Articles
January 14, 2026
Why Treasury Should Expect and Embrace Change, Not Just React to It
Moody’s treasurer Deepali Chawla shares how AI, adaptability and a global mindset drive transformation.
Early in her career, Deepali Chawla found herself navigating both a new country and a different job in corporate finance. The experience shaped her approach to change: stay agile, stay curious and stay prepared to pivot. It’s a mindset she’s carried into senior roles across companies and continents, and one she brings today as chief treasury officer at Moody’s Corp.
- On the latest episode of NeuGroup’s Strategic Finance Lab podcast, available now on Apple and Spotify, Ms. Chawla explains how the adaptability she honed early in her career shapes her leadership—which helped power Moody’s award-winning AI transformation in treasury forecasting.
- “I think the two things which have got me here were my agility and the quick adaptability approach and mindset,” she says. “That shift, in terms of going with the flow, I think will still take me where I want to go in the future.”
Deepali Chawla, Chief Treasury Officer, Moody’s Corp.
Embracing change with AI. Ms. Chawla tells NeuGroup’s Justin Jones about helping to overhaul Moody’s cash forecasting process by layering generative AI on top of structured historical data—a shift that reduced manual work and freed the team to focus on higher-value work.
- “The teams are now spending more time understanding the variances, understanding why we are deviating from the forecast or where we can fix the processes down the chain—as opposed to just trying to find the numbers to put in the models,” Ms. Chawla says.
Staying ahead of volatility. Treasury’s evolution from a back-office function to a frontline partner, Ms. Chawla says, requires speed and confidence—especially in an era of constant disruption. “You cannot say, ‘Let me get back to you in two weeks,’” she says. “You need to have the systems, the tools and the people ready to answer today’s questions in near-real time.”
- That mindset is why she’s focused on building scalable systems, sharing data-driven debt market updates and pushing for treasury to take a seat at the strategy table. “The ability to simulate and plan for uncertainty or crisis, I think that is where treasury has a very important role to play,” she says.
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