Glorious sunshine and autumnal UAE weather greeted over 340 delegates at the opening of this year’s event. One of our largest and most diverse line-up of speakers geared up to deliver on a huge range of treasury, business and finance topics and then, bam!
Our opening keynote speaker, Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State, Director General, Bureau Dubai Expo 2020, just wowed the room with a clever and incisive critique of her leadership in organising the Expo 2020, likening it to the range of competencies that treasurers need in their roles! The challenge of bringing to life an event likely to attract 25 million visitors over 6 months in 2020 and interacting with 1 billion or more online seems daunting. Defined in terms of risk management, operations, controls, governance and people management however and the problems take on familiar treasury forms. Not exactly perhaps, but more easily appreciated by an audience of treasurers and certainly scalable. If ever a speaker had an audience right where they wanted them, this was it!
Excellent panel discussions on how treasurers can be strategic, tactical, sophisticated and adaptable showed the range and depth of treasury talent that is making its presence felt in the region. Tactical treasurers in the cash management field are having to deal with unprecedented regulatory change affecting their financial service providers in areas such as KYC, payments and the digitisation of trade finance. Sophisticated treasurers are having to learn the skills (and occasional dark arts) of taking a seat at the board table not just talking about bringing financial and business strategy together but influencing and persuading C suite decision makers.
The challenges of technology featured in many of the day’s discussions. What’s happening in treasury systems, where are regulators pushing for change in payments or cross border pooling and how do treasurers cope with the speed of information flows? Plenty of answers were given, lots of experience was shared and no shortage of service providers willing and able to make solutions happen.
All this and more points to a theme I have remarked on before. The Middle East treasury profession is rapidly maturing and wanting to take its place in the broader business community. Lots more to come tomorrow so watch this space!
