What first appealed to you about the treasury role: why did you get into it?

It started by coincidence. During my time as an external auditor with Deloitte, I was auditing a lot of housing associations in the Netherlands. Due to their capital-intensive nature, they had sizeable loan portfolios, so I was often having discussions with their heads of finance or sometimes their treasurer, if it was a larger housing association. We talked about their funding plans and interest rate risk management – and I found I liked the forward-looking aspect of finance more.

As an auditor you’re mostly busy with the past and last year’s financial statements, which didn’t appeal. Consequently, when Deloitte acquired a boutique treasury consulting firm in the Netherlands I discussed if I could join them as they were integrated into the business. This caused me to switch into treasury consulting and project-based roles in the function.

Having worked for Danone, Corio, Veon and latterly Avery Dennison for nine years until June 2026, before becoming a consultant and ‘treasurer for hire’, what have you learned over your career? How has the profession changed?

I believe treasury was run out of an ivory tower in the past where cash management was the key focus.

I see today’s corporate treasuries as being way more data-centric and connected to the business overall.

We act as a strategic business partner now that supports payment and collection methods, but also sound decision-making through more risk management inputs. It’s not just cash management anymore.

Furthermore, the increased pace and magnitude of financial crises and treasury’s role in navigating them – and I’m thinking of Covid, the great financial crash in 2008, and other such risk instances during my career – has meant the profession has got more of a seat at boardroom level than ever before. Treasurers have become a risk and strategic adviser.

Additionally, the fact that treasurers often now have a better tech-based global view on relevant data, thanks to their treasury management systems (TMS’), has helped improve our ability to take on more risk-based work. This has improved our professional status.

Can you give an example of treasury using data to be a more risk-based function?

Sure. For example, when the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Avery Dennison, where I worked from 2017 until June 2026 in the Netherlands for the American-owned global materials science and digital ID firm, asked for insights into which customers were using Credit Suisse as a bank when they collapsed, I was able to tell him quickly.

Ditto when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed I was able to provide that answer within a few hours. In comparison, our shared service organisation could only give an estimation it would ‘take days’ to give such an answer.

What is happening now in treasury that interests you, whether that is a technology or an advance in the function? What does the future look like?

It’s great to see the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in many treasury use cases. It further aids the data-centric and risk-based trends that I’ve already discussed.

AI-aided cash flow forecasting (CFF) is of course a key area of application. It already seems like many of the solution providers offer it, if treasurers want to put the set up work in that is.

I’m also seeing the use of AI agents more often – for example, to easily get an answer to a specific question, such as: “What is my balance today in GBP with bank X?”

A chat bot can also provide answers to questions about treasury policies quite easily to aid easy communication. The cash management function itself is increasingly being automated.

An area where I see yet more opportunities for AI – but I haven’t yet seen use cases – is in the analysis of financial market data at a large scale. This will come. For instance, an easy-to-access 30-year history of foreign exchange (FX) data would be beneficial, or interest rates (IR) information aligned with suggestions about hedging strategies that could provide cost efficiencies within acceptable risk parameters. Delivering that in an easily digestible, cheap form thanks to AI would be helpful.

Regardless of any tech-driven changes, what will always remain essential for corporate treasurers in terms of skills?

Technical knowledge about the workings of financial markets, cash management and payment techniques will always remain as prerequisites of the job.

However, increasingly it must be buttressed by good data analytical capabilities and the ever-present need to be atop the numbers in an aligned data stream.

To advance through your career in treasury these days, as it moves more towards collaboration and boardroom-level consultation skills, it’s also important to build relationships. Particularly with those in aligned finance functions, such as controllers or CFOs, and cross-departmentally with all segments of a business.

This helps us ‘get out of the ivory tower’ and engage more as a risk-based opportunity spotting and mitigation reduction service to the entire business. In order to be able to do this properly, I believe a fair portion of your time must be spent in the office – working from home exclusively isn’t conducive to it.

Furthermore, as the treasury function is becoming more tech-heavy, IT savviness is becoming more important, though you don’t have to be an IT expert yourself.

What noteworthy projects have you undertaken?

During my nine years at Avery Dennison I transformed its operations, introducing a new TMS and an automated FX risk mitigation and hedging procedure based on a Value-at-Risk (VaR) project. We won a Treasury Today Adam Smith Award for this in 2024. I also did a global cash management RFP and implementation project at Avery Dennison, before becoming a consultant in July 2026.

During my earlier career, starting in treasury in the year 2000, I had the opportunity to lead and contribute to many different projects, including large refinancing efforts at Veon, where I additionally ran a request for proposal (RFP) prior to introducing a TMS there.

Previously called VimpelCom, I was at Veon from 2012–2016 initially joining as Treasury Controller to set-up their first-ever formal such function from scratch. After that, my role expanded to become Director of Treasury Ops and Control, introducing the TMS. That was good practice for doing the same thing later on, when I departed for Avery Dennison.

Did you have a mentor that helped you in the early days?

Throughout my career, I’ve had many different managers and mentors. Albert Hollema stands out. He is pretty well-known in the European treasury community as a former chair of the Dutch Association of Corporate Treasurers (DACT) and a Group Treasurer that I had the pleasure to work for twice.

Joan Schutte, current Group Treasurer at ASML and also a former chair of the DACT, has also helped me in my career. I’ve had the opportunity to work with and learn from the best and I’m always conscious of trying to pass that knowledge on myself now in whatever future roles come my way.

I know there are several mentoring programmes out there as well, such as the ones run by ACT and DACT, and some universities also mentor their students. I am very supportive of all such initiatives.

Tell me a bit about yourself and your career?

Well, I’m 53 years old, Dutch, grew up in the Netherlands, where I’ve spent all my life. I’m married and have four children. I love travelling, hiking, cycling and speed skating in my personal life – and going to pop/rock concerts.

Before launching my career, I studied at the University of Amsterdam in the 1990s for my Master’s in Business Economics and post-masters in Auditing qualifications – I’m a Dutch Chartered Accountant.

I started out as an audit assistant at Deloitte because they helped support my studies. I left their audit practice as a manager in 2000, switching to treasury consultancy in the new millennium as a senior treasury manager at Deloitte, heading up their Regulatory and Accounting team (four people) within the wider Treasury & Capital Markets team, comprised of 12 people.

In my first role as a treasurer, I primarily provided consulting services and audit support to financial institutions (FIs) and treasury departments on accounting tasks and valuations of financial instruments and internal control frameworks – the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulation was prevalent at the time after the Enron scandal.

I left Deloitte in 2007, taking on various accountancy, reporting and treasury roles of increasing seniority at the baby and medical nutrition company Royal Numico NV, which was soon thereafter acquired by Danone.

I then worked at Corio and a bank, before returning to the property business at Corio in 2011 as treasury manager. I left them for new challenges at Veon, and then latterly joined Avery Dennison.

What are your plans now for the future?

During my 35-year career, I have gained a lot of experience. Over the last 15 years of it, I’ve concentrated mostly around treasury transformations or building a treasury function from scratch. I get a lot of pleasure from that. Now that I’ve started my own independent interim treasurer/treasury consulting business – called Ramón Tolk Treasury Consultancy – I will seek to use that experience and expertise in the service of companies. Hopefully, I can contribute to more award-winning solutions in the future.

Personally, my family and I will be moving to Sweden in spring 2027 to start another new adventure, alongside my consultancy. We have acquired a B&B rental property in Sweden that I will run alongside the consultancy, while exploring a new country for all of us. I am very much looking forward to that – and to getting my teeth into some new treasury projects.