As a professional body, the ACT has two primary concerns: to advance the interests of its members, students and the wider treasury community; and to enhance the understanding and appreciation of corporate treasury as a discipline in financial and business management. Treasury is both an operational and strategic discipline that needs managing in an integrated fashion. At a strategic level, treasury is about offering options for executive decision taking. With a broad perspective of the organisation and the environment in which it operates, the treasurer is ideally positioned to facilitate the integrated thinking that will help an organisation achieve sustainable value creation. However in many organisations, treasurers struggle to gain full acceptance of their capabilities, often seen as cash managers, not as contributors to financial and business strategy. What's more, the very definition of a treasurer varies significantly from company to company, and indeed, from treasurer to treasurer. The ACT has recognised the need for a comprehensive survey of its members' attitudes towards the evolving influence of treasurers on corporate strategy.'The Contemporary Treasurer' is the first in a series of treasury trend reports that explores who the contemporary treasurer is, how he or she spends their working day and how he or she interacts with the board. It also investigates how treasurers source funding, how they feel about regulation and their interactions with financial institutions.