From managing trade finance and bank guarantee processes to supporting working capital solutions and internal funding across Ørsted’s renewable energy projects, Vanessa Komorowski works across the group’s wider treasury operations. She speaks to GTR about moving from banking into corporate treasury, the renewables value chain and where trade finance goes next.
GTR: Tell us about your job at Ørsted.
Komorowski: I’m an associate lead funding specialist in treasury at Ørsted. We’re a relatively small, centralised treasury team overseeing operations across the group, including internal and external funding, working capital and trade finance. We also manage an in-house bank, raising external financing from financial institutions and redistributing those funds to projects across the group. I joined three years ago.
Working capital is very much a support tool for our projects, particularly given that we operate in a capital-intensive industry. We look for ad hoc solutions for some of our largest suppliers, including optimising payment terms, alongside the supply chain finance programme that our team manages.
On trade finance, we also have a centralised structure. If one of our subsidiaries or entities needs a letter of credit or guarantee, they come to us. We own the bank lines and relationships and oversee that process end to end.
GTR: What does a typical day look like?
Komorowski: It varies a lot. On any given day, I might be supporting our business development, bids or M&A teams with assumptions around future funding costs, working with projects or subsidiaries on bank guarantees or letters of credit, or discussing working capital solutions with procurement and our banking partners.
Because I work a lot with supply chain finance, I also work closely with procurement and with the banks providing our supply chain finance platform. Externally, most of my interaction is with financial institutions, whether around future funding, refinancing, supply chain finance, trade finance or our bank lines generally.
GTR: You started your career in banking. What prompted the move into corporate treasury?
Komorowski: At Nordea, I started in the working capital advisory team, analysing customer financials to identify opportunities for receivables finance and supply chain finance. We would also analyse suppliers and look at payment terms and potential liquidity improvements.
I later moved into a relationship manager role within trade finance bank management, covering specific markets. That gave me a different perspective: I went from working with corporate customers to working with banks and understanding the collaboration between financial institutions that enables these transactions.
Eventually, I wanted to broaden my experience across finance and corporate finance. The opportunity to join a treasury team appealed to me because of the wider scope.
On the corporate side, you focus on one industry, but you can go much deeper into its whole value chain – understanding the different layers of procurement and suppliers. You can also follow processes over the longer term and see how they develop end to end.
GTR: What originally attracted you to working capital and trade finance?
Komorowski: It was maybe a lucky shot! When I came out of university, I wasn’t entirely aware of what trade finance and working capital solutions were.
My previous experience had mainly been in data intelligence, and I was interested in data analysis and financial data analysis. That was probably the initial link to working capital.
During my interview at Nordea, the hiring manager asked me whether I preferred modelling data in Excel in a corner or talking to clients. I think that was the first time I really thought about it, and I realised: actually, maybe I also like talking!
I moved into the advisory and relationship side and really enjoyed it.
GTR: What do you enjoy most about working in trade finance?
Komorowski: I really like that it’s very relationship driven. That’s something I’ve brought with me to the corporate side. Treasury can sometimes be quite siloed, but if, for example, you want a successful supply chain finance programme, you need to talk to procurement – and they need to talk to sales. It creates collaboration.
The networking aspect of trade finance really helps when you’re trying to work across functions.
I really value industry events like GTR’s and the opportunity to speak with peers. Maintaining good relationships with financial institutions is also important because you want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone when you need to.
GTR: What excites you about the future of trade finance?
Komorowski: Digital improvements, for sure. It has been discussed for years, but I think we’re getting there. Perhaps we’ll see new blockchain solutions emerge – it has been tried before, but maybe it’s time for new solutions.
Working capital is evolving too. We have the traditional products such as supply chain finance and receivables finance, but inventory finance is becoming more relevant, alongside other payables solutions beyond plain vanilla supply chain finance. Seeing how all of that develops will be really interesting.
