Treasury Contrarian View: Do We Focus Too Much on Finance Backgrounds in Treasury Hiring?

Treasury Contrarian View: Do We Focus Too Much on Finance Backgrounds in Treasury Hiring?

Traditionally, treasury professionals have been hired for their financial acumen—degrees in finance or economics, certifications, and prior banking experience. But in today’s digital-first treasury environment, here’s a bold question: Should we stop prioritizing finance backgrounds and start hiring more technologists, data analysts, and engineers into treasury teams?

The Case for Rethinking Treasury Talent

  1. Treasury is Becoming Tech-Driven
    • Modern treasury increasingly relies on APIs, cloud platforms, automation, and AI. Hiring people who can work with data, systems, and integrations may be more valuable than those who only understand interest rate curves or capital structure theory.
  2. Data is the New Currency
    • Forecasting, analytics, and liquidity modeling—all depend on good data. Treasury teams need people who can structure, clean, and analyze data, not just interpret reports prepared by someone else.
  3. Speed of Innovation Requires Adaptability
    • Tech-savvy talent tends to be more agile and open to experimentation, which is essential for implementing new tools and workflows in a fast-changing treasury landscape.
  4. Tech Fluency Enhances Vendor Management
    • Whether implementing a TMS or evaluating a fintech provider, treasury teams need to understand the tech stack—not just the financial use case—to make the right decisions.

The Case for Keeping Finance at the Core

  1. Risk and Compliance Still Matter
    • Treasury still has a critical fiduciary role—managing liquidity, risk, and compliance. A deep understanding of financial markets and regulatory environments can’t be replaced by tech alone.
  2. Judgment and Strategy Aren’t Automatable
    • Treasury professionals need to make judgment calls under uncertainty—when to hedge, when to draw on credit, how to manage global risk exposure. That intuition is built on financial experience.
  3. Communication with the Business
    • Treasury must bridge the gap between the numbers and the boardroom. Financial literacy is essential when advising the CFO or shaping financial strategy.
  4. Hybrid Roles Are Emerging
    • Perhaps it’s not about replacing finance talent, but expanding it. The most successful treasury professionals of the future may be hybrids—finance-savvy tech thinkers or tech-native finance minds.

The Way Forward: Cross-Functional Treasury Teams

Rather than replacing one skillset with another, treasury functions can evolve by:

  • Hiring for diversity of thought: Blend traditional finance profiles with tech, data, and systems backgrounds.
  • Upskilling internally: Offer finance professionals the chance to learn Python, Power BI, or TMS configuration basics.
  • Redefining treasury roles: Create new positions—like Treasury Systems Analyst, Data Engineer for Treasury, or Treasury Process Automation Lead.

Let’s Discuss

  • Does your treasury team have enough tech and data expertise to match today’s challenges?
  • Should finance skills still be the #1 hiring criterion—or is it time to think differently?
  • What are you doing to future-proof your treasury talent strategy?

We’ll feature insights from tech-forward treasurers and talent leaders who are reshaping how treasury teams are built—add your voice to the conversation!

COMMENTS

Patrick Kunz_Treasury Masterminds (2)

Patrick Kunz, Treasury Masterminds founder and board member, comments:

“It is disheartening to see so many entry-level Treasury roles demanding multiple years of direct experience. How are junior professionals supposed to break into the field when the door is constantly slammed shut? It feels like companies have completely abandoned the idea of training and investing in new talent. This “experience only” mentality is creating a massive barrier for aspiring Treasury professionals. While experience is valuable, a lack of willingness from companies to provide structured training and mentorship is a significant hurdle“.

This message I got from a junior in treasury who FINALLY landed an entry-level role. I blame the companies she applied to. They have to train for skill and should have hired for EAGERNESS and GRIT and she would have thrived in her role as she later complained that her role is very operational and didn’t even require a lot of skill.

At Pecunia, I see a shift in both junior and medior roles on the skills. The TECH skills are becoming more critical to win roles. Understanding data and interdependencies and their sources and being able to extract them and get relevant information from them is key in some analyst or even some cash/treasury manager roles in smaller organisations.

This doesn’t mean treasury talent shouldn’t have a finance background anymore. Dealing with data, you should still be able to interpret them and understand them. Finding the one that knows both would be perfect but is also hard to find. This means a company has to decide what skill is more important from the start. Though every skill can be taught.

In my opinion, I would hire for the skills that are lacking in the rest of the team. This is also diversity. This can be a tech skill, but it can also be a (younger) mindset or cultural background. Anyway, don’t be too hard on the paper skills and university background or courses one has done. The rest of the treasury team already has that skill so why add another one with less practical experience in that skill? Adding NEW skills will grow the WHOLE team.

Are you a junior unable to land that job because of missing experience in treasury? Don’t be sad and keep looking for a company that values the skills you DO have or might even be better in as the rest of the treasury team. A company that is willing to TEACH you those treasury skills but also appreciates what you DO know will also be a better company to work for, one where you can grow.

Treasury Masterminds-Alexandar Ilkun

Alexandar Ilkun, Treasury Masterminds board member, comments:

It would be a sad day when a finance background stops to matter in Treasury. The good thing is that I don’t believe it’s anywhere on the cards, not now nor in the foreseeable future.

No matter how automated the process is, it is important to understand what the outcome of the process should be. That can only be achieved if the person reviewing the results understands and knows what to expect based on their knowledge and experience. Such an expert is often able to say whether the numbers make sense or not. They also know where to look for potential issues and how to dig out the root cause of those issues.

However, with the technological advancements, it has become crucial for Treasury professionals to also understand how the automations work. It helps to know what is happening under the hood technically. It has a couple of benefits. First, you know what the potential weak points are so know to look out for signs that something went wrong from an automation standpoint. Secondly, you also know the power and indeed the limitations of automations. As someone who built a sufficient number of them, I learned to appreciate that automations are great but require some degree of maintenance—the more complex the process, the more maintenance it may require, as there are more areas that can potentially go wrong.

Finally, I’d also add that there is certainly a place for Treasury Technology Teams to exist these days or for bringing such an expert in on a consulting/outsourcing basis. Not only do you have access to experts that are within the Treasury team and focus on its needs as opposed to a more generalist IT or Data Scinetist, whose time will be devoted to one of the competing priorities coming from all around the organization. Having access to this expertise alongside operational Treasury knowledge allows you to be able to develop solutions much more quickly and much more tailored to the needs of your individual team that alleviate specific pain points that are relevant to you and without the need to think about the competing projects that may be out there.

In my practice, having access to Treasury Technology Talent allowed me to create solutions faster, better, and that are innovative—since doing something new is an art that often doesn’t survive the stage of business requirements documentation any IT person would require.

Jessica Oku_Treasury Masterminds Board Member

Jessica Oku, Treasury Masterminds board member, comments:

Treasury is becoming tech-driven

As someone who has led treasury teams through digital transformations, I can confirm this evolution is not just coming; it’s already here. In fact, some of the most successful treasury turnarounds I’ve worked on were driven by using real-time data visibility, automation tools, and agile treasury management systems. That said, while tech is the engine, finance still sets the GPS.

Data is the new currency

As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” This means the quality of insights is only as good as the structure of your data. So, if you’re building a treasury team in 2025, the question isn’t “Who has the best CFA level?” but “Who can help us make our data speak?”

  • Can they extract data from SAP or Oracle without needing the IT team every time?
  • Can they structure a forecasting model that integrates business input, seasonality, and FX assumptions dynamically?
  • Can they tell a good cash flow story using Power BI, Tableau, etc.?

Because finance without insight is just information.

Hiring for diversity of thought

As a treasury leader who has mentored diverse teams, I’ve seen the strength in the diversity of thought. When we hire the same profiles, we get the same solutions. Treasury today demands more than just financial expertise; it requires creativity, systems thinking, and a fresh perspective (although there’s so much work to be done in terms of the rigidity).

Lee-Ann Perkins, Treasury Masterminds board member, comments:

Two comments from me:

  1. Treasury folks should have project management skills: Either learned on the job or through external education. We have so many projects – either with banks or vendors or IT—that with great PM skills, the projects tend to be more successful.
  2. Teach our teams how to negotiate: Very useful for so many areas of our jobs and this is a learned skill and I advocate for these teachings.

Also Read

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