Educational Sessions
The AFP 2024 Task Force is a group of your practitioner peers who build an agenda focused on the issues that matter most to you.
AFP 2024 features 100+ sessions across seven tracks. Check out the tracks that you can expect for this year.
- Capital Markets & Investments Track
- Career Development
- Executive Institute
- Financial Planning & Analysis Track
- Payments Track
- Risk Management Track
- Treasury Management Track
A sample of educational sessions will be available in April. The entire session line-up will be published in July.
Capital Markets & Investments
Potential Pitfalls in Credit Agreement Compliance
When negotiating a credit agreement, several factors, including the borrower’s risk profile and credit ratings, impact the breadth of the affirmative, negative, and financial covenants imposed on the borrower. This is true whether a credit facility is a bilateral or syndicated facility or a cash-flow or asset-based lending (ABL) facility, with an ABL facility often containing the most intense requirements because the borrowing base is tied to eligible assets. This session provides a comprehensive overview of cash-flow and ABL credit facilities and attendees walk away with a tool kit of best practices to help avoid potential defaults.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Navigating the Resilient Portfolio
In today's ever-changing financial landscape, investors face constant shifts and unpredictable events – regional bank collapses, interest rate hikes, geopolitical tensions - continually influence cash investment and portfolio construction. Given this ongoing uncertainty, investors must rely on a framework that assesses risks, evaluates credit quality, and identifies optimal best practices. Effective portfolio management requires both strategic foresight and tactical actions to align with objectives. It’s crucial for corporate treasury teams to be equipped to thoroughly evaluate the diverse risks to ongoing market dynamics. This session aims to empower these teams by examining prevailing hazards and share strategies to safeguard portfolio integrity in a volatile environment.
Shifting Liquidity & Investment Management into the Express Lane for Financial Productivity
In the fast-paced world of global ecommerce and technology, Treasury departments are driving organization growth towards innovation and symbiotically managing its pace with an eye on associated risks. In this dynamic session, panelist discuss their strategies for accelerating the path to optimizing and automating their centralized treasury operations and banking structure, improving data-driven techniques and systems to empower their decision making. This panel explores how Treasury teams can serve as catalysts for driving growth within their organizations and navigating the evolving landscape with agility and foresight.
Career Development
Crystal Clear: Strategies for Communicating Complex Information
Treasury and finance practitioners are frequently challenged to communicate complex information, sometimes to stakeholders who may have minimal knowledge of the topic. Once your audience achieves an understanding, it’s much easier to gain their support and drive them to take action. This session explores practical strategies to break down complex financial concepts into digestible, compelling narratives using a few simple, yet powerful techniques. Through real-world examples, stories, and metaphors, attendees learn how to craft communication that not only informs, but also inspires action to move the organization towards its goals.
Don't Let Digital Transformation Destroy Your Treasury Career
As Treasury's role expands to driving corporate vision, finance skills alone are insufficient for leadership. Successful digital treasury transformation is now essential for career advancement. This presents an opportunity for Treasury professionals to adapt, excel, and redefine their career trajectories. This session’s expert panel outlines the necessary elements for project success, including cross-functional teams equipped with the right skills, tools, and technology and demonstrates how to flex skills at all levels to meet Treasury's evolving needs, share insights, experiences, and real-world examples.
The ROI of DEI: Harnessing Data Analytics to Create Inclusion
Utilizing data analytics to foster inclusivity offers many benefits, including enhancing decision-making by providing insights into diversity and inclusion metrics such as representation, employee engagement, and leadership effectiveness. It enables organizations to identify gaps in talent management, improve retention, and promotion practices, and address biases in hiring, promoting fairness and equity. Inclusive workplaces are also better attuned to diverse customer needs, as data analytics provides insights for tailored products and services. This session emphasizes the impact of leveraging data analytics and industry-best practices to cultivate inclusive leadership and a positive workplace culture.
Executive Institute
What Does Today’s Treasurer Need to Know About Generative AI?
With the introduction of ChatGPT are harnessing its capabilities to automate processes, resulting in an accelerated adoption. immediately started identifying how to leverage it to automate processes, and adoption has continued to accelerate. For finance professionals, it begs the question: what does it all mean for the way you work? The reality is generative AI is not a concept but a reality that’s adapting and learning. Likewise, finance and treasury professionals who embrace this change position themselves as future leaders in their organization. This session unlocks the key steps for developing generative AI fluency, enhance relevant skills to optimize financial operations.
Activate Your Workforce for Amazing Results
In today's fast-paced world, both talent and leaders seek lighter, yet more impactful ways of operating amidst workforce overwhelm, burnout, and perpetual change. They crave environments that prioritize holistic well-being while fostering productivity and innovation. An activated workforce epitomizes peak performance, marked by deep connection, engagement, and empowerment. This session equips executives with a straightforward framework to unlock workforce activation swiftly and effectively. By implementing tailored practices, organizations can transform the employee experience, drive heightened performance, and maximize talent investment returns.
Action Over Hype: AI Goals for Finance
As AI gains prominence in everyday discourse, the key question across industries is: how can we effectively employ AI in our businesses? This session guides finance leaders beyond the hype, emphasizing the crucial first step: setting clear and appropriate goals. Without these goals, leaders may encounter challenges such as misalignment with stakeholders, organizational confusion, risk exposure, tech debt, and lagging competitiveness. Panelists also share their practical experiences by diving beyond definitions to actionable examples of the following types of appropriate AI finance goals: Governance, Risk management, Security and privacy, Cost reduction, Decision making.
Financial Planning & Analysis
Best Practices for Long-Term Maintenance of Budgeting Software
Ensuring your software remains aligned with evolving company needs is crucial for sustained success. Factors such as rapid growth, organizational restructuring, team dynamics, and software updates can all impact the effectiveness of the tool. Through a case study and firsthand account, this session explores strategies to navigate these challenges and maintain optimal performance and relevance of your budgeting software over time.
Lessons Learned in AI, Automation and Transformation
To stay ahead in today's volatile business environment, where challenges like inflation, supply chain disruptions, and labor complexities are the norm, organizations need a modern planning and analytics solution to collectively think and act fast. In this session, a transformation leader shares the false starts and successes along the route to establishing a single, trusted data model across the enterprise for forecasting, analysis and reporting. The discussion also details how the latest innovations in AI and automation have increased speed, productivity, and impact of finance and business operations across the entire IBM organization, integrating finance and operations across the organization.
Transforming FP&A’s Role, Influence, & Impact with the Leadership Team
University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC)’s online course market expansion, from 30% to 80% pre to post-COVID in the US, led UMGC leadership to enact drastic changes that addressed their financial and operational challenges to achieve long-term sustainability. The CFO established a new FP&A group to provide insightful financial analytics supporting business stewardship and decision-making. Through focused investment in leadership training, upskilling, and financial literacy, the FP&A team now collaborates proactively across departments to support product portfolio prioritization, initiative stage gating, multidimensional profitability analysis, and dynamic resource allocation. Discover how UMGC is enhancing business performance through collaboration, innovation, and financial stewardship.
Payments
Request for Payments (RFP) a Year Later
The U.S. receivables and payments landscape are undergoing a significant transformation, largely driven by the advent and adoption of Request for Payment (RfP) solutions facilitated by instant payment networks such as the RTP® Network and FedNow. These solutions promise to redefine bill payment and Point of Sale (POS) experiences for businesses and consumers alike. This session not only reflects on the year’s advancements but also charts the course for future developments in RfP solutions and provides attendees with actionable insights for optimized financial operations and customer engagement.
Smart Safe Solutions to Solving Common Cash Management Challenges
The practices and technologies behind processing and safeguarding cash payments continues to evolve along with retail and consumer trends. These cross-functional projects present a unique challenge for finance professionals given their size, scale, and timeline – it’s the responsibility of finance teams to make cash acceptance as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Join this timely and insightful discussion as speakers unpack the innovative strategies and models that finance teams are employing to implement and enhance cash automation solutions. Three unique case studies offer practitioners new ideas for building innovative models, developing strategies to overcome challenges, and provide the leadership required to achieve organizational objectives.
Strategies for Driving Customer Payment Efficiency
As payment options increase, treasurers and finance teams are challenged to accommodate customers’ payment preferences, while managing the related costs of the receivables pipeline. With the adoption of autopay, its reliability, speed, and convenience help to achieve greater receivables automation and lower costs. The key to driving payment behavior to the most efficient payment option is to create a plan to include setting goals for the receivables mix, segmenting customers, leveraging communications, and creating metrics. In this informative discussion panelists share best practices and lessons learned from their journey to streamlining payment processes, achieving their customer payment goals, and improving company revenue.
Risk Management
The Intersection of Geopolitics, Macroeconomics & Markets
Companies and asset management firms have identified Geopolitical Risk as their paramount concern - from selecting factory locations to navigating commodity price fluctuations, and understanding how geopolitical events can significantly impact interest rates, FX, and credit spreads. While geopolitical risk has always been a factor, it is moving markets more than ever. With an unprecedented array of issues at hand, this session promises to equip participants with actionable insights to navigate and capitalize on geopolitical shifts effectively.
FX Netting: Untangling Global Interco Currency Flows
Approaching a treasurer to discuss their top FX priorities inevitably brings up the elephant in the room: simplifying the intercompany settlement process. This aspect is widely recognized as a significant opportunity for enhancing process efficiency and achieving cost savings, yet it often lingers low on the priority list. But is it as daunting as it seems? Join this session for firsthand details of a successful IC netting program roadmap, and a journey in optimizing an established program amidst decentralized ERP systems. Attendees leave armed with practical tips, innovative tools, and fresh ideas, regardless of where their organization stands on its journey to navigating the global intercompany FX flows.
Cyber Fraud: Anatomy of AI and Deepfakes
Emerging AI technologies bring new opportunities for treasury – from ensuring compliance with payment policies to detecting suspicious payments. But, when used for nefarious purposes, AI becomes a powerful new tool when used by malicious actors. Deepfake technology has made headlines over the past several years due to its ability to alter photos, videos, and audio – often to commit financial crimes. Through an AI simulation, this session explores the good and the bad within the AI space. Fraud experts outline the measures you can take to protect yourself and your company and also address U.S. government concerns regarding AI-generated scam robocalls.
Treasury Management
First 48: Moving Fast in a Crisis
Organizations are vulnerable to cyber-attacks, fraud, ransomware, a compromised vendor or supplier or an insider threat. Financial losses are the most predicted impacts, but cyber-crimes can also lead to business disruption, lost business, employee turnover, regulatory impact, and negative impact on brand and customer loyalty. Technology can be a big part of the solution, but it cannot replace a strong resiliency plan and critical thinking skills in the event of an attack. Stress testing your plan and practicing responses in a pressured situation improves outcomes. In this interactive workshop attendees collaborate in groups to formulate initial action plans for hypothetical scenarios, receive feedback and best practices from expert panels.
Target Acquired: Now What?
Completing merger activities is all-hands-on-deck for treasury and finance teams in the months leading up to the closing of the transaction, but the real work starts in the post-merger integration phase. M&A integrations present many challenges ranging from standardizing and establishing new processes and platforms, to learning and supporting new businesses and jurisdictions. While there isn’t a universal approach to integration, embracing best practices is essential for success. In this session, leading treasury practitioners share how their companies approached the challenges and complexities of M&A integration, discuss key steps and considerations in the integration process to reduce challenges and increase opportunities to improve treasury efficiency.
Implementing a Treasury Policy in a Newly-Created Treasury Department
In a time of market unpredictability, companies and stakeholders are prioritizing Risk Management. More important than its size, a robust treasury policy is essential for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, managing cash flow, and navigating business volatility, including changes in interest rates. To address these factors Teranet established a dedicated treasury department, tailored and implemented a new treasury policy that governed its functions. This session stresses the importance of implementing an effective treasury policy that strikes a balance—concise yet comprehensive - encompasses all treasury functions, ensures accountability, and is regularly reviewed at the highest levels.