Giacomo Orlandi, Chairman, AITI

Interview with Giacomo Orlandi, Chairman, AITI (Italian Association of Corporate Treasurers) Interview with Giacomo Orlandi, Chairman, AITI (Italian Association of Corporate Treasurers) When was AITI established and how many are its members? AITI was founded in 1992 and therefore today has more than 15 years of history. It’s a member of both the International Group of Treasury Associations (IGTA) and European Associations of Corporate Treasurers (EACT), where it holds the Vice Chairmanship. Membership has now grown to more than 400 from the initial 24 founder members. How is AITI organised? The association is chaired by a Chairman and governed by a Board of Directors elected by the General Assembly; other positions include Vice Presidents (2), Secretary and Treasurer. A controlling body completes the institutional framework. Following the 16th National Congress of last October the Assembly has elected the new Board of Directors for the next three years (see below). What are the main activities undertaken by AITI? AITI is basically active in three fields of operation: organization of educational and networking events, training and activities of technical commissions. The organization of events has been historically our main activity with both national and regional events where our members can upgrade their knowledge to the state-of-the-art professional developments while sharing experiences with their peers.  Training is the second pillar of the range of services offered to our members: we do offer both base and advanced courses considered as benchmark in Italy. Last but not least the activities of our technical commissions range from Payment Systems and Dematerialization to Accounting Standards and Editing, always with the aim of giving an effective service to our member base. Given the wide span of activity how do you communicate with members and institutions? The member base is permanently informed about our activities via our website and our newsletter ‘Lettera AITI’. Our widespread member base is organized in regional delegations that act locally in order to provide activities in line with the specific needs of our members. Central technical commissions interact with both national and international institutions on the different topics: for instance the Payment Commission is working on SEPA both with national institutions (Italian Banking Association - ABI - and Bank of Italy) and international bodies (EACT). International relationships are managed by Cino Ricci, who is also EACT Deputy Chairman. What are the challenges facing the Italian Corporate Treasury? Are they any different from the other European countries? The Italian Corporate Treasury faces similar challenges and opportunities to most of other European peers: the opportunities offered by SEPA and the technologies for dematerialization, together with the wider scope of activity offered to the treasurer by the IFRS framework, call for bigger flexibility and deeper knowledge. Tomorrow’s treasurer will need to be more integrated both vertically with his executives, and also horizontally with the other company functions. Being conscious of such developments we have started to co-operate with the Italian Association of Credit Managers (ACMI) and the Italian Association of Administration and Finance Managers (ANDAF), with the specific aim of joining competences when this can add value to our offers to the member base.

Last Updated ( Friday, 28 August 2009 )

 

< Prev		Next >