From Accidental Beginnings to Treasury Success with Stephanie Kusta

Foreign.

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 built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. And I want to give a shout out to our sponsors flywire. If you've ever wondered if there is a way as a Treasury professional to ease your international transaction flows, then these are the people to talk to. There's a link in the show notes to my interview with my good mate Greg Levin, their Senior VP of Sales. Greg explains who Flywire are and how they can help you and your treasury team with any of your cross border payment headaches. The link to the interview is in the show notes, so check it out and I also want to share some more exciting news. We have partnered with Euro Finance for their 33rd International Treasury Management Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. It takes place from October 2nd to 4th, 2024. Looking forward to it. I've gone to the Euro Finance conferences now for the well over the past 20 years. If you're an international treasury professional then it's the place to be. Not only because I'm going to be there, but you'll get to meet as well as hopefully myself, over 2,200 senior treasury professionals from over 60 countries. You'll meet me we can talk about on my upcoming special feature podcast about the current state of the global treasury recruitment market, live and in person from Copenhagen. And I'm looking forward to meeting many treasury folk from clients such as Bose, eBay, Lego, FedEx. It's just going to be amazing. I hope you'll be there. Great opportunity to exchange experiences, meet leading financial and technology providers as well. It's going to be a great show. Now our LinkedIn audience. I've already offered a 10 discount too, so you can get access to that. But you, yes you as a podcast. This time I have an even bigger surprise for you. Yes, included in today's episode and some of our future episodes there is a secret extra discount code that will save you even more than the 10. Just have to listen out for it and you can save even more. Listen out for the code. Have a pen ready or you can just, I don't know, bookmark it. Listen back to the podcast. Why wouldn't you want to listen to it twice? But anyway, if you listen out for it and you can save even more to find out what it is and save you listen to today's episode and I can't wait to see you in Copenhagen and as I say each and every week. Let's get on with the show. This week's show I'm joined by Stephanie Custer, the vice president and treasurer at Orbian Global or Via. Global is a collective of premium and prestige beauty brands committed to stock honesty, co creation and making a sustainable cultural impact. So their collective consists of the following leading clean beauty brands. So you've got Bare Minerals, Buxom and Laura Mercier. What we're going to do is Stephanie will explain a little bit more about the group and how treasury is set up there later on in the show. What we're going to do is go back to the beginning, how Stephanie discovered the world of finance into treasury and all that great stuff from way back when. So Stephanie, over to you, welcome to the show and yeah, take us back to the beginning if you would. Over to you.

Sure, Mike, thanks for having me. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, I think most of us have that the same first line. I came into treasury by accident, right. Nobody goes to very few. I think it's actually I've heard more students talking about wanting to learn about treasury, but I think 20 some years ago nobody went to school and thought about treasury and you are, you're looking for a fairly entry level finance job and you wind up in treasury and I think two things happen, you either fall in love and you're committed for life or you think this isn't for me and you fall out early. I obviously was one of the former where I fell in love right away and it's been something I've been clinging to for 20 years.

So you started and then as you say, and I like that because you and I did this on the pre show. So you fell in love with treasury, but how did you discover finance and Treasury? Because you were. You did your finance background or. Yeah, again for the listeners because they might be doing the same. How did you then discover treasury and Finance?

Yeah, so for me, go back to college, I trying to find yourself and find something that works for you. And I've always been a numbers person. So I just landed in finance, didn't really know what I was doing and did a very short stint as a financial analyst on mutual funds and did that for about a year and it needed to move for personal reasons. And so I was looking for a job that didn't feel like it was straight entry level but had some a little bit more experience to it. But I also knew I was only one year out of school. Then I found this assistant cash manager job at Electrolux and at the time Electrolux is very large Swedish conglomerate in their North American headquarters was in Cleveland which was where I needed to move to. And it was just. It seemed like a good fit and I it was really nice cause it was this really great. Treasury is such a great way to learn a business because if you're doing that job properly you have to understand how everything flows. Right. And so even if it's just your entry level and you're doing wire transfers, you're doing the daily cash position, those are all things that you have to learn the business and understand the business to do well. And I liked that blend especially early on in my career of kind of routine and tasks and then projects on the side. Right. And for me early on that was. I liked that mix of structure and project based work and I really enjoyed that.

And you say Electrolux, what was Electrolux like in treasury terms? Because as you say you were working with the North American side of the business. How was treasury structured?

So it was. We had a very large global treasury team. So at the time, and I don't know if they still do or not they actually had their own trading desk in, in Sweden that had five to 10 people that were actually empowered to trade in the FX World Trade in commodities to make money for the organization. But then they had regional offices in Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe. And we all worked together that there was a head of those regional groups. And so we had monthly calls at 7:30 in the morning where we all worked together and were cross functional. And then we were. I was fairly close with the headquarters as well. There's global cash management responsibilities out of Stockholm. But we were very well connected and we even had our own IT staff. And so that's who I went to in Stockholm when I needed help with at the time, our treasury workstation and things like that. Because at the time things weren't on the cloud yet. Right. Everything was owned and on our systems and so you had to have more local on board on staff to IT people. A lot of cross functional work internally in treasury in the different locations. But also eventually the CFO of North America was who was running Treasury. So a of lot, lot of interaction with the accounting team and then eventually as the head of the North America treasury team I was part of that leadership team in the Cleveland office. So that was very cool. I enjoyed that.

And then move on Vayence if. Who were they?

Yeah, so that was a spinoff from Goodyear. So the Carlisle team took a portion of the Goodyear business and spun it out into a standalone. So taking a company that was, oh my gosh, maybe 10, 20% of the sales of Goodyear, but with the same global footprint. And so from there, I got to have global responsibility for cash management. I got to really start something, right. Got to take what I had learned at Electrolux, focused more on just cash management now, but getting that global responsibility and building it, which was very cool and very fun. But private equity is a different world. It's much more intense, especially from a cash perspective, right. That we were very highly levered. Half of our cash flow went to interest, expense. And this was. And then I ended up being there during the financial crisis and Lehman was the lead on our facility. So working through that and what that meant to our organization and how the PE firm was going to help guide us through the structure that we needed to do to be successful. And it was hard, right? There were times where it was really hard. And. But I learned a lot, and I talk a lot about the treasurer there who had these great staff meetings where everybody was talking about what they were doing. So even though I wasn't involved at the time in the FX hedging and some of the other things, and we also had M and A under Treasury, I was learning so much just by those staff meetings, by sitting and listening. And I also had that at Electrolux, where I learned a lot by being invited to meetings that I wouldn't necessarily necessarily for my role, needed to be there, but I learned so much and I really took that away from management style of how do you bring people into meetings, even though maybe their job doesn't require them to be there. But what are they learning and how are they growing just by sitting and absorbing the information that's being passed along.

And you worked Electrolux and then Bayance rubber products and things, and then you made a shift to Chart Industries. And I wanted to get into that because you had a really great period of time there. So you've gone plc public company, then you'd gone to private E or PE backed and everything else. What was Chart like?

Yeah, Chart was also public. And they hadn't really had traditional treasury person. They had tax running treasury and it was much more transactional. And the company historically was mostly domestic and they were getting ready to do acquisitions and become much more international. And so they really wanted to grow the treasury function. So they were looking for kind of their first real treasury manager. And so now I got this chance, right at advance. I was just cash management, but I was global. And now I got this chance to be this global treasury manager for the organization. And again, the treasurer didn't have a lot of treasury experience. He was also the head of M and A. But he was so great at being a sounding board and helping me grow. But because of this is why I bring up those meetings that I had with the treasurer advance was because even though I wasn't doing the hedging and I wasn't doing some of the other work, I had sat in enough that I had learned enough that I felt like it could really be dangerous and I could set up a hedging program and I could work with some of the ops people to get all those things up and running and I could really establish an international treasury organization that didn't really exist before and makes that team, not just the team that processed wire transfers, but really grow that team to be an organization that can add value to the organization through forecasting, through hedging, through as we went international. Right. Getting all of those entities set up and running, looking at those capital structures. Do we do intercompany loans? Do we need to get local financing? What's the best long term strategy and getting that money back and really getting a chance. And that was super exciting. And I can't say enough about the people I worked for there because they really gave me that chance to grow and shine.

And just with the company itself, can you explain what they did and then how that impacted Treasury? So make it a bit more granular for us.

Yeah, yeah. So they manufacture really tanks and systems involved in con storing or moving gas as a liquid. When you see the air gas trunk TRA trucks or the Praxair trucks or the storage tanks. Right. Chart manufactured those or if we want to talk about the liquid tanks for oxygen that people have for when they're on, when they've got COPD and things like that. Or even as we moved into to the beer making and things like that, the tanks for the gas there they started getting involved in. And while I was there, the big thing was they were starting to get big into the LNG fueling systems. So this was before really. Was it going to be lng, was it going to be cng? What was going to be the main alternative fueling source? Because at the time when I started there, oil prices were so high, people were looking for alternative fueling sources. And so those lng, whether it was like a facility, a place to fuel up LNG fuel, where people are going to start converting tanks to run on lng, that became a big thing and that became a very exciting part of the business. So I'd say at the biomedical side, the respiratory tanks and things like that was stuff people were always going to need and that was our cash cow. But the other businesses were where we were profitable. But it took a lot of cash to invest. It took a lot of working capital. They were long term projects. So a lot of progress payments on the treasury side, letters of credit to back those up. Because we also, we were growing internationally. We had this really strange issue that very few companies have where we were growing in China, but it had been a lot of investment into China. So we actually were trying to figure out how to get money into China, not get it out. We were trying to figure out what was the right capital structure because that we needed so much investment there. So I was going there routinely to meet with the local banks, to meet with safe, which is the organization that involves foreign investment, that runs foreign investment in the country, working with our local teams, because working capital was a big thing and how to manage all the inventory that was needed to get that business up and running.

And if you are a Treasury professional and facing a similar issue, if you're. How would you recommend people deal with it?

For me the biggest thing was connecting with the CFOs that were running those businesses. Really, you have to learn the business. No one coming out of finance knows how cryogenic tanks work, right? We don't understand the manufacturing cycle, the business cycle. There's. So when we had an engineer as our CEO, right? Because it's such a technical business. It's not like when I was at Abercrombie, we were selling clothes, right? That was easy. But this is really technical. So you got to learn the business, you got to understand that. And then you really do have to go to those manufacturing facilities and you have to have relationships with whether it's the local controller, the local finance person. Even for me in China, it was the head of the business there and the local finance team there. Because you've got to really understand what's happening. Because you can't make decisions on the right capital structure if you don't understand how the business runs and what the needs are. Because if you don't do things that match the speed of business and the needs of business, right. You're not really helping that organization. If you're just going with what you've always done and assuming it's going to cut and paste for every organization you're at, that's not going to work and that people are going to Want to.

Work with you and going, focusing more on you as a Treasury professional. How do you then grow? Because then you went from treasury manager up to treasurer. Talk us through that growth if you like or was it just taking more responsibility or developing the responsibility of treasury, spreading the word of treasury within the group because you were there for a number of years. So talk us through that for again, if someone's listening today and they're going how do you grow that? I'm just Treasury Manager. But they could see they maybe had the opportunity to step up.

Yeah, I think the first thing for me as I mentioned that my, my boss, the treasurer was also the head of M and A and he wasn't in treasury by growth. It was just he was a great leader and they needed someone to lead treasury and so he was that person. And I learned a lot from him on management style. And there was a decision where he was leaving the organization and the CFO was also fantastic and I can't say enough about him. And when the treasurer, he and I talked and he said I Steph, I don't think you're quite ready to be treasurer. I think you're absolutely ready to be the assistant treasurer and I see potential in you. So here's what we're going to do as the cfo, I'm going to take the treasurer title, we're going to make you the assistant treasurer and we're going to work on those skills that we want to see on you to be the treasurer. And they I went to grad school, I got my mba, I did a lot more working with cross functions in the organization to make sure that cross functionally we were adding value. I really worked at becoming more visible with the leadership team and knowing more people in those leadership roles. And I also as part of that title of assistant treasurer and working for the cfo, I was also brought on to be part of the executive committee. And that gave me a chance to really get to know the CEO, to know the head of HR and to know some of the people that I didn't necessarily work with normally on a day to day basis. And that really allowed me to find where treasury could add value. And it also allowed me to raise my hand for things that maybe weren't necessarily in Treasury. So while working capital is certain, certainly a Treasury thing, there are things like what are our, what are we doing from an AR perspective and a sales perspective, Are there things we can do to help the team? And what we came up with was a lot of our customers were new companies that couldn't get financing. And Chart had a very strong balance sheet. So we worked with a bank to come up with a program where they would lease this really big equipment of ours to our customers based upon the strength of Chart. And so we were able to grow sales through using our balance sheet and supporting our customers. And with doing things like that's where people started to say, okay, right, like she, this is, she's ready, she's got the, she's got, she's ready to move into this role because it's manufacturing too. So weren't a lot of other females sitting at the table. So you maybe had to dig a little deeper, work a little harder, prove yourself a little more.

And when you, when. So it was 2011, I want to bring us today in a minute, but when somebody else is in a similar situation now that you're saying, I want the treasurer role, and they go, yes, see if I said, yeah, I appreciate that, but you're not ready. You like, you can take it as a knockback or you can take it. So how did you deal with it? And did you just go, right, no, I'm going to go for this or how did you deal with that? I know it's a while ago, but again, for the listeners today, yeah, I.

Think for me that would have been a two step jump for me. So I think one thing is you have to be realistic, right? In our careers, there's things that I remember when I first interviewed for Electrolux, I was 23 years old and the CFO at the time asked me where I wanted to be in five years and I said, I want to be the cfo. And he and I talked about that later and it was, it's so naive to think you'll be the CFO in five years. But he loved that drive and that focus. And he said, I knew at the time you weren't going to be there, but I also knew you were going to work really hard to try to get there. And I think as long as you're always carrying that mindset, you may not be always able to get what you want, when you want it, but you have to keep working towards it. And especially that CFO didn't cut off the path to me, right? He didn't say, you're not ready. And so I'm hiring this person from on the outside. Now you're stuck, right? He gave me a pass and he was willing to invest in me because they, they covered my mba, right? So they were investing in me. So that was a really Easy conversation. I think the real question is, as long as they're giving you that pass, that's your chance to shine. No one's told you yet. They've just said not yet. And then they were really good to me when I got there to make sure that comp wise and benefits wise, I was in the right place.

So it wasn't that. Not ever. It was a night. There you go.

Yeah, yeah. And I. Yeah, I think you have to focus on that now. If you're told no and then they put somebody over you, that's a different con. And I would have reacted a lot differently.

That's the time to call me. So they.

Exactly. So I think that's what you have to step back and say. What are they really telling me?

Yeah, yeah. And that's great. Okay. And so we. I want to keep moving because we got some other great value and that we would talk about this. So then the next move, a natural move from cryogenic equipment and everything else to a global retailer. So talk us through that.

Yeah, that was a weird move. So Chart, I talked about how they were doing so well because of the alternative fuel, and then around 20, the price of oil started to drop and all of a sudden people weren't looking at alternative fueling sources. And so Chart made the decision to merge Tax and Treasury. And I found myself looking for a new role. And I also found out that I was expecting and I was trying to stay in the Cleveland area, which is where I lived, which was the time was mostly manufacturing. And I was very open about my personal situation. And I, to be honest, I struggled to find a manufacturing facility. And this wasn't even that long ago. It was 2016, but man, is the world different. Eight years later. That were open to my situation. But Abercrombie was, of course, we can't wait to have you. You'll get maternity leave, you'll get all these things. And that was when I was already four months pregnant. And they were so great. And I took a look at it and I said, this is an assistant treasurer role. It's a much larger organization and it's retail, which I've never done before.

And this is so, again, for the audience, if you don't look at Stephanie's profile, it's Abercrombie and Fitch.

Yes.

What was the size of Abercrombie? So this was 2016.

Yeah. They're about 3. They're about 4 billion at the time.

Yeah.

Now, oh, my gosh, they're so amazing. Their story right now. But I Was just. I thought this is right and I'm going to do this. And so my husband and I chose to move back to Columbus, which is where I'm originally from, and do the Abercrombie job. And it was. I learned so much. And it was great because really it helped set me up for the future because I didn't know a lot about E Commerce. Yeah. And that everybody's E Comm now. Right. And I was really. I was kind of a gap chart. Had a little bit of that, but it was so small. So that really set me up. I learned so much about E Commerce there, so much about how retail works. It's. They were. Now they were much more flush with cash. So treasury had a very different role there until Covid hit. Right. When Covid hit, all of a sudden we became very important. But before that it was really trying to keep that international organization flowing. We did some redesign on the structure internationally. We had relied on, especially in Asia, non Treasury people to run treasury there, which I didn't love. So we reorged that a little bit to really have a global treasury organization that all worked cohesive and really had to focus on. Especially once Covid hit. And I'll never forget that day getting a call on a Saturday morning saying, steph, we need you to come in. We need to think through if we. What happens if we close all of our stores and coming in with a few members of my team and getting the Europe team on the phone and waking up the agent team and saying, okay guys, we gotta think through this. If we close stores, can E Commerce carry us? What's in the coffers? What's undrawn on our revolver? How can we manage through this? And all of a sudden we became a pretty well oiled machine. On. While we always had forecasting, it didn't have to be as tight because we were so cash rich. But that we had to really tighten then. And it was so cool to see the whole team just pivot and really tighten things up. And we got so good at it so quickly. And I'm so proud of the team and how strong they became in the really strange world because a lot of our folks in Europe were in Milan, Italy, which if you might remember was where kind of the first.

Yeah, it really hit.

Stuff hit in the West. And so we had people there that weren't even allowed to leave their build their apartments. They were totally.

I know, yeah. And the people singing for the balconies. And it's crazy how it's in recent memory but it now seems quite. We've just moved on.

Yeah, it's four years ago. Yeah, it's.

I was actually listening to a podcast with Anne Malam, the she Solidcore who did Pilates and they were talking about exactly that moment where she just walked in the office and went. We were in person, Pilates classes and everything else. And then shut us down sort of thing. So it was. Yeah, very. Yeah, just very surreal. So I think. Yes, in that way. So.

Yes.

Okay, so you went through that. Talk us through then coming through post Covid and then bring us more up to date if you would. So what happened?

Yeah, so post Covid was, I think Abercrombie, just like every organization was trying to figure out what the new normal would be and how would things be. Because, you know, we had that. Some companies have this awkward situation where you have store employees that have to be in and you have DC employees that have to be in. Right. And not working from home. And so what do you do with this corporate office? And big thing about Abercrombie and Fitch is they have this beautiful campus where people work. And it was such a big part of the culture of that organization. Right. It's literally like a college campus. You have in the summer, people are going around on scooters and you have buildings that you have to travel to for meetings. And it's such a. An amazing really campus. And so working through that and trying to figure that out. And then with my teams too. Right. Because everything was different whether we still had some people in China that were working through that. I mentioned Europe and then the U.S. so we figured that out and I felt good about where we had landed and. And it was nice that treasury was back in the stick of things. Right. With cash still being a priority. But in the grand scheme of things, when you compare a PE firm, a manufacturing firm and a clothing retailer, treasury probably had the less exciting work at the. At a cash rich retailer. And so when the opportunity at Ormion came around to start a. Carve out, be the treasurer and really get this business established and running and create something new. Wow, is that exciting? And it just. And again, it was going to be something where working capital was going to be a huge focus. International, which has always been something I've done and that was. It's always been important to me to be part of an international group. And again, starting at the beginning. Right. And getting a chance to grow something. And I was just. And to be honest, when I met the cfo, she is one of the most glorious people I've ever met. And what I've really learned through my career is who you work for is so critical. And to know that I'd be working for someone like her, it was just. To me it was a slam dunk. It was just a really easy decision to make.

And talk us through the group, if you would, because we can read some stuff. Yeah, I know it's. We can't go into confidential information because you're owned by Advent. Talk us through, but you can. What can you tell us?

Yeah, so it's a. It was a carve out. So these brands were owned by Shiseido, which is a very large conglomerate, international Japanese owned company. And so the business case was these three brands might do better if they were more focused on. Right. And so the decision was made for Admin to purchase them. But we really. It was a carve out. So you get nothing. You get these three really well known brands that have this great international reach, but you have no structure. Right. Nothing to go with it. So we worked with Shiseido for about a year transitioning. So a lot of working through as we put up our own ERP system, put up our own distribution centers and models and figured out what our supply chain was going to look like. So it was really. We talk a lot about flying the plane while you're building it because you still had to Keep right this 3 to 400 million sales organization international going while you're trying to build the company structure that didn't exist anymore. You were borrowing it from somebody else. But we can all imagine how ideal that is. And so having to put that together and. And there was a thought that maybe you could do a lot of that with consultants, which made it, in my opinion, maybe a little tougher. So it's been a heck of a two years. But man, you don't get this experience from anywhere else. Right. The heart, the thing you have to somewhat get comfortable with in your career is the harder you work, the more you're learning. And as long as it's the right work, as long as it's not busy work, but if you're really working towards something, you're gonna, you're gonna bust. But man, are you learning a ton. And the amount that I've done in two years at Orbion is probably more than I did at six years at Abercrombie. Just because there's so much to do and so few resources. And it's also fun because it's your baby now. You're not just continuing to row the boat in the same direction it's been heading.

And when you're doing that, when you're establishing these operations and you're putting in place all these policies, controls, procedures and things, you know, dealing with a couple of clients at the moment, we're recruiting for them. And the question I got asked one of the candidates, they said, so tell me about this, the current setup. And I said, you got your piece of paper and your pen. They went, yeah. I said, you're going to take some notes from me, right? I said, yeah. They went, yeah. I said, that's the setup currently.

Yeah. Oh.

I said, now you can either see that blank sheet of paper as, oh, my goodness, now they have got controls they are putting in from a global level. But I said, but from an international level across Europe and things. And I said, you've got that blank sheet, but I said, that's for you to write on. And they were like, yes. Oh, wow. And either people see that as oh, goodness, or oh, great. So you see that. Yeah. And so when you're doing that. And again, way back when, I had a couple of treasury folks in the UK and Europe, they were setting up the treasury functions and they'd gone back over some of my previous podcasts and they'd gone and gone through a bit of a checklist. So if you, as the treasurer, you walked in the door, you're an experienced treasurer, you knew what you're doing, what was your top of your pick list, if you like. Again, if someone else is in a similar situation.

Yeah. So the first thing you, I wanted to get a hold on was, was cash. Right. That has to be our first responsibility. If there's nothing else you do in treasury, you make sure that you have the cash you need, you have the visibility to the cash and you have a feel of what's happening. So that, to me was priority number one. How are we managing and forecasting cash? So that was the first thing I did, was we were somewhat lucky and we only use one bank and we're able to do that internationally right now. So that made my job a lot easier from a reporting and an information perspective. So that was, number one, is what do I have visibility into? Am I able to forecast? And also what is leadership and what is Advent, the PE firm, looking for? Because you got to keep your stakeholders happy and comfortable. So that, to me, that was phase one, was just getting all of that together. Do we have the right signers? Do we have the right. Can we work? Can we do the things we need to do? Can we pay our bills. Can our customers pay us? Are those basics in place? Yeah, but then if the basics are in place, then it's okay. What's for me? Because I came in not quite day one. So there are always some things going. We had already selected in who our erp, what the ERP was going to be. Okay, what can I learn about that? What's in there? What's not in there, what do we need to plan for? Okay, we're not public and there's no reason we don't have a ton of FX exposure. And honestly, cash flow is such a big thing. Hedging, okay, that's not something I have to worry about. So I'm going to just put that out of the way and not even think about that right now. And then it was capital structure and it was talking to Advent about what they wanted to do, how they saw the capital structure of the organization and they wanted to put debt in. So it was okay, let's work together, let's get that done. So that was really hot and heavy right away because they wanted to do in an asset based loan. That is not simple from a Treasury perspective, reporting perspective, there's a lot of work that comes to that even before you put the loan in place and then going forward. So how do we do that if we're going to do something like that? Right, because you can't put a loan like that in place and then not be able to provide the information to the lender that's needed after you close. So those to me were the first things. And I know it's frightening because I never said controls policies, but to be honest, those had to come along with things. Right. Those had to happen as we could because we were, we didn't have a lot of people and we had so much to do. And so you tried to sneak those things in.

Yeah, but you were doing that in the your. When you're looking at the cash management.

And everything else, yeah, you're doing it as you go.

But if you're doing a compliant way anyway, it's not exactly.

But it wasn't like, okay, today we're going to work on all of our policies and it just you. That's something that you're doing that as you can and as you go. Because you at the time it was just me and so you can't just can't sit there and daydream. You've got to go, yeah, you got to roll up your sleeves and you got to go.

Hello, lovely podcast listeners, Sorry to interrupt Today's episode, but it's worth it. This is your secret extra discount code that will save you even more on the upcoming Euro Finance conference. That's right. You can save even more by being a podcast listener. Thank you for listening. So for LinkedIn audience members, we gave them a 10 discount, but that's okay. But you're special, you are a regular podcast listener, so thank you very much. We love you guys and thank you for all your support. But you also get to save 15%. That's right. 1 5. So 15% entry to the amazing 33rd Euro Finance International Treasury Management Conference. The code you have to use when booking and that you just use the same booking link that's in the show notes. But the code you have to use is MKTG, like marketing without the vowels. MKTG forward slash TCC. That's Treasury Career Corner TCC. That's what you're listening to. Thank you. So, MKTG forward slash TCC. 15. I know it's a bit of a mouthful, but it's worth it. 15 saved just for listening to today's podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you for being a loyal listener to the podcast. And anyway, as I say, let's get back to on with the show. Many things you and I had this conversation before about as part of that and actually as you were establishing treasury and a real robust treasury, but you were then integrating with lots of different parts of the business cross functionally. And I know that's a key thing for you that getting treasury out amongst the wider business. How did you do that? Someone says that's all very well for you, Stephanie, but you. But as exactly as you just pointed out that it was only you at the beginning, but so how did you get out there and spread the word of Treasury?

I think the first thing is the CFO agreed with that. And so she was. She would meet with various people and she would tell people, you need to meet Stephanie. So she would. She had me meet with the CEO early on. She had me present to our executive committee early on. She had me doing one on ones with a lot of those people early on. So they all knew who I was. So that later on when I would say go to our supply chain leader and say, hey, what's the plan for manufacturing once we're no longer using Shiseido? I need to understand that from a cash flow perspective, it wasn't just me randomly cold calling him. So I think it's important to make sure that you and your and the CFO are on the Same page on how important it is. And if it's not, you got to work that first. Right. Because if you don't have that support system right. Everybody's flying by the seat of their pants in a startup situation. So nobody wants to take meetings they don't think are value added. So you've gotta make sure that everybody understands the value of treasury and what we're trying to do. And especially in a PE firm, cash is king. P&L's nice and we report on it, but cash is king. And so making sure everybody understood. I'm not just trying to get in your business, I'm trying to learn what I need to make sure that we have the money you need to do what you want to do. And so it's very make sure everybody's clear on the symbiotic relationship that everyone can have in those ways. And then it's keeping, it's continuing to keep those relationships and keep those up. Whether it's. I'm not a big fan of meetings for meetings but sometimes those just biweekly touch bases can be, you can set it up for a half an hour, maybe it's only five minutes some weeks but it's hey, what's going on in your world? Anything I should know about? Anything changing? Hey, let me tell you what I'm seeing. So it's not just a one way conversation. Let me share with you what I'm seeing in the world because I think what gets lost sometimes in corporations is that everybody focuses on what they need to do and from their perspective, what's right for the organization. But usually what's really good for the organization is when you get multiple teams together, thinking through that all everyone's aspect and then it's usually something that's a mix of what everybody wanted to do because everyone's got a different mindset and a different focus. And if it's only treasury making the decision or if it's only marketing making the decision, it's probably not the right decision for the company as a whole. It's probably somewhere in the middle. And the more we collaborate and the more we get together Cross functionally the better I think the business performs. And sometimes that's really easy to lose sight of.

No, but I think you explained it very well there. And the other great passion is for helping people grow and develop their treasury careers. How we. I know you, you explained it because you're an example of it. But for you as a treasurer now you're at the top table of Treasury. How do you Encourage that. What's your ethos behind it?

Yeah, I think for me, the biggest thing is I completely trust the people that work for me. And if I don't completely trust you, then you're probably not going to work for me very long. Because my what I want is, I want someone that I'm never going to ask you, what hours did you work? I'd be like, I can't stand that micromanagement business. And I also want to know, okay, you got this, you're going to take this, you're going to run with this, and if you have a question, you're going to come back to me. And so any touch bases I have with people is more to me sharing information, not just telling what you've done. Right. I believe that you've done what you said you're going to do. And I think the more we do that with people, the stronger the people below us are going to be because they're empowered and I think that's so critical. And then it's also making sure that you bring them into things so that they're learning and they're growing without adding just a hundred meetings to somebody's day. Right. Because that's not helpful either. So it's trying to find that balance. But I think if we're not growing and developing the people below us, I think it's so important to say, oh, no, don't worry, I've got Melissa right behind me and she's ready to go, she's ready to rock. So it. I think they'll get so caught up and worried about someone below them taking their jobs. No, this is your, this is, to me, this is the key to moving up in the world is building a strong team. And then you. Not only that, people are happy and they're enjoying their jobs and you're not constantly having turnover where you're having to spend time and energy training new people. People are engaged, people are liking what they're doing. And that is the side that I love about work. I was very much a recipient of that in my career coming up. And I noticed it gravely when it was missing and the impact it had on the roles that I was in when it was missing. And so that has even more solidified my need for being that kind of a boss and mentor and manager, whatever word you want to use.

And you're a very busy lady. So what we're going to do is we're going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. Great conversation so far, but this is a Wrap up each week. So what are the takeaways you're going to give you? It was great talking there, just about cross functional, growing your career. But if you're thinking at different levels or what are the takeaways you're going to give to people today?

I think one to me is always be willing to raise your hand, whether it's in a. For a Treasury project or something else, because every experience is fantastic and getting new experiences is what makes our jobs interesting and exciting. So always willing to raise your hand, be the kind of person you'd want to work with. So thinking about how you treat the other people you work with, whether they're your superiors or the people that work for you or you work with, be someone that you'd want to work with. And lastly, I think just go for it. If there's something that you want, if there's something you want to do, go for it. Be willing to ask the questions, be willing to ask for help, be willing to work hard, but just. Just go for it.

So put your hand up, treat others as you would like to be treated, as you say, and go for it. Why not? Yeah, it's definitely amazing chat. Thank you very much today and look forward to catching up and connecting with you very soon.

Thank you for having me. This was really fun.

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thanks for tuning into another great episode. You really enjoy it. Thank you very much. You make it worthwhile, us recording them with these amazing treasury professionals right the way across the world, from the us, across the uk, across Europe, and there's lots more exciting guests to come and lots more live events. We love delivering this content. We get asked now, is this what you do? Do you just do content? You just know the reason we do the content is to get to know you guys, to give you back the tips for success. If you. But we're here to help you hire someone. If you need to recruit, call us, because at our heart, we are a Treasury recruitment company. That's how we pay the bills, that's how we pay for the podcast and that's what we're passionate about. We hear from you at events and things. Can we also help you find your next great role? Can we help you hire? The answer is yes, that's exactly what we do. Yes, we do our treasury salary survey@treasurysalary.com that helps us know exactly how to benchmark not only your salary, but also when you're looking to hire. We know exactly what the market is paying, wherever you might be, whether it's the us, UK or Europe. We want to make sure that we are the best informed, that we're not just finger in the air. We always know. If you want to hire the best in treasury, don't hesitate to contact us. Go onto the website treasuryrecruitment.com or in the US, you can contact Joe Grabowski. Europe, contact the lovely Katie for more senior roles and roles across the uk, reach out and contact me or drop any of us an email joe treasuryrecruitment.com Katie treasuryrecruitment.com or mike@treasuryrecruitment.com Let us help you make the hiring process easier. As amazingly seamless and easy as our podcasts are to listen to. Thanks for your amazing support and looking forward to seeing you at either an event or a conference very soon. Or just give me a call. Let's help you find the next role or recruit the next treasury professional. All right, until next week, many thanks.