D&ITreasury Management
March 10, 2022

Right Direction, Slow Progress for Women in Finance

The finance sector is notoriously male dominated. And despite some progress over the past decade, there’s still a long way to go before women have an equal voice.By Nilly EssaidesBack in the early 1990s, when I started my career in finance, I was often the only woman in the room. And my colleague Anne Friberg, NeuGroup senior director and peer group leader, says that in the 2000s, when she was facilitating peer group meetings across the country, those rooms had…
D&IInvestment Management
March 10, 2022

A Starbucks Fund Blends Racial Equity, Environmental Resilience 

The company selected CDFIs for its Community Resilience Fund to achieve specific goals. During a NeuGroup Diversity and Inclusion Working Group session held during Black History Month (Feb.), presenters from NeuGroup member company Starbucks shared insights on a $100 million fund the company launched last year to advance racial equity and environmental resilience. The fund is part of a trend of increased commitments by corporates to promote D&I following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The initiatives include a racial…
Cash & Working CapitalInvestment Management
March 10, 2022

Tailoring Investment Policies to Suit the Size of the Cash Stockpile

For treasurers at acquisitive mid-cap companies with limited cash, short maturities and liquidity are critical. The size of a company and how much cash it has on hand play key roles in shaping corporate investment policies, with the breadth of investment options in a policy closely correlated with the amount of cash—i.e., the more cash, the more options. That takeaway emerged at a late fall meeting of NeuGroup for Mid-cap Treasurers during a session on investment policies featuring a presentation by…
BankingRegional
March 3, 2022

Russia Sanctions and Counter-sanctions: Treasury Prepares for the Unknown

NeuGroup’s Feb. 28 emergency session on the implications of Russian bank sanctions helped treasurers share challenges and learn from others’ real-time responses.The crisis in Europe has the potential to wreak havoc on global payments systems, and the stakes are high. Many multinational companies have Russian operations and relationships with local banks (for payroll at least) that may be on the sanctions list. These corporates are therefore sitting on potentially trapped cash. Others own stakes in Russian companies; we saw BP…
FP&ATechnology
March 3, 2022

Crunch Time: Extreme Uncertainty Raises the Stakes for FP&A

To become strategic business partners, FP&A leaders must provide data-driven insight to support critical decisions.Like the pandemic, the crisis in Ukraine is forcing companies to rethink their business and financial plans. While the worst financial repercussions of the sanctions are within Russia, the impact of the crisis goes far beyond. Spikes in oil prices and inflation are throwing into question companies’ annual budgets, changing forecasting assumptions and making it imperative that FP&A realizes its potential as a strategic advisor to the…
Technology
March 3, 2022

Market Disruption Ahead: The Future of Treasury Technology

Survey data shows treasury is moving to the cloud but still leaning away from the tech direction finance is heading.NeuGroup Peer Research data shows that while finance organizations are rapidly embracing advanced analytic tools, robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning, treasury teams—which are moving rapidly into the cloud—appear convinced that treasury management systems (TMSs) will remain the centerpiece of treasury technology despite market disruption that suggests otherwise. That analysis provides context for a key takeaway of the 2022 NeuGroup…
Risk ManagementTalking Shop
March 3, 2022

Talking Shop: How Often Do You Assess Counterparty Risk?

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Member question: “How often do you assess counterparty risk? “For your short-term investments such as bank deposits, what frequency has worked best for your team to measure/assess counterparty risk (e.g., daily to weekly, weekly to monthly, etc.) and what considerations were taken into account for determining frequency (e.g., CDS, credit ratings)? It…
D&IESG
February 28, 2022

Getting Off the Sidelines: A Treasurer’s Mission to Make Real Progress on D&I

ServiceNow Treasurer Tim Muindi joins NeuGroup’s Strategic Finance Lab podcast to discuss his decision to do more to promote diversity and inclusion and how finance teams can do better at recruiting and retaining Black candidates. In this episode of NeuGroup’s new Strategic Finance Lab podcast, ServiceNow treasurer Tim Muindi shares what Black History Month means to him, challenges he’s faced during the course of a 23-year career when he’s often been the only Black person in a company’s finance department…
TechnologyTreasury Management
February 24, 2022

Treasury Reimagined

Treasury must reinvent its role within finance or risk losing significant head count.By Nilly EssaidesTechnological advances and growth in the use of shared services centers (SSCs) are threatening to strip treasury of much of its operational activities. As automation supplants manual work and low-value activities migrate to SSCs, treasury may lose relevancy and staff. The tidal wave of digital transformation sweeping treasury means that smart automations like AI will replace current systems and the people who work with them.An existential threat.…
Capital MarketsD&I
February 24, 2022

Searching for Authenticity: How Corporates Select Diversity Firms

Members compare notes and names as they outline the process for picking minority-owned brokerage firms.Authenticity and shared values are what many corporates prioritize when selecting diversity firms for capital markets transactions. That takeaway emerged at a meeting of the NeuGroup for Diversity and Inclusion working group last month featuring three panelists from different companies. “In identifying firms to work with, the most important aspect to us is the authenticity of the firm,” one panelist said. That means reviewing the diversity of…