Embracing Change in the Treasury Industry with Stephen Medhurst

Stephen Medhurst, the Senior Vice President of Treasury at Omnicom Group Inc., joins the Treasury Career Corner podcast to tell us about his career history, insights into managing global treasury operations and the importance of embracing change.

Omnicom is a global marketing communications leader which provides brand and advertising services to over 5,000 clients in over 100 countries. Since its formation in 1986, the company has grown to include over 1,500 subsidiary agencies.

Stephen is the SVP of Treasury for Europe & Asia for Omnicom Finance Ltd. As part of the management team, he is responsible for the global development of the Treasury function and for international operations outside North America. He is also a member of the board for Omnicom Europe and Customer Advisory Board member for Deutsche Bank.

Stephen’s first job was as a graduate trainee at National Westminster Bank, but he quickly moved on to working for Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank in their MNC Group. While there, he built up their client base by 20% and increased profitability by 30%. After taking a year out to complete an MBA, Stephen went on to join ICI in an Organisation Development role. He moved back into treasury, looking at corporate exposures and managing debt and investments. But then when ICI demerged its pharmaceutical business, Stephen was responsible for executing this operation.

Today, at Omnicom Group Inc, he is building a world class fit-for-purpose treasury team and transforming the architecture of global cash and liquidity across the Group.

On the podcast we discussed…

• How Stephen’s career has spanned some interesting developments in treasury
• Challenges of building Omnicom’s treasury function across the group in the past 21 years.
• The challenge for treasury in managing multiple local bank relationships, bank accounts and tax differences for Omnicom’s SME agencies around the world
• The range of treasury roles at Omnicom and how they support, train and coach their entry level staff
• How they are embracing technology and AI to develop their architecture and processes
• How to keep pace with change by making careful career steps, being flexible and embracing constant learning

If you would like to get in touch with Stephen, you can connect with him via his LinkedIn profile.

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