This year’s Highly Commended Winner for Woman of the Year EMEA is Nora Naadu Sena, Regional Treasurer at the Nestlé Treasury Centre – Middle East & Africa Limited covering Africa, Middle East, Pakistan and Turkey. In addition to a 19-year career in treasury, financial accounting, reporting and financial management, Nora is praised for her dedication to nurturing new and diverse talent on the corporate treasury career path.

Since starting her career at Nestlé as a management trainee, Nora’s primary motivation has been to make treasury a primary career option and not one that finance professionals just “stumble into”.

As Regional Treasury Head for Nestlé, she ensured that the team was diverse and reflected the region’s demographics. Nora’s current team is 58% female, comprising 33% in management positions, from nine different countries.

Nora also worked to reorganise the organisation’s structure by developing entry-level positions to enable the onboarding of fresh graduates needed to support Nestlé in a changing technological and geopolitical landscape. As a promoter of the #IAmRemarkable training programme, Nora encouraged her team and inspired women to articulate the value they bring to Nestlé and look beyond what they can see. In a world where “space is now a tourist destination”, Nora’s view is that “the sky is no more the limit”.

Fathima Onia Limalia, Corporate and Investment Banking Executive at Standard Bank, comments “what truly sets Nora apart is her commitment to empowering her team”.

According to Fathima, Nora has been a “true advocate for empowering her team to achieve their full potential, as evidenced in our interactions with the treasury managers allocated to the AOA markets.”

Nora began her career at Nestlé Central and West Africa Region (CWAR) after completing a one-year national service engagement with her alma mater, the University of Ghana Business School, as a research analyst in the Entrepreneurship Development department.

Even at the start of Nora’s treasury journey, she attracted praise and admiration. According to Manuel Vázquez, CEO Baja Aqua Farms, who first met Nora as a graduate in Ghana in 2006, she had “a quiet but unshakable strength that set her apart,” as well as “the courage to face challenges head-on, the stamina to push through adversity and the determination to carve a path where few had gone before.”

Manuel went on to say that Nora “has proven that ambition does not have to come at the cost of family, that excellence can walk hand in hand with love and that true success is measured not just by titles and achievements, but by the lives we touch and the values we uphold.”

After the management training programme, she was assigned to the treasury department as a cash management analyst. Nora feels this was invaluable in igniting her love and passion for the treasury profession. In her role at the regional office, she was primarily responsible for integrating the decentralised treasury functions and establishing treasury activities and processes for approximately 13 entities within the regional treasury setup. As part of the integration, she worked with banks, primarily Citibank, to establish multi-bank transaction initiation (MBTI), which laid the groundwork for the treasury function’s connectivity. This enabled Nestlé to establish a direct connection with all its banks through its treasury management system, thereby centralising treasury activities.

In 2019, after four years as Deputy Treasurer, Foreign Exchange and Risk Manager at the treasury centre, Nora took on the role of Finance and Control Manager for Nestlé MENA regional office. There, she headed the finance team for the head office entities that managed the principal model for the MENA region. In this role, she interacted with numerous stakeholders in supply chain, business, tax and other finance roles and built valuable business experiences and relationships. Although Nora leveraged her treasury experience in this role, it was during this time that she realised her love for treasury. When the opportunity came to return to the treasury centre to lead the team, she embraced it with much fervour.

As an advocate of continuous learning and professional development, Nora encourages and mentors her teams to push themselves beyond their comfort zone and pursue growth. Within her first 11 years at the regional treasury centre, she obtained her chartered accountant qualification with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and an MBA in Finance from the Manchester Business School. She followed this up in 2019 with another professional qualification in treasury with the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT). She completed her diploma in treasury in 2023 and was awarded ACT’s best-performing student for the MEA region.

Outside her organisation, Nora was elected to the ACT council in 2024, becoming the first council member voted in from outside the UK. While also raising three children with her husband, Nora also serves women and children ministries in her local church and co-owns a ladies’ salon in Dubai, UAE.

The principle of stewardship guides Nora’s work philosophy, advising others to “own your work and let it speak”. Her personal philosophy is anchored on faith, hope and love. “Have faith in one bigger than yourself. The right perspective always enables learning and growth,” she says. “Hope in all things. Another day brings grace to embrace! Love like never before … nothing is more rewarding.”