium.

You're quite a challenging role because you used sort of systems and that's something that came out to me that you really like the use of systems without being overly technical being an IT whiz. But you really try to use them, don't you? What was it like there there?

They had just procured tracks by Sunguard when I started. So we did quite quickly an implementation of that and it was used for as a payment factory because we had also several ERP systems which made it then if you can have a payment factory you make the connections much easier and more secure. Another part was of course we had procured several banks during my time there. So we'd set up SWIFT for corporates as a one way connection. But there was a lot of IT questions because at that point that was the big change on the bank side to go from the old edifact and empty formats to the XML formats. And as we were setting up things new we said we don't want to look at the old stuff because then we have to redo it in A couple of years. So we go for the new stuff that was a bit challenging at that point. You find that some things doesn't work as well as you want them to. But of course this was some years ago and the options in the XML formats are of course much better today than they were.

Yeah. In those days. And so you did that role. Interesting position. And we'll get onto some of the future things in treasury that you'd love to do. But then the most recent role you joined Transcom. Who are Transcom again? You know, I know that they're well known in your region but you know, again for some of the more international guys that don't know the group, you know, maybe describe it if you would.

Transcom is call center contact center company with approximately 30,000 employees which of a quarter is in the Philippines serving the English speaking market. And the rest the majority is in Europe but also in some other countries. They were once created to serve Tele2 which is a Swedish company but then they extended their business to other business. Moved from. They were first situated in Luxembourg and then they moved to Sweden. I think it was 2014 that the actual change was owned by private equity today. Used to be on the Swedish stock exchange.

Yeah. And you as treasurer there, do you have a team or how was this sort of structure and what was it like?

No, it was me. I was the full treasurer there. It was a lot about liquidity forecasting, trying to find out where the liquidity was. Hedging was not such a big thing because in most cases you were selling and. And paying the salaries in the same currency apart from the Philippines where we had exposure Philippines pesos against the US dollar. And so we started to hedge during my time at Transcom there because we saw that the fluctuation were getting bigger and bigger and we also were setting up cash pools including the Philippines which was possible after some investigation was where someone thought it wasn't possible. But then we checked and it was possible so to get hold of the cash there and on in Transcom. I also had the insurances was my responsibility, the group insurances. So which is of course quite complex when you have a lot of different countries. And of course we had support from insurance broker who helped us who had the expertise in this.

I know with yourself, you we talked before and you said you really enjoy the challenges of working in treasury and what that includes, you know, because it's. You find it very fast moving. Why is that? That you know, sort of appeals to you. Why is that that makes you think Oh, I really enjoy Treasury.

Things are happening. It's not the same thing. And you are actually, you're working against what will happen when you come to some other positions in finance. When it comes to accounting, it's often what did happen here. You're looking at the future and you're working against the future. I think that is what makes it more appealing.

I mean, you say that, I know that you've used it in that sense. Talk about that and how you've managed to implement that and the benefits you found from that.

If we go back to sapa, when I was working there, there was this big joint venture between Hydro and the owner of SAPA or cla, and they created a new Zapa company. And we were then looking for a system that should fit us all. And I was working very closely from someone at Hydro to find a system that we had the payment factory. We wanted the forecasting, we wanted the netting, we wanted the internal bank and to be able to see that. And then we had the issue that we had so many different ERP systems as well. So we needed really to find something that could connect all this and give us the data and, you know, the flexibility. And I think you can, you can do a lot of good things if you find the right system that fits you and you can make a difference to the company, how they work. But you always have to keep an eye on this, whether it's connecting a bank or a new system. What are the risks involved with the connectivity, with the people? We have connectivity, you have the cloud. What data is in the cloud? What is the login? Can someone else go to your computer when you go and get your coffee and maybe make a payment in your name? Or you really have to think of all the aspects. That is, I think, a big challenge. And often the IT department is good, but sometimes there are things they don't think about.

So when someone is, you know, they're looking at implementing it and things like that, what's your, you know, you say about that? People popping away for the coffee, so the, you know, access and things like that, what's your checklist? If you like, or if someone else is listening today and they're going, I should be thinking about that. How would you encourage them to think about things?

I think you have to look at all the steps on the way. If we come to the payment side, you don't only have the payments itself, you have actually the data telling you that this supplier have this bank data today. Sometimes the suppliers are hacked. So, I mean, in the case that we had that where there was a supplier that was hacked actually and we got the wrong bank data. In our case it had affected a payment that was I think €50 something. So it wasn't really the end of the world. But this is. You have to have security checks. Can you solve it from the IT side? If you can't solve it from the IT side, how do you have a process around it? How do you check the data? It's also requested by the insurance companies. If it's above certain amounts, that you have certain checks and then you have the file. Is it safe? Is there someone within the company who can change the file if we send it from our ERP system directly? So you have really to look through your processes and where your possible weaknesses are and how you, how you handle that.

You talked about that. You know, how else do you strengthen it up? You know, what else are you again, if someone were to come to you and say you've implemented this and not mistakes have you made, but what are the key things that stand out when someone is implementing that sort of thing we've talked about. Be careful you don't go for a coffee. But what other things are you thinking about?

I'm thinking training of the users. I think that is one and I'm not saying a one time training because people change and there is also you can have an instructions. But if you look at this, how many people do often read the instructions? A lot of people don't. They listen to someone who shows them and then it's that. So you really have to have a continuous training and keep them aware of that. It is a problem. And one of the biggest fraud problems that have been during the last years are those so called presidential frauds which you cannot get away from by the system. It's totally process oriented and I think if everyone doesn't know what presidential fraud is, it was someone sends you an email saying they are the CEO, the CFO or someone else in the organization and you have to do a, a payment somewhere or they might groom you for some time. So you think they are someone important in the head office, then they ask you to make the payment. All those things cannot be done on the IT side. But I think it's information keeping people talking to them and also have a very open. Not when people contact, have this dialogue open that they should be able, if they are in any doubt of anything that they should be able to contact the treasurer or the CFO to say is this really okay? And they are not afraid of doing that. I think that's really a key.

And how would you encourage people to do that? By that openness, is there anything else that they should be doing that they should be. Not procedure they should follow. But is it just coming from you as treasurer that you should be making sure they feel comfortable to do that or what's the situation?

Yeah, I think it's a general situation as well that people, you should be approachable as a person. I think that's a key thing sometimes to avoid some problems that they are not afraid to tell you if they think they're then done something wrong or whatever, that you have a good approach towards them when things happen. Because in most cases people don't do things purposely. So I think that's a key thing to be approachable in general. Not always against fraud, but you've obviously.

Worked at the center of things. You know, within treasury, you're a central corporate function and you know, providing those services to the people within the business. How do you get those guys on board? How do you get them to share your vision and you know, be with you for the journey? What says, you know, how do you sell it to them? Is it just selling the benefits? Guys, here you go. You know, this is how much money it's going to save you and time or, you know, what's the process you generally go through?

It depends a lot on what it's about sometimes it could of course be the time and money which is always the most, the easiest thing to sell things in. Because then you say if I do this manually, it costs you this much. If I do this electronically, it's this much. But I think what's difficult is when you talk about security that you might say if we do it this way and it costs this much, we reduce the risk of frauds, for example. But you cannot say that it's a fixed saving. So there you have to really try to make them see your vision. And I think sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail, unfortunately. And hopefully you don't have the fraud if you fail. But I think that's difficult.

You've talked again. When we did our pre briefing, you said about real obstacles and people. How do you get through those? More difficult, challenging people.

Would you say that's difficult? I'm a persistent person. I'm not an aggressive person. I usually more try to be persistent and stand up for what I believe in. And if it doesn't work once, I try it again. But then sometimes you have to give in. I think that's the unfortunately but persistence is more my way of. And of course, you're trying to find out the argument presented in a different way. Some people like to see the graph, some people want to see it in an Excel sheet in numbers. You have to try to figure those things out, what type of person you are dealing with.

We've talked there about it and some of the different things that are coming down the line and various other bits. But where do you see treasury developing? And it doesn't just have to be on the IT side, Maybe we put it, that is one area, technology. Where do you see IT developing? Technology wise and separate, outside of technology, where do you see treasury developing?

Oh, I think the treasury, the payments and so on will go a bit more against artificial intelligence, where you have systems learning to find payments that stick out from the normal flows and send warnings and so on. And also where you might. I have seen during my years, when you look at the forecasting technology, when you see what providers show you, you can really see that there is a big increase in what you can and cannot do and what you can learn the system and look at and so on. But when it comes to otherwise, I think, considering, I think the focus on cash will continue for quite some time, especially since the world is as it is today. Things change quickly. Sometimes talk about different financing methods and you look at the interest rates that are low now, what an impact will it have if they become higher? Where you look at different financing methods than you do today, still there are a lot of financing methods out there, so it's difficult to predict.

And as we, you know, we're sort of coming to the end of today's show and we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and everything else. If we look back over, you know, and someone looks back at your background and they say, do you know what? That's the sort of route I want to take. You know, maybe have the variety of the corporate treasury, then banking treasury back and forth and, you know, learning from both, both of those areas. You know, what would the, you know, before we give your top three tips, really, if you like, and move to that. But what would you say, you know, you've met people that have never worked bankside or have, you know, only ever worked on the bank, you know, what has the experience of being in banking, then corporate, then back and then back again. What sort of makes that different for you over other people? Before we come to sort of the top three tips, what would you say?

I think the understanding of things when you come from the when you're on corporate side, you want things to happen very quickly and then you go to your banks saying you have great ideas. If they are to happen, they will not happen the next months. Usually they would probably happen in two years time or something. So the expectation from my side is not as high as it used to be. I also know that the banking side, there are so many new regulations there and for example, now your customers part are a nightmare for when, when you are to fill them in, when you change banks or update them when you have already have the bank on one side. I do understand it as I worked in the bank and I knew it was coming when I was working there, but not to that amount where it is today. And then if I would be working at the bank, you need to understand that the customers are moving quicker and that you need to do something about it to be competitive. I had a situation where we, we had a bank tender and we actually told the bank we were having at the time, which we didn't select for the future. We were telling them that, sorry, we don't know where you are going on the cash management side. We don't see any improvements. You're quite stale where you have been. You did this good 10 years ago and you haven't really developed your offering and you have not communicated that there will be changes. So I think that's also a side of it.

Yeah, you need to look at as well.

Yeah.

Okay. As I say so we're sort of approaching the end so we'll put your details in the show notes if people want to connect to your LinkedIn and things like that. But as you reflect maybe back over your career and again other people sort of tune in and say do you know what? That's what I'd like to do. And things. What are the sort of top pieces of advice you would you give to those listeners today? What would you say to people?

I think when people say it's not possible wherever you work in a bank or in a. You should try to find someone else who tell you the same or tell you differently because very often it turns out that you can actually do things. Maybe not 100% as you first thought, but in a bit different way. But you can go around it. I also think that if you, you should really keep up with what's happening on the IT side because that might be very helpful either to you. Third part is that you, when you're looking for different jobs, you should be open to new to new things, not only focus on one thing because quite often one thing leads to another.

Yeah. Use it as a springboard rather than just the only thing. Yeah, yeah, ideal. I think, you know, again, for people that listening today, I think there's. You've got a very different background to a lot of other. Other treasurers that we've sort of heard from and things like that. So I think people will pick out different. Different elements that will interest them from today's show. So. Yeah, ideal. So, Eva, thank you very much for your time today and good fun and again, you know, people you can connect to. Eva Ackerson, treasury professional. She's done a great URL there. She's changed on LinkedIn. A lot of you guys need to do the same, rather build blogs. 1, 2, 3, 4, change it to that. So make it something meaningful and thank you for your time today. It's been lovely to spend some time talking to you.

Yeah, thanks a lot. Thank you for wanting to talk to me.

Thanks.