GEN Y LIKES THE SPEED AND CONVENIENCE OF MOBILE COMMUNICATION,
BUT SECURITY-CONSCIOUS SENIOR MANAGERS AREN’T CONVINCED YET.
Plugged-In Treasury
Our goal is to be able
to do our jobs from
anywhere, anytime, so
we can react quickly to
an urgent situation.
—DIEBOLD’S BISHOP
THE TEx TING, TWEETING, social networking members of Gen Y are starting to
invade corporate treasuries, bringing along their passion for mobile communication.
How well they work with their Gen x managers and baby boomer top executives
depends on how well they all use mutual understanding to bridge the generation and
communication technology gaps. The gap may not be huge. Gen Yers—those born in
the ’80s and ’90s—are a Facebook/Twitter generation with dexterous thumbs. Gen-
efficiencies. Graying treasurers
may or may not be on Face-
book, but they are old hands
with laptops and BlackBerries.
erational differences on using
mobile technology do create
some tension in treasuries, says
Phil Capodice, a consultant with
Treasury Strategies in Chicago.
However, senior managers have
been pressured for years to use
the latest technology to gain
“Although I was interested
in the finance arena, I didn’t
really have a firm career plan
initially,” Bishop notes. At the
time, ABN Amro ran GTB for
Diebold, but the company want-
ed to bring it back in house.
“Steve offered me a position
based in Switzerland to help set
up and run GTB’s daily opera-
tions,” Bishop says. “Opportuni-
ties like that don’t come around
every day, so I jumped at the
chance.”
“Mobile technology spans the
generations,” Capodice says.
“There’s still a gap, but it has
been closing for several years.”
Intergenerational treasury
is working well at Diebold, a
provider of banking and secu-
rity systems in Canton, Ohio.
Simon Bishop signed up for a
three-month stint with $3 billion
Diebold at age 22. He had just
graduated from the Leeds University Business School in England with a B.A. in economics.
Working in Diebold’s shared
service center in Leeds, Bishop
became involved in a European
banking interface project led
by assistant treasurer Steve
Still the youngest person on
the treasury team, Bishop re-
ports no problems with a
generation gap. He does note
that the recent addition of
Microsoft Communicator has
been picked up more quickly
by younger people than senior
management.
Wolgamott. Now, at 28, Bishop
is Diebold’s treasury manager
for Europe, the Middle East and
“It works like a real-time
chat mechanism,” he explains.
“What you send pops up in-
stantly on the recipient’s desk-
top or laptop, and they can
reply quickly.”
Africa, and runs the company’s
in-house bank, GTB.
One reason popular devices
like Androids and iPads are not
common treasury tools is that
corporate mobile banking is still
largely unavailable, Capodice
treasuryandrisk.com
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