When Damian Glendinning joined Chinese computer manufacturerLenovo in 2005, he faced an unusual challenge. Lenovo was in theprocess of acquiring IBM's PC division, a business three times itssize. At the time Lenovo had no operations outside of China, whileIBM's PC division had no treasury of its own. Glendinning wasappointed treasurer and vice president and given the task ofsetting up a treasury and cash management operation covering 66countries. And he had less than five months to get the new treasuryup and running.

“This was with no staff, no systems and no functioning bankrelationships outside of China,” Glendinning says. “While this wasan enormous challenge, it was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunityto design a treasury from a completely clean sheet of paper. Ifyou're in a large corporation, your existing operations tend to bea constraining factor—it's very unusual not to have that.”

Prior to joining Lenovo, Glendinning had spent 21 years workingfor IBM, where he served seven years as treasurer of theAsia-Pacific region in Singapore and two years as director ofglobal treasury operations in New York.