Welcome to the autumn edition of The Treasurer – a special edition guest edited by the ACT’s Future Leaders in Treasury group (FLiT). FLiT is an ACT initiative aimed at supporting a younger generation of members as they develop their careers in a fast-moving business climate. For the second year running, we’ve taken the perspectives and views of the group as our starting point and as a lens through which to view both the world of treasury and the wider geopolitical and economic climate. On page 20, for instance, five treasurers highlight the business environment within which they operate in a fascinating delve into treasury across five continents. Continuing with this global theme, Whitbread’s Jill Harrison talks about negotiating the push and pull of opportunity versus regulation in China, on page 15, while Agnes Favillier, who chairs FLiT, makes the case for treasurers upping their game when it comes to engaging with their organisations – moving from a perspective on economic and geopolitical risk that serves the treasury function to one that operates across the wider business, on page 13. For many in this new generation of treasurers, the financial crisis of 2008 and its fallout will have been their formative experience. Professionals who cut their teeth during that period will have an inbuilt resilience. That’s certainly the case for Anissa Teemul, treasury analyst at the National Investment Corporation, a development company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Teemul’s early experiences in treasury were marked by tight liquidity, and the wide- ranging responsibilities in her early roles provided her with testing challenges. Teemul, who is also the FLiT representative for the UAE, is profiled on page 16. We revisit the impact of the financial crisis elsewhere in this edition as we celebrate 10 years of the ACT in the Middle East. In October, more than 500 treasury professionals will gather in Dubai for the ACT Middle East Treasury Summit. The ramifications for currencies, liquidity and debt and equity markets since the crisis have been felt the world over, but in the Middle East the crisis has acted as something of a catalyst for the profession, with many corporates taking corporate treasury more seriously and starting to value the skills and input of members of the profession. Our focus on the Middle East begins on page 28. I hope you enjoy the issue. Liz Loxton Editor, The Treasurer
