Careers in Corporate Treasury

Alison Doyle, the About.com guide to job searching, has passed along some good news about careers in corporate treasury. According to the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), both employment and compensation growth continue to be strong in this field, with a bright outlook for the near future.

Corporate treasury is a vital internal function that is common to all companies, in all industries. In a nutshell, it manages the company's inflows and outflows of cash, while also forecasting long-term funding needs and seeking the best alternatives for raising capital (bank loans, short-term paper, long-term debt and/or issues of equity). It has close affinities to money management and investment banking. In financial services firms, treasury personnel thus tend to have especially close working relationships with their counterparts in these other areas of the business.

According to the AFP, base salary increases for corporate treasury personnel in 2008 are 5% or more versus 2007, well above the average reported for other professions, and part of a long-term trend. Though their news release does not touch upon this issue, perhaps the value of good corporate treasury staff is becoming increasing evident in the current business environment, where savvy financial management is truly vital to many companies' survival.