Finance chiefs in close lockstep with treasury function

In the wake of bank meltdowns, finance chiefs are spending more time than ever with their treasury function, experts tell CFO Brew.

Over the past few years, CFOs have worked hard to become strategic business partners. Moving past number-crunching, finance chiefs have developed analytical finance forecasting teams that can pair business decisions with swift data points and serve beyond quarterly reporting.

But for some CFOs, the recent upheaval in the banking sector has refocused their attention on the practical nuts and bolts of financial management.

Michael Bayer, CFO of storage-production company Wasabi Technologies, described companies’ reactions to recent events as, “Wait a second, I trusted my whole banking infrastructure and I can’t trust the banks anymore.”  He added, “I think all of us, as CFOs, got a wake-up call. We’ve got to go back to basics and make sure our banking infrastructure is sound and in place.”

For some CFOs, that means working closer than ever with their treasury function. Alison Staloch, CFO of real-estate investment platform Fundrise, said that she has been spending time shoring up their treasury processes, working closely with the treasurer to evaluate the moves available to the platform.

“That includes both knowing our counterparties [and] making sure we’ve appropriately diversified our counterparty risk,” Staloch told CFO Brew. The finance chief said that they are making sure their “operational agility is balanced,” so the company can pivot treasury operations seamlessly if necessary.

CFO and Treasurer: Sonalee Parekh, CFO of RingCentral, told CFO Brew that the treasurer and herself are in “lockstep at the moment,” spending more time together in the last two months than the past six.

“Access to and cost of capital are very key considerations for all CFOs,” Parekh said. “And it’s something I talk about with my treasurer all the time in this rising rate environment: The cost of borrowing is increasing significantly.”

The need for an active treasurer has spilled into job searches, Jim Lawson, managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates and co-global leader of its financial officers practice, told CFO Brew, adding that he’s spent much of the past few months placing treasurers.

But while the finance chief may be looking closer to the treasurer function, it’s not unusual for corporate finance to need to quickly pivot, Bayer said.

“The [CFO is] ultimately the one who’s got the broad span and visibility across all the resources that the company has at its disposal—capital, people, customers, vendors, investors…and so that role is constantly shifting around based on what’s the current need,” he said.—KT