While some treasury professionals remain with a single employer for many years, working their way up through the ranks, others opt for a more varied approach spanning a wide range of employers and industries through fixed-term and contract roles.

While Setareh Golchin now holds a position at commodities firm Hartree Partners, much of her career in treasury has been shaped by working across different roles and organisations. As such, she has gained a detailed understanding of the diverse ways that treasury can be run in different well-known companies. At the same time, her experience within the banking world has yielded insights she has subsequently drawn upon in her corporate roles.

Reflecting on her treasury career, Golchin discusses some of the most memorable roles she has held, shares the lessons she’s learnt along the way, and reflects on the challenges and rewards that have shaped her journey.

Joining a startup bank

Golchin’s career in banking and treasury began in 2010 when she joined newly founded Metro Bank in London.

“I was part of the first group that joined the bank, and there was literally nothing in place yet. My manager gave everyone the opportunity to choose which department they wanted to join, and I said treasury,” she recalls.

“So, I joined the treasury operations team but actually, there was no one in the team at that point. I had to learn treasury and build the treasury operations from the ground up.”

She adds that this was an “amazing experience” which involved asking a lot of questions, writing processes and procedures, and taking ownership of key responsibilities including building up the reserve account with the Bank of England.

“It had its own challenges, because obviously I had to learn as well as doing my day-to-day job,” says Golchin. “But that was really the start of my treasury career – and more than 16 years later, I’m still here.”

From startup to contract roles

For Golchin, the attraction of treasury is that every day is different. “You never know how your day will go, or which challenges will be thrown at you. So, you have to be analytical when coming up with solutions and resolving issues to the best of your abilities.”

After working for Metro Bank for about a year and a half, Golchin moved to the UAE, where she worked for Nestlé in Dubai. “I really enjoyed this, because their treasury function was very well set up, they had a TMS, procedures in place and were very organised.”

After two years in Dubai, Golchin returned to the UK and continued building her experience across different organisations. At Premier Farnell (now Farnell), her responsibilities included building a cash forecasting model in Excel, improving visibility of cash positions and supporting better liquidity planning, as well as updating processes and procedures.

Subsequently, Golchin worked for Standard Chartered Bank in a private banking role, and then for Bank of America as a treasury services advisor.

“When you deal with a different range of clients, you have to build a thick skin,” she reflects. “But I learned a lot working for a bank on the servicing side. You understand corporate clients, but you also see how things work behind the scenes.”

Cost savings and regulatory projects

While Golchin values her experiences in banking roles, she says she has always particularly enjoyed working in corporate treasury.

“In banking, you’re limited to one area, whether that’s treasury sales or the servicing side,” she points out. “But in a corporate role, you can get involved in so many different things, and you never know what a particular day is going to bring.”

In 2018, Golchin returned to the corporate world, joining TotalEnergies in a project and banking relationship management role. Working there for three years, her achievements included securing significant cost savings on banking fees across European markets, in some cases reducing fees by up to 50%.

“I ran two RFPs, and I also managed to waive a lot of fees for the projects we were implementing,” she recalls. “For example, if we were implementing a cash pooling structure, I would work to reduce the bank fees for that. I also worked hard to improve our relationships with our main banks and get faster responses to our queries – this is one of the times that my banking knowledge was really useful.”

Golchin’s next role was at GSK, where she took on the role of Global Cash Manager. Her achievements included setting up a Thai baht cash pool in APAC, which involved securing a licence for the header account under the Non-Resident Qualified Company (NRQC) scheme.

“This was important in reducing the risk of breaching offshore Thai baht limits, minimising additional FX costs, and improving overall liquidity management,” she says. “I also assisted in writing treasury processes and updating policies, as well as negotiating bank fees with three global cash management banks and securing a sizeable refund.”

Golchin subsequently joined Shell, where she worked alongside colleagues on a number of treasury initiatives in addition to her day-to-day responsibilities.

“Shell was implementing a standardised ERP, so I supported ensuring all the business units were aligned and using the same system,” she says. “I also worked on regulatory projects, one of which involved implementing Purpose of Payment (POP) codes with the relationship banks and business units.”

Next steps

Then, in 2023, Golchin joined Hartree Partners as Treasury Manager. “I came onboard three years ago and started managing the EMEA business and building up a team,” she says. “I currently have two analysts reporting to me.”

During this time, Golchin has implemented a direct debit project for one of the company’s entities, which is set to be replicated across others. “In Europe, direct debits are widely used, and we also have counterparties that prefer this method,” she notes.

She has also supported the integration of recent acquisitions, as well as putting more structured processes in place for account opening and reviewing KYC.

“This type of business requires opening a lot of bank accounts, so I’ve put a process in place where requests come through an online form,” she says. “Previously, requests came via email, and there wasn’t always enough background or visibility around them.”

“I’m very much process-driven, and I like everything to be automated. When I join somewhere new, I take a step back, look at how things are being done, and see where improvements can be made.”

Hitting the ground running

According to Golchin, the “main thing to understand” about working in contracting roles is the importance of being able to quickly step into a role and deliver.

“You need to hit the ground running,” she says. “When you’re in a contracting role, you’re there to deliver, so you have to be quite sharp and pick up on things very quickly. That’s what I’ve particularly enjoyed, because it brings so many challenges.

“For me, it’s also very important that when I’m given a task, I deliver it. I’ve generally been known as someone who enjoys resolving problems, and people tend to bring them to me because they know I get things done.”

Golchin’s other significant takeaway is that every company runs treasury differently.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have worked for some very big companies,” she says. “People often assume that certain processes are the same across different companies, but they really aren’t!”

Likewise, her experiences have highlighted the different ways that treasury is approached across regions.

“It’s a little unfair to make comparisons. But generally speaking, I would say that companies in EMEA and APAC tend to have more advanced processes, particularly when it comes to digitalisation and payments.”

Banking perspective

Golchin’s career path has also given her valuable insight into the banking perspective.

“When I moved onto the corporate side, I had a good understanding of how banks operate behind the scenes,” she says. “So, I draw upon this knowledge when resolving issues.”

She cites the example of a payment getting held up in a bank’s sanctions screening process.

“People don’t always fully understand how the sanctions process works,” she explains. “When a payment goes into a sanctions queue, it’s handled by a separate function with strict procedures, so pushing for escalation doesn’t necessarily speed things up.”

She also notes that many banks lack robust processes for overseeing bank fees.

“When corporates review their bank fees, they can sometimes find discrepancies, but resolving these can take time due to a lack of clear processes,” she says.

The trouble with KYC

Turning to the evolution of treasury during the course of her career, Golchin feels that know your customer (KYC) processes haven’t improved in the last 16 years, with processes and paperwork continuing to present significant obstacles and delays. “The process is absolutely tedious, and it’s easy to ask why this isn’t getting any easier.”

As such, Golchin is keeping an eye on the role that new technologies could play in helping to address these challenges. “I’ve been trying to see if there are any tools out there that could help with this,” she says.

“I’ve seen a lot of tools that can bring all your documents into one place that are quite digitalised. If you’re opening an account, you can refer banks to these tools, and that reduces the documentation requirements within this process.”

Likewise, she says technology has a role to play in supporting bank verification during the account opening process. “A lot of companies, especially commodities companies, use a callback procedure to assist with verifications. I think banks should be looking to work with third parties to come up with solutions for this.”

Continuing on the theme of technology, she reflects that the rise of AI is giving rise to more sophisticated cyberattacks. “With AI, we constantly come up with solutions on how to avoid payment fraud but this is particularly challenging in a world of faster payments and instant credits,” she says.

“So perhaps it’s worth looking at how we can use AI to stop fraudulent payments from going through, rather than constantly thinking about straight-through processing and automation.”

Solving problems

Finally, reflecting on the skills needed by a successful treasurer, Golchin highlights the importance of being a strong critical thinker and problem solver.

“Another thing is the importance of keeping up to date with the latest trends in treasury,” she says. “I’m very much into automation and digitalisation, so I’m always looking at ways to improve processes.”

She also emphasises the importance of strong foundations in cash management, liquidity and forecasting.

“Having clear visibility of cash and understanding how liquidity moves across the business is fundamental,” she explains. “It allows you to make better decisions and build solutions that are sustainable in the long term.”

Last but not least, she highlights the need to be a good decision maker. “As a problem solver, you need to understand how to create a solution that’s embedded permanently, rather than something temporary that creates more issues later on,” she concludes.