In this talk, Mike Richards reflects on the common frustration of low attendance at treasury‑focused events and criticises the practice of publicly shaming no‑shows. He argues that organisers should first ask why attendees miss events—ranging from logistical issues (late meetings, travel delays, inconvenient venues) to perceived lack of value (repetitive sales pitches). Drawing on his own experience with a poorly attended US event, Richards describes a series of changes that turned attendance around: selecting easily reachable venues, curating speakers and having backups, offering Continuing Treasury Professional (CTP) credits, and explicitly positioning events as career‑development rather than sales opportunities. He highlights successful tactics such as the “Ask the Treasurer” round‑table sessions where early‑career treasurers can ask senior practitioners candid questions, and sponsor‑free roundtables run under Chatham House rules. Real‑world examples from events in New York, Amsterdam, and London show attendance rising from under‑capacity to over‑capacity when value and convenience are prioritized. Richards concludes that growth comes from delivering genuine professional value and listening to the audience, not from guilt‑tripping or shaming attendees.
Chapters
So I saw someone on LinkedIn recently who was moaning about the fact that a load of people didn't show up to their event. It made me wince, if you like, partly because I've been there before myself. I've run events where loads of people registered. In fact, all of our events have done really well. And then we did one in the US last year, and it didn't work quite as well as it should have, shall we say. And I then thought, why are you shaming these people? Surely it's your fault. Why are you having a go at them? Because also, if you think about coming to the next event and then You know that if you don't show up, you're going to be possibly named and shamed. Doesn't that rob from the event itself? Because no one actually owes you their time. No one owes you their evening to take time out for just you. Look, I get it. When you organize an event and people don't show up, it is very frustrating. You book the venue, you've got the speakers, you've got the drinks organized and everything else, and you've put a lot of work in. I know because I do these. And then you look around the room, as I did that time in New York, and there were a few empty spaces, and I started to focus on those. Then I looked at the empty space and saw 5 beaming smiles from Treasury professionals sitting next to me. I went, That's who I need to focus on. But I wanted to sort of go back to those organisers. I didn't because I thought, again, I'm not going to name and shame them. Before you go on to LinkedIn and moan about those people, maybe ask yourself a better question, which I do all the time. Why didn't those people show up? Why didn't they come? To your event. Maybe a meeting was overrunning. Maybe their train was delayed. Babysitter cancelled. Family stuff. Maybe they're just knackered. Maybe they're just exhausted from a long day. Or maybe, and this is the uncomfortable truth, maybe for them more than anything, maybe they'd been to your event before and they found it little more than a sales pitch for your company, your product, maybe for you even. Maybe they thought, do I need that again? I'm not giving my evening up for another, another session of that, if you like. And if that's the case, stop blaming your audience, blame yourself. When I had my own toughest event, I've got to say I learned a lot from it. That event was one of the toughest I'd organized, the one that didn't go very well. We had everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was the end of a long working day, I know, a lot of people were tired. One of my panelists pulled out at the last minute. I also realized location-wise it didn't suit everyone. It was quite tough to get to, and it would have been easy for me to blame everyone and shout about it, but why, why could I? Why would I? They didn't owe me their evening and their attention. If the event wasn't easy to get to, valuable enough for them to attend, that was on me. So here's what we changed. We made sure the location was easy to get to, more selective with our speakers, made sure that we had backups as well, and I thought more about the experience from the moment before someone got to the door, location-wise, getting in the building. And I made sure that people understood, as they should do with all our events, they're not just sales events. They're about your Treasury careers. Any of our events in America, in fact, even the UK as well, where you get CTP credits for coming along, because the fact is Treasury professionals, like everyone, can spot a sales pitch miles off. I asked Last year we did our Amsterdam event and we had 67 people booked to come, and then I said bring your friends and colleagues and they did. Yeah, the room actually only held 85 and 87 showed up. And I asked some of the delegates there, I said, why did you— how come there's so many? And said, Mike, you're about us. Really? They said, it's about real career advice. You're here to help us with our Treasury careers, help us develop. There's no sales pitch. We know that. We can see that. And so that was really pleasing that we got there at 87, and now we get bigger venues. Then there was something else as well. I noticed at one of our London events at the end of the evening there were a number of badges left on the table, and who was it? They were some of the analysts, managers, senior treasury managers. I could have done what that lady did on LinkedIn. These people didn't show up. Shame on you. That would have been the wrong lesson and also quite rude, don't you think? The better question was— maybe we weren't— the better question was Maybe we weren't giving enough value. Maybe we weren't tailoring the event for them. So we created Ask the Treasurer. It's a session specifically designed for Treasury professionals earlier in their Treasury careers. You sit down between 5 and 6 PM in relaxed round groups. Groups, just pull up a chair, sit down, and you get to ask 3 experienced treasurers real questions, no scripts, about— it's about them and the mistakes they've made along the way, the missteps they've made, if you like, and mistakes. And they get to— you get to ask them face to face. We had a great session with Tanya from Akershaw and Stuart from Sky earlier this year in London, and people came out and said that was amazing, and he was great, and so was Tanya. They're both of them, they, they were able to really share about their Treasury careers. I was a bit worried it wasn't working. At 5 o'clock, there were 8 people. I was like, okay, that's not— by quarter past, there were 28. And what I realized, and we're going to do this, if you're in Chicago or New York or London, Ask the Treasurer sessions. Get permission from your boss, you're investing in yourself. Come to our Ask the Treasurer session and then stay for the main event because you're building your network, you get to hang out with a number of treasurers, you get first-class answers, and that's also why our events keep growing. Not because we shame people into coming, we don't guilt-trip you on LinkedIn, Because I understand things, life gets in the way, but we're going to keep on listening to you, we'll keep on adapting, and we'll make the event for you. We'll keep on making it about you. We've got our roundtables, we've got those happening in New York and London. Later this year where treasurers get to share their challenges and problems with each other. No sponsor-led content, all Chatham House rules. So come along to our events, bring your colleagues, bring your friends, other treasury professionals, because at the end of the day, that's how you grow an event. Not by shaming people and blaming them, by just providing value and helping, as we do, treasury professionals along the way. Thanks.
