From managing liquidity and mitigating risk to managing funding and investments, the responsibilities of a modern treasurer are nothing if not wide-ranging.
But alongside the technical demands of the job, Roopashini Maheswaran views one characteristic as more vital than all others: the ability to inspire and guide others effectively. This, she explains, is particularly key when recruiting team members at a more junior level, since many candidates lack direct experience of the treasury profession.
While Roopa is now in a position to guide others through the early stages of their treasury careers, she was once on the other side of the equation. After graduating with a degree in accounting, she initially started her career in that field, gaining four years’ experience in an accounting role before making her first move into treasury.
“A recruiter approached me about a role at a very prominent oil and gas company, and asked if I would be interested,” she recalls. “I didn’t have any experience in treasury, but I decided to go to the interview. It turned out that they were willing to provide full training, so I decided to make the jump.” This move motivated her to pursue her MBA, majoring in finance, which she completed successfully while juggling a full-time job.
Learning curve
From the outset, Roopa was appointed as team lead, overseeing five team members across different areas of treasury, including bank reconciliation, cash management and FX.
“After that, I moved to another well-known oil and gas company, at a time when the company was selling its retail business in Malaysia,” she says. “So it was an interesting journey, which involved going to the banks to secure a US$1.2bn syndicated loan facility. That was the first time I was exposed to the financing side of treasury.”
Following the acquisition, much work needed to be done to adapt the business to the new parent company’s requirements, such as changing the bank relationships and processes.
“I was also introduced to FX hedging and commodity hedging, which involved looking into ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) agreements, as well as actively trading FX, which was quite a journey,” she comments. “I found that enjoyable, because every month when the realised FX profit and loss report was prepared, it was satisfying to see the result of FX risk has been positively mitigated.
“That role also included setting up good processes and cash flow reporting – while it was a well-established company, you do have to align processes and policies after an acquisition.”
After a few years in this role, Roopa subsequently moved to the largest oil and gas company in Malaysia, where she focused on a treasury advisory and project role.
“In this role, I successfully implemented a cash pooling project for an entity that had 26 subsidiaries,” she says. “It was a huge project, which involved centralising treasury activities and concentrating cash across seven or eight countries in Europe. This was quite an achievement, because until then the project had failed to get off the ground for a few years.”
Other responsibilities in this role included advising related entities to synchronise and standardise treasury-related tasks, as well as rolling out risk policies and ensuring timely reporting. “I also spent a lot of time travelling between offices and meeting bankers from different countries in order to understand how banking practice and central bank rules differ in each region,” she adds. “So that was a great learning curve.”
From oil and gas to shipping
After gaining significant experience in oil and gas, in 2024 Roopa decided she was ready to branch out into a different sector. Late last year, she was appointed to her current role as Head of Group Treasury at independent feeder carrier X-Press Feeders, which provides transportation services to container owners. In this role, she heads up a team responsible for everything from managing liquidity, investments and payments to FX and financing.
“We provide transportation services to container owners – we ship containers, and we have big shipping clients as our customers,” she explains. “From a family-owned business, the company has expanded to become the largest independent feeder carrier, owning close to 100 vessels, so it’s an extremely busy role. While shipping is a little bit different from oil and gas, I would say I fit in very well, because the fundamentals and concepts of treasury tasks are the same.”
As the company is on rapid expansion mode, the need for a robust treasury strategy is essential. As such, Roopa is currently focusing on introducing best practices across the board, including cash and liquidity management as well as working with investment bankers to achieve the best investment strategy for the company.
Implementing a treasury management system
At the same time, the company has embarked on an ambitious initiative to adopt a new treasury management system. The upcoming implementation of the chosen system, Kyriba, is primarily intended to streamline treasury processes and practices across a number of areas.
“Typically, in shipping we have high volumes of payments with many different vendors, and a lot of different payment types,” Roopa explains. “Kyriba will be able to manage all these payments for us by integrating with our existing ERP system – SAP – in a seamless way using API integration. This will support faster reconciliation and will give us a strong advantage in terms of managing our liquidity, visibility to our cash balances on a real-time basis, and making investment decisions.”
Currently, the company’s cash flow forecasting activities are carried out using spreadsheets, which makes it difficult to view the company’s daily cash position across different businesses. As such, cash forecasting is a significant challenge that Roopa plans to address through the adoption of the new system.
“It’s 2025, and we need to take advantage of the technology available,” says Roopa. “A great outcome will be the team no longer needing to spend extensive time working through manual processes to prepare reports or perform reconciliation. The Kyriba system supports another crucial module for our business, which provides essential information related to debt management, investment and exchange rates.”
Roopa has been given a full mandate to run the project from her CFO and is looking forward to rising to the challenge and driving improvements. “It is indeed inspiring that I report to a CFO who is a strategic thinker, motivating leader, and always fostering a culture of innovation and growth for the organisation,” she says.
Roopa remarks that the Kyriba implementation is a big project that will take around eight months to complete. The company has engaged Deloitte as a technical implementation partner to assist in ensuring the successful implementation of the system.
Alongside the technical implementation, Roopa’s team will be taking the opportunity to review and optimise existing processes wherever the opportunity arises. “We’re not looking at this as a separate task, but as an opportunity to look at the processes we have and implement best practices,” she adds.
Understanding the bigger picture
While Roopa’s responsibilities encompass many different activities, she views liquidity management as one of the most interesting aspects of a treasury role.
“It gives you the upper hand in terms of knowing the company’s financial health, and it makes you look at the company with an entrepreneur’s mindset,” she reflects. “When you’re managing the company’s liquidity you need to think about the sustainability of the business, and the company’s future plans regarding operating expenditure (OpEx) and capital expenditure (CapEx).”
Roopa explains that in shipping, building or buying new vessels is a significant expenditure, so it’s important to plan for short-term cash requirements. Key to this is allocating the source of funds, and planning how any shortfall is going to be met – either by drawing upon an existing financing facility, or by securing a new financing facility to support business growth.
“As treasurer, you can’t say ‘No, I don’t have a source of funds right away.’ You need to make sure you have a backup cash plan for CapEx and new investment purposes.”
At the same time, the shipping industry does present several challenges. “The main challenge I’m currently facing in my organisation is volatility of FX, because every business is exposed to foreign currency movements one way or another,” she says. “FX rates and interest rates are very correlated, and we need to understand how changes in interest rates are going to affect us – but in the current environment, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
While her past experiences in the oil and gas industry are helpful, Roopa says the shipping industry is somewhat more dynamic than other sectors. “Some payments have shorter credit periods, and some payments need to be paid on an urgent basis. Cash for CapEx needs to be made available within a short tenure, and investments need to be planned realistically to align with company expansion. Hence a robust cash planning is crucial since cash may be required on ad-hoc basis at times.
“All of this was emphasised to me when I joined the industry, because that’s how the shipping industry works – it’s a bit of an adrenaline rush! I’m enjoying as I am learning to navigate the challenges that come with this industry.”
Supporting the next generation of treasury talent
Turning to the qualities needed by a successful treasurer, Roopa underscores that effective leadership as a treasurer requires unwavering dedication, strategic foresight and the agility to navigate an ever-changing financial landscape. “A successful treasurer is someone who has the patience to guide and share knowledge,” she notes.
Returning to her own experience of moving into a treasury role with limited skills, Roopa reflects that newly hired Treasury Analysts are often in a similar position – not least because candidates are unlikely to have learned much about treasury at university. “I’ve heard about people going into universities to give a one-hour presentation on what we do, but how many people are going to absorb it?” she muses.
As such, it’s common for new entrants to treasury to be daunted by the volume of knowledge needed to perform well. “Everyone struggles in a new role, particularly when it’s a topic you haven’t previously learned about,” says Roopa. “Of course, I have a lot of experience now, as well as attending a lot of treasury seminars, but when I hire a Treasury Analyst it can be quite difficult to find someone with fully-fledged treasury experience.”
As such, she tends to focus more on a candidate’s attitude, character and education background, rather than their level of experience. “So, it’s particularly important to have the patience to guide them through developing the skills they need.”
Beyond this, Roopa is interested in addressing the shortfall in treasury knowledge by finding ways to prepare university leavers for treasury roles. As such, she is currently involved in sharing her knowledge and skills needed in treasury to develop an AI-assisted treasury module, which is designed to help interns prepare for corporate treasury roles.
“I was approached by a technology consultant who is developing AI modules to help young people enter the workplace after graduating,” she explains. The treasury module includes activities such as cash flow simulation, making treasury payments or carrying out simple FX hedging via a virtual system, thereby enabling interns to gain an understanding of treasury tasks.
“The technology also prepares users for soft skills, such as how to interact and how to draft emails in a professional way, which are things that you don’t tend to learn at university,” Roopa adds. “I think it’s an interesting initiative, because it’s a way of sharing knowledge and helping young people secure a job.
Outside the office
Finally, while her role has much to keep her busy, outside of the office, Roopa loves travelling and makes time for plenty of short trips which includes a yearly visit to a spiritual place in India.
A dedicated fitness enthusiast, she makes time for regular strength training at the gym and practices yoga to maintain a calm mind. She muses that running can be meditative and aims to complete two marathons per year.
“I deeply value the importance of family and meaningful connections with like-minded individuals and close friends,” she concludes. “Sharing a hearty meal with my loved ones is one of the simple joys I cherish whenever time allows.”
