It’s no secret that women face particular challenges in reaching the highest level in professions such as treasury, which has long been seen as a largely male-dominated world.
Indeed, with the number of female CFOs in the FTSE 100 recently dropping to 10, it is clear that the glass ceiling is still a force to be reckoned with.
As in many professions, balancing career and motherhood can be challenging for many women seeking to move into senior roles.
Winny Li, group treasurer of PPD, notes the importance of operating as efficiently as possible, managing time effectively and “making sure every single minute counts” in order to progress, while also raising young children.
But motherhood is just one of the issues women may face in their careers.
Women who reach senior roles in treasury have an opportunity to encourage others to aim high
Frances Hinden, vice president, treasury operations at Shell International, reflects that, while recent years have brought considerable changes, unconscious bias continues to be a major obstacle.
“There is a feedback loop where corporates look for senior leaders who have the characteristics of existing senior leaders, who historically have been alpha males,” she says.
In reality, Hinden points out that there are other ways to be a successful leader – and that positively seeking out different character traits is a prerequisite if companies wish to make their boards more diverse.
At the same time, she notes the often-cited adage that women may be more likely to look at a job description and decide against applying because they only meet some of the requirements.
“To get more diverse boards,” Hinden points out, “we need to encourage people to apply for roles, instead of selecting themselves out of the running.”
Mentorship and support networks can also be a powerful tool in building and progressing a treasury career. Sarah-Jane Hall, group treasurer of GSK, says that her predecessors have been highly supportive of her development.
“I endeavour to do the same to encourage people in my team – not just within treasury, but also into other roles in the group,” she says. “There are structured schemes in place, and I mentor many MBA graduates, as well as other members of my team.”
Joanna Hawkes, group treasurer of Marks and Spencer, agrees that mentoring arrangements can be a powerful tool for career development, emphasising you should “create your own opportunities as often as you can”.
During her time at Misys, she mentored colleagues including one from another part of the business.
“She wasn’t from finance,” she explains, “but I was able to help her enormously by listening to her issues and using my experience to help her resolve her potential career blockers and make the right next moves.”
It’s also important to be aware of new opportunities that may arise as the landscape evolves.
Anecdotally, Jane Pilcher, group treasurer of Anglian Water Group, says that she hasn’t observed more women reaching senior roles in treasury in recent years – but she picks out sustainable finance as an area where she has observed a far greater proportion of women than in other areas of treasury.
Finally, just as the feedback loop mentioned by Hinden can hinder women’s progress, women who reach senior roles in treasury have an opportunity to encourage others to aim high.
“The more we can inspire and support people through the challenges of managing family and career, the more we can help others achieve this, too,” Pilcher notes.
Here, these female senior treasurers outline their career paths in greater depth:
Unlike many treasurers, Pilcher began her career sitting on the other side of the table.
“I started off in banking, looking after major UK corporates, which is where my interest in treasury came from,” she explains. “A few years later, I had the opportunity to set up a treasury function for a company that had been my client on the banking side.”
After six years of working for that company, Pilcher moved to Anglian Water in a role that has included three distinct iterations.
“When I first joined, the company was publicly quoted and looking to expand internationally,” she says, adding that the second phase involved putting in place a corporate restructuring and the corporate securitisation of Anglian Water Services, raising £1.7bn of new debt.
The company subsequently became a private company owned primarily by a pension fund.
Pilcher currently looks after debt and funding for the group. “We’ve now got about £6.5bn of debt and a pretty complex and innovative derivative book,” she says.
“I manage a team of 15 people, look after investor relations and am also responsible for managing the liability of our £1.5bn legacy benefit pension scheme on behalf of the company.”
Training as a general accountant in a small boutique firm gave Lesley Flowerdew a broad grounding, which has served her well throughout her career.
After qualifying as a chartered accountant, she moved into tax roles at Grant Thornton, PwC and GUS before branching into treasury – a move that was a “conscious decision to broaden and deepen my qualifications and skill set”.
Flowerdew took her AMCT and MCT exams and was subsequently appointed group tax & treasury director for WS Atkins, a FTSE 250 engineering design and consultancy business. After 10 years in this role she moved to Sage, where she again has responsibility for both tax and treasury.
“Combining both roles brings opportunities to achieve a high degree of business partnering and get more involved in strategic initiatives,” she comments.
As well as tax, Flowerdew’s current role includes the full suite of corporate treasury activities, including debt, balance-sheet strategy, cash management, FX and bank guarantees.
Other responsibilities include supporting the group’s three shared service centres with regards to their general banking and treasury operations.
After studying for a postgraduate degree in Applied Mathematics, Hinden joined Shell as an IT graduate, focusing on financial modelling.
Twelve years into her career, she moved to Shell’s treasury – “I’d done various roles in strategy, planning, management information and financial consultancy, and I was attracted by the numerical, precise part of treasury,” she notes.
Hinden’s subsequent treasury career started with strategy. After taking a role in charge of the inter-group funding team, and running the UK pensions scheme, she moved to manage treasury operations in 2014.
Today, her areas of responsibility include liquidity, FX and banking arrangements, as well as group insurance, policies and risk management. Her team includes around 75 people within treasury, supported by another 150 who work in the company’s shared service centres.
Hinden remarks that working for one of the world’s largest treasury teams is highly rewarding.
As well as managing almost $1 trillion of FX each year, Hinden’s recent achievements include overseeing the integration of British Gas’s treasury, following the acquisition in 2016 combined with significant cost reductions over the same period.
As group treasurer of Marks and Spencer, Hawkes oversees global treasury and funding, as well as leading the relationship with the trustee for the investment strategy of the company’s £10bn pension scheme.
She also sits on the management committee for M&S Bank and the captive insurer, and supports the finance aspects of M&S services teams. In addition, Hawkes is a board member and treasury chair at Southern Housing Group and independent chair of the Finastra (formerly Misys) Pension Scheme.
Hawkes’ treasury career has included a rich variety of roles.
After graduating in Mathematics, she joined a large US company in a sales and marketing graduate rotation programme where she “discovered treasury” and actively elected to steer her career in that direction, securing early assignments with the UK and US treasury teams.
Her subsequent roles have been in diverse companies, and include working as assistant treasurer at Ladbrokes, director of corporate finance for Hilton Worldwide, vice president finance, Europe for global aviation company AAR and treasurer at rolling stock owner Angel Trains.
Before joining Marks and Spencer, Hawkes also spent five years as group treasurer for FTSE 250 technology company Misys.
With a treasury career spanning 30 years, Hall joined SmithKline Beecham in 1995 as a treasury manager and was appointed group treasurer of GSK in 2001.
During this time the scope of her role has increased considerably: as well as managing the company’s core treasury operation, she also manages pension risks and GSK’s global insurance operations.
The treasury team at GSK consists of a corporate finance team that covers funding, investments, FX and interest rate risk, the global treasury consultancy that looks after treasury issues in GSK’s global business, and a centre of excellence for global cash management.
More recently, GSK’s strategic business moves have brought new challenges from a treasury perspective. During 2018, GSK bought Novartis’ stake in the consumer business for $13bn.
For 2019, the agenda includes setting up a new consumer health joint venture with Pfizer; selling GSK’s interest in Horlicks in India and Bangladesh to Unilever; and planning for the split of the company within three years into two businesses, as announced in December 2018.
Following an MPhil in Management Studies, Li took audit/management consultancy roles at Arthur Andersen and Deloitte in which she gained broad experience of different industry sectors across the UK.
Li subsequently moved to Viacom in a role that “provided a fantastic global understanding of business practices”.
In 2006, Li joined global contract research organisation PPD, where her responsibilities included a heavy focus on due diligence and post-acquisition integration.
My department oversees everything from cash receipts to cash payments – as well as cash, liquidity, investments and debt
When the firm was sold to private equity firms in 2011, Li had the opportunity to plan and set up a new treasury department – a task that she approached by gaining an understanding of other companies’ treasury departments, while also taking her CertITM.
The result was a treasury precisely tailored to PPD’s needs. “For example,” says Li, “we have credit control reporting into treasury.”
She explains that this arrangement was inspired by a conference where she heard about the communication obstacles experienced by many treasurers, and the impact that has on cash forecasting.
As such, she notes, “my department oversees everything from cash receipts to cash payments – as well as cash, liquidity, investments and debt.”
Li was subsequently promoted to her current role of group treasurer in 2018.
Rebecca Brace a freelance journalist specialising in corporate treasury and banking
This article was taken from the 40 Years Edition 2019 issue of The Treasurer magazine. For more great insights, log in to view the full issue or sign up for eAffiliate membership