Predicting the Future of Treasury: Strategies and Insights for Tomorrow

Foreign look at treasury. When I started there was no Internet, no cell phone, no email. So we were using things like fax machine, telephone, like landlines. When I started, they were consolidating the books using telex. And I'm sure a lot of people don't even know what it is. But anyway, so I've seen quite a change in the technology landscape and you know, I just love it. Technology is just fantastic. But definitely now with the new trends on artificial intelligence and these kind of things, this made me think that some of the part of the functions of Treasury I think will not be handled by people maybe in a couple of years. And you know, I'm just a simple person, um, and when I'm thinking that people have like self driving cars. When you think about some of the functions in treasury, like you know, the daily cash management, taking the cash balance, making sure that each bank account is funded and you know, transfer the money left and right, these kind of functions I believe will simply not exist. You can have conference calls, meetings, but the meat of the conversations is right before the meeting, right after the meeting. And now you control this conversation and that changes the stuff. The other thing is humans are humans and when you're far away, you're not. You cannot create this kind of intimacy and trust that you can create when you are located in the headquarters. And as I said, meeting with the CEOs the opposite almost daily, you know, makes the difference. My friends had the opportunity to move to the U.S. but you know, they had such a tight social life, family and all that kind of stuff that they decided not to move. But I think it's just great. And actually the way we organized that is I moved there with my family first for a couple of months just to see how it looks like. And then we stayed there for one year and then another year and 20 years after we are still there. So I think the good thing about going and trying it is if it doesn't work, you can always come back. You can stay there a year or two or three and then you come back. And I think to your point, I would encourage people to do that because looking at the different culture, different work environment is great. The other thing which is also super important for me is that I had the opportunity to go to the headquarters. Now this is a game changer. When you are in the headquarters, you're meeting with the CEO, the CFO kind of daily, you create this kind of influence and visibility and it's just fantastic. So I'm not sure I would move to you know somewhere where there is a subsidiary. But if you have the opportunity to go to a headquarter, I think it's a good move.