Building a Global Network: The Key to Treasury Success with Can Balcioglu

Foreign.

To this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. And a special thanks to flywire, our fantastic sponsors. If you've ever wondered whether there was a way to ease your international transaction hassles, they're the guys to talk to. If you follow the link in our show notes, you can see me talking to my mate Greg Levin, their Senior VP of Sales. I get to ask Greg about who are Flywire and how they can help you and your treasury team with your cross border payment headaches. Just follow the link to the interview in today's show Notes. And now let's get on with the show. This week's show I'm joined by Chan Balchi Olu, the Vice president treasurer at PayPal. PayPal have been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. You all know them. They empower consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy, creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling and shopping simple, personalized and secure. PayPal, we all know them, everything for 25 years. Plus I want to get more into Jan's experience and career to date. One of the things we are going to do in today's episode I actually saw an article that you'd published in LinkedIn a while ago that you made a transition. We'll talk about it later on in the show but how you'd embrace this international experience with PayPal and I think that's a key thing we're going to say to our listeners. So if you're listening today, do you have to move internationally to be successful in Treasury? Not going to answer it now, going to answer a bit later in the show. So that's going to be the payoff for anyone listening today. But Jan, if you would take us back to the beginning of you and how you first were we qualified and then back to the beginning. Over to you sir.

Okay, thank you Mike for that introduction. So going all the way back, I'm an industrial engineer by training and I'm originally Turkish. And after my education and a little bit of work experience in Istanbul, Turkey, I came to the US for my MBA degree and after my MBA degree I wanted to get into finance and I took a role in the banking industry, specifically consumer finance credit in an FPA function, then moved into a business finance function. The beginning of my career was not at Treasury. I actually started at PayPal. It was after the financial crisis of 2008, 2009. In 2010, I started at PayPal in an FP and a role that was focusing on the balance sheet related to a credit business, a lending business that we've acquired. My understanding of the balance sheet and expertise in consumer credit helped me get to PayPal and the same helped me actually get to Treasury. I had a chance to work closely with the treasury at the time on a specific project that required a lot of balance sheet work. And the treasurer was new at the time and he asked me to come join treasury to set up the corporate finance function. And I thought, hey, that's a great opportunity. As most finance folks at that stage in their career, I was thinking one day I want to be cfo, number of things, and I can try treasury for a year or two and move on to the next thing. And here we are, I think 14 years later, I'm talking to you as the treasurer of PayPal, which kind of suggests to you that I really liked Treasury. I would say a lot of the skills, skills that I built at FPA and business finance came in really handy in treasury, especially with corporate finance as an entry point. But then I had to build a lot of expertise during my time at treasury on the operational and risk management side of the house over time. But again, I guess all that to say I haven't been a lifelong treasury career specialist. I came to treasury from another part of finance. But again, I always think that kind of helped me over my career.

Yeah, you say you haven't been a career, but you've been there been 13 years within corporate finance and treasury. So you know, you've done your time to be to do this sort of thing. But if we do take just going back to that move when you were in FP and a and then you said corporate finance and treasury, what did it look like then? And I know that you and I had this in our pre call as well. You were doing. You'd had and again you skipped past it. You had 10 years in banking, so you really understood balance sheet. You really understood that. So you had that in your back pocket. You then gone into fpa. You really understood that. And I think that's key. You and I talked before the show about if someone is listening today and they're in the early stages of their career and they go, oh, I could just go there, I can move on. Why was that so powerful for you at that time? Why did that give you a confidence.

If you like so Just to clarify the question, I think you're asking, coming from P and A and business finance, how that helped me in breaking through to the Treasury. Correct? Yes. So again, I think corporate finance was a very natural entry point. Corporate finance enabled me to use a lot of these skills around modeling, putting structures together, really enabling me to contribute with more of an FPA mindset. Right. But it also enabled me to run transactions in terms of capital allocation, so share repurchases, issuing debt. Really looking at how we allocate capital to credit, all that required a lot of analytics and modeling, again, which are skills that you build in the other parts of finance, specifically for FP and A. It's a critical success factor, I would say. So those really helped me. I think those skills really helped me build the corporate finance, build short and long term plans, bringing an analytical approach to our capital allocation, to our rating agency management and everything that's in the purview of the corporate finance. So I think those are some of the factors that enabled me to do that job effectively and that to my. What I would hopefully consider as my success at that position.

And at that stage, you were in California and then with the next role, when you did the sort of separation of eBay and PayPal and things, that was still California because we'll come on to the international aspect in a moment because that was a key thing you and I talked about. But you stepped up then, roles wise. What was that like? Because a lot of people have said to me, if you're in a large mega corporate, you are, how do you make a difference? What's it been like for you? You've spent many years there, 13 years or what? What was it like at that stage as you, here you go, you're a key part of the team sort of thing. What's that been like for yourself?

Yeah. During my time there, I started with PayPal, which was a part of ebay, and then I switched over to the Group, which was again ebay. We were seeing the whole group, but it was mostly PayPal, which required a lot of treasury interaction. Just being in the payments business, in addition to overseeing the group's balance sheet over time, the separation was a big event that kept me busy, at least for more than a year. But after that I had a really good understanding of managing the balance sheet at the group level. And the natural progression from there was really getting more into managing the subsidiary level balance sheets. And I think this, your audience may find this interesting, but there are specific challenges with managing the entity level balance sheets. Which are distinctly different than looking at the group level balance sheet, the entity level balance sheet management, the subsidiary level balance sheet management almost becomes an optimization problem where you have to really think through what is the sufficient amount of capital and liquidity are needed at the entities to one, ensure regulatory compliance at all times. As PayPal, you're in a heavily regulated business and secondly, making sure that we have enough liquidity for customers to, to satisfy customer needs at all times as well. Switching over to the international treasury enabled me to really get more deeply into that broader optimization problem, which really enhanced my understanding of the broader Treasury. And it also was a natural segue to get a lot more involved in the operational aspects of treasury, which in corporate finance it is easy to be a little removed from the operational aspect of Treasury. But as any treasurer, a Treasury professional would know, the operations is hugely critical and understanding a solid understanding of operations and efficient management of operations is hugely critical for any Treasury. So that was a great segue for me to move over to that side of the house and get, and start building expertise on, on that aspect as well.

And as you built that, and as you say, you went to the sort of entity level, you were focusing much more on the regional businesses, if you like, the international businesses that then led to you making the move, didn't it, to Asia and things. Can you talk us through that? Because why was that so important to maybe you. Because then you were moving your family life and everything else again, you wrote about that in an article which I found really fascinating. So I thought actually we'll put the link to that as well. Talk us through that. Yeah.

After I got the Head of International treasury title, I actually continued on for a year. I think it was maybe probably a year and a half in managing that from the U.S. and just for context, we have two, we had two main international hubs at the time and we still do, but it's really Luxembourg and Singapore. So our international headquarters is in Singapore and we have large office in Luxembourg where we mostly run the European activities from. So I had very frequent connections with the team that I was managing there and I traveled quite frequently. And then an opportunity presented itself to, to move to Singapore again to our international headquarters. And I thought, I really took my time to think through it, both professionally and personally, and decided that this is really something I want to do. I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore often before I made that move. So I think that was critical in terms of helping with that decision. There were a number of factors that maybe you're going to ask about this we can get into. But in terms of the specific things that I thought about, again, both professionally and personally, but again, when the opportunity presented itself, I really thought through it and I, I thought, hey, not everybody gets this chance. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. I feel like this is the right thing for me and my family to do at this time. So I, I took it.

Yeah. And I know that you. And I was looking back at my notes there as you used you and you put it before the show that it was a sort of joint family decision. It wasn't just you doing, oh, come on guys, we're going. You. Yeah. It was very much more collaborative than that. Can you talk us through that again? If the. This is again an advice show. If you like, someone is listening today, they might be thinking, I've been offered this. Maybe they're in the uk they may be the US or US across to Europe or something like that. What were the factors for you personally, professionally? Which. Whichever order you want to do them, you know, how did you work it out, if you like?

Yeah. I think there are a couple of keys to success for an international assignment. And to your point, those factors are both personal and professional. I think the personal component needs to be there for all the benefits that intend from this assignment professionally. If an opportunity comes to a treasury professional's way in terms of an international assignment, I think the first thing to really think about is once somebody takes that assignment, how do you ensure that the family is going to be comfortable? There are a couple of key things with regards to the kids schooling situation. If anybody has kids, if somebody has a spouse, what does that mean for their career? Do they have to make a sacrifice to leave their career and support this, to support this assignment? Once you get to the location, what are the opportunities to make social connections? What are, what potential affiliations can the spouse build there? So again, the family having a stable family life in the new location is key to the professional success as well. Yeah, if there is a comfort, a certain level of comfort there, then professionally I think there's a ton of benefits. Granted that this, the position itself is an important position, obviously in terms of being able to get visibility into the international operations. In my case, again, I was at the international headquarters. That was a great opportunity. But really in being able to build a global network, being able to build your professional knowledge by developing expertise in some of the key markets that, that the company is operating in, being able to work with a global audience, global colleagues, understanding the cultural nuances and really Being closer to the regions and really understanding the operational aspect of subsidiary management and especially the risk management. Right. Because a lot of the risk resides in the regions for a multinational company. So I think it's just the being able to get that visibility, close hand visibility into the regions makes one a better risk manager as well. There's a ton of professional benefits, I think, but again, all the pieces need to be there for an international assignment to be a success.

And when you're getting to know those regional centers, you're going out to meet each of those entities and things like that without again, I don't want to go into confidential information, that's not what we're seeking and things like that. Are there any keys to success? I know that I was just looking at the details actually we had previously on the show Predicto Bagchi treasurer, Zimmer Biomet and one of the things that he said, and I remember him saying there was nothing better than having a curry with the team. And I said, all right. He said, whether that's in New York, whether that's in India, whether that's wherever it might be, that was one of the key things that he'd found is that I was just looking at this, that he looking back at some of my notes from that show, he actually said, look, once you get to know that person then you can just call them the future because you know them. He's not saying you have to be best friends and all the time that wasn't his dad. But what he's saying is if I need to phone whoever it might be, Brian, Bob, whatever it might be, or whoever it might be locally, regionally, I know them and then they know me as well. And it was the more the two way thing. Is that what you found?

Yeah, absolutely. As PayPal, 50% of our business is on the international side. So we have a huge international presence again, Singapore, Luxembourg and a number of other regions where we have people. I have teams there and there's a lot of colleagues that I work very closely with. So being able to spend time with that, with those peers and colleagues and the treasury team members face to face, building those connections is hugely important. I guess anybody who's thinking about an international assignment, the chances are that they're working in a multinational, large organization, potentially matrix organization, as PayPal is so really the way to get things done is to work with people and get things done through people and knowing people, building your global network to be able to solve problems and work effectively, it is hugely important. And I've definitely Benefited from that.

And you talked again, this is what on LinkedIn as well, about how supportive the group. But then you made the transition back to California. Because I also want to talk about the future of treasury as well. You and I talked about this before, but you then decided to make the move back. What's that been like? And because I know that there was a lot of working different hours and things like that. And then you transitioned back. How have you managed that?

Yeah. So I think this takes us to like. And you want. One thing I, I forgot to mention as the key success factors in terms of initiating an assignment is the company support. Right. In my case, I was very lucky that PayPal has a lot of experience in this area and it provided a significant amount of support both in, in moving me to Singapore, in helping me in Singapore, and also in terms of moving back. Now I will say there are certain challenges as well in a, with a, with an international assignment. In addition to being comfortable with uprooting in family and making a significant life change, there's the fact that you need time zone to be comfortable with time zone management and being out of sight, out of mind, making sure that you keep the connections with the group. But once the assignment is complete, one of the things that some people can struggle with is that what do you return to? Because it's the chances are that the job you left may not be there anymore. In my case, I was promoted to the treasury position. While I was there and overseeing global, overseeing the global activity, it made sense for me to go back to the US it really worked out for me. I gained the international exposure and experience that, that I was wishing for and then moved into. Moved back with a role which would naturally sit in the headquarters.

Yeah.

So that is something that people will need to think about. Right. You're taking a bit of a chance, obviously, when you take an international assignment and really it's hugely beneficial in certain aspects. But as most things in life and career, you're making a bit of a bet as well.

Yeah. The bet in the nicest way, the bet paid off because you then return back and you're based there in San Jose and the kids are settled and great back at school. PayPal continues to grow and develop and everything else. Where do you see as treasury is growing and developing and with again, what are you seeing for the future Treasury? Everyone's going on about AI and everyone, everyone's doing it. If I was to put up, oh, I'm doing an AI podcast. Oh my God. Everyone would like, look, they do it's. Yeah, let's get over it. It is there. It's going to be there with data science and everything else. But what are the. What are you seeing as the future of Treasury? What are you seeing coming down the line? Or what are the things that you're thinking about, people wise or what are the key things for you as a treasurer?

Yeah, yeah, I. Look, I always think it's the same but different. And what I mean by that is as treasurers, really the job description is not changing. You have to be managing the liquidity, counterparty market risks for the company. You have to run an effective organization with excellence in operations. You have to make sure that the company's cash is invested effectively so that those basic things, capital allocation, rating agency management, none of that is really changing. I think the environments we operate in is definitely changing over time. For example, we are in the payments business, the payments rails are constantly changing. The competition is never standing still. Regulation is getting more complicated, regulators are getting more sophisticated from a security perspective, fraudsters are getting more sophisticated. So it's really. There's AI as well, which may present new opportunities. So I think from a people, process and systems perspective, treasures. The key things for Treasure professionals and treasures to do is to really to stay on top of what's going on, ensure they're linked at the hip with the business, really understand the. Understand the regulatory backdrop and really have a good understanding of complicated and ever changing world that we operate in. Volatility in the markets is ever present. So again, I think that the job description of the treasury is not changing at all, but it's really what we need to keep up with. That's changing quite drastically and obviously with.

Yourself, you've gone out and met, got really to know the business under the hood and really understanding the business. You touched there about all the different challenges coming from all the different regions. Do you really now you're. That's coming to. That's coming to fruition if you like. You finding yourself that now makes your job as a treasurer easier for everyone?

Yeah, I would say so. I would definitely say so. Really understanding some of the more challenging geographies from a Treasury management perspective. India, China, building a better understanding of how things operate in those regions, better understanding of the regulatory frameworks. I feel that's helping me immensely as I think about the complicated problems we face on a daily, weekly basis in terms of optimizing our liquidity positions, making sure that we invest and protect our funds effectively. Yeah, yeah. I would say it's been hugely beneficial for me to build that expertise, in addition to what we just talked about, really being able to who to call and I pick up the phone or just get on teams rather than.

Yeah.

When I have a specific question about. About a problem that we have in any of our. In. In some of our regions. So yes, it's been. I think it's really been beneficial for me.

And then the other things that you think the treasurers should be thinking about as maybe leaders of their teams and that they should be. We've got a number of conferences coming up. We've got. I've got Ireland, I've got New York coming up and then we've got Euro Finance, afp. And are all these different sessions which are the ones that you're thinking? Everyone should definitely make a beeline for bar AI. Okay, everyone's going to be flooding that. What are the other things that you think that again, if you're talking to your team, you've got all the stuff about nt we've done this. We need to be keeping an eye on this guys. What are the other things, if anything, before we get move to towards the end of the show and things like that.

I'll tell you what's on top of mind for me. I think what they're trying to really solve for and focus on right now is what's the optimal system footprint for Treasury? For treasurers and treasury professionals, we are lucky today that we probably have a lot of options to choose from. There are different systems or tools that does things really. That does certain things really well. But how do you build a cohesive system strategy and system footprint that's simple enough, not too complicated, but achieves your objectives effectively? Whether that's in house banking, whether that is back to back trading and things of that nature, it's really keeping up to date with the systems and really thinking through what is the optimal system footprint. What's the optimal system strategy is something I'm looking at. The other things I'm looking at is on the operational side, how do we make sure that we manage our bank portals effectively? How do we reduce manual funds transfers and how do we reduce risk in our operations? There's a lot of discussion or even tools and processes related to those kind of operational optimization initiatives as well. The next time I go to one of these events, those are the things I'm thinking about focusing on and we're.

Getting towards the end. So we will put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can potentially connect to you if they're appropriate to have in the network. As I said earlier, you and I connected over the fact that you were relocating back from Singapore, back to the US and everything else. And rewarding, enjoyable. I was just looking at some of the bits here and to answer that question without overdoing it, do you think everyone should look to do it? I know that you and I spoke briefly before the show about it, but what are the. What's the advice if someone is being offered that today? What's. What should their answer be?

Yeah, like a lot of things in life, the answer is it depends. Right. First of all, the setting needs to be there. I think an international assignment is most relevant for people who are working at multinationals especially that opportunity would present itself. Secondly, not to be repetitive, but before taking on an assignment, you need to make sure that once you are there, you will have a stable home life, Right?

Yeah. Supportive environment.

And on that one, I think one needs to also consider that not all destinations are created equal. In my case, it was Singapore. It was a place that I traveled many times in the past, as I mentioned. So I was feeling quite confident that whether that's the schooling situation, whether that's being able to build a social network, build friendships, I felt really comfortable that in no language barriers, I felt really confident that was a location which would present the sort of the global experience, travel opportunities, a diverse environment for the kids to grow up in, and at the same time enabled me to thrive professionally as well. That may not be the case in every location. Having talked to a lot of expat friends, I know that there are certain locations that are more challenging than others. One really needs to think through, okay, is this the right location for me? Am I going to be happy here? And once that is in place, really, I think I would say go for it. If that is the case, if the professional opportunity is also there, if it's an opportunity to make a difference and really learn, I would definitely say go for it. Again, eyes wide open. It's a move that does not guarantee a return to a specific role, but it certainly opens up new opportunities, it opens up global opportunities, it builds new skills, new understandings. So over the long term, I think it's something that most people can benefit from. I definitely did in my case.

And as you said, you did your groundwork and in that way you de risk the move for you and your family. Really good way of doing it as well. Okay, so takeaways for today. We talked all the international stuff and anything else. If you're looking back across your career and we have the listeners right away from treasury analyst to manager global treasurers. Any parting pieces of advice that we've given quite a lot of advice over the past half hour anyway. But any other things that you think people should do when they're listening to us on their way to work on a Tuesday or when they're listening to this on the Friday having their coffee? Any tips from the VP Treasurer at PayPal?

Yeah, I think the treasury professionals, I, I go back to my career which we've covered in the beginning of this discussion. I, I found that some of the skills I've built in other areas of finance, that understanding really helped me in my treasury career. Somebody is in treasury, be open to other opportunities and I thought as I was coming into Treasury I was gonna do a rotation in treasury which turned out to be a much longer term career move. But if you're in treasury, just be open to looking at other areas of finance as well. And you can always come back to treasury look at international assignments in a similar basis. If you're in treasury, get international assignments. So just build different experiences. I think over the long term this is an often given advice but I really do believe the variety in the things that you do really build you over the longer term. Treasury is interesting, right? I sometimes somebody will just want to be an FX expert or in expert in investments and there's nothing wrong with that. That's a very valuable and specific career path as well. But for anybody who wants to be more of a gen, even those folks who just want to focus on a branch, I think there's always benefit in building more experiences being closer to the business. So I, I definitely do believe that. The other thing I would say is when I think about what I consider led to my career progression as Treasurers, I think as treasury professionals just building those link to the business, collaboration, getting work done with people and through people is hugely important. So just really build your network locally and globally. So that's really going to be a key to success, at least at PayPal it certainly was. And then the last thing I would say is just keep up just the intellect, intellectual curiosity. Treasury is an area not only true for treasury, but certainly the case continues. It requires continuous learning. The world is changing constantly. It goes back to something we've covered previously. Regulations not getting any easier. The systems are more and more options that you have to choose from that constantly need to learn, constantly need to build knowledge so that you can make the right decisions. Join treasury events, take advantage of treasury seminars Just keep up, keep listening to the podcast.

That's it.

Hugely important.

Amazing. Thank you very much. Great to catch up and yeah, just appreciate your time and some great advice from someone right at the top. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you and your audience.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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