This article is written by Liquiditas
The global economy thrives on connection. Every order placed in London, Shenzhen, or San Francisco sets off a silent chain reaction of production, logistics, and finance across continents. This intertwined web of suppliers and partners forms the invisible backbone of commerce-the supply chain.
But as recent years have proven, that same interconnection makes the system fragile. One blocked canal, one trade restriction, one cyberattack, or one pandemic wave can grind global trade to a halt. In this volatile environment, supply chain risk management (SCRM) has appeared in a form that constantly evolves, learning from these events, and becoming a necessity. A strategic one as well. Modern companies are no longer asking, “Can we avoid disruption?” but “How fast can we recover when it happens?”
For decades, the golden rule of supply chains was efficiency. Global enterprises trimmed every unnecessary cost and delay, embracing just-in-time inventory and zero-waste logistics. The result was stunning efficiency-until it broke.
When COVID-19 began reshaping global trade, companies discovered the hidden cost of their streamlined perfection. A single missing component from Southeast Asia could freeze production lines in Europe. The semiconductor crisis paralyzed entire industries, from carmakers to consumer electronics. Even the world’s largest organizations, with decades of experience and deep pockets, found themselves exposed.
This was a humbling lesson: efficiency alone doesn’t guarantee stability. It can, paradoxically, make systems brittle. Supply chain managers began to realize that resilience is not inefficiency, but the price of survival. A slightly higher inventory cost or a diversified supplier base may appear expensive-until it saves an entire supply network from collapse.
Companies that once sought “optimization” now seek “optionality” – the ability to pivot quickly when circumstances change. In the post-pandemic economy, flexibility has quietly replaced cost-cutting as the ultimate metric of competence.
Supply chain risks are not always visible, and their true power lies in their interdependence. A raw material shortage in one region can trigger a pricing surge elsewhere, while a sudden regulation in another may instantly devalue entire contracts.
Let’s break it down into distinct risk categories:
The challenge isn’t just identifying these risks but recognizing how they interact. When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted energy routes, for instance, it didn’t just affect gas prices – it raised manufacturing costs, transport fees, and even the procurement of essential materials like nickel and palladium. One event, multiple consequences.
The best-performing organizations have started investing in risk mapping. They trace not only their first-tier suppliers but also the subcontractors behind them – forming a digital twin of their supply network. This transparency allows them to simulate disruptions and plan responses before they happen.
Resilience, in this sense, is not built overnight. It’s slowly engineered through awareness, and with the help of data and a little bit of foresight.
Digital tools have transformed risk management into a science of anticipation. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics are rewriting how companies interpret risk signals.
Imagine a system that alerts a manufacturer that a supplier’s delivery speed has quietly dropped over three months – a red flag for liquidity or labor issues. Or algorithms detecting sentiment shifts around a logistics provider, warning of potential protests or strikes. This kind of digital foresight is already being used by leaders in automotive, apparel, and pharmaceuticals.
For instance, Maersk and IBM’s blockchain collaboration showed how transparency reduces disputes and fraud in global shipping. Likewise, companies in food and pharma now trace every ingredient back to its source – reducing compliance risk and improving brand trust.
But technology alone isn’t a panacea. It must work in tandem with well-defined governance, collaboration, and human judgment. Risk management still requires intuition – knowing when the data says “OK,” but experience whispers, “Not quite.”
Among all types of risks, financial resilience often receives the least public attention despite its importance. Cash flow disruptions can silently dismantle supply chains faster than any physical breakdown.
Suppliers, especially smaller ones, often operate on razor-thin margins and rely on timely payments to stay solvent. Delays in receivables or shrinking credit availability can push them into crisis, triggering cascading effects down the supply chain. In this sense, financial liquidity is a structural risk factor – and addressing it is an essential part of holistic SCRM.
Supply chain finance (SCF) has emerged as a strategic tool to strengthen this weak link. Through mechanisms such as dynamic discounting, reverse factoring, or pre-shipment financing, SCF enables suppliers to access early payments while buyers maintain liquidity flexibility.
At Liquiditas, this principle takes shape through solutions that embed financial continuity into supply chains – helping companies not only manage disruptions but also empower their partners. By providing tailored SCF platforms, Liquiditas ensures that the flow of goods is matched by the steady flow of cash, making resilience both operational and financial.
The beauty of this approach is subtle but profound: it turns finance from a reactive emergency measure into a proactive stabilizer. When money moves smoothly, so does trust.
Supply chains don’t break only when cargo gets stuck at a port or when a factory goes offline. They also fracture quietly, on balance sheets and in cash-flow statements, long before a missed delivery appears in an ERP dashboard. Credit risk is often the first invisible tremor before an operational earthquake.
Companies that take this seriously treat the financial health of their suppliers as a core part of supply chain risk management, not as a separate concern parked in the finance department. They start with structured insight: credit reports, ratings, and trade data that paint a clearer picture of who they are really relying on. Instead of choosing partners on price and capacity alone, they ask a more fundamental question: Can this supplier stay in the game when conditions turn?
The most advanced players go beyond simple scores. They combine hard numbers with broader due diligence – ownership structures, exposure to specific markets, regulatory track records, and even reputation risk. A supplier with strong margins but weak governance might be as fragile as one with a stretched balance sheet. By layering financial analysis with operational and ethical criteria, companies move from a one-dimensional view of risk to a three-dimensional one.
Crucially, this isn’t a one-off exercise during onboarding. The financial health of a supplier is dynamic; it can deteriorate quickly under pressure from interest rate hikes, political shifts, or a single lost customer. That is why more organizations are embracing continuous monitoring – real-time alerts on late payments, credit downgrades, or legal events that signal distress before it becomes a crisis. Some integrate these feeds directly into procurement or ERP systems, turning credit data into an early-warning radar rather than a dusty PDF in someone’s inbox.
Technology quietly amplifies all of this. AI-driven models can now sift through financial filings, trade flows, and macroeconomic trends to flag which partners are most exposed to upcoming shocks. For global giants, that means refining complex portfolios; for smaller businesses, it levels the playing field, offering access to risk tools that were once reserved for multinationals. What emerges is a new discipline: treating credit signals not as a bureaucratic hurdle, but as a live map of where the supply chain may bend – and where it might break.
When you see credit risk this way, it stops being a back-office formality and becomes something else: a strategic lens on resilience. Companies that learn to read those signals early don’t just avoid bad surprises; they gain time – to renegotiate, to diversify, to support a key supplier, or to redesign a part of the chain before it fails. In an era where days of delay can translate into months of recovery, that time is perhaps the most valuable asset of all.
The best organizations know that resilience is as much cultural as it is technical. Risk management cannot live in a single department; it must permeate decision-making across procurement, logistics, finance, and leadership.
A resilient culture is built on three capabilities:
Take Toyota, for example. After the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, the company built an extensive supplier database covering several tiers deep. This digital mapping now allows Toyota to detect and respond to disruptions anywhere in its global network within days. Similarly, Unilever and Nestlé have invested heavily in digital twins – virtual models of their supply chains that simulate risks and test mitigation strategies.
But culture also means mindset. The old reflex was to hide disruption to avoid reputational harm. Now, transparency is seen as professionalism – a signal to partners and investors that a company understands its vulnerabilities and has plans to manage them. Leaders who communicate risks openly, and who treat suppliers as collaborators rather than contractors, create ecosystems that respond faster and break less.
Tomorrow’s supply chains won’t merely withstand risk – they’ll interpret it. The goal is shifting from reaction to intelligence.
With the integration of AI, supply networks can learn patterns, assign probabilities to disruptions, and recommend dynamic adaptations. This means not just responding to a port closure but automatically rerouting shipments, adjusting production forecasts, and even recalibrating payment schedules.
Forward-thinking companies are already exploring “autonomous supply chains” – systems capable of making micro-decisions without human intervention. For instance, predictive models that adjust order volumes before market demand shifts or reroute shipping lanes based on weather forecasts.
This isn’t about surrendering control to algorithms but about expanding the range of what’s manageable. The more we automate risk response, the more time humans have to focus on strategy, innovation, and customer value.
Ultimately, risk intelligence is the next frontier-the ability not just to survive shocks but to learn from them faster than competitors. That learning curve will define the winners of the next decade.
So, when we have a world where volatility is constant, supply chain risk management needs to become something of an innovative engine that will not only work as a defensive strategy, but it will also help the company’s way through the markets’ rough waters
Every disruption carries a lesson. Companies that build visibility, adaptability, and financial agility into their networks don’t merely protect what they have; they position themselves to capture opportunities that others miss. Durable supply chains are not static structures-they’re dynamic systems that evolve with every challenge.
The future belongs to organizations that see risk not as an enemy to fear, but as a compass that points toward progress. Strength, after all, is not the absence of failure – it’s the ability to rebound stronger, smarter, and sooner.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below.
This article is written by our partner, MillTech
Managing FX risk is like maintaining your car’s engine. You can skip the annual service and oil changes if everything seems fine, but eventually, a breakdown is inevitable. By the time the warning lights come on, the damage is already costly.
Just like with an engine, proactively managing FX risk keeps things running smoothly and prevents expensive, last-minute repairs. A well-thought-out FX risk management strategy is like traction control on a slippery surface, helping to maintain control and direction as market conditions shift. Without it, companies risk spinning out of control when currency volatility hits.
In this blog, we will delve into recent risk management trends and key strategies for managing FX risks in 2026. In an era of heightened uncertainty, the ability to steer through volatility isn’t just a nice-to have — it’s a necessity for survival and growth.
FX risk management is a comprehensive strategy employed by businesses to protect their profitability and mitigate potential financial losses caused by adverse currency fluctuations. For corporations dealing with multiple currencies, inadequate FX risk management can significantly affect key financial metrics, such as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), ultimately compromising profitability and financial stability.
Corporate treasurers and CFO’s can manage FX risk effectively by leveraging a range of strategies, including financial hedging tools, to safeguard their financial positions against unfavourable exchange rate movements caused by currency volatility:
FX forwards are over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, which means they are traded directly between two liquidity partners and can therefore be customised around mutual requirements.
Currency forward contracts allow a business to buy or sell an agreed amount of an asset on a future date, at a price determined today. By locking in an exchange rate for the future, businesses can protect their bottom lines against currency volatility.
FX options are financial derivatives traded over-the-counter (OTC) or, less commonly, on exchanges. They grant the holder the right, but not the obligation, to exchange a specified amount of one currency for another at a predetermined exchange rate (strike price) on or before a specified expiration date, depending on the type of option.
FX option contracts allow businesses to mitigate downside risk while preserving some upside potential. These contracts often carry high premiums due to the option to exit the trade, which is not reimbursed if the trade is not settled.
FX Swaps are Over-The-Counter (OTC) derivatives used by two counterparties to manage their currency exposures. In an FX Swap, the parties agree to swap a specified notional principal amount in one currency for an equivalent in another currency at the current spot rate. This setup enables the counterparties to hedge against currency risk by securing exchange rates for future transactions.
An FX Swap normally involves two transactions: an immediate exchange of currencies via a spot transaction followed by a reverse exchange using an forward transaction a later predetermined date.
Natural hedging is a strategy businesses use to minimise financial risk by offsetting potential losses with corresponding gains. This approach involves aligning cash flows, assets, or liabilities in the same foreign currency to reduce exposure to exchange rate fluctuations.
Unlike financial hedging, which relies on external instruments like forward contracts or options, natural hedging is an internal risk management technique that does not involve additional costs or reliance on financial markets. By carefully managing operations, such as sourcing materials locally or matching foreign currency loans with international revenues, businesses can effectively reduce their exposure to exchange rate risks while maintaining operational efficiency.
Netting simplifies foreign exchange management by consolidating multiple currency transactions into fewer, streamlined transactions. This approach reduces complexity, helps to minimise costs, and is often used within businesses or between subsidiaries to manage and align FX exposures more effectively.
Offsetting takes a different approach to managing FX risk. It involves creating a counter-position to an existing currency exposure, typically by entering into a transaction that offsets potential losses from adverse currency fluctuations, ensuring financial stability amidst market changes.
In FX risk management, maintaining counterparty diversity is key to reducing credit risk and enhancing resilience. By working with a range of financial institutions, corporates can mitigate exposure to single-party failures, like the collapse of Credit Suisse, and better hedge against market volatility.
Counterparty diversity also promotes competitive pricing, enhanced access to market data, and informed decision-making. Corporates should perform thorough due diligence on counterparties, regularly reviewing their stability and performance to adapt to evolving market conditions.
Corporate governance is integral to the effectiveness of FX risk management. Robust governance structures ensure that FX risk management practices are aligned with the corporation’s overall strategic objectives and comply with regulatory requirements. This alignment not only safeguards the business against currency volatility but also enhances stakeholder trust and confidence in its financial management practices.
Developing a comprehensive FX risk management policy enables corporations to address FX risks systematically. Such a policy should clearly define the organisation’s risk appetite and incorporate a structured framework for ongoing risk assessment and management reviews. This framework should include regular stress testing and scenario analysis to assess the potential impact of market fluctuations on currency exposure.
To support these efforts, integrating advanced financial management software can facilitate real-time monitoring of exchange rates, automate reporting, and enhance decision-making capabilities, saving a business valuable time.
Our recent FX reports indicate that 76% of UK and 82% of North American corporates are employing hedging strategies to manage currency risk, despite facing higher costs and stricter lending criteria over the past year.
Geopolitical tensions have notably influenced FX risk management in both the UK and North America. In the UK, 53% of businesses aim to lengthen their hedge duration due to global uncertainties. North America was responding even more strongly coming up to the US election, with 66% of firms planning to extend their hedge durations and 29% looking to increase their hedge ratios.
Manual and outdated FX processes can significantly hinder business efficiency. As a result, firms are increasingly shifting away from traditional providers and legacy infrastructure, replacing them with tech-enabled solutions.
Our research found that all UK and US corporate finance leaders polled (100%) are exploring artificial intelligence (AI) in some form. The main area for potential AI application is FX risk management, with 46% of North American and 43% of UK corporations concentrating on this field.
The genie is well and truly out of the bottle with generative AI and any organisation not thinking about how this technology can enhance their offering risks being left behind. It’s clear from the findings that CFOs realise that in today’s fast-paced digital landscape, embracing AI-driven innovation is no longer optional but essential for staying competitive.
Sam Hunt, CTO at MillTech.
FX is one of the largest and most liquid markets in the world, but also one of the most complex. Setting up and onboarding new FX counterparties, centralising price discovery and navigating the post-execution phase often have their own complications and can be a huge administrative burden for some corporates, eating up much-needed time and resources. In fact, 29% of UK respondents said they use outsourcing as it provides greater scalability and flexibility in operations.
Following episodes like the , many market principles and regulations were introduced, such as the FX Global Code of Conduct and MiFID II, to avoid crises like this again. Whilst beneficial to the ecosystem, these rules and regulations require a lot of work in order to be met. This is why 29% of UK respondents say that they use outsourcing for risk management and compliance purposes.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
By Alex Cannon
50 senior treasury ads from one EMEA search in October 2026, coded for every skill and system they name. Not a market survey.
I spend most of my time on the vendor side of treasury tech, reading what software companies say a treasury team needs. I wanted to swap the lens and see what people doing the hiring actually are writing down.
So I read 50 senior treasury job ads within Europe to see if anything interesting popped up.
Three things came out of it:
Before we get to the tech, here are jobs to be done stated in the ads:
| Skill | Ads |
|---|---|
| Cash flow forecasting | 35 |
| FX and hedging | 35 |
| Bank relationship management | 32 |
| Daily cash positioning | 23 |
| Interest rate risk | 23 |
| KYC and bank account administration | 22 |
| Board and investor reporting | 22 |
| Intercompany funding | 20 |
| Debt facilities and covenants | 19 |
| M&A treasury integration | 19 |
| Cash pooling | 18 |
| Working capital | 16 |
| Trade finance and guarantees | 10 |
| ALM and regulatory liquidity | 7 |
| Debt capital markets | 5 |
Forecasting at the top is the least surprising row in the table. It is also the part of treasury with a dozen vendors chasing it, so the supply side and the demand side agree on at least one thing.
That is the work that needs to be done. Now lets move onto the tech that is supposed to assist.
AI appears in 9 of the 50 ads.
Of the nine, eight ask for it and two hand it over as a tool on arrival.
What the eight ask for varies so widely that the variation is the finding.
The two that hand it over are more specific about the equipment than about the skill.
One lists it as a benefit — “Everyone has a Claude subscription on us and access to other premium tools”
The other wants judgment as the requirement: “We want people who experiment without waiting for permission, push AI beyond the obvious, know when to trust it, and when to question it.”
For me the one thing that stood out is that when a task is named at all, it is the assembly layer (analysis, reporting, process) improvement. Nothing in these ads points AI at the actual jobs to be done in the ad like bank relationship work, KYC or account administration.
The expectation is on the treasurer to uncover best use cases, which honestly makes sense as they are the experts in their field.
AI is asked for in nine ads. A programming language is asked for in two.
| Tech skill | Ads |
|---|---|
| Implementation or roll-out experience | 29 |
| Automation and process improvement | 23 |
| TMS named or referenced | 22 |
| Excel | 20 |
| ERP | 16 |
| AI | 9 |
| Bank connectivity | 9 |
| Dashboards | 6 |
| System selection or RFP | 4 |
| Python, SQL or BI | 2 |
Four readings of that table.
1. The spreadsheet and the system are asked for together.
Excel appears in 20 ads, a TMS in 22 and both in 11 of them. One ad asks for strong Excel in its requirements list, then puts “Replacing manual spreadsheet processes with something that survives your holiday” in the responsibilities. Both are written down. Both are presumably meant.
2. The ERP is the only thing named by brand.
SAP is named in 9 ads, more than every treasury system in the sample combined. Eight ads name a treasury system at all, and only one TMS is named more than once. Of the 63 vendors I have profiled, six appear anywhere in 50 senior treasury ads. TMS experience is asked for as a generic, transferable skill. ERP experience is asked for as a product.
3. The plumbing has no vocabulary here.
Nine ads mention bank connectivity in any form, with SWIFT, SEPA and APIs appearing in four each. No ad in the sample names ISO 20022, camt, MT940, EBICS, host-to-host, a payment factory or a virtual account. The work gets described instead as growth arriving across a lot of bank accounts.
4. You are hired to run the system, not to pick it.
Implementation or roll-out language appears in 29 ads. Selection, evaluation or RFP language appears in 4. The vendor decision sits above the level being recruited, which is worth knowing before taking a job to own the treasury stack.
Job ads don’t say what actually get solved, but they are an interesting benchmark into the expectation of today’s treasurer.
I’m curious how the first 90 days has changed for a new hire senior treasurer with all the tech that is now available.
Do you go in guns blazing trying to completely modernize an old stack, or do you start by getting a lay of the land and slowly chipping away at the time consuming tasks.
I feel it’s the latter.
I think what hiring teams are trying to avoid is the complacent treasurer.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click the button below.
This article is written by Kantox
The relationship between Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers has evolved far beyond traditional financial stewardship. For multinational enterprises managing raw materials across continents, subsidiary operations in diverse markets, and complex multi-currency transactions, this partnership has become the cornerstone of global financial strategy.
Recent data reveals a fundamental shift in C-suite dynamics. According to Deloitte’s Q4 2024 CFO Signals survey, CFO confidence has surged dramatically, with finance chiefs showing marked optimism as they head into 2025. This confidence reflects not just economic sentiment, but the elevated strategic role CFOs now occupy.
The 2024 Global CFO & CIO Survey demonstrates this transformation quantitatively: nearly half of CFOs (49%) believe their improved relationship was the reason for improved business outcomes. For treasury managers overseeing global operations, this data underscores a critical insight: relationship quality directly impacts financial performance.
What drives this correlation between executive relationships and business outcomes? For multinational organisations, the answer lies in complex financial orchestration. When CFOs and CEOs maintain aligned perspectives on currency risk, subsidiary performance, and international cash flow optimisation, companies achieve superior results across multiple performance metrics.
Consider the strategic complexity facing today’s financial leaders:
The traditional model of visionary CEO paired with detail-oriented CFO remains powerful, but requires sophisticated enhancement for global operations. Modern effective partnerships integrate what Deloitte research identifies as complementary character types: guardian, pioneer, driver, and integrator. Significantly, almost 75% of effective partnerships include one driver.
For multinational treasury management, this translates into specific operational advantages:
The Strategic CFO Approach: Rather than simply complementing CEO vision, the modern CFO must anticipate global financial challenges. When raw material costs fluctuate in emerging markets, or when subsidiary performance varies due to currency movements, the CFO’s analytical framework must provide strategic context, not just financial reporting.
Case Study Application: Consider a technology company sourcing components from Southeast Asia while serving European markets. The CFO’s complementary role involves not just reporting currency impacts, but developing hedging strategies that enable the CEO’s market expansion objectives. This requires understanding operational dynamics, not just financial metrics.
Treasury Management Integration: Finance chiefs can enhance their strategic positioning by developing expertise in:
Trust between CEO and CFO transcends personal relationships—it represents operational reliability across complex global financial systems. When CEOs sign annual accounts, they rely on CFO assurance regarding subsidiary consolidation, foreign exchange position accuracy, and international compliance frameworks.
The stakes are particularly high for multinational operations. 42% of CEOs express optimism about the global economy, suggesting increased willingness to pursue international expansion. However, this optimism must be supported by robust financial infrastructure.
Treasury-Specific Trust Indicators:
Building CEO Confidence: CFOs can establish trust through demonstrable competence in:
Risk Management Excellence: When evaluating acquisition opportunities in foreign markets, CEOs depend on CFO analysis of currency risks, regulatory complexities, and integration challenges. This dependency requires CFOs to develop expertise beyond traditional financial analysis.
The most sophisticated CEO-CFO partnerships integrate treasury management perspectives into core strategic planning. Rather than treating international financial management as operational support, leading organisations position treasury insights as strategic intelligence.
Strategic Coordination Framework: Board reporting becomes the ultimate test of CEO-CFO alignment. When presenting international expansion plans, both executives must demonstrate coherent understanding of:
Treasury-Driven Strategic Insights: Modern CFOs contribute strategic value by translating complex international financial dynamics into actionable business intelligence. This includes:
Recent survey data highlights technology’s role in strengthening CEO-CFO partnerships. 42% of finance leaders believe technology partnerships contribute to improved business results. For treasury management, technology represents both opportunity and imperative.
Modern Treasury Technology Stack:
Strategic Technology Integration: Leading finance organisations leverage technology not just for operational efficiency, but for strategic advantage. When CFOs can provide CEOs with real-time visibility into global cash positions, currency exposures, and subsidiary performance, strategic decision-making accelerates dramatically.
Looking ahead, successful CEO-CFO partnerships will be distinguished by their ability to navigate increasing global complexity. 47% of CFOs indicate their organisations intend to change benefits or transfer costs to manage employee expenses in 2025, suggesting continued focus on operational optimisation.
Strategic Imperatives for 2025:
Treasury Management Evolution: The most successful partnerships will position treasury management as a strategic capability, not just an operational function. This requires CFOs to develop expertise in:
For treasury managers and CFOs operating in global markets, the CEO-CFO partnership represents far more than internal collaboration—it embodies the strategic financial leadership essential for international business success. Companies that master this relationship gain competitive advantages in market expansion, risk management, and operational efficiency.
The data demonstrates clear correlation between executive partnership quality and business performance. For multinational organisations managing complex treasury operations, this relationship becomes the foundation for strategic financial management across currencies, jurisdictions, and markets.
Success requires moving beyond traditional complementary roles toward integrated strategic partnership, where treasury management insights inform core business decisions, and where global financial expertise enables international business expansion.
Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments.
