As I take over the baton from Joanna Bonnett, I’d like to start by thanking her for her time as president. She was a Council member and officer during the pandemic and she and the others around her did a great job in helping steer the executive team through it.
It was a huge privilege to become president of the ACT on 1 May for a second time. I was previously the president in 2007/8 and was deeply honoured to be asked to return to fill a vacancy that had arisen in the officers’ succession plan.
The ACT’s The Business of Treasury 2024 survey shows that much has changed in this time, notably that these days treasurers are now far more proactively involved with business strategy than before, helping to define it rather than sitting back and waiting for requests for information. But it is also good to see that treasurers continue to play to their strengths in the current business environment – remaining calm, resilient, knowledgeable and closely involved with the rest of the business.
Likewise, in the gap of 16 years, it is interesting to see how much has changed in the ACT, but also how much is very familiar. There are new faces but also a lot of familiar ones: as in all organisations getting the balance right between 'new blood' and the stability provided by corporate memory is hugely important and it certainly feels to me that the ACT has done well in this regard.
Events feel familiar: the Annual Dinner and Annual Conference are still here (in fact, you may be reading this in Liverpool if you have joined us for the conference and dinner), although the format has been updated. But there are now way more events in new areas (ESG was not really discussed then!) and the other obvious change is the internationalisation of events.
It is a huge privilege to become president of the ACT for a second time
Education has changed significantly:
Education development has also changed significantly: 16 years ago, it was dependent on the Education Committee, a group of volunteers. All of this work has now been 'professionalised' and brought in-house.
The pandemic had a big impact on the ACT: the changes in education meant that it could largely continue, however events were inevitably hit very badly. During that period, both the ACT team and Council did an amazing job at keeping things going and we are now on track to seeing the organisation return to its former position. The ACT Annual Conference is a great example of the recovery, but the financial position of the ACT still needs to improve.
That takes me on to how I see my year as president.
The first thing I need to mention is some of the new blood: our (newish) CEO Annette Spencer. I was part of the selection panel for Annette and I am delighted to see that she is already living up to the promise she showed during that process. We had a fantastic strategy discussion in March led by Annette and the rest of the leadership team, setting the priorities for the medium term. These are set out in Treasury for 21st Century, the ACT’s strategy for the 2020s, a document that will shortly be publicly available on the ACT’s website. My number one objective is to ensure that we provide the team with the support and challenge to ensure that we deliver on those agreed priorities, specifically in evolving our membership offer, our qualifications and education services, and how we work in the different markets where we have ACT members.
My second priority is ensuring that our governance is up to date and fit for purpose. It is around 20 years since we last undertook a major governance review and Annette has kicked off a review with the generous support of Linklaters. There are no issues with our governance but anyone who, like me, has had the joy of reading the various iterations of the Corporate Governance Code and similar documents over the last few years will know that this is an area that changes constantly and needs to be reviewed regularly.
It is crucial that we provide the structure and processes that the ACT executive needs.
Apart from that, it’s business as usual!
Malcolm Cooper is the president of the ACT and an experienced FTSE 250 company audit committee chair
