Anne Kow is Head of Treasury for South East Asia at Mercedes-Benz, based in Singapore. Her role includes coverage of Australia, New Zealand and Korea. Her professional experience has given her a wealth of knowledge in areas ranging across foreign exchange, cash, liquidity and risk management. This experience was gained during an extensive career at Daimler Group before the company’s evolution culminating in a spin-off of the truck group.

Her long running career at the Daimler Group and now within Mercedes-Benz has given her a broad set of responsibilities including running the controlling settlements and treasury operations across Asia Pacific, as well as leading treasury for the group in Japan prior to her present role. Amongst her many professional accolades is being the first corporate in Japan to implement SWIFT.

Outside of her formal roles, Anne is deeply committed to philanthropic work in Cambodia. She has been dedicated to financial inclusion and creating equal opportunities, particularly in Cambodia. Her family and herself have even established a pepper plantation in Kampot. The Kampot pepper is a world-renowned staple ingredient of Cambodian cuisine lending a subtle and distinctive flavour to both Cambodian and European dishes widely favoured by world-renowned chefs. This is an extension of Anne’s work in the country as the main purpose of the plantation is to provide local farmers with the appropriate platform to both run and to expand the plantation and thus to generate a reliable stream of income for themselves as well as fostering the development of the local community.

Anne’s work in Cambodia also includes collaborating with Singaporean companies to support Cambodia’s schooling community through the provision and distribution of donated items, namely clothes and books for local school children.

Mentoring and sponsorship and, in general, the development and support of the next generation of talent is at the heart of Treasury Today’s Women in Treasury initiative and is so critical in diversity and inclusion targets’ success. Anne also recognises the significance of mentoring and has played an active role in the development of many of her colleagues past and present from the Mercedes Benz and Daimler Groups, serving as a coach and mentor to foster both the personal and professional growth of her mentees. Of all her achievements across the course of her career, Anne derives the most satisfaction from this and she is a great example of a treasury professional who gives back and in so doing drives forward the future of the entire profession.

Treasury Today Asia is delighted to recognise Anne as the Highly Commended Winner of our 2022 Woman of the Year award to honour her hard work and commitment to the space of equality and advancing excellence in the industry. Whether in her day job or in her personal time, Anne is an exemplary community leader who embodies the values of respect, passion, discipline and integrity.

In her role as Head of Treasury for South East Asia (including Korea, Australia and New Zealand), Anne‘s commitment to driving forward treasury’s evolution and transformation at Mercedes-Benz allows her to stay on top of her game and manage the ever changing business landscape across Asia Pacific. From optimising existing processes such as automation of reporting and cash flow forecasting through to all round support of Mercedes-Benz’s business as it transforms to a retail and online sales channel model, including it’s growing footprint and strategy in the Electric Vehicle space, Anne has been instrumental in placing Mercedes-Benz at the forefront of innovation as well as adding real value to the business – which should be the core tenet of modern treasury itself.

Mercedes-Benz is committed to innovation and to evolving its business for the next generation of consumers. Anne is equally committed to this vision and, within her role, has been instrumental in placing the company at the forefront of innovation and adding value to the business. Anne has led the way in helping Mercedes-Benz to achieve its aspirations, supporting its local and regional teams with the competitive edge required to maintain the company’s position as one of the world’s most successful automotive companies.

It is the marriage of personal philanthropy with best practice in business that Treasury Today Asia wishes to recognise with our accolade for Anne. Driving change and equality in organisations and visionary, inclusive leadership is what we support and recognise. As a woman at the top of her game we couldn’t be more delighted to award Anne with the Woman of the Year Highly Commended Winner Award and are excited to see where she will go next.