Like much of the financial services industry, the corporate treasury function was comfortingly dull – until it stopped working. When the crisis hit just over five years ago, freezing bank and market liquidity, access to funding for many companies stopped being a certainty and every penny started to count. Treasurers, tasked with raising and managing funds, took centre stage.

Felix Orsini, co-head of corporate debt capital markets at Societe Generale, said treasurers have moved from the engine room to the bridge. He said: "Before the crisis, chief financial officers and chief executive officers were focused on M&A, market share and profitability.