Fireside chat on balance sheet manage­ment with Jacques Piasko

We had the priv­ilege of hosting Jacques Piasko, the former Global Head of Treas­ury of Julius Bär, for an insight­ful guest talk on the topic of Balance Sheet Manage­ment. During the informal session, Jacques shared key prin­ciples under­ly­ing the func­tion­ing of banks and offered invalu­able insights from his exper­i­ence as a trader. He explained how owning a posi­tion fosters sharper decision-making, partic­u­larly in his former role as a Treas­urer, where decisions span multiple dimen­sions such as liquid­ity, asset-liab­il­ity manage­ment, capital manage­ment and others.

A part of the discus­sion focused on the rela­tion­ship between risk and perform­ance in banking. Jacques high­lighted how banks often struggle with P&L volat­il­ity, as periods of strong perform­ance in favor­able cycles are frequently followed by more chal­len­ging times. This cyclical nature of P&L under­scores the import­ance of looking through busi­ness cycles when making manage­ment decisions. The ability to main­tain a long-term view while address­ing short-term pres­sures is vital for sustained success.

It was a thought-provok­ing and highly enga­ging talk, and we hope to continue with these informal discus­sions also in the future.