This year’s Treasury Today Woman of the Year award EMEA recognises a leader whose impact extends beyond technical excellence. Carol Thurnheer, Regional Treasurer at consumer healthcare group Haleon, embodies the very best of modern treasury in her strategic ability and her commitment to people and progress.
With more than two decades of international experience, Carol has built a career that showcases both her ability to navigate complexity and deliver results. Her leadership across multiple regions reflects both her global perspective and her ability to operate effectively in highly decentralised environments.
Carol has proven that she can lead treasury through varied and challenging market conditions across different geographies. As Regional Treasurer for APAC, the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (2022-2024), she navigated complex capital structure challenges, refinancing significant debt in Malaysia through a hybrid debt and capital injection structure. She also managed a currency crisis in Egypt following a sudden 6% rise in the country’s interest rate and ensuing 60% currency devaluation, and creatively funded a production line extension in Pakistan using a sight letter of credit when conventional financing routes were unavailable.
Since 2024, as Regional Treasurer for North America and Latin America, she has delivered transformational working capital initiatives with tangible financial impact. For example, she secured a non-recourse factoring facility in North America that generated significant revenue improvement. In other standout achievements, she successfully repatriated dividends from Argentina twice via the Bopreal, significantly reducing trapped cash and FX risk, and led due diligence in an onshore M&A transaction in China to buy out the minority shareholder.
More recently, Carol was appointed by the Group Treasurer to lead a multi-year, cross-functional working capital optimisation programme targeting a 30% improvement in Haleon plc’s working capital cycle. This programme has come to define her leadership role in shaping Haleon’s long-term financial strategy and transforming the company’s cash conversion cycle. The scale and ambition of the initiative, alongside the size of the team she leads, reflect the trust and credibility she has built at the highest levels of the organisation.
Carol is also a celebrated leader. She is a passionate advocate for the treasury profession and is renowned for her support and encouragement of the next generation of leaders. She mentors colleagues both within Haleon and externally, with several mentees progressing into more senior roles. She combines this commitment with ongoing investment in her own development, working with mentors and sponsors to continuously sharpen her leadership and perspective. Carol sees mentoring and speaking assignments as part of her broader responsibility to help build a more connected, forward-looking and inclusive treasury community.
In addition, she has been elected as employee representative for Haleon’s UK support functions and represents the UK on the European Works Council. At a time of organisational transformation, she plays an active role in connecting employees and leadership, fostering open dialogue and supporting engagement across the business.
Her influence extends beyond Haleon. Through speaking engagements, industry panels and her involvement with professional networks, she actively contributes to building a more connected, inclusive and forward-looking treasury community.
This award recognises her representation of a new benchmark for treasury leadership, one that integrates commercial impact with empathy, innovation and discipline, and consistently ties individual success to collective progress. She not only delivers outstanding results but helps to shape the future of the profession. She is a worthy recipient of this year’s award and exemplifies the spirit of Woman of the Year through her integrity and commitment to lifting others as she rises.
