Building a Rewarding Career Within One Company with Patrick McCartan

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week, I talk to them about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show.

In this week's show, delighted to be joined by Pat McCarten, the Vice President and corporate treasurer at Caterpillar Inc. Since 1925, Caterpillar has been helping customers build a better world, making sustainable progress possible, positive change on every continent. But if you don't know, as if you wouldn't. Caterpillar Inc. Is the world's leading manufacturer of construction mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel electric locomotives. And you see them everywhere. They do business on every continent in construction, resourcing, energy, transportation. But again, that's enough about them. The key thing I want to do is get into Pat's career because it's an amazing career journey with Caterpillar all the way through, which I think is fascinating dimension to this episode. A lot of the time I talk through people, their moves and how they jump between different jobs. Pat's done that, but stayed with Caterpillar, so worked his way through the company. Pat, if you would take me back to the beginning of your career. How did you first get involved in finance? Treasury, post, you know, degree and everything else. So take us back to those dim, distant days and we'll walk through your career as it were. Over to you, sir.

Yeah, sounds good. Well, thanks, Mike. It's a pleasure to be with you today. And it's kind of a unique story how I landed a Caterpillar, but I was studying finance, Iowa State University, at a relatively small university in the middle of Iowa. Middle of central Iowa. I grew up in a small town in northwest Iowa in an AG community. And my dad was a banker, so I was studying finance. I kind of always thought that I would get into banking. I had had a couple internships at banks while I was in school. And one night as I was leaving the placement building where you do most of your interviews when you're graduating from college, one of my professors called me back and said, hey, Pat, can. Can you stick around? There's a company here that brought their treasury team with them, but we didn't know that they were bringing the treasury team. And so we didn't have anybody that studying finance lined up for these interviews. And I had planned that evening, and I said, yeah, I really have to go. And in the end, he convinced me to stay. And when I went into the room, the. The company that was presenting that evening was actually Caterpillar. So their accounting team, representing their recruiter from the finance and treasury team was with. Was presenting. And he had a really interesting background. He talked about how he had lived in Peoria for many, many years. Caterpillar at the time was headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. But he talked about how he had lived in Peoria, he had lived in Singapore, he had lived in Geneva, he had traveled all around the world and he had been with the company for 40 years. At the time, I was sticking to the couple internships that I had had and the career conversation that I had had with both of those banks. This actually could be really interesting. So I talked to the recruiter afterwards and since he was a late addition to the team that was on campus, he had bots that were open the next day. You know, the long and short of it is I went to the library that night. I studied about Caterpillar, got up to speed, wanted to know more about the company, prepared for my interview, got some questions ready, interviewed the next day, or then got invited to campus. You know, that was in March of 1996. And I started with the company in June of 1996.

What did they promise you then was the sell from them? As you said, you had these other internships lined up. But it was like, did you think, oh yeah, I'll be there for 40 years like that guy or what? What was the sort of ethos? Did you think, well, give it a go or when you walked in that door, what was your expectation?

So I'm not going to lie. A big part of it was, you know, I was graduating college and I was with thinking a little bit about how much money am I going to be able to make? And when I was going through the interview process, there was no conversation whatsoever about compensation and benefits. I did have offers from two bank at the time and both of those offers were for interesting positions and they were talking about career paths. So they were officer trainee positions and. But the starting salary was pretty low in terms of what my expectations were. And also comparing across other people that were graduating at the time and what I remember the Caterpillar team saying when we were kind of going through the process is they targeted a comp and bend package that was in the top quartile for the regions where they were hiring talent. And I thought, okay, well that if they want to be in the top quartile, that's probably going to be better than these initial Offers that I have. The other thing that was super attractive was the fact that it was a foundational program. So they talked about you're being hired into a finance program where you're going to have opportunities to work on the dealer finance side of the business. And we can talk more about that if that's not clear. But you know, Caterpillar has roughly 170 dealers around the world, all independent. And we have team of finance professionals, we call it Dealer Finance, that works with those dealers to make sure that they have everything that they need from a financial strength perspective. And then there's also some responsibility for measuring that financial strength on an ongoing basis and supporting them as well as customers. So there's the dealer finance side, but then on the, the other part of the foundational program with more on the treasury side and that could have been positions in corporate treasury and, or on the treasury team with our captive finance company, that's Cap Financial Services Corporation.

When you went in, they said Treasuries like this. You know, were, were you then on a training program to understand about treasury or was it actually you're just going to do lots of different finance areas and, and treasury happened to be one of that because I know we'll get later on into this because you've made this incredible career all the way through which I think some people will go, oh wow, you can just do that one company. But was it that you would just rotate around the company and then you happen to end up in treasury again for the audience, I think they will want to understand how this happened or was it more deliberate than that with you?

No. So definitely it was part of the general foundational program. What we had at the time, and it's still pretty similar today, we had multiple positions that were identified as part of that foundational program and they could be in corporate funding, whether that be external funding or internal funding. And for Caterpillar, the external funding you're more focused on kind of the traditional corporate finance activities. So you'd be supporting the bank lending, you'd be supporting renewal of our corporate revolver committed credit facility, you'd be supporting. When I'd say corporate finance, it'd be supporting all the decisions around the dividend. We look at what our strategy is for the dividend on an annual basis and, or stock or purchase and then, and it's supporting anything else. That's just kind of core strategy around that corporate finance area. The internal funding, more of our intercompany bank and we had rotational programs that were part of internal Funding There were rotational programs that were part of risk management and that could have been anything in the management of our FX exposures, commodity exposures, corporate insurance and or supplier finance. And then we also had foundational programs that were part of our employee benefit fund scheme. And they're primarily managing. At the time it was mostly the defined benefit program. But today that team manages defined benefit as well as defined contribution programs. What I didn't touch on is you could rotate through all of those corporate treasury positions or you could start on the dealer finance side. That's actually what I did. So, you know, when you and I were talking early on and getting prepared for this call, I mentioned to you that, that I speak Spanish and I took a lot of Spanish in high school. I took some upper level Spanish then in college. So my first assignment when I started at Caterpillar was actually in our Latin America division as a finance analyst. So that was also part of the program. So I was able to work on that dealer finance side that I touched on just a minute ago. You know, working with the dealers, making sure that they're maintaining their financial strength, but also then making sure that they had what they needed to sell Caterpillar prime products, machines and or engines or parts to their customers.

And so talk us through from there and how you then started that was the foundation if you like, and you started to move around and things like that. But how you then went into foreign exchange and then how you then moved through the role sort of thing.

So I started supporting the finance team that was actually in the field. So I started in Peoria as a finance analyst. My next job then was a finance rep living in Mexico City, supporting all of the dealers around Mexico. Yeah, that was a fascinating time. It was different probably than what I expected coming out of school because I still hadn't really touched any of the corporate treasury key functions. So I was primarily working with the dealers on their financial strength, making sure that they had the relationships that were needed with bank to sell equipment and as I touched on earlier to the customers. But I always knew when I was in that role. So I did those dealer finance roles for the first five years that I was with the company. But I always knew in that based on when I was hired that my next job was going to be back in corporate treasury. So the first job I had in corporate treasury was in risk management. It was focused in on managing fx. So for about the first my family and I moved back to Peoria and about the first 12 months that I was back in Peoria I was responsible for managing our European currencies, so we were looking at enterprise net exposures. I was responsible for managing every currency that we had identified across Europe where we had an exposure. So I was putting together the recommendation on what our strategy for should be for managing that exposure for the next business plan here. So the horizon is constantly about 15 months. Probably getting into a little too much detail here. But it was a pretty fascinating time because that was where I was able to learn about a bunch of different derivatives that you can use to mitigate those exposures. So we were doing a lot of trading and straight spot transactions, a lot of forwards and then some options as well to manage those exposures. I did that. So about a year before I picked up commodities as well. And so I was managing at the time it was mostly base metal, so aluminum, copper and nickel. But I had an opportunity. Gas prices shot up in my second year in the job and as a company. So wait a second, that's a pretty liquid derivative. So we looked at the derivative that was available at the marketplace. We worked with our process partners around the company and we were able to recommend adding that as a, as a commodity to be managed, to be actively managed. We started putting on a risk management program for NAT Gas right before I moved into my next role, which was actually a thick Sigma black belt for corporate treasury, which was also pretty exciting because one of the first projects that I got was to work with all of the managers across the Global treasury team, which was all of the industrial side, which we call me, and T Machinery, Energy and Transportation as well as CAF Financial. So all of the treasury managers were the team members on the team that I ran to look at the potential benefits of moving from a very fragmented system environment to a Treasury management system. And at the time we actually, that team that I was leading the team recommended that we go with Sungard. So the very first product that we deployed back in, I think it was around 2005, we selected SunGuard and we deployed Global Treasury Management or GTM at that time. And we still use the Sunguard product today that offered to us through fis.

And just as you were going through there, I just wanted to dive in a little bit to explain to the audience. They won't necessarily understand. Well, they'll understand foreign exchange, hopefully if they're decent in Treasury. What was it like for you back in 2000, foreign exchange versus now? You've got things like FX, all you've got various trading systems, things like that. Was it very much more sort of, you Know, dealing and really on the edge of things or how did it, your role evolve technology wise or just because, as you said, you touched on the fact you started to use treasury systems things. What was that like?

That's a great question. So when I started trading, we were doing everything over the phone. 100% of the trades, whether it was bot transactions, forwards and or option, everything was done on the phone. So to get the competitive bid, a lot of times if we were doing a sizable transaction, somebody on the team could be my boss or myself calling two different banks simultaneously and looking at each other while we're sitting in our desk making sure that we were getting competitive bids. We didn't always trade only with one bank. You know, it could be that if the rates were pretty similar, we'd do the trade with both banks, but if one bank was significantly better than the other, then we would trade with that bank. But today that is a lot easier with products like FX, all360t, et cetera. So that has changed dramatically. What is interesting, talking to the team, we still do some trading over the phone. We're still still doing a lot of our commodity trading over the phone. We still do make sure that the team knows how to trade over the phone because you never really know what's going to happen from a market perspective. And if systems go down, there can be a lot of volatility in markets and you never want to be locked out. So we still talk about having those phone numbers and knowing who to call and knowing if the markets are closed in the us, that our bank, our global bank group is fantastic. And we can call teams in London or we can call teams in Australia and making sure that we have those contacts, that if systems are down, you still have the ability to get those trades done. But it's a very good point because today with the power of technology, you know that you are seeing competitive bids for multiple banks all at the same time.

And one of the reasons behind that, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to ask technical understanding of things like those foreign currencies, how they move and everything else. Now, obviously a lot of that's been taken over by technology. Great. You know, so it's more responsible, resilient and everything else. But actually that fundamental understanding, you've got all these qualifications like CTP and ACT qualifications over in the UK and Europe and various other ones across Europe, but they try and measure some of that. I was talking to someone the other day and they said, well, fundamentally you sometimes have to ask these guys, do you understand what that is and dig into what is a spot forward option and everything else. And they're like, sometimes they're like, yeah, I think I do. And you could just see that sort of slight worriedness in their eyes, as he's put it, you know, and we both put it behind their eyes. So they go, oh, right, how do I go from here? Now you're obviously learning that, which obviously gave you that confidence, if you like, because then you carried on, see leads us onto you then were in the Americas and then you made an international move. Obviously you had that in your back pocket. How important would you say that is to say the listeners today sort of thing to have that technical understanding?

It was critically important. So I think you're talking after those jobs. One of my next jobs was the international funding manager in Luxembourg. And that was a interesting time in my career and it was also an interesting time for the company because when we opened up our office in Luxembourg, it was a brand new office. The purpose of the ment, the Machinery, Energy and Transportation Entity, was to diversify our holding and our funding.

And you were, you made that move, started those international moves. You'd gone from the US and, and you'd done time in Mexico as well and everything across, but then you made the move to Luxembourg. And I think this is one of the key things that you can move with a group such as Caterpillar, that it can take you around the world. What was that like for you, maybe personally, but also treasury wise, that you were going from the US and you suddenly had this, wow, this European perspective. How did you find that?

At the time, for me, it was super rewarding. I think from a professional perspective, every opportunity that I've had with the company, whether it be Mexico City, Monterey, Mexico, Luxembourg, there was always more challenge from a professional perspective. I was always learning more, learning more about the company, learning more about treasury and learning more about all the different ways that we, as a corporate treasury team and with leveraging the expertise that I had gained through my experiences can add value for the company. And that was something that I learned early on in my career is, you know, all of us have a responsibility to think about how is what we're doing creating value for the company. Because if you're creating value for the company, chances are that's going to continue to create opportunities for yourself on the professional side, from a personal perspective, having opportunities to see these countries, to learn about their cultures. Spending five years in Mexico was amazing. I got to see all of the country I was visiting Customers in different states, different regions, all across Mexico. There was just a ton of diversity. The different food, the different ways of living. It was. It was fascinating. And then living in Luxembourg, there was so much that I didn't know about Europe. It wasn't the first time I'd been in Europe, but by then I was married and I had a couple kids. Luxembourg is really kind of right in the heart of Europe and we were able to see so much. So when we weren't working hard building up the holding and funding of Luxembourg, we were traveling around Europe, getting to see the different countries, getting to learn a lot about those cultures. And I think that is definitely one of the biggest benefits for going to work for an international company, and an international company that believes in giving employees an opportunity to really learn the business around the globe. And then you get to grow personally and professionally.

And you did that role in the experience. Luxembourg, then you returned to the US Rhea was continuing to flourish with the group. Can you maybe talk us through then the next couple of moves? Because obviously it was growing, developing. You can explain it better.

So when I was in Luxembourg, I was getting heavily into the legal entity structure of Caterpillar and the funding of all of those legal entities. We have hundreds of legal entities. So I learned a lot, really, probably all that I could learn about intercompany funding. And at the time, I was about three years into the international funding manager job, and there were some things happening back at the headquarters, and it made sense for us to move back to Peoria. And it turns out the corporate funding manager job at Caterpillar, responsible for external funding, everything that I touched on earlier. So all of our corporate bank relationships, rating agency relationships, all of our managing the balance sheet from a leverage perspective, but also intercompany funding. And so that job opened up at the end of 2008. I was in that job really throughout the entire global financial crisis. So I would say because of my FX experience, because of my internal funding experience, I had had the right experiences where the company thought I could be successful in that corporate funding manager role. But then I took on a lot of new areas of responsibility. So there was a lot of learning for me in terms of now having a lot more responsibility around managing our corporate bank group, making sure that we had very close relationships with the rating agencies and making sure that they understood our enterprise strategy and making sure that they understood our commitment to financial strength, understood our commitment to the rating. So we, for many, many years now, we've said that we're committed to being A. A mid. A mid single. A rated company. And that was a tough time during the global financial crisis. There was a significant drop in the top line and we had to do a lot of different things to manage our financial strength. So we were working really closely with the rating agencies. So kind of to your point, Mike, that was another opportunity for a lot of personal development, but also professional development to learn all the different things and all the different levers that we need to be able to pull when there is a trough. Because Caterpillar, at the end of the day, we are an amazing company, but we still are cyclical, so we have to manage through cycles and manage our financial strength over time.

Now, you were also, and I don't think we focus on this sometimes enough in the show that you made that transition. You were into international funding manager in Luxembourg. Then you were foreign exchange, FX processing, you were doing that. Those are quite internally focused roles, exactly as you said there. But now you're suddenly, you know, the group, been there a number of years, you've sort of handed your stripes, if you like, but now you're making that transition to more of more external, you know, you know, caterpillar in your back pocket. What was that like for you? How did you make that transition? And if you reflect maybe on those days, because there are people listening today who have gone, oh, crumbs, I'm just about to make that move. Or they're in that situation going, right, actually, yeah, I'm going to have to do this public bond issuance. I'm going to have to do this coming up. Oh, for some treasury folks, it's, maybe you like yourself, it's a natural step for some of them, they're like, whoa, this is out of my comfort zone. What should I be doing? And. And it's a growth. As you develop your treasury, what was that like for you making that step?

I would say when I moved into the corporate funding manager job, it was probably the biggest step that I made throughout my entire career. So to your. As you mentioned earlier, it's been 26 great years at Caterpillar. That was probably the biggest step because I did pick up that, that external piece. But very quickly what I learned is, and I think that this will be true with all the network of people that I've met over the years, internally and externally. I believe that this is true is nobody is ever on an island when you're managing any of these things. Yes, I was the corporate funding manager, but there was a team that was responsible for managing everything that I Touched on earlier. So when we think about managing the corporate bank group, it's a team effort. We've got a big captive finance company, a Caterpillar, that's got a. On. On average it's a $35 billion portfolio that they're managing. When you look at the finance portfolio plus insurance services, when I talk about the team, it's Cap Financial and Caterpillar Inc. Managing the bank routes. It's not just corporate treasury managing the rating agencies. It's a joint effort from the CFO to the senior VP team plus CAD Financial US telling the enterprise story. And it really starts. It's not what are we doing to manage financial strength. It really starts with what's the enterprise strategy. We really make it a very focused effort to make sure that the rating agencies understand what we're doing from a strategy perspective. Then we talked about financial strength and our commitment to the mid single A rating. So I think probably the biggest learning that I had when I was the corporate money manager, it's never one person. That was probably my biggest learning when I was in that job because I reached out to so many people that helped me manage a lot of different variables. And because of the economic backdrop at the time, I did learn probably more in those five and a half, six years than I did in any single job at category. But I think it's the fact that that was when it was really cemented into my brain how important it is to have the right team, the right team above you and the right team that's working with you, peer perspective as well as all the support team.

You made that move from internal, external, really getting that wider remit, as it were. But then you had some other interesting role, you know, interesting moves up and built out and crossed. Talk us through the next moves because I think again, we get a variety of listeners to the show, so we get treasury managers, treasury analysts. If you're listening, big shout out to you guys. They're learning how to get into develop your career. And then further on you get a number of more senior treasury professionals, Assistant Deputy Treasurer going, right, okay, I want to do the similar career journey to Pat. What else did you then do or how did you then make your next moves?

Critical to the corporate funding manager job was the understanding of the importance of rating agencies given the all of the debt that the enterprise has. Both Caterpillar Inc. And Cat Financial. So when I was in that job and because of the responsibility of really nurturing the relationship with the rating agencies, there was a lot of interaction with the Treasurer and the CFO at Cat Financial at the time. It was logical. I think it was on my career plan. You know, I would on a regular basis take some time to reflect on if I have the opportunity, what do I want to do next. And when I was in that corporate funding manager job, with all the interaction that I had with the treasurer at Cat Financial, like wow, that's a job that I think would be really interesting. What attracted me to that job was the fact that they the finance portfolio was averaged around $30 billion. It was a global portfolio. It was a dollars, euros, pounds. I think it can have as many as 11 different currencies where we're offering loans and leases to customers around the world to purchase Caterpillar equipment. So I thought that would be a really exciting job. And because of the exposures and the experience that I had in the corporate funding manager job, I was lucky enough to be considered for that job. I was offered the treasurer job at Cap financial back in 2015. It's one of my favorite jobs because you're really getting a chance to do everything that really critical core Treasury. We did all the funding, we managed all the FX, we were involved in the cash management for the $30 billion portfolio around the globe and we funded all of it on our own. When I was at Cap Financial. Cap Financial continues to fund their portfolio on their own. It's not guaranteed by Caterpillar. There is a support agreement for Cap Financial, but they do all of their own investor engagement. That company has issued medium term notes and 10 currencies or more over the years. So super fascinating. And then at least four commercial paper programs. But they're constantly looking at different ways to fund the portfolio. Whether that be just using straight derivatives at just a normal forward or even looking at cross currency swaps. So that was a really fascinating job to have. And I did that for three years. Got to really know the Cap Financial business, got to know kind of the key leaders, but then the team around the world as well. While I was in that job and I did it for three years and when the executive VP and CFO of Cap Financial retired in 2018, I was offered that job. That was the job that I had before I was offered the corporate treasury job. I was executive VP of TFO for Cat Financial for three years. That role I had the treasurer reported to me as well as the controller, the Director of Tax and Strategy. That was also a super exciting role and a fun time to be with the company.

And with that role you've made that transition from Caterpillar Corporate to Caterpillar Financial Services. Did you have to put on a different hat or was it just actually, I've got all this Caterpillar experience in my background. Yeah, I've got this. Or did you think, right, the audience is different or how did you sort of approach that role differently? Again, for the audience that if they're in a similar situation, that we want you to come across our financial services arm, they go, actually, what will I have to be like? What were you like? How did you. You've been there, done it. So. And you literally won the T shirts.

Yeah. Another really good question. So I would say it kind of all starts with, with. Everybody at Caterpillar is constantly reminded that we all have to wear an enterprise hat. We, we want every decision we make should be the right thing for, for the enterprise. It was a pretty easy transition because if you go in with that, that perspective. And then very early on I was with the senior leadership team at Cat Financial and the mission there has been the same for decades. Cat Financial has been around more than 40 years and it's a Captain Finance subsidiary with a simple mission to help Caterpillar, Caterpillar's independent dealer and our customers. You're wearing a slightly different hat because you're trying to think about how do you leverage everything that Caterpillar can bring to bear to help the company, but also to help dealers and customers. There were different problems, so we were solving different problems. When you were thinking about how do you raise whatever the currency might be, we opened up new offices while I was in Cap Financial South Africa and in India. So we're looking at how do we need to think about that from appliance perspective, from a governance perspective, but then also working with the treasury team to think about how are we going to fund that portfolio. Because if you're selling equipment and we sell equipment to our independent dealers, the dealers are selling to the ultimate end customer. Those customers are purchasing in local currency. So the treasury team work with our corporate banks and others to work to figure out what is the right strategy for raising the capital to fund those portfolios. So really fascinating work. And when you think about everything that we do in Treasury, I would have never dreamed to have the opportunity to try, try to solve those kinds of problems with a $30 billion portfolio. So it's big numbers and it was just super, super fun and learned a lot and got to work with an amazing team while we were bring us.

Up to date because then I want to re reflect on 20 plus years at Caterpillar for you. But then how did this role come about? Was it just natural? Right, Here you go. You've been here this long.

Here you go.

Here's the treasurer job. I'm saying that tongue in cheek. Don't worry. How did this end?

It's not just natural. I think that we're probably going to touch on this a little bit more on the call, but a big part of what we're constantly encouraged to do at Caterpillar and I got this advice early on, is no matter what your job is, whether it's a finance analyst or corporate funding manager or if you're a finance rep on the dealer side, all of us have a responsibility to be focused in on continuous improvement and creating value for the enterprise. I got really good advice early in my career. I've lived by that. I've breathed by that. I know that there's a very robust process in looking at who are all the candidates that should be considered. But the person that was the vice president, corporate treasurer before me, he retired in 2021. I was offered the vice president and corporate treasurer role last year, moved into this job in October of 2021 and have been leading the team and have been super excited to get back on the ment side, working really closely with the entire corporate treasury team that has really spread around the world. We've got resources now in Regional treasury center in Peoria. We've got resources in the Caddink headquarters in Irving, Texas, and then regional treasury centers in Geneva as well as Singapore.

You've got those global centers now. You're. And you've had. The great thing is you've transitioned through all of them. So, you know, some of the fundamental issues they maybe face and some of the challenges and. But you're doing from the top and you're guiding those guys. But how do you then lead it? What do you like as a leader? You know, do you say, hey guys, I know I've done all this and things like that, or how would you characterize yourself as the corporate VP and corporate treasurer for Caterpillar, having been there, done it.

So one of the things that I try to remember what I liked and what I didn't like as I was coming up through the organization, I tried to never say, well, that's not how I did it. Because I know that even the corporate funding manager role, a lot has changed since 2015. I haven't been in that area kind of in the weeds on the processes for more than five or six years and more try to do is think about what can I do to help the team to execute our strategy. We've got a fantastic strategy across global finance right now that we're all really focused on transforming the business. We're focused on simplification and standardization. We're focused on how can we really leverage all of the digital capabilities that are in the world today kind of at our fingertips to drive. What I've been trying to emphasize throughout the entire call today is if all of us can focus on continuous improvement and creating value for the company in everything that we do. It helps you grow professionally, but it's probably also going to create opportunities. The people my experience has been the people on the team that get noticed are the people that are creating the most value or driving process improvement. It's more I'm trying to help figure out where can I help the team remove rock so we continue to execute on the strategy and drive the most benefit for. For the enterprise.

Let's go back to that question I had earlier. About 20 plus years. Why would someone. You talked there just about driving improvement? Because that's where you are now. So you've been with one group, one company. But as you've put about, you know, some of the guys, we talked about it before the episode. Some people used to be with George and GE was a series of different companies, you know, until a few years ago. And it was like, well, actually I worked for them. I worked for them. I did this, I did this. There's a lot of commonality, I would say, in some of the things you've done, given the breadth of your experience and the company, as you reflect back on that and you know, some of the new guys coming in, they look at you, wow, you've been here 20 plus years. How would you describe it to them? Or sell it to those guys if you like.

So it's pretty fascinating. I kind of. It all starts with really the recruiter that I met back on campus at Iowa State in 1996. He had been with the company, all of his experience in dealer finance and treasury for 40 plus years. When I was invited to the headquarters for interviewing, I had three more interviews. And I think all three of the people that interviewed me, every, every one of them had been with the company for 30 years plus. That really left an impression on me. When I was graduating college, I would say a lot of what we see today was starting to be more of the norm. People that you would talk to that had good finance careers, they probably were changing companies every two or three years. It probably was not as prevalent as it is today. When I reflect kind of on how I got here. It's an amazing company. It always has been an amazing company. We're constantly evolving. We're very focused on what we can do to help our customers. And then when I look at what we're doing in finance and what we're doing in treasury, we offer a career path where if you want to stay with the same company, you can achieve the same thing that. That's possible jumping from company to company. But the biggest benefit for me is I've been able to achieve probably the same thing as people that I graduated with. But I've built. I've built an amazing network of colleagues internally at Caterpillar, which really helps to get things done. But as much as being great colleagues, they're also friends. So I was just at a leadership summit, several hundred of our key leaders across Caterpillar last week. It was amazing. I know the vast majority of them and I've been working with them for decades. That's pretty special because if I don't think that that's anything that I could have really done if I was jumping from company to company, I also don't think I would be able to work with my team to create as much value as we can create by being able to leverage those networks that have been built over many, many, many years.

Amazing. Just to touch on there, we just leave it there and just start. I still think there's a little bit more to go. And just with yourself been through Covid, I just want to reflect briefly on how that was for you guys and then how it's maybe changed going forward for yourselves in a work sense. Obviously, we. We don't actually talk recruitment very much on the recruitment. You know, I run the treasury recruitment company. We don't really touch on the recruitment, employee issues all the time because I'm more interested in you as a person. But I still think given your incredible expertise and the size of your teams and everything else. What was that like for you guys? You went into it, came out of it. Where are you seeing it now? Affecting personnel and changing world of talent, if you like. So I know that we spoke on a. It was a session we did a while ago for the N A C T. And there were some great insights from yourself about how you guys have changed. What are your reflections, if you like, on that people thing?

If we go back To March of 2020, I was still in the Executive VP and CFO World Cap Financial. And I would say at that time it was pretty scary, you know, when I was sitting at a table with my direct reports who were still in the office and we went around the table and talked about are we confident that we're going to be able to get our work done if we're working remotely from home? And it was a conversation that created some anxiety. There was not 100% certainty. We learned very quickly that we could. And so now you kind of fast forward to today and we're still in a hybrid work environment at Caterpillar, trying to stay as flexible as we can based on the needs of our, of our team. We do have collaboration days, so there's a number of days when, when we're encouraging the team go to the office if they can. And we try to schedule a lot of our team meetings around those collaboration days. The key learning for me going through all of it was our teams are super resilient and luckily that resiliency has helped us figure out how to do things differently and really get things done. Regardless if we're together or not, we've been very successful. I think from a go forward standpoint, we're continuing to have the debate. I think if I reflect back on all the different jobs that we touched on as we were going through the call today, I tell the team every chance I get that most of my learning was on the job. Yes, I've had some great sessions with banks, I've had some great sessions with peer group. Most of my learning and I would think that it's. If I had to put a percentage on it, I think it's well north of 80, could be north of 90% was on the job, kinds of things, just doing the work, but doing the work alongside people that had been doing it longer than I had. I think a perfect example is when I moved into the FX group. I sat with the trader for the trader that I was replacing. I sat with him for almost a month and my backup was my manager. So he was sat very close to me. He could hear when I was doing the trading over the phone if I was not asking the right questions, if I was missing something, if I was selling a currency I should be buying, he could hear it, stop it before it even happened. Those kinds of things are much harder to replicate when we're working remotely. So I think it's going to be something that we have to continue to stay focused on. If you ask me, do I think we're ever going to get back to a hundred percent, five days a week in the office, I don't think we're headed that direction based on what we were able to achieve during COVID and where we are today. I'm more than convinced that we can find a happy medium that's going to have some collaboration days when we're have people in the office where it can do a lot of that learning, but then leverage the hybrid environment to continue to drive the value that that's critical to do what we need to do from an enterprise strategic perspective and that.

New normal, that sort of new way of working, it sounds like not only embracing it, you're prepared for it, if that's the right way to put it. Where do you see going next?

I think the current environment for us is probably where we're going to be for a while. We still are going to continue to try to find a way to leverage our collaboration base. What my team and I are talking about, the leaders and I are trying to figure out what are those critical skills that we think the team does need to be face to face together to learn the most or for it to be the most beneficial. I think we'll try to do those things and try to make sure that that's always happening face to face. But we'll continue to leverage the hybrid environment and I think we continue to think about what are those things that we can do across the corporate treasury team around the globe, what are the critical things where we do need to be face to face. And then we've been very successful getting the team into the office for those events. Whether it be a focused training, it could even be a celebration. You know, like I remember in the middle of the summer I had one of my directors celebrated his 25th work anniversary and, and we had an anniversary cake. And I think all but one or two people of the entire team in Peoria was in the office. They didn't come in for the cake. They came in to celebrate the director's anniversary and really be part of that special day.

It was the cake. It was the cake that did it. Everyone's after the decent bit of cake. That's a great way to get people back in the office. And that's a great example where you're going to sort of, you'd be very kind with your time. I was just looking at the clock and thinking, wow, this has been amazing. As we wrap up today's show, we put your LinkedIn details on the show notes so you know that even connect to you. And I'm sure there'll be a rush of them hold off on that. So as long as it's relevant and might let you in this inner circle, as it were. What are the takeaways we've given them touched on throughout the show, which has been great. There's some technical issues. We got through those. We, we killed that. But now we're approaching the end of today's show. If someone's listening, maybe early stages of career, mid stages or later, as you look back, what are the takeaways you're going to give these people that they've already had an amazing array of them. But what would you say next?

I would say a couple things. I would say one, give corporate Treasury a chance. Corporate treasury is a really exciting place to be in a company. We create a lot of value. We're kind of the heart of keeping a company going when you think about the cash management, the funding, managing the risk and everything that we do. So it's pretty exciting place to be. I think it always will be. I go back to that initial advice I got many, many years ago is no matter what job you get, make sure that you leave it in a better place. Work really hard, create the value, drive that continuous improvement. Which is the next message I was going to say is that never lose sight of being focused on what you can do to drive continuous improvement, regardless of what you're working on. And then from a personal perspective, I would say if you do all those first three things, you're going to be in a pretty good spot. But you can never kind of rest on your laurels. It's kind of on all of us. It is on all of us to be thinking about what do we have to do personally to upskill. And it's never been more important than today. When I touched on our strategy, we're focused on simplification and standardization. We're focusing on improving our data and our systems. And then how do we better leverage digital capabilities to drive the process improvement? If you're not upskilling, it's pretty hard to check the box on strategy execution. So I think those would be my key messages. And I think if you can do all of those things, then you're. You're pretty well set up to have a bright future.

Amazing. Great tips. Leaving it in a better place that drives to improve. Amazing. And thank you very much. I've been very kind with your time today, Pat. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and I know that people are lucky to have you in their network. So thanks very much for your time and look forward to seeing you when I'm next over in the US So it'll be lovely to see you.

Sounds great. Thanks a lot Mike.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank and as you can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce every week. It'd be amazing. Destate 20 seconds. Leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait.

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