Women in Treasury Global Study 2017 – Where Do We Go From Here?

Over the last two decades, the corporate finance/treasury sector has embraced greater gender diversity in the workplace. There are more women in finance than ever before with more of those women holding executive leadership positions. But to what extent has progress been made in closing the gender gap in finance? More importantly, what must be done to continue this mission?

Treasury Today Group, an independent publishing house targeting senior finance executives, recently completed its annual Women in Treasury Global Study. In its fifth year, this study is part of the group’s initiative to support, inspire and raise the profile of women in finance. This year’s respondents included 352 women from all over the globe with over half having been in a corporate treasury role for more than 10 years. Their responses highlight both progress and continued concern as women seek greater inclusion and equal opportunity in finance.

Findings that indicate progress include:

The number of women in treasury is growing. 32% of respondents said 31 to 50% of their colleagues are women. Nearly 24% said 51 to 75% of their colleagues are women.
Organizations are treating the issue of diversity more seriously and more favorably.7% of respondents said their organization has a diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity strategy. Approximately 58% characterize their company’s approach to diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity as favorable. Just over 23% characterize it as extremely favorable.
Women are strong believers in mentoring – and are giving back. Over 80% said they have been mentored by someone inside or outside their organization. 71% think mentoring and/or sponsorship are key to a successful career.
However, despite signs of improvement, this study also demonstrates that gender diversity is still a major concern as it relates to the finance/treasury function:

Not every company is taking diversity seriously. Nearly 20% characterize their company’s approach to diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity as extremely unfavorable or not very favorable.
There is still a sizeable gap between the number of women in senior positions compared to the number of men – especially in finance. Less than half (41.3%) say their organization employs many women in senior positions. Just over 17% said their CFO is a woman.
Corporate boards of directors are overwhelmingly not diverse. Only 20.3% say their board is diverse in terms of age, gender and ethnicity
The pay gap is real. Only 26.3% of respondents say they believe they are paid the same as their male colleagues in the same position.
So, what needs to be done? Most importantly, companies need to keep “having the conversation” about gender diversity and inclusion. While progress has been made within many companies, there is still work to be done. The Financial Times recently surveyed some of the world’s biggest banks, insurers, asset managers and professional services firms on their progress towards achieving greater gender diversity. Just over half of responding organizations’ total staff are female, although that number drops precipitously when counting the number of women holding senior-level positions.

The implementation of diversity strategies that address inclusion, work/life balance and mentoring will be key to closing the gender gap in treasury and finance. That’s something we recognize here at PrimeRevenue, where we have seen an uptick in the number of women pursuing long-term career paths in treasury and finance. We maintain a strong commitment to improving diversity within our own business (including gender diversity!) and continue to prioritize this commitment as we grow.

By Stephanie Wargo
Published December 18, 2017

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Stephanie Wargo

VP, Global Head of Marketing

Stephanie joined PrimeRevenue in 2015 and oversees the company’s global marketing team and strategy. With a data-driven approach, Stephanie focuses on demand generation and thought leadership to drive brand awareness, strengthen client/partner relationships, and generate new sales opportunities. Stephanie has guided PrimeRevenue through new technology releases and an evolving FinTech landscape. In addition to leading PrimeRevenue’s internal and external communications, she implemented innovative demand generation and marketing strategies to enhance the company’s overall sales pipeline.

Stephanie has extensive experience in marketing and customer success. She previously served as Vice President of Marketing and Communications at BitPay and Vice President of Client Relations and Marketing at FirstView Financial. Stephanie earned a B.A. degree in Political Science from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

Brian Medley

VP, Global Head of Sales

Brian joined PrimeRevenue in early 2012, after more than 20 years of sales leadership, executive-level consultant and business growth experience. As VP, Global Head of Sales, Brian leads a growing team of fintech sales professionals with a focus on developing strong customer relationships, improving sales predictability and helping PrimeRevenue enter the lucrative mid-market.

Prior to PrimeRevenue, Brian honed his enterprise software sales leadership skills at Clarus Corporation. He also served as an operations and IT management consultant for Kurt Salmon Associates. In addition to his sales and consulting background, Brian has deep experience in the financial industry having founded a successful residential mortgage broker and lending business. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology having earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Economics and M.B.A. in Global Business.

Jason Green

SVP, Global Customer Success

Jason joined PrimeRevenue in 2021 following more than two decades in the fintech/financial services industry. He brings a strong background is sales leadership due to his impressive relationship building capability as well as a successful track record in creating structure and process improvements. In his role, Jason uses his keen attention to detail to strengthen the customer experience and enhance the company’s solutions to deliver more value to clients.

Prior to joining the company, Jason held several senior level and executive roles with a focus on building and scaling sales and support organizations at both large and small companies. Jason graduated from Murray State University with a B.S in Marketing.

Matt Ford

SVP, Global Product Innovation

Matt joined PrimeRevenue in early 2015 and is responsible for overseeing all commercial, strategic and operational aspects of PrimeRevenue’s supply chain finance offerings throughout EMEA, based in Prague. He has been instrumental in gaining global alignment and developing supplier enablement processes for the region.

Matt joined PrimeRevenue following a 15-year career at Morgan Stanley, where he worked in fixed income operations covering debt syndication through bonds, EMTNS, corporate loans and other debt securitization. Notably, he set up non-core location operations in Europe (Budapest) and all lending operations in Baltimore from scratch.

Matt, who was born and raised in South East England, earned a B.S. in Sports Science at University of Teesside where he mastered the art of TEAM development and accountability as a youth international rugby player.

Dominic Capolongo

EVP, Global Head of Funding

Dominic joined PrimeRevenue in 2016, and is responsible for leading our bank and capital markets funding strategies and execution. He focuses on building global, scalable and highly efficient funding structures that maximize options for supporting PrimeRevenue’s programs. Dominic began his career as an attorney and was a partner with Kaye Scholer before joining DLJ as a senior banker. Dominic brings tremendous strategic and capital markets experience in all areas of finance having held senior positions at, among others, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets in addition to DLJ. Dominic earned a JD from Fordham University School of Law and a BA from SUNY Binghamton.

Gavin Cicchinelli

Chief Operating Officer

Gavin joined PrimeRevenue as Chief Operating Officer in 2021. With more than two decades of leadership and executive experience along with a deep understanding of the payments space, Gavin provides a unique focus on improving and strengthening operational strategies and implementing GTM growth execution. He is responsible for leading transformation across corporate and operational strategies as well as building a repeatable and scalable commercial growth strategy that aligns with PrimeRevenue’s core business while delivering key adjacent growth opportunities.

Prior to joining PrimeRevenue, Gavin served as President and Chief Revenue Officer of Integrated Solutions at TSYS, a global payment processing services company acquired by Global Payments (NYSE:GPN). There, he also served as Head of Product and divisional COO. Throughout his career, Gavin has held multiple leadership positions including VP of Sales, SVP of Business Development, and President of Financial Institutions. Gavin graduated from the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley.

David Quillian

Chief Legal Officer

David joined PrimeRevenue as General Counsel in 2007. He and his team have been instrumental in successfully creating the unique legal structures that support PrimeRevenue’s multi-funder model and global funding capabilities. David is also the lead named inventor on PrimeRevenue’s two patents for Electronic Time Drafts, which allow PrimeRevenue to manage supply chain finance programs using electronic negotiable instruments as opposed to accounts receivable. Prior to PrimeRevenue, David was General Counsel at Harbor Payments, which was acquired by American Express (AXP) in 2006, and Magnet Communications, which was acquired by Digital Insight (DGIN) in 2003. He holds degrees in Economics and History from Duke University, and Juris Doctor and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Georgia.

Nathan Feather

CEO

Nathan has successfully ushered PrimeRevenue from our very early days as a visionary startup, through the financial crisis to today’s position as a thriving mid-sized leader in the cloud-enabled supply chain finance marketplace since joining PrimeRevenue in January 2006. He was instrumental in recapitalizing the company with an $80M investment led by BBH Capital Partners in 2015. Prior to PrimeRevenue, he held various financial management roles with Ariba, Freemarkets and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Nathan holds a BS in Accounting from Pennsylvania State University.

PJ Bain

CEO

PJ has an impressive and accomplished track record as an enterprise software entrepreneur and executive. PJ has built a solid record of success with PrimeRevenue since being appointed Chief Executive Officer in July of 2009. The company has received numerous awards for growth, customer service, innovation, along with being recognized as a top employer.

PJ is a life-long software and technology entrepreneur having been involved in numerous firms in the roles of founder, executive, advisor and investor. Immediately prior to PrimeRevenue, PJ was the VP and General Manager of Exact Holding N.V. (NYSE/AMS: EXACT), a leading global provider of business software solutions. He was previously Founder and CEO of Inspired Solutions, an Atlanta-based, B2B software and services firm that grew to be the largest reseller of Exact Software in North America, later acquired by Exact. PJ holds a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.