While no two treasury transformation projects are alike, it’s fair to say that some are more unique than others. One project that attracted particular recognition at this year’s Adam Smith Awards programme is The Magnum Ice Cream Company’s achievement in establishing a new treasury function ahead of the company’s spin off and listing in December 2025.

As Global Head of Tax, Treasury & Insurance Anna Elphick explains, the company is not only one of the world’s oldest ice cream businesses – given that its oldest brand dates back to 1866 – but also one of the world’s newest ice cream companies. “So while it wasn’t quite a start-up situation, it did mean we had to behave somewhat like a start-up while designing our new structure and framework.”

For Elphick, spearheading the treasury function through this change has presented an incredible opportunity for personal development. “I hesitate to say it’s been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, because you never know what’s going to happen next! But I do believe one is never too senior to develop and learn, and this has certainly been an amazing experience,” she reflects.

From tax to treasury

“I probably don’t have a typical career path when it comes to most people in the treasury function,” Elphick explains. “I did a law degree at university, studying English law and French law. After graduating, I trained as a chartered accountant, then as a chartered tax adviser.”

After working as a tax consultant at PwC for a few years, Elphick moved to Unilever where she held a series of roles in tax. Eighteen months ago, she moved into her current role as The Magnum Ice Cream Company was preparing to list as a standalone company. “Obviously tax works very closely with the treasury function,” Elphick says. “So it was a natural progression and very exciting that I took on formal treasury responsibilities.”

Adding to the challenge, Elphick needed to hit the ground running, as her core remit on joining The Magnum Ice Cream Company was to establish a new treasury function from scratch. “I was the first person working across tax, treasury, insurance and pensions at Magnum, so everything was about building and growing and getting ourselves set up for the future,” she says.

Stepping into this role, Elphick has found her non-treasury skills to be a valuable asset. “My legal background means that I’m absolutely comfortable with documentation,” she explains. “When we were setting up our loan facilities and bond facilities, that was bread and butter to me – I was happy reading the documentation and dealing with lawyers.”

Naturally, her accounting background has also proved important in terms of reporting, controls and dealing with the company’s accounting teams. “And where tax is concerned, I’m very used to looking at what’s happening in numerous entities around the world and thinking about what we can do and how best to structure it.”

Building a top treasury team

In 2026, The Magnum Ice Cream Company rose to success in the Adam Smith Awards, taking home the coveted Top Treasury Team award for the company’s achievements in establishing a new treasury function from scratch.

As a new standalone company, The Magnum Ice Cream Company had no bank accounts, credit facilities, capital markets presence or systems. As such, the project included creating new bank relationships, establishing cash pooling structures and virtual accounts, implementing a treasury management system (TMS) and issuing a €3bn debut bond. The company’s subsequent demerger resulted in the largest listing on Euronext in 2025.

But these considerable technical achievements are only part of the story. As with all winners of Top Treasury Team, the company’s achievements were underscored by an outstanding approach to teamwork, with the entire treasury team contributing to the success of the project in a coordinated way.

Treasury and finance professionals across Europe, Asia and the Americas all played a role in getting the new company up and running on time. In addition, treasury’s relationships with other functions such as finance, legal and tax played an important part in supporting the project.

“Teamwork was absolutely essential to what we achieved within treasury last year, and indeed in terms of establishing the function and supporting the business in the critical period of preparation for demerger,” says Elphick.

“We were in a fortunate position. We were able to use some of what was already in place, and we had great support from the former treasury team. But we weren’t constrained by having to use their existing ways of working and systems.

“We had the opportunity to take a blank slate approach and really think about what we wanted to design for our business and our footprint. But we also needed to make sure that we kept an €8bn business running, so there was a lot of momentum that we needed to keep going while designing the structure and the framework.”

Striking a balance

During this period, the team had to strike a balance between setting things up quickly and making sure that the new processes and structures were backed by a robust controls and governance framework.

“That balance between pragmatism and governance was something the team really took on board,” says Elphick. “At the same time, we were doing all of this while recruiting the team, so we needed people who were going to be agile and proactive if they saw something that needed doing, even if it wasn’t officially part of their remit.”

Elphick says another strength of her team is that it incorporates many diverse perspectives. “I’ve been able to bring in people from all sorts of different backgrounds. I’m very much a believer that the more diverse your team is – not just in terms of gender and nationality, but also in terms of ways of thinking and experience – the greater your collective success will be.”

Multiple lenses

Reflecting on her experiences since joining The Magnum Ice Cream Company, Elphick is passionate about the opportunity to understand the business through several different lenses.

“Fundamentally, cash is at the heart of every business. In order to be the custodian of cash for the business, and also the enabler of the business, treasurers really need to understand what’s happening everywhere,” she says.

“You’re looking at the business from a commercial perspective, right down to the nitty gritty of how to fund the purchase of freezer cabinets in a particular country. You’ve then got the corporate layer – what are we saying to the market if we’re issuing bonds? How are we managing our relationships with rating agencies and investors? “And you’ve got a macro layer as well, which is not just about what’s happening to us as a business, but what’s happening with interest rates, currencies and economies.”

To support the business across these different layers, Elphick says treasurers first and foremost need to be curious and alert. “You need to be constantly scanning in order to pick up what’s happening in the macro markets, the financial markets, and at the corporate level,” she says. “You can then proactively go to people and say, ‘This is happening – does this create a risk or an opportunity for us?’”

Networking and communication

Effective treasurers also need to be able to build great networks, Elphick notes. “There’s always a risk with corporate functions that they are seen as being in an ivory tower. I think that as technical finance professionals, we have a duty to reach out to people who aren’t in our profession.”

On the one hand, this gives treasurers the opportunity to access information they can use in their roles. But it’s also an opportunity to support people in other parts of the business by sharing technical knowledge.

Another important attribute is the ability to communicate effectively with others outside of treasury. As Elphick points out, this often means resisting the temptation to rely too heavily on technical jargon. “Anyone in a technical profession has their own language, and we love being able to get techy about what we do. But we do also have to live in the real world and realise that not everyone is interested in technical treasury language,” she says. “We need to be able to translate information into messages that finance people – or even people outside of finance – can understand.”

Taking treasury to the next level

In the coming months, Elphick says a particular focus for the team will be on the treasury aspects of the company’s new ERP implementation. “Part of establishing The Magnum Ice Cream Company requires us to set up our own greenfield ERP, which is a great opportunity to build things the way we want,” she says. “It’s also a massive piece of work to do that for a company the size of ours – so we’re focusing on working with the implementation team and making sure we have the right capabilities there to build a world class, technologically advanced treasury function.”

Alongside this project, the team will be looking for further opportunities to automate its current processes. Elphick explains that building a treasury function from scratch includes thinking carefully about which processes will be carried out manually – but at a certain point, those manual processes should be revisited with the ambition of implementing agentic solutions.

Meanwhile, the team is constantly looking for any opportunities for continuous improvement, whether that means optimising intercompany funding, moving cash efficiently or supporting business growth.

Technology and automation

Turning to the challenges that treasurers are facing more broadly, Elphick highlights effective cash management as an ongoing priority. “You need to make sure you’ve got what you need, where you need it, and that you can forecast effectively in order to remove some of the unpredictability you might be facing,” she remarks.

This is an area in which technology has a role to play, with companies increasingly exploring opportunities to harness AI in this area – a topic that we explore in more detail in this issue’s Insight & Analysis feature. “We’re seeing some amazing developments in that space,” says Elphick. “Our responsibility now is to engage with the business and the IT teams and see how we can translate these developments into what we need from a treasury perspective.” At the same time, the team is taking a closer look at how to automate more of its existing controls and governance.

Another area of interest is the use of tools such as Copilot to automate non-technical tasks. “That might not be about treasury per se, but it’s important that we make sure we are working as efficiently as possible,” says Elphick.

That said, technology can present risks as well as opportunities. Elphick points out that treasury tends to be heavily reliant on systems, meaning there are always concerns around access to those systems.

A further challenge is the continually evolving risk of fraud and cybersecurity concerns. “It’s sometimes difficult to know how one addresses that, given the innovative ways in which fraud and cyberattacks can happen.”

Bigger picture

While Elphick’s role is highly demanding, she is a strong proponent of the need for interests beyond the office. “It is really important, I think, for everyone to have something outside work – no matter how much one loves work and is busy, everyone needs a bit of downtime on a regular basis.”

For Elphick, this includes singing and playing the piano. “Music gives me a lot of joy – and when you’re singing or playing an instrument, you can’t really think about much else,” she says. “It’s really good to switch off in that way.”

She also enjoys spending time outdoors: “We’ve had amazing weather this summer so far – it’s been great to go outside, walk the dog and enjoy being in the countryside. And last but not least, I’m a recent convert to Reformer Pilates!”

Looking forward, Elphick is excited to see how the treasury function at The Magnum Ice Cream Company evolves. “Now that we’ve got everything established, the question is how we can take it to the next level, and free up people’s time for added-value work,” she concludes.

“Can we reach out more to the markets? Can we streamline and optimise our processes, knowing that we’ve got an advanced tech and automation layer supporting us? How can we support the business with the amazing growth plans The Magnum Ice Cream Company has? There’s still a lot to do!”