As chair of the Association of Corporate Treasurers’ (ACT’s) Middle East Advisory Panel, James Adams has been very busy preparing for this week’s Middle East Treasury Summit (METS), but he managed to find time to speak to The Treasurer about the conference, the importance of bringing people back together again, his work with Chalhoub Group and the opportunities he sees for treasury in the region.
James Adams: Yes, it’s the first METS face-to-face conference for three years, although we did have a treasury technology day conference earlier this year. That was the first time our treasurers in the region have come together since the pandemic and it will stay in their memory, but METS will be made particularly special because it will be a much larger-scale event over two days, and we will also be announcing the winners of the annual ACT Middle East Awards during the conference. It is being held at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, and I’m really looking forward to hearing the guest speakers and celebrating best practice with the award winners.
It will also be an opportunity to meet up with our wider partners; those in the banking profession, technology space and legal advisers. It’s a great agenda, looking at what lies ahead for the region – we are aiming to have at least the same number of delegates as 2019. We might be a smaller community compared to the UK, but we can still fill up a large conference space and I am personally proud to have witnessed the growth of this event since I came to the region in 2014.
It will definitely be worth checking the ACT’s website and social media postings to see who the award winners are when they are announced.
JA: With a legacy of 65 years, Chalhoub Group is a leading partner, curator and creator of luxury products and services in the Middle East. An expert in hybrid retail, distribution and marketing services, the Group is the foremost player in the luxury beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories regionally with a portfolio of six own brands and over 300 global brands. Headquartered in Dubai, the Group has a strong workforce of more than 14,000 skilled, talented and passionate people in seven countries.
As group treasurer, I have a very high-level view of the organisation and as such have the ability to advise and make decisions that can affect cash flow and the bottom line. I came to the Middle East in 2014 to help set up the treasury function at Chalhoub Group, having worked with them previously when I was at Deloitte. We’ve grown to a central treasury team of over 10 people at the moment, and we are still looking to recruit more to support the growing business.
There are two aspects to treasury in my team now – there is the traditional treasury function that takes care of risk management, corporate funding, cash and operations, but in addition, we have also set up a digital payments function that looks after all our e-commerce payment gateways and retail store point of sales (POS), which is now seen as a strategic part of the customer experience.
JA: I was actually born in Bahrain, where I lived for my first seven years, so I was comfortable coming back here. I knew Chalhoub Group, but I also saw there was a great opportunity in the region. Dubai is very dynamic, there are many new developments, and it is positioning itself as a fintech hub, too. Treasury is likewise developing in the region, and there is a large demand for world-class skills.
But there are differences between here and, say, the UK. There are many more family-operated businesses here, which culturally can be different, but I’ve found that the family shareholders are very aligned with the business and are in it for the long term. They also take their social responsibilities seriously and have a strong focus on sustainability.
JA: The Middle East Advisory Panel was first established around 14 years ago when Matthew Hurn, our previous chair and past president of the ACT, moved to the region. The opportunity to build a network and community for those involved in treasury, corporate finance and risk was clear.
I have been involved since I came to the region in 2014 and have seen the network grow to over 4,500 professionals to become the success it is today. The journey has not always been easy, but thanks to all the countless hours of support from the team at the ACT and our dedicated advisory panel, it has become a reality.
The network is committed to developing and sharing treasury knowledge and expertise in the region by providing extensive opportunities through events, conferences and professional qualifications.
We really cannot thank our advisory panel members enough for their work and support. The full list of our current serving members can be found on the ACT website for anyone that would like to get in touch.
JA: I believe the region has a bright future and there is still plenty of scope for treasury teams to continue developing best practice and adding value to their organisations. The region has proven its resilience during the pandemic by accelerating reforms and bouncing back strongly after a relatively short lockdown in most countries.
Many treasury departments were able to use the pandemic to update their investment cases with their boards and secure more funding to strengthen their processes, technology and teams. When I first came to the region, I remember the main conversation was often around how to set up a treasury and the role it should play. This has now clearly shifted, and the focus is around treasury optimisation and enhancement in many leading companies.
I see the convergence of technology will have an increasing role to play in treasury and the wider finance function, with the use of new tools such as AI forecasting, data warehousing, cloud computing and robotic process automation increasingly becoming the standard. Some of these tools have been around for a while, but we are now seeing them converge and accelerate even more rapidly in our field, especially after the catalyst of the pandemic, and that trend is here to stay.
Specifically in our region, we are also now starting to see many new regulations in the area of tax and compliance, which will require treasurers to have a broader skill set as companies seek best practice, particularly for traditional areas such as debt optimisation, transfer pricing, economic substance and internal funding arrangements.
At Chalhoub Group, we constantly move towards offering our consumer a hybrid experience, keeping innovation at the forefront of everything we do. At a Group level, we are exploring the new Web 3.0 environment. We just launched the first non-fungible token (NFT) for Christofle, making it the first luxury brand in the world of tableware to enter Web 3.0. We’re clear that this might be the next big thing, and we need to prepare ourselves before mass adoption picks up, so we are ready when it's needed the most. For our treasury team, this has meant the development of a whole new digital payments function, where we have been testing digital wallets, cryptocurrencies and other digital payment methods.
All of this means it is an exciting time to be a treasurer in this region!
James Adams is group treasurer of Chalhoub Group and chair of the ACT Middle East Advisory Panel. He was speaking with Philip Smith, editor of The Treasurer