Later this month, treasurers from across Europe and beyond will descend upon Manchester for the ACT’s flagship event – its Annual Conference 2015. There they will debate the big issues of the day, from geopolitical risk through to regulation and the emerging markets. The intriguing speaker line-up includes Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of intelligence agency MI5, and Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO’s former deputy supreme allied commander. There is such a thing as conference etiquette – especially if you’re hobnobbing with soldiers and spies. So those of you who will be attending may want to turn straight to page 50 now in order to gen up on the handy ‘dos and don’ts’ offered by our regular columnist Andrew Sawers. It’s the perfect guide to the ACT Annual Conference for treasurers who have their sense of humour firmly intact. Someone else who will have a big presence at the conference – alongside the luminaries, of course – is incoming ACT president Yann Umbricht. As the head of PwC’s treasury and commodity trading group in the UK, he is already a familiar figure on the treasury scene. His profile will surely rise further after his year in office. To find out what excites him about his work, and about being a member of the ACT, turn to page 24. In this issue, we focus on the EU’s proposed Capital Markets Union and take an in-depth look at what it could mean for the funding of Europe’s businesses. Among the aims of the union are to improve access to finance for all businesses and infrastructure projects across Europe and to help SMEs to raise finance as easily as large companies. We outline what treasurers need to know, on page 20. As a business professional, you will know that you can never invest too much in your personal development. Hence, we address a couple of important career-related topics over the coming pages. The first is how you can use mentoring to help yourself and your team to unlock your full potential. (See page 40.) The second is the secret to developing a good mind for business – your brain is the greatest asset that you have, but do you look after it? (See page 42.) I look forward to seeing many of you in Manchester, and I hope to meet those of you who can’t attend at an ACT event in the near future.
