Woman of the Year Highly Commended Winner, Lucía Galán Cáceres, Head of Group Treasury at On, defines her professional brand through a rare combination of technical excellence and a deeply people-centred approach. Recognised for her standout accomplishments, Lucía has built her reputation as a transformative leader who excels at partnering with diverse functions to build data-driven, digital-first treasury capabilities, leading on some of the most complex corporate finance challenges in growth companies in Europe.
Lucía is a builder in the truest sense. Throughout her career, she has consistently been handed a blank page and tasked with establishing world-class treasury operations at scale. At Zalando Payments, a regulated e-money institution within the Zalando Group, she built the Treasury and Strategic Finance teams from the ground up. This involved bringing the right team in, designing treasury policies, designing and implementing the full technology stack, and creating a management reporting framework from the ground up. Under her guidance, the team’s work on innovative computational models was recognized as a finalist for the SAP Innovation Awards.
She brought this same visionary drive to On, the Swiss performance sportswear company, in 2023. Tasked with managing a Global treasury function, Lucía empowers the team to take immediate, decisive action to modernise operations across more than 80 countries. In both organisations, her success followed a common thread: an ability to secure board-level endorsement for bold strategies and a relentless focus on establishing foundations—the right team, technology, and policy—within her first six months.
The effectiveness of Lucía’s technical abilities and thoughtful leadership is best demonstrated by the hard metrics of her team’s success at On. By redesigning the company’s FX strategy and collaborating across Tax and Accounting, her team reduced On’s FX exposure by a factor of almost ten. Furthermore, through the strategic implementation of the Palm analytics platform and the visibility it brought over their actual and forecasted cash positions, the treasury team unlocked more than $350m in additional investment capacity, growing the investment portfolio from $250m to over $600m.
Her technological advancements have overhauled operational efficiency. Implementing Kyriba and Palm allowed for centralised, data-first, treasury operations, turning tasks that previously took days into processes that take minutes. Together with her high performing team, they have brought stability in operations, visibility over their cash positions, and the ability to proactively identify improvement opportunities at an operational, tactical and strategic level by leveraging AI and an automation-first mindset in everything they do.
Beyond technical mastery, Lucía is a committed mentor and coach who views a positive, “can-do” environment as the foundation for effective treasury work. Her leadership is characterised by intellectual rigor and an ability to empower teams to take ownership. She has coached numerous team members into senior positions, fostering a culture where diverse perspectives are welcomed and talent is developed based on merit. By putting a female face on treasury innovation, she serves as a role model, demonstrating that professional growth can thrive alongside a fulfilling personal life.
Lucía’s career reflects a deep engagement with diverse cultures and rigorous academic preparation. She holds a double Bachelor’s in Law and Business Administration from the Universidad de Sevilla, an MBA in Energy Management from TU Berlin, and an MSc in Management and Entrepreneurship from WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management. Fluent in four languages, she bridges cultural gaps with ease.
Outside the boardroom, Lucía remains active as an indoor cycling instructor, a testament to her high-energy approach to life. She is an avid reader and enjoys spending quality time with her family, balancing the demands of a $20bn market-cap company with a deep commitment to personal well-being and lifelong learning.
