Treasury Outlook with Treasury Wine Estates´ Bijan Taghian
Bijan Taghian, Treasury Manager at Treasury Wine Estates, shares views and visions in an interview with Reval.
1) What was the most challenging project in your treasury department in 2013?
Following the demerger with Fosters in May 2011, Treasury Wine Estates became a stand-alone ASX-listed company. Therefore, we focused on implementing a long-term funding strategy for our relatively new group in 2013.
Our treasury team was challenged to establish new sources of debt, diversify our sources of funding, create a longer yield curve, establish new bank facilities, issue a bond in the US, and establish common funding terms for the group.
2) What is the biggest risk treasury is facing today? How are you mitigating this risk?
Today, treasury is facing a variety of risks such as financial market, foreign exchange, interest rate, commodity, liquidity and credit risk. Those risks are closely related to each other and equally important to manage.
We conducted a review of treasury policy to refine it to today´s market environment and establish best practices to protect our company from those risks.
3) What will be the biggest drivers for change in treasury in 2014?
Previously, we only managed financial market risk with Reval´s Treasury and Risk Management (TRM) solution, but we decided to deepen our use of the solution and implement it as group-wide treasury system. Leveraging the technology to its full scope will enable us to utilise cash more efficiently and better support our business operations on a day-to-day basis.
4) Which strategic initiatives will you focus on in 2014? How will technology support you to reach your goals?
Our goal is to gain global oversight on cash, liquidity and risk, so treasury will focus on integrating our treasury and risk workflows on Reval’s single platform. . The solution will not only be used in central treasury, but it will also be rolled out to our entities around the globe.
5) What technological innovations would help you to evolve your treasury function in the next 3 years?
Having the right technology infrastructure in place can really evolve how we function as a business. In my opinion, all the technology needed is already there, but it´s not as integrated as it should be. Connecting our treasury system with the ERP system and the bank platforms, would make treasury much more efficient, and it would free up resources for the more value-added analyses senior management is already asking for. With the global roll-out of Reval, we are taking the first step this year.
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Patrick Cannon is Executive Vice President, Client Services at Reval, where he oversees global professional services and client support teams. He is responsible for providing excellence in post-sales Client Services, through the delivery of industry-leading best practices. Patrick brings over 16 years of experience in client-facing roles, having led key project and relationship management initiatives for start-up and growth-stage companies.
Willibald Rieder studied Technical Mathematics at the Technical Vienna University of Technology and then worked as a software developer. From 1980 to 1983 he was Managing Director of Polydata GmbH in Munich. In 1984 Willibald established ecosoft in Vienna. In 2001 the company merged with ZOSO to form ecofinance Finanzsoftware & Consulting GmbH. In addition to his responsibilities as Managing Director, Mr. Rieder also acts as an expert speaker at the Research Institute for Banking at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, and is co-author of the book “Cash Pooling. Modern Liquidity Management for Financial, Legal and Fiscal Purposes”.
Jiro Okochi is CEO of Reval, a company he co-founded in 1999 to bring an Internet technology solution to the underserved market of corporate derivative end-users. Under his leadership, Reval introduced a true Software-as-a-Service solution, which has since evolved from a best-of-breed financial risk management offering to a next generation, all-in-one SaaS for enterprise treasury and risk management.
Dino Ewing is Chief Financial Officer at Reval with responsibility for financial, human resource, legal and administrative management. He has over 20 years of experience in financial management, operations and analysis. Prior to joining Reval in 2000, Mr. Ewing was Chief Financial Officer of HealthFirst, Inc., where he was responsible for business planning, financial reporting, and medical risk management. Previously, he worked as an investment banker at CS First Boston, a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and as the Director of Budget & Analysis for the New York City Department of Transportation. Mr. Ewing holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, magna cum laude, from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Philip Pettinato is Chief Technology Officer at Reval with responsibility for managing the company’s research and development activities across three core operating groups: product management, product engineering and information technology. Mr. Pettinato has more than 25 years of experience managing and developing technology solutions for treasury, trading, risk management, accounting and post-trade processing of derivatives and capital markets products.
Duygu Cibik is Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Success Officer at Reval, where she leads the Customer Success Management (CSM) function, helping clients achieve success using Reval. As advocate of the customer, Ms. Cibik manages the global customer success management team and the client support functions to keep clients fully engaged and continually experiencing the full value of their investments in Reval. She brings over 15 years of leadership experience in enterprise subscription-based software and services across strategy, product and customer success roles. Her track record includes growing over 100 million-dollar enterprise product and customer portfolios.
John Mitchell heads up Reval’s Global Sales organization, where he is building a world-class, high-performance sales team focused on industry-leading growth. Mr. Mitchell brings over 25 years of global sales experience across large, public enterprises, growth companies, and nascent start-ups. His leadership with companies in the UK, US and APAC regions includes achieving high-double-digit growth for Asset Control, a Fidelity Ventures company with focus on capital markets data management, for which he expanded its geographic and segment footprint as Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing; establishing and growing sales teams across the Americas and in Japan for Fortent, an anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist funding solution for the world’s top 50 banks, where he sold each of Japan’s mega banks as Vice President Sales, Americas and Japan; and taking database tools software company Bradmark Technologies into 20 new countries as Senior Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing.
Kirsten Behncke Colyer is Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer at Reval, where she oversees and guides Human Resources and Administration globally. Reval is the fourth financial technology company at which Ms. Behncke Colyer has successfully applied her leadership. With over 20 years of establishing and reshaping global HR departments, Ms. Behncke Colyer brings a strong track record of aligning business practices with corporate goals, strategies, and values. Prior to Reval, she built a leading-edge, global HR function for Lab49, a capital markets IT consulting company, where she focused on employee performance, retention and HR infrastructure.
Peter Haberler brings over two decades of entrepreneurial expertise to his role at Reval, where he helps banks deepen their relationships with corporate treasury clients by using innovative treasury services technology. In 1992, Mr. Haberler co-founded ZoSo GmbH, where he also served as CEO. There, his visionary technology product won him recognition as an early pioneer of software development for mobile handheld devices.
Justin Brimfield is Chief Marketing Officer at Reval, where he focuses on corporate strategy, inclusive of buy, build or partner analysis, and strategic marketing initiatives across the global organization. Mr. Brimfield is responsible for market research, pricing, brand management, digital marketing, advertising, public relations, and social media. Since joining Reval, he has been instrumental in helping the firm deepen its penetration in the North American corporate risk marketplace with the 2009 acquisition of FXpress and broaden its addressable market and global footprint with the acquisition of ecofinance in 2010.
