Photo of Martin Schlageter, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Martin Schlageter
Head of Treasury Operations
Roche is a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve people’s lives. It is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology and diseases of the central nervous system. Roche is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. In recent years, the company has invested in genomic profiling and real-world data partnerships and has become an industry-leading partner for medical insights.
A treasury titan
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Martin Schlageter has been a senior leader, and figurehead, in the EMEA corporate cash management and treasury space for the last 20 years. Jointly with his team, he’s shaped Roche’s world-class global treasury and cash management organisation. Martin embraces innovation and throughout his career has been an early adopter of technology to streamline processes.
Pushing boundaries
Martin joined Roche in 1993, when treasury was completely decentralised, Group entities had multiple bank relationships and uncounted interfaces with them – to name just a few of the inefficiencies. Martin soon created his vision of a centralised treasury set-up with streamlined processes and systems, with minimal external bank connections and relationships. Thanks to a tight collaboration with IT, legal, taxes and the treasury financing team, he and his team were able to establish a treasury system, which became the in-house bank and the sole treasury instance in the Roche Group.
Over the years, Martin introduced standard processes, such as intercompany payment processes, intercompany hedging or bank statement processing. This provided a solid platform from which Treasury could begin to expand its impact for Roche.
Today, more than 145 group entities use the Roche in-house e-banking solution for manual payments – something no other company has developed. Martin was a driving force for the implementation of the SWIFT Global Payments Initiative (gpi) for corporates in the industry. Not only did he ensure that all Roche treasury systems were ready to send and receive gpi tracker information, his team then piloted it with banks in various regions around the world.
The Roche cash management team handles the short-term liquidity for the entire Roche Group and actively manages 47 currencies around the world out of Basel, Switzerland. Such centralised cash management is only possible due to a near 100% visibility of all group payables and highly automated end-to-end processes in the treasury system.
Visionary approach
Martin’s visionary approach and leadership revolve around creating trust. He role models a strong exchange of ideas and encourages continual learning, triggering developments both internally and within the banking world, treasury management system providers and at other corporations. He is a respected expert in the industry, sits on numerous advisory boards and published a case study with INSEAD Singapore.
Martin is perhaps most proud of his work developing individuals, many who have gone on to become finance directors, senior managers and rounded treasury professionals. As a leader, his door is always open and team members know him as someone who listens as a manager, a mentor and a friend, encouraging people to go beyond boundaries and not to fear mistakes. He currently heads a diverse team of 15 colleagues, who continually work to improve systems and processes, drive automation, reduce error rates and to increase efficiency.
The Adam Smith Awards is the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. The 2021 Awards attracted a record-breaking 309 nominations spanning 40 countries. To find out more please visit: https://treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards.
