Explore the ideas and market perspectives shared by treasury leaders as they navigate change, unlock opportunities and build resilience for the future.
Our flagship Treasury Leadership Forum took place on 15 September, bringing together over 80 senior treasury leaders from leading European corporates, alongside Big Four consulting firms, industry experts and senior executives from across Standard Chartered. The invitation-only Forum provided an influential platform for candid dialogue, peer learning and strategic collaboration on the forces redefining corporate treasury.
The event represented a collaboration across our business, with Transaction Services and Digital Assets (TS & DA), Client Coverage and Financial Markets, bringing together the breadth of Standard Chartered’s expertise and international network. Senior leaders participating included Ole Matthiessen (Global Head, TS & DA), Mahesh Kini (Global Head, Cash Management), Caroline Eber-Ittel (CEO, France and Head of Coverage, Europe), Margaret Harwood-Jones (CEO Europe and UK), and Marion Reuter (Head of Transaction Banking UK & Europe), demonstrating our commitment to engaging clients through an integrated and senior-led dialogue.
The programme opened with a fireside conversation between Ole Matthiessen, and Marion Reuter, as they explored the strategic ambition behind bringing transaction services and digital assets together, Standard Chartered’s unique network and corridor strengths, and how we can support clients as treasury becomes more connected, real-time and increasingly programmable.
The main panel, “The Advisory Lens: Treasury Agenda for 2027”, brought together Margaret Harwood-Jones, Caroline Eber-Ittel and Mahesh Kini who were joined by Douglas Tropp, Group Treasurer of Booking Holdings, and Lewis Whyte, Interim Group Treasury Director at Associated British Foods.
Moderated by Vibhor Narang, Executive Director, Payments and Treasury Solutions, Europe, the panel combined senior banking and practitioner perspectives on geopolitical and market fragmentation, liquidity and capital choices, technological change, and treasury’s growing role in supporting resilience, growth and enterprise-wide decision-making.
Interactive breakouts translated these strategic themes into specific market opportunities. External speakers included Mohit Malhotra of Deloitte, who addressed cross-border tax and treasury considerations across China and ASEAN; Riddhi Bhandari of IFSCA and Suresh Swamy of PwC India, who explored GIFT City’s development as a global treasury hub; Martin Thomas of KPMG, who examined liquidity opportunities across Africa and the Middle East; and Mark van Ommen of Zanders and Darsh Johal, Chair -TCMAG, who discussed the emerging role of digital assets in corporate treasury.
A strong expression of this partnership-led thought leadership was the Standard Chartered and Zanders whitepaper, “Corporate Treasury Tokenization: Reimagining Liquidity, Settlement, and the Future of Corporate Treasury,” authored by Vibhor Narang and Mark Sutton, Senior Manager at Zanders Consulting. The paper offers a practical perspective on how tokenisation, programmable assets and always-on liquidity could reshape treasury operating models.
Collectively, the Treasury Leadership Forum connects closely with the wider EuroFinance International themes on the agenda for the week, spanning cash intelligence, capital structuring, risk mitigation, partnership building, payments innovation and technology transformation. More importantly, it demonstrated Standard Chartered’s commitment to bring clients, advisers and ecosystem partners together to define shared practical solutions, enabling us to shape the future of treasury with clients, not simply for them.