Building an AI-Driven Treasury Team for the Future

This week's show, you'll get to hear from Bojan. He is the Vice President Finance and Treasurer at Voltava. But a key thing for him is actually about AI and technology. He's passionate about it. Tell you what, have a quick listen.

Now, going back to my initial discussions when I was joining the company, one of the things that I asked for is access to AI because I know that AI is gonna drive a lot of value in the future. And as we go through, there's gonna be these changes that, that keep happening, but on the payments, on the forecasting, and right now I'm working on variance analysis, intercompany netting agents, compliance agents, all these tools, last mile solutions that take the process that I have and kind of through different apps and such allow me to be an AI-driven professional in the company. And I just, I'll just add one thing, the next level in my experience, in my career, in my exposure is also being part of an AI team here at Voltava. We have a really visionary team here. Our CEO created these through our CTO, obviously, these committees where we certain people meet and talk AI and develop AI as well. So I'm the SMD for finance, AI SMD for finance, and I also work with obviously the finance team here on this and we're developing agents models and you have access to it, which is pretty cool. That's the future.

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 treasurers about how they build 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. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Bojan Beljukovski. I got it right. Great name, particularly as I try and say it in English. The Vice President, Finance and Treasurer at Boltaba. Boltaba is a global manufacturing and assembly company formed in December 2025 by the acquisition of Android Industries and Avances by Detroit Manufacturing Systems headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The company combines expertise in automotive parts, complex module assembly, and supply chain management across 20 global facilities. But I'm gonna go back to the beginning, how Bojan first started his career, how he started in finance, then he got into treasury. We met recently at Kairiba Live in Vegas. It was great to actually see him face to face with a beer or two. So the microphone is yours. Over to you, sir. How did it all start?

Thanks, Mike. How I started in treasury. I would say by coincidence, my background is in law. Growing up in Macedonia, I was always kind of, always kind of gearing towards the law side of things, something that takes me away from math. I got my master's in international law and European law, and my goal too was the European Parliament. I was set on fixing quote unquote the democratic deficit in the EU, which is a book that I published in Macedonia. It was my master thesis and someone approached me and wanted to publish and I was all about it. So I said, yeah, let's do it. What changed was operations management course that I did at the Wharton School of Business. So something clicked for me, like throughout 3 concepts, like just-in-time delivery, the tag time, working with the numbers, the analytical side is something that completely, I guess, consumed me. And around that time I applied for a senior treasury analyst position. And I guess a combination of me being curious, having some experience in finance. I actually never did law. I was always something around budgets and numbers and stuff. And then the knowledge of Macedonian language, which is pretty interesting. The company expanded at that time in Macedonia and needed someone who knows the language so we can talk to the team. So I guess it tied to that open position there. I got the job and I've been in Treasure since then.

Well, and talk through those roles, I think. So. Yeah, because your progression, because you've got this great progression within finance from law into— just give them some steps because I think it gives a foundation for someone else listening today and going, okay, you were in law and then work us through it.

So I've been— when I take a step back and reflect on where I've been and where I'm at right now, I worked across multiple industries. So I was in public service, I was in renewable energies. Automotive, food and distribution, real estate, gaming, sports and entertainment. I might have missed something. So I guess that made me who I am today, just that exposure. So I started at one place and applying different concepts in a different world and taking that and growing with that through the treasury world. So I, I was in FP&A before that. I was in a general junior analyst type of rotation role as well. But when I got to be in Treasury when I got my first job as a senior analyst, that was it for me. And I love honestly being part of everything that Treasury does, starting—

but why did Treasury light you up so much? Why was it different to FB&A or finance?

I did like the cash side of things because I, when I, when I entered the space, I was like, why are these people looking at the whatever, the accruals? What does that mean? Like that has nothing to do with how much cash I have in the account. I actually have to think about how I manage this to get that to work. And that's how my brain, I guess, is wired. And that's what interests me. And one thing that really stood out for me is M&A in treasury. I've in some capacity, I've always been part of an M&A project, including a pretty famous Takata deal, which is an acquisition of a bankrupt Japanese, I want to say $7 or $8 billion automotive manufacturer. The unfortunate thing was that the Takata airbags were killing people by exploding. Loading while cars were driving. So my company acquired that, the good assets of the company. So that was something I enjoyed. And again, I just came off an M&A and I enjoy myself being in treasury and part of an M&A process because—

Was that Joyce Safety? Is that the one?

Yep. So Joyce Safety, I was at the company was called Key Safety Systems at the time. We were acquired by a company called Ningbo Joyce and then we acquired Takata to become Joyce Safety systems, right? But then years down the road, DMS, Detroit Manufacturing Systems, acquiring Android Advanced, and we became Voltava.

So, and Michigan and around there and things like that, it's very heavily into automotive and heavy industry. You've got Johnson Controls, you've got a number of others and things like that. Do you gain any experience there? You obviously, as you said there, you started in as an analyst and then you went up through. Talk us through your progression there. And how your treasury experience was growing. And what I want to know from this is, again, I'm taking the position of a listener. They go, well, guy, but okay, how did he, how did he grow his treasury career? Because they want to do the same.

Yes. So that's a great question. So I started with pretty much the basics. You can think about you go into the space and your treasurer needs help with assembling the 13-week global cash forecast because it just requires so many inputs from so many different people. So I started with that. I started with your just the vanilla hedges, getting exposure to that, learning how the swaps work, setting up banking operations. Start with, I started with some accounts and some cash management, but then as part of an M&A, we need to move to another global partner, global banking partner. So moving accounts from here to there, you kind of understand what the banks require from each standpoint. Then I moved on to implement the treasury management system, which is a whole new, a whole new asset for you as on the skill side. From there, I guess through the M&A processes, I moved to cover insurance as part of treasury. I then evolved to work with FP&A on the direct versus indirect cash reconciliation, worked with different regions, different partners throughout the organization to, I guess, be more involved and review their cash flows. And I think that's like, and it's kind of, I, when I go back and say, well, cash forecasting was a big part of it, cash management, learning how the banks work and how the systems work with the banks, learning how ERPs connect to your systems, that's something that I've always work done and always try to get more knowledge in that. And I guess it all comes together when, when I became treasurer, then I knew what my team needs to do. And when someone is a, is an entry-level junior role, they might need to implement credit cards. So they will be running with that or just get the basic setup for a treasury management system setup. They, I, I guess I learned and I know the approach on how to do that.

Yes. And then, and your progression at Joicen, you went from analyst up to treasurer over the course of a number of years. What was that like for you? And any of the things that really stick in your mind, the challenges, if you like, from you growing within one company and it's like, oh, was it, or was it natural progression all the way, or what happened?

Yeah, so it was a natural progression, I would say. So I joined in 2015 at the, at the Joyson as a senior analyst. I became a treasury manager, senior manager, and then treasurer within 4 and a half years. It was a combination of me growing and learning, but also I was fortunate, I guess, that my boss, who was the treasurer, had left the company, and then the CFO liked what I did and they offered me the job.

Um, but yeah, I gotta pause you there. He liked what you did. That's not a natural thing though, all the time, because sometimes you get, see, I want to recruit my own person in, or I want to recruit someone new. What were you doing that you felt really earn his trust or their trust?

Her trust. Yeah. So I, so it's a combination of being able to really work on variances on cash forecasting with multiple regions being involved. So that was, that was a big thing. The second big thing, I guess, was coming after this pretty complicated M&A during the first year. We had a large, we, we had a pretty difficult debt facility, so I had pretty good command of the credit agreement and understanding of the compliance. And also part of the insurance risk management made me think, what can I do for the company if I explore captive insurance? And then I guess the CFO was like looking at me from a perspective where this is a guy that doesn't necessarily follow what was being done in the past or just coming with the legacy company did this and this legacy company did that and this is better than that. It's more like, it's okay to do this, but what if we did something that, you know, challenges us? And I think that mindset got me into that position as well.

I was going to say, sorry, and what were the, maybe the, you talked there about the complexity of the acquisition and the M&A. What were the toughest moments during those deals and how did you keep your head?

So the toughest moment overall, let me just ask you, you mean like the moment before I got the treasurer position or it's just the toughest in, in In general, all of the above.

It's all great advice for the guys listening.

So the tough, if I can go back and say, well, this was really tough, I would say everything that COVID brought us, like everything around COVID was pretty challenging. I think not the, obviously I'm not saying here the way most people mean it because it just wiped a lot of population. I'm just being very specific, obviously with just everything hitting treasury at once. But then treasury became— and okay, I was in the treasury position, but interesting enough, during COVID we had a change in CFO. So I actually had to prove myself again to another person coming in. And then treasury became, I want to say, mission critical almost overnight. CFOs were looking on us as treasury professionals heavily for anything liquidity and scenario modeling and planning. Lenders' conversations and real-time answers because all those challenges throughout the globe, I guess, the semiconductor, for example, in the automotive made us lose our minds. And for me, I'll just throw one more thing at the time. It was, and it was entirely my choice, obviously, but coming to the US with a law degree, that doesn't, doesn't do much. So I got myself in an MBA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Pursued the CTP simultaneously, and I was expecting it's gonna be difficult. No one told me how difficult it really is gonna be. So I went through all the challenges without any issue, but I do remember specific nights, 10, 11 PM, where I had to talk to lenders, but I also had my— and I can vividly remember my investment class required me to submit a model until midnight. So I was kind of scrambling between both. But challenge-wise, I actually don't really— I'm not a person that says, hey, this is a challenge or this is an obstacle. I always look at things as opportunities. So I'm always looking at, oh, I can actually learn from this if I don't know that.

And then talk us through the next move to, yeah, a very diverse company. How do I say it? Ilitch, is that right? Ilitch. Ilitch company. Yeah. It's quite an interesting, I was doing the research. So obviously just one core product. And when I talk about that, multi-billion dollar, multi-industry sports and entertainment, food and distribution, gaming, real estate. Across holding and business units. So obviously put your feet up, just a bit relaxing time. Like, I mean, that sounds so diverse and fun at the same time, but how did you cope in that situation?

I actually, uh, I— so going into that, I was lucky enough, and COVID again made this happen. Treasury was in demand. Uh, I had, within a week when I decided to leave Joyceon, I had 4 offers from very reputable companies and names out there. I won't mention them. All great offers. And I was thinking, okay, one is all these four are going to give me something, but this one is going to give me access to everything, learning opportunity, however you want to call that, to so many industries at once. And I was like, yes, I actually want to take on this challenge. And I was motivated by the exposure of different industries, what they bring. And it was, so I spent 4 years there. And I joined to build the treasury pretty much from ground up. And, and as I was told, treasury 1.0 is here, but we need treasury to go to 2.0 and then down the road set the stage for 10.0. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that, that was a challenge I knew about and I took it willingly.

And when you were doing that 2.0 and central, you, you built a centralized treasury function. What were the things you felt you had to get right and What were the things that nearly derailed it? What made it tougher?

What made it tough is, I want to say the culture shift was a little bit difficult to navigate because people were used to the ways that worked for them, I guess, in the treasury space. So that was really tough, but I then on the other side was able to, uh, was given honestly the access to, to build things. So the person who I reported to, I guess, at that time was very open to a treasury management system integration. Taking it to the next step by implementing modules that automate your, uh, automate your work. So you don't necessarily need 50 people, but you need 2 people on the team to, to get the job done. So that, that was another way, I guess, of doing things, going from automotive, which is completely different to everything and any, and anything. Yeah.

This is what, that's what I mean is just so diverse.

Yeah. It is so diverse. And then you approach one day the food and distribution, the following day you might need to tackle sports or entertainment. Everything comes with its own challenges. And I tell my team even now, it is really easy, guys, when you think about like our direct forecast, think about like X, Y, and Z, you already have the programs in the plan. It is not that difficult to forecast. Go and forecast how many items you're going to sell at a stadium. Yeah. You can't. You don't know how many people are going to go. You don't know if it's going to rain outside and there is going to be core fans that go and watch a game. So that going through that and learning. And I guess my approach was like, how about I look at sports specifically this past 5 seasons? How many rainy days were there? How many people actually went? Do I see some correlation between— and then that's my analytical mindset, I guess.

And predictive analytics is great.

Yeah, predictive analytics, that's what I spent a lot of time on.

And as you built that team, what were you prioritizing maybe with individuals, and what did you say Right, we need to get this right, but that can wait, or that can come later or something.

From a workflow perspective, prioritizing honestly the easy wins and the last mile solutions, as I like to call them. And that honestly can be anything and everything. If you already have a TMS in place, then what is really the one thing that is going to— the 80/20 rule. What is really going to be like, you know, you don't spend too much time on it, but it's actually make a lot of differences, as for us was exploring APIs, exploring integrated payable solutions, stuff like that, that, that's, that, that's an easy win and even a small pilot just to test it out or see if it works versus a more broad forecasting, let's call it, I use forecast as an example, approach where you kind of combine all the business units, all the entities, however you want to call that, and then move them in this one integrated system, which takes time. So one step at a time, I guess.

Easy wins. And I know that one of the things that I looked at was you started to sort of use AI-driven cash flow forecasting. And this was, again, I talked to different treasury professionals and said, right, quantify not just what money you've made, but also what money you've saved or what time you've saved. What's been your impact, if you like? And I know that you were talking about here eliminating over 20 hours per reporting cycle. How did you do that? Again, the AI is the front of everyone, the tip of everyone's tongue, and we'll come on to that more recently in your role, but how did that start or what happened there?

Yep. So great question. I am not going to mention names and all that, but one of the businesses, which is pretty complicated, that in my prior job required me to do the forecast because there was not someone that can do the actual forecast over there. In the way the Treasury does it, I guess, they tie all the things to that. I did the forecast for them and it took me about, I want to say, 9-ish hours each reporting cycle, which is every 4 weeks, the account, the accounting account. And that was a lot of time spent on just forecasting. And that's just a lot of manual processes, heavy lifting that's not necessarily needed. So I implemented combination of TMS API and AI analytics to really slash that to like 30 minutes per reporting cycle. So like 8, 9 hours going to 30 minutes, it's a win for me. And then you maybe need to spend like another 30 minutes to an hour just you're the judgment layer, you're not going to trust AI with the output. And just in a nutshell, I guess that's how I've done it, but it's a combination of different tools, different tactics. AI was not necessarily, and I would say it's still not necessarily something that people use to the extent that it provides them the actual meaningful output. I guess it's used to chat with it, not necessarily put it to work, which is what I spend time on. Actually, I'm also studying, but I can talk about the studying at some point.

Well, let's dive into that in a second. Just bring us up to date with— so you did that role, and then bring us up to date with the more recent role, and then we'll dive into this and what you were talking about at Cariba and some of your passions and things.

Sure. So, and I've used Khariba, uh, now that you mentioned that since like 11 years ago. So I, I kept implementing it. I do RFPs. I thought it's like the best fit for where I was and whatnot. But Khariba has different modules, different tools that I've used. And then coming into my role right now, one of the things that I talked to my old CFO that actually brought me to Detroit Manufacturing Systems and my, my, my current CFO who's here at Voltava, it's kind of the same thing. We have a TMS, it has the power to do this and that. And if I roll out these modules and combine that with these agentic AI solutions that my team and I are going to build, we're going to have X amount of savings. So right off the bat, I can tell you, like, I did some analysis yesterday and I'll go back to the AI piece of it. We think that if we go live, and I think it's going to be 5/15 with some AI-related work related to reconciliations, We're going to save about 7 hours a week from— we're going to really kill the manual work. Yeah. Now, going back to my initial discussions when I was joining the company, one of the things that I asked for is access to AI because I know that AI is going to drive a lot of value in the future. And as we go through, there's going to be these changes that keep happening. But on the payments, on the forecasting, and right now I'm working on variance analysis, intercompany netting agents, compliance agents. All these tools, last mile solutions that take the process that I have and kind of through different apps and such allow me to be an AI-driven professional in the company. And I just, I'll just add one thing. The next level in my experience, in my career, in my exposure is also being part of an AI team here at Voltava. We have a really visionary team here. Our CEO created these through our CTO, obviously. These committees where we, certain people meet and talk AI and develop AI as well. So I'm the SMD for finance, AI SMD for finance, and I also work with obviously the finance team here on this and we're developing agents models and we have access to it, which is pretty cool. That's the future.

And can you just explain, we touched on it, global manufacturing assembly company, but what sort of things do you do or what, because then how does that then impact treasury sort of to understand a bit more about Balthazar Peresta.

Yep. So what we do right now is, as a treasury team, we cover your kind of core treasury. When you think about working capital improvements, so in the forecasting piece of it, payables, banking, debt management, anything that really comes with it. We cover insurance, risk management, including commodity risk analysis, foreign exchange.

Yeah.

And I probably missed a lot, like 100,000 things.

But what For what reason with the company as such? Because is this for the assembly of your own machines or is this for the products you do or what sort of the, what the products you guys have?

You mean end product that goes to the customer?

Yeah. Or the, no, or the company itself. So what do Boltava do? Who, you know, if someone, you're at a dinner party and someone say, oh, Boltava, what do they do? So explain that.

Boltava works as a supplier for the large, I guess, large OEM. So think about customers being Ford, GM, Chrysler, or well, I shouldn't say Chrysler, Stellantis, and the powerful companies out there in the automotive space. And does, and we have different product lines. So when you think about dashboards, when you think about tires and wheels and different products like that, we also have a company under in our portfolio that doesn't specialize in automotive. It actually does something else. So batteries, drones, and we also you know, expanded in this area as well. Okay.

Well, you've told us a lot there. You and I obviously met recently at Cariba Live conference, and I know that you've done a lot of stuff with this. You really— what's the word— you've embraced technology, which you've seen, which you talked about it there, but you've got various other bits here that you've— advisory board member for an AI organization. You've got publications with Treasury 2.0. Talk us through how that, why that lights you up so much or why you think other treasury professionals should think about it.

Yeah. So one, one thing I live by is never stop learning. And I've actually put it in practice, like I, and I mentioned my master's degree and I mentioned the ability, the inability to really see myself growing if I don't have a business degree in the US. So getting my MBA, my CTP, and then, and started to learn AI 3, 4 years ago when I, when I I honestly found anything online and I just subscribed for that and I went through it and got the certifications that they offered. I had hundreds of pages in notes on how to even do prompt engineering, different techniques. I mean, this is just very beginning of AI, I guess, and what it used to do, but allowed me to put together a book on, on AI, which I published exactly one year ago called Treasury 2.0, the Future Proofing Finance, Future Proofing Finance with AI. And I guess I've always been open to new things, trying, challenging myself. And if someone's thinking about, well, how do I start? And actually, this is a question I got as part of a speaking session about 2 months ago. Well, how do I start with AI? I just joined the space. Talk to AI every single moment you have. Brainstorm ideas, go back and learn and research and I guess crystallize what you're thinking about and put it in a function, put it to work in some area that is going to allow you to then take that and then tackle the next step.

Where do you see it sort of genuinely making a difference at the moment? I know it's all brand new and it's accelerating as well, but where do you see it making it generally making a difference? Where do you feel it's not actually, it's falling short or people are getting it wrong?

I would say AI is obviously growing so fast. It's exploding everywhere. In my case, I can give you a specific example. We used to have a process where we have accounts receivables be a function of download reports, put together your aging, it takes time, and then understand where it is and how it impacts your, your day-to-day liquidity. What we've done is we've implemented an agent. So what the agent does is it uses the data to really provide us, provide us the liquidity position for the day, for the week, for the month, based on the reports that reside in different systems. And then say, well, number one, no issues and you're getting paid your $1 tomorrow. Then number two is, oh, well, an issue. You actually invoiced for a dollar, you're getting paid 80 cents. So there must be an issue. Go and check what is going on. And I can actually talk to the agent to get some details and get some information from it. So I think we're advancing as, I guess, as in the treasury world, we can put it to use anywhere we want right now. I've done that for the accounts receivables. Agent that I mentioned, I am right now with support from my IT team, I am building a solution on variance analysis. So I'm going to have my last week versus this week direct forecast in an agent and say, hey agent, where did I fall short? Or where did I maybe overhedge my risk? All these are really solutions that exist and we're building it and testing it as we speak.

And it's an interesting one. I'm just scribbling here that I've talked in, I've done the podcast now 7 and a half years, 450 guests, and I've seen it come in. But also even when 7 and a half years ago I was talking about technology, just general technology itself, that treasurers I'm seeing is very much the translators a lot of the time. The CFOs say, and also the rootmasters sometimes at that time, blockchain was like, can you go check it out? See if this is something we need or whatever the next thing. And Bitcoin and then lots of different crypto and all the different stuff, but You guys happen to translate it, but now I'm seeing much more of people within Treasury becoming more interpreters, if you like, but they're also implementers and actually implementing the technology to make your lives easier because you guys are sometimes people constrained and things like that. So hang on, if I use an agent, this is— and I was talking to a treasurer in New York the other day, which I think throws up another issue that he was saying he knows if they get an agent on board, his own agent, which he's telling his tech team. He said, I want my own one because we can teach it the FX stuff. We can get our junior FX person to really train it and do everything else, and the senior FX person can really supervise this. This will work on steroids 24/7 and we can iterate it and everything else. The problem was, and this is a question I was gonna ask you, which came up and I said, okay, that junior person. Then loses their job, or do you redeploy them? What are you gonna— where else are you gonna use them? What else? And he said, well, either they redeploy themselves or, or they will get me out of a job. So they've got to continue to learn. But I was thinking also, I was saying to him, well, I see this more and more with the junior guys coming out of college and things like that. There's going to be a gap, that knowledge gap, because it used to be you came in as a junior treasury assistant, And you learned treasury on the job and you were given coaching by someone like yourself and you learned and learned just like you did when you were an analyst. But it seems that there's becoming a bigger gap there. How are people going to get into treasury? Do you see that as an issue?

I would say yes and no. Yes, because right now there is a lot of emphasis on AI and there is a lot of negative news. I, I would say this company fired 5,000 people, this company fired 50,000 people. The CEO of this AI company says the white-collar jobs are going away in 4 years, and that creates panic. I don't think, quite honestly, I don't think we're there yet. Anyone who is curious enough can get in and start doing something, but the role is changing though. It's not going to be your entry level doing the things that I did when I went into the workforce. They will have to come with something else. They will have to provide an edge. If I hire someone, I can tell you that I'm not going to look at your core treasury right now. I'm gonna look at your exposure to something outside of it. What that means is, and again, I'll give you a specific example. We have summer internships and I just looked at interns for my team. The one I actually brought on 2 weeks ago is a guy coming from IT who understands finance, but knows how to build something. And I'm not expecting a lot from an intern, but I expect that someone is curious enough to build me a process where My current team doesn't have to spend 50 hours on something. That's my approach. And I think that's where the things are going to go. Even in my prior job, I'll step back and say, I hired someone that knew Power BI. I had someone that had exposure to, to K2IBA in the past and someone that understands processes, cash management, all that. It's fine. You can come with it. But if you don't have the edge, it's going to be difficult. And one other thing I'll add, the junior level positions are going to change just based on these skills. So I think they're just going to, they're just going to keep evolving.

It's fantastic. And I've said this before on the podcast, bears repeating. I still need to find out, remember the guy that I talked to, there was a candidate I had from Greece. He sent me his CV, he was to give him some advice. And then I noticed buried at the bottom of his CV, he said about a Python course he'd gone and studied for in the evenings, and then he'd implemented it in his workplace. And then it saved all these people these jobs and things. And I'm going, wow. I said, why is it down at the bottom? He said, well, was just something I did my own study time because I was bored of doing the cash management like this. And I thought there's a better way of doing this. I said, right, we've got to cut that out. And he's like, what, what? I said, no, cut it out and move it to the top. I said, literally, this is the— that's your lead line. And he was like, oh, will he get— I said, I probably won't be able to get you a job because the market was quiet. I said, you don't need me, just put your CV out with these people. Yeah, he was snapped up within 2 or 3 weeks. People were starting to go said, sell your story about why. And I said, and people will just love you. And he was like, I said, if you want to automate things and they've rolled it out on a global basis and you've said the global team's 40 hours a week, you paid for yourself.

It's a no. Exactly. And that's what I've done. Actually, I mentioned AI. I mentioned AI, taking notes, certificates and stuff after work, what I did for the past 4 years. And I actually tried learning code. I tried learning Python. I've actually built stuff myself. That's what I was telling my— here even yesterday at a meeting, I can actually build a variance analysis, just give me the API key so I can build the way it should be, the how it should work. And I always lead with them these days. And just the other day I had a conversation with my CFO and I told him like, I don't think that we're going to be in the same, I'll call them positions in the future because in the past controllers used to be CFOs. You're in controller seat and you're going to be a CFO one day. Then the others don't stand a chance. That's, that's long gone. Almost everyone I know that made it to CFO, they come from treasury or FP&A. They have strategic mindset and they're able to implement something. When my time comes, hopefully, to have enough experience for someone that thinks that's enough and potentially talk about a CFO position, I'm gonna be someone that's gonna rely on AI. I mean, the world is just changing and you gotta be strategic and deploy your AI resources these days.

Yeah, and I know that's been a big focus of what we've talked about, but other than that, what else do you see as challenges for treasurers coming up, and what else do they need to be thinking about in their sort of, in their day-to-day jobs, or, or junior staff, or whatever level you might be?

Yep. So the— if we summarize this as the future of treasury, in my view, I would say one thing is— well, two things. Number one is digitalization. So building towards something that allows you to build a data lake, a single source of truth, can be an EMS and ERP, can be a TMS banking ERP and whatever, anything that, that, that's kind of one-stop shop because the world goes to real-time visibility and probably already went automated workflows, decisions that you're making on a daily basis based on clean data rather than just manually assembled spreadsheets. And one other thing that I'll add. To that is to be consistent because I see a lot of scrambling between things and there is like different narratives here and there. And then that's what's missing from what I'm seeing right now. So you gotta be consistent, be where the reality is, I guess. And the teams that, the teams that will win, in my opinion, are those that are building the foundations right now. So they will be ready for when the adoption accelerates and then hits their organizations. So either be at enterprise level. Or you're a treasurer, I think this applies to everyone.

This podcast, as you may have worked out, has no sponsors, has no ads. Nobody pays me to record these episodes. I make it because I love corporate treasury and I want to help treasury professionals just like you. If you're getting value from this, there's a couple of things I'd ask. Share it with your friends, tell them about it, how you've enjoyed it. If it's helping you in your treasury career, fantastic. But then maybe connect with me on LinkedIn. Mike Richards, I'm there. You can actually look me up. My URL is actually linkedin.com/mrtreasury or Mr. Treasury if you want to call it that. Hit connect, drop me a quick note, say you found me through the podcast on Apple or Spotify. I read every single message and yes, I will reply. There's no funnel, no sales pitch. It's just a chance to say hello, stay in touch, and see what I can do to help. So anyway, let's get back to the episode. And just reflecting back over your career, you've given some advice to the audience, but again, if you were to give advice to your younger self or maybe your team, the junior guys, about accelerating their careers, obviously technology, but any other advice for them? What, what are the career decisions that you've had to make along the way that you say, yeah, you should do the similar things or not do sort of thing?

Something that I've also talked to my team about, and especially the more entry-level people, and I am saying this all the time, is try to figure out what is the bottleneck? What is killing the process? What is, even if you're not at the organization, kind of think about what a process would be from an old school type of treasury approach versus where it should be, and then see what type of technology Solution is the enabler. So when your team is not buried in manual reconciliation spreadsheets and stuff, I think the collaboration then resurfaces, the culture strengthens, and people are essentially happier at their jobs because they have, they don't spend so much time on doing the tedious work. You join an organization or you're like, your mind is all, well, I'll work with like 100 spreadsheets and I'll have to reconcile stuff for someone. And that's going to be long gone because it's gone, man. And ability, right? So then even if you're entry level, you're gonna be put in a position where you put your mind to work from a strategic standpoint. And I think, and as I said, the technology is gonna be an enabler in that sense.

And do you see, in your experience, have you seen that treasury— certainly I have, 20 years ago, 20-plus years ago when I started, the treasury, they were their own worst enemy. At the time they were like, hey, we're the specialist, look at us. Yeah, we don't mind being put in the corner because I get a higher wage. Look at me. And now that, and then over time it was like, oh, hang on. That came and bit them in the behind. And they were like, oh, hang on. I wanna be mainstream. I wanna be work partner with the business. And I've seen that actually that's evolved. And I think this is a big thing, but how do you see Treasury continuing to evolve as a strategic post? It sounds like there's more business partnering as you've already talked about that and covered it, but is that the way you see it going?

Yeah, so I kind of COVID this in a little bit, but I would say same direction, more strategic, less manual. When I reflect on 10, let's say 10 years ago or 17 years ago, it's really going from being manual, being just like, let's get this file to work and then we take care of the rest, to now being more strategic. One thing that I believe it's now changing again is the visibility of treasury in terms of like how the organization sees the treasury team. Obviously there's going to be those that are kind of stuck in the old ways and they go to your controller for treasury stuff, but treasury now is getting more visibility at C-level, across the C-level, across the board level. And I think that shift has been deliberate because there is, there was an opportunity. People proved their value in treasury. And I think it's one thing I'll stop there and I'll say, I've always push towards getting the operational baseline automated. So then you can free up capacity and create higher value for the organization. That's what, that's what drives your, what I said, more strategic, less manual type of approach.

And that's what, that was the discussion I had with the New York client that, as he said, well, this either this junior guy gets more strategic. We're giving it every opportunity to, if he wants to remain at that day-to-day turning a handle, that's going, that he's going to get help us going on, but we're going to, and they were going to provide the tools for him to do it as well.

Yep. And there's just one thing that I'll mention, and I absolutely love this. When, when I talked to my CFO, I, I actually stole this from him, positionless football or positionless soccer, right? Where the team composition changes. So in the past, you also had people, someone is going to do this and you're going to do that and you're going to do this and they don't have cross-training. They don't do anything like that. Now it's how can you play a right back and then be an attacker 5 minutes after that? So that is also something that's changing and what I'm trying to work with my team on. So I'll just, just for for those that are interested in this, what I've done is I've actually divided the team in pillars. So we have your, let's say, liquidity and forecasting and working capital and accounts receivables and risk management. And I have someone designated to lead these, but also be a backup for another one. So they get exposed to something on a daily basis so they can learn the basics and they can maybe one day say, I actually am better fit for this versus that. And that's how to create the positionless soccer approach or football approach.

I got, we got to 42 minutes and this is like gold that is coming out now. This is amazing. As you say, I think it's a great way to do it. As you say, have a main pillar you're responsible for, but train and cross-train. And I've heard that from other successful treasurers where they sort of back up and they're doing it in rugby as well. It's not just soccer. It's okay. Correct. But they're doing it now with the back row players that they're saying, well, Yes, you need to be this, but also you need to learn to play on the wing because that might happen in a game. This is what— and if you don't, we could fail. And it's all about the team and things.

So exactly, funny thing is I'm a fan of Juventus. I watch all the games. Juventus, yes, they have an American player, Weston McKinney, and he's the guy that starts on the left, goes on the right, attacks, goes in defense. And I'm always like, I'm watching my favorite team, I'm like, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Positionless player.

Yeah. Which is amazing. But, but we'll definitely do that over a beer next time I see you. So we, as we wrap up the show, we're gonna put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and we do it every week. The takeaways. I had it one time a while ago, someone said, oh, you're gonna change that? I went, we've done it for 400+ episodes. And people say sometimes it's their favorite part, the takeaways and what they have their cup of coffee and they go, right, yeah, I should do this. So as someone's having their cup of coffee. What advice would you give as a takeaway if you're a junior, mid-level, senior? What would you say?

I would say, and I apologize for being boring, but, uh, never stop learning. Constant learning. It gets compounded over time. It, no matter what it is, it can be a professional designation, a certification, can be something you find online and it's valuable. You think it's going to be valuable and it's going to Strengthen your skills. And even if it's like 1%, this 1% is going to unlock a lot of, a lot of opportunities when you start networking with people. And just one other thing is kind of ties to this, I guess, goes handy and challenge yourself. Never stop exploring and put your brain to work in something that you've never done. While we talk about it, I just actually found something online 3 weeks ago called Restructuring and Distressed Investing. Certification. I'm like, okay, I've done a lot of M&A work. I know some of the concepts, but I don't actually feel that I know a lot. So why don't I sign up? Why would then, why would I not allow my CFO to bring me on these projects? And why would they hire third-party consultants if I can actually come in and do that? And then it allowed me to grow within the company as well. So I would just use that as an example to kind of further strengthen my message.

So I think there's, that's great advice for the more juniors and mid-level guys. But if you are like me, you and I, we share a stage a lot of the time we go to these conferences and that you are standing in a room exclusively with treasurers.

Mm-hmm.

If you are talking to those guys, what advice are you gonna give them? They've heard the other bits of the advice, they've heard that, but then this is more directed to them as other treasurers. What do you think they should be thinking about or doing maybe for themselves and their teams?

Well, I would say what I did applies to Treasurers as well. If someone told me and I was in the audience, I'm like, yeah, actually this guy is in the same position, or gal is in the same position as me and they're challenging themselves. Why wouldn't I do that? Like, why wouldn't I want to be in front of all these other guys here and we're going to apply for the same jobs. Why don't I stand out instead of that? Constantly just challenge yourself. And I guess AI adoption, I would also flag that. For all of us in the treasurer's seat, I think AI is now becoming the norm. So as much as you're able to implement, that is going to also drive the value for your organization, for you personally, and going to allow you to grow regardless of your tenure and where you sit in terms of the industry. It's industry agnostic.

It's brilliant. I'm going to see you at another conference very soon, probably in a few weeks' time. And thank you very much, sir. You've been brilliant. And yeah, people will enjoy it. And I'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can connect to you as well.

Yeah, thank you so much and look forward to catching up.

Yeah, thank you, sir.

Thank you.

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