AFP Conversations Podcast

Alison Levine, the Tuesday Keynote at AFP 2024, knows what it’s like to survive (and thrive) in the world’s toughest environments. She served as team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition, scaled the "Seven Summits," and skied to the North and South Poles. In her New York Times bestseller, On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Everest and Other Extreme Environments, Levine asserts that the principles that apply to the world of extreme adventure also apply to demanding business environments. A former adjunct professor at West Point, Levine understands what it takes to lead teams through challenging situations.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Alison discusses how leadership principles that apply in extreme adventure sports also apply in today’s extreme business environments and gives listeners a sneak peek of what treasury and finance professionals can expect during her keynote in Nashville.;

Learn more about AFP 2024.

Malcolm Gladwell, the Sunday Keynote at AFP 2024, is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, has been named one of the 100 most influential people by TIME magazine and one of the Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers. Gladwell has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996 and has won a national magazine award and been honored by the Ameri­can Psychological Society and the American Sociological Society. He is also the host of the Revisionist History podcast, where he re-examines overlooked or misunderstood aspects of past events.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Malcolm discusses his new book, "Revenge of the Tipping Point" and what finance professionals can expect during his keynote at AFP 2024. 

Learn more about AFP 2024.

AFP 2024 is headed to Nashville this October 20-23. To give us a preview of the city, we invited Heather Middleton, Chief Marketing Officer for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp., onto the AFP Conversations podcast.

During the podcast, Heather shared what makes Nashville such a popular destination, her must-visit spots within the city, and where to get the best Nashville eats.

Learn more about AFP 2024.

Adam Kruis, Senior Vice President, Manager, Working Capital Consulting, at U.S. Bank, and Anu Somani, Head of Global Payables and Embedded Payments, at U.S. Bank, discuss why real-time payments are becoming important, common use cases for real-time payments, and how to stay current on developments in the real-time payments space. This episode is sponsored by U.S. Bank.

Erica Orange, speaker for the AFP 2023 MindShift Keynote, sponsored by Capital One, is the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of The Future Hunters, one of the world’s leading futurist consulting firms. She analyzes emerging sociocultural, technological, economic, geopolitical and environmental trends and identifies the strategic implications (the “So what?”) of those trends for several of the most influential Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and public sector clients.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Erica explains what a futurist is and how she became one, shares her perspective on what the future holds, and gives advice to help organizations future-proof.

Fotini Iconomopoulos, the speaker for the AFP 2023 Monday Executive Institute Keynote, sponsored by PNC, is an expert communicator with a passion for helping organizations and individuals get what they want. For over a decade, she has been helping Fortune 500 clients and their teams achieve their business goals, increase profitability, and create a competitive advantage. She is also the author of the best-selling book Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Fotini shares what to do — and not do — when negotiating and how people with a risk minimization and certainty mindset need to adapt to succeed in negotiations.

Olivia Fox Cabane, the speaker for the AFP 2023 Tuesday Executive Institute Keynote, sponsored by PNC, is an expert in charisma and leadership. In addition to co-founding KindEarth.Tech, Olivia Fox Cabane has taught at Harvard, Yale, MIT and the United Nations and has spoken to countless leaders in Fortune 500 companies. Her best-selling books, The Charisma Myth and The Net and the Butterfly, have been translated into 32 languages.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Olivia talks about what led her to study charisma and leadership, what it means to be charismatic and the biggest inhibitor to charisma.

AFP 2023 Tuesday Keynote speaker Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who helps business leaders, policymakers and the general public make sense of the world around them. He is president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, Ian talks about geopolitical trends to watch for and how treasury and finance professionals should account for geopolitical risks in their work.

Drager is a leading manufacturer for medical and safety technology products, employing more than 15,000 people worldwide. The company generates revenues of around 2.8 billion Euros, 55% of it in foreign currencies. Drager's portfolio of foreign currencies requires reliable data processing in a highly automated, cost-effective and flexible manner. Until the end of 2019, FX exposures were computed in a highly manual and time-consuming, spreadsheet-based process.

To improve data availability and reliability, Drager automated data processing and the calculation of exposures. Additionally, Drager automated the exposure planning process and created a cost-efficient hedging portfolio. The project was so successful that Drager is one of the finalists for the AFP 2020 Pinnacle Award. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Frank Freitag, Controller of FX Risk Management for Drager, discusses his company's groundbreaking solution. 

This year the treasury and finance community gets to select the winner of the Pinnacle Awards, sponsored by MUFG. Our three finalists will be voted on and one Grand Prize Winner will be selected. That Grand Prize Winner will be announced during the AFP 2020 Virtual Experience.

To learn more about our other finalists and to vote for the Pinnacle Awards Grand Prize Winner, visit www.afp2020.org/pinnacle.