Only a few years ago, treasury was viewed within many companies as a distant function that had only limited engagement with the rest of the business. But recent years have seen treasurers around the world play an increasingly strategic role in supporting their organisations.
For Yvonne Teo, treasury is not just a support function, but an integral part of the broader organisation. As APAC Treasury Director for German chemical distribution company Brenntag – a role that she has held since May 2023 – she is responsible for cash management and insurance across the region and takes a particular interest in communicating the role of treasury to others in the company.
Indeed, the importance of building connections with others in the organisation has been a recurring theme throughout her career. “As treasury professionals who have been in the field for a while, many concepts or expectations that might come naturally to us might not be so easily understandable for non-finance folks,” she observes. “But it’s vital to help other people understand why topics like basic financing principles and working capital management are important.”
With that in mind, Teo’s unflinching focus on cash management throughout her treasury career has been accompanied by a passion for demystifying treasury concepts and communicating with a variety of other professionals.
Career highlights
Since she was at secondary school, Teo has been drawn towards the topic of accounting, which made for an easy decision when she was choosing her degree major. “I then started my corporate career in credit control. After a couple of years, I got a great opportunity to join a regional treasury team, and never looked back,” she recalls.
In 2010, Teo joined CEVA Asia Pacific Holding Co – an industrial services company based in Singapore – and spent seven years working in the company’s treasury team. As a senior executive, she was responsible for daily operational treasury activities for the company’s business units, as well as reviewing cash positions and ensuring proper working capital forecasting. Highlights of her role included setting up a notional multi-currency cash pool.
Teo subsequently moved to Robert Bosch (SEA), a regional subsidiary of the Bosch group, where she was promoted to the role of Senior Treasury Manager. In this role, her responsibilities included managing and coordinating funding and investments, leading the monthly cash flow forecast process and working closely with local finance teams to support operational banking requirements. She also provided support for merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and worked with local authorities to ensure compliance with local regulations.
Spreading the message
In addition to a typical range of treasury responsibilities at Robert Bosch, Teo also took responsibility for communicating proactively with other parts of the business about treasury-related topics.
“On top of the core cash management topics, I was given more autonomy to lead competence management topics and banking projects,” she explains. “I single-handedly organised treasury workshops and training sessions for non-finance folks to create better awareness of working capital management and liquidity management topics, especially during the pandemic.”
Teo reflects that this allowed her to think about treasury from a different angle and consider how to make key topics more understandable to people who don’t already have a treasury background. “It wasn’t easy at first, especially with the public speaking element,” she says. “But with good practice, and plenty of support from my team and my boss, I was able to deliver some great workshops and have a good learning experience myself along the way.”
While it can be difficult to explain certain concepts in a way that is accessible to non-treasury professionals, Teo took the time to make her workshops informal and creative, “so that people could relate to what we were discussing and feel like they were part of the process.”
Focus on cash
In 2023, Teo was given the opportunity to step into a regional leadership role at Brenntag. In this role, she is responsible for activities such as cash management, financing, banking and FX management across the Asia Pacific region, as well as for insurance.
Teo reports directly into the global treasurer in Germany. “We work very closely together, to drive common initiatives with the aim of building a world-class infrastructure,” she remarks. “It’s important for us regional teams to keep our headquarters informed about the developments in our region, to enable better understanding of our complex region, customising policies and processes that are workable and compliant for this region while enabling business growth.”
Teo manages the Regional Treasury function out from Singapore, with two other team members sitting in China and India respectively. They are in-country specialists familiar with local regulations, which is crucial in these heavily regulated markets.
Above all, Teo sees cash as her main focus. “At work, I generally call myself ‘the cash lady’, so people know that if they need to talk about cash, Yvonne is the one to talk to,” she says. “My bread and butter is really about making sure that our legal entities are getting sufficient funding in the right currency at the right time, and making sure that we concentrate surplus cash back to the headquarters in Germany on a regular basis.”
In addition, as the company continues to grow through mergers and acquisitions, Teo has a role to play in supporting this activity. “I’m involved in everything from due diligence and funding, all the way to post-merger integration,” she says. “Each deal is very different, and so is every integration experience.”
Collaboration and communication
When speaking about treasury, Teo is enthusiastic about the topic of cash management. “Whenever people hear me talking about cash, they can see the sparkle in my eyes!” she laughs. “It’s exciting that we are able to do value-added work through good cooperation with our banking partners, thereafter, delivering solutions to better help our businesses achieve our goals.”
Teo observes that when funding is needed within the business, it’s easy to see bank financing as the first port of call – “but actually, that shouldn’t be the starting point. We should be aiming to be self-sufficient with our own pool of cash within the company, without over-relying on external funding.” Again, she notes that non-treasury professionals may be less aware of this distinction, “which is why competence management and creating better awareness continues to be important.”
Likewise, Teo is a firm believer that treasury requires close collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders. “It’s important to be familiar with regulatory changes and market outlook trends, so that treasury can provide value-added business partnering support to the commercial organisation,” she adds. “We are no longer just a back office – a lot of the time we are part of our project group, giving advice on how we can make business cases more viable.”
On another note, Teo is appreciative of the support available through treasury networks such as the Association of Corporate Treasurers (Singapore) (ACTS). “This organisation is generally very willing to provide advice and guidance to any of us within the treasury group,” she says. “Quality networking with treasury peers has been very helpful since I stepped into this role: it helps me learn best practices and enables me to be better prepared for possible challenges, especially in the dynamic Asia Pacific region.”
Facing down currency challenges
Where challenges are concerned, Teo says there are a number of topics that impact most treasurers, particularly at the regional and global level. “Currency devaluation, high foreign currency volatility and trapped cash are all common problems that are not easy to solve, especially in our region, with some of the more restricted markets.
“For example, there are certain markets where we can’t get sufficient hard currency to make payments, so we have to think of alternatives to help the business access the working capital it needs. At the same time, we need to think of ways to help the business avoid long-term trapped cash.”
Teo notes that many corporates in the region have been working to address similar challenges through activities such as regular cash repatriation exercises. “Again, it’s important to create awareness of currency controls across the business, so that these can be factored in when building a business case or thinking about working capital management topics.”
Harnessing efficiency and optimisation
Like many other treasurers, Teo regards technology as key when it comes to enhancing efficiency and improving data transparency. The team has recently completed the migration of its foreign currency execution to its preferred eFX trading platform, a project which was completed within the space of three months.
“In the past, we had to carry out foreign exchange execution via emails and phone calls,” says Teo. “That’s not an efficient way to operate, and sometimes the time lag would mean that we missed out on certain good margins. By moving this to our eFX platform, we can now trade competitively with all FX banks, with the trades reported automatically to our treasury management system, which improves workflow efficiency and helps avoid errors.”
Following this implementation, the next step is a global cash management optimisation assessment. “I’ve always been a regional treasurer in the past, focusing mainly on the Asia Pacific region,” says Teo. “But this year, I’ve been given an exciting opportunity to look into areas where our global cash management structure can be better optimised.”
This will include broadening the regional perspective, better understanding the different regions at a global level, and looking at the tools that different regions can utilise to repatriate cash more efficiently. Key to this initiative is effective communication with the company’s banking partners about which products are best suited to help Brenntag achieve its goals in a cost-efficient way.
“We also need to be mindful to keep our tax colleagues involved, because tax is an important consideration when you’re sweeping cash across the world,” Teo adds. “There are a lot of internal and external stakeholders that we need to check in with to make sure we deliver a successful project.”
Embracing technology
Speaking about the role of the treasurer more generally, Teo notes that treasury is evolving faster than ever before – not least because of the rapid developments in technology that she has seen in recent years.
“Technology is advancing at such record speed, alongside economic changes and increasing complexity in financial markets – there are so many different things to consider,” she says. “It’s clear that we need to embrace technology and discover how it can enable us to do better.”
Teo reflects that corporations have access to more data than ever before, with the rise of predictive modelling delivering more real-time information. For treasury teams, there is an opportunity to use this to increase the accuracy of cash flow forecasting and visualise different risk scenarios quickly and easily.
“What we really want to be able to do is run sensitive analysis through a good treasury management system so that we can do better decision making with more accurate data, using machine learning and advanced data analytics,” she adds. “There are a lot of buzzwords going around, but what we really want to see is how these developments can contribute to better risk management, so that we can forecast changes that could benefit – or negatively affect – our assets and positions.”
Future developments
Looking forward, she hopes that the latest developments will help treasurers become more proactive in terms of understanding the risks and opportunities facing their businesses and preventing future problems: “This is what we need to bring our treasury infrastructure to the next level. If software can give us automated, quality cash forecasting on a real-time basis, that will be every treasurer’s dream come true.”
But at the same time, while the treasurer’s role is becoming more dynamic and strategic, Teo highlights the importance of keeping the core goals of treasury front and centre. “We need to retain our conventional financial expertise and blend it with modern technological skills to navigate this evolving landscape.”
Likewise, she is clear about the importance of keeping treasury’s primary focus on cash and liquidity management: “No matter how the world changes, we need to make sure that managing group-wide liquidity and cash flow continues to be our primary responsibility. That means adapting to changing market conditions and developing strategies to maintain our liquidity and the company’s financial health.”
Staying grounded
Alongside her professional responsibilities, Teo is a strong believer in the importance of striking an effective work-life balance. “I love yoga – I’m a yogi at heart, so no matter how challenging a day is, it’s important for me to have at least one hour on the mat after work to give me more clarity,” she explains. “At the same time, I enjoy workouts such as high intensity interval training (HIIT) to get my energy up, especially if I’m preparing for something important at work.”
Last but not least, she highlights the importance of spending high-quality time with her family. “For me, it’s important to dedicate uninterrupted time with my family over the weekends and during holidays, so that I stay grounded,” she concludes. “I think it’s so important not to compromise on family time.”
