From Luxembourg to Charlotte; Francisco De Barros's Treasury Career Blueprint

Foreign to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next, let's get on with the show. Hello my lovely listeners. Just before we get into the main episode, thought I'd let you know this is an update episode. So we are going to hear from Francisco de Baros. Francisco, when I spoke to him was the assistant treasurer at Ingersol Rand. About a year or so ago he joined Gerald when as VP and treasurer. They're a leading global designer and manufacturer of interior and exterior doors, windows and related building products. So you're going to hear about that later on in the show. We're going to go into the original episode. So you hear me with a little bit of music there, hear me introducing him from when it's time. There we go through the show. It was a great show originally actually really enjoyed talking to him. We talked about support, finding supportive mentors in treasury and a really good thing for him and then he moved on. So original episode, then straight into the update and then hang on in there for a bit more about us and doing our salary survey which is just coming out for you lovely people. So take part and enjoy the episode. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Francisco de Barros, the assistant treasurer at Ingersoll Randy Ingersoll round a global market leader with a broad range of innovative mission critical air, fluid energy and medical technologies provide services solutions for industrial productivity and efficiency. Merged with Gardner Denver in early 2020. So means they've got more than 300 years of combined experience and expertise. But that's my usual pitch at the beginning of the show. Francisco and I, we've known each other for many years. We're going to go back to the beginning of his career few years ago now, but not too far. But we're going to start out with how you first discover finance and then treasury and then we'll bring it up today and then we're going to touch on some interesting topics at the end of the show about technology and people and everything else. So Francisco, back to the beginning if you would. How did you first ever get into finance post college or what happened? How did you discover it? Over to you, sir.

Thanks, Mike. Yeah, so I think for me coming out of grad school, Mike, I really, if I think about myself, I'm a person that always liked to put myself outside my comfort zone. So out of college as most people really didn't know what I wanted to do. And at that time, an opportunity presented itself to join Tyco International. Some people may recall Tyco was in those companies that know coming out of the America corporate scandal was a lot of changes going on. And I was asked to join the audit team. For me, it was a great opportunity right within audit, I was given a chance basically to learn a bunch of different things and meet a bunch of different people. And I thought it was a good opportunity then to make up my mind I can learn different things and then I can decide what I want to do. So I jumped on that opportunity with the Tyco audit team, I think was probably one of the best decisions I made in my career. I was a company that was going to, as I said, to a lot of turbulence. We saw a bunch of things from financial audits, no forensic audits, and we had a great team there. The team was. Everybody was new, everybody was eager to learn. And you really had to be on top of your game and be flexible because things change from one day to the other from there on. I got into an engagement where it was a Treasury audit. I ended up leading that audit. And that was audit at multilocation was domestic in the US and international. Through part of the audit where in Luxembourg, doing one leg of the audit and doing a diligence, we uncover some things of some weak control weaknesses that had been missed by some of the external auditors. And I think the treasurer at the time was quite impressed by that. And. And he approached me and asked me if I wanted to join the treasury team. I thought it was exciting because I always like the treasury piece. Right. But I didn't know anything about treasury and he. His answer was no. If found those things and the weakness controls, you're able to spot things that had been missed by expert people or the external auditors. Right. As they're seen as have more expertise than internal folks. Sure, I can teach you. And I when he said he could teach me, I jump on that opportunity and I.

Let me. Sorry to interrupt, but when you said you really became interested in treasury at that early st, I just want to grab that. Why was it at that stage you done an audit, which is a great place to start, exactly as you say. But you've seen control weaknesses. Oh, it's a bit broken here. Is it that you could go in and fix those things or was it the very nature of treasure or was it both or what was the situation?

I think for me, what I realized when I Started doing the treasury audit was no treasure no those no back office. If I call function. But really touches everything. Mike. Like when you look at the financial statements for a company, right. The 10k 10q if people. Not sure how many people have done that, but I have you count how many things I stated there that relates to Treasury EW FX interest income interest, expense, cash is the notes and bolts of an organization. Right. And it's a key component that's silent in the background but provides a lot of no assurance liquidity and support for senior management to move towards their goal. Right. We help to fund it. So it was not more the weakness controls the control weakness was something interesting because related to external debt. And I think something that people always like about the capital market side. But what treasure made organization. For me that was the eye opener. When I got into that engagement and.

This role you then had to move location as well. Can you talk us through what that was like because you were at the time tell us about if you would your background in terms of nationality and things. Just because then because you've got this international moves you really a lot of treasury folks have spoken have gone around the world with treasury and it's taken you around the world. What's that like?

Yeah. So I think I'm originally from Brazil. I came to the west, do my undergrad and graduate studies and end up staying. But from from a career perspect active. When I was doing audit I was in in Boca Raton, Florida. Right. And the opportunity came up to move to Luxembourg to join the team there. And in my career I have always been very conscious about learning the experiences that are the building block of the experiences that you need to take long term where you wanted to be. So the opportunity was to join the treasury team which kind of that point I really wanted to join location wise was was in Luxembourg. Again most folks at the time surprised that I was waiting to move from Florida into Luxembourg. But for me it was going outside of comfort zone. I feel when you push yourself more you can learn something. So for me it was twofold. One was I knew I was going to learn a whole new function which was discomfort but exciting and also right the cultural change leaving the US which was a culture I was used to and was my first international assignment into Europe. And I learned a great deal from how teams in Europe at least Luxembourg how that culturally, how that works and also the function of treasury. And my very first basic role. It's what I call referred to as the foundation of treasury, which was treasury operations Right there I was setting up cash pools, back office structure to FX trading and settlement. So was really the, the notes and bolts of a foundation of a Treasury organization. So that was a great like say way of dipping my toes into the treasury space.

And then you did a couple of years there, I know only a year or so and a year and a bit. But then you had to move back. Talk us through the promotion or how it, how it developed, if you would.

Yeah. So I think I'll take back to what I said in the beginning. Right. So Tyco was a very fast paced organization. Right. A lot of changes going on because of everything that's going on with the organization. So after we moved to Luxembourg, I think shortly as a funny story, because when we moved to Europe, my wife, for whatever reason she said no, she'll go to Luxembourg, she go to anywhere near, but she did not at the time want to move to Switzerland. We got to Luxembourg and with no. A month into the assignment I got a call from the treasurer and he said no, I had to move to Switzerland because they, they now are in a position that they're comfortable that they could consolidate both offices and drive synergies from it. So I had to convince my wife to move to Switzerland, which no at the beginning was not easy. After a while she, once we moved, she loved it. She didn't want to leave Switzerland. But then we moved to Switzerland. I had no one within the team wanted to move when Luxembourg wanted to move to Switzerland. So I was basically the only one that moved to Switzerland. So my role not was only learning the treasury piece of the front office in Luxembourg, but I had to learn everything that team was doing because I was transferring that to Switzerland. So I moved to Switzerland where I spent another year or so training the team and integrating both offices. And then an opportunity came up with my next treasury role which was the internal funding. Right. And that was more related to intercompany loans and deposits and intercompany dividends and a lot of the M and A activity that was going within time. So for me, despite having to move once again, that was an opportunity to add another building block to my learning experience. And then we decided to move back into the west to the corporate headquarters which was in Princeton at the time, to take on that role for the taekwas. They're spinning off what was then Covidian and then Tyco Electronics. So was a lot of asset divestitures and funding activity going on and they needed someone to help to build the team and to improve the process around it. And for me it was another learning experience. It was a great experience.

And so as it develops, tell us about the group as well, because I don't think we really touched on that the actual industry. Because of what challenges that threw to you treasury wise, because you were going through a lot of development as well.

Yeah. I think when you think about some of the more consolidated treasury functions like operations effects that capital markets, you have a bench of individuals with expertise that can draw upon. When talk about the internal funding, I have seen very few companies had a dedicated team to do internal fund involves not only the treasury piece which know how much dividend can you patriot, does it generate effects now do we hedge the dividend, so on and so forth. But also from a business perspective. Right. Learning the P and L and what the projections are. If you're talking about M and A, how much cash you're going to generate if you're going to dive invested business, not two, three, four months from now and how much you can pull out. So there's a little bit of an fpa, if you will, or business strategy acumen into that role. So finding the individuals that knew a little bit of treasure operations and had the P and L or FPA experience. Right. So we had to build a team that was a little bit of a hybrid that we could complement each other and then set the guardrails or the rules of the game. And that's exactly what happened on that team. And for me it was good because I learned a little bit of that P and L and business acumen strategy which kind of took onto my next role, which was outside of Treasury.

When you made that move outside the treasury, was it something you were pushing for or was it just a, actually I need a wider brief or what was the situation once I felt that.

No, the internal funding structure was buttoned down and I had enough, no solid experience that I could drop on from the future. Right. Then I started discussions with no senior management and my mentors, right. About what should I do next. And at that point I was really interested in FX and capital markets. They didn't really have a role at the time on that team. The team was fairly new. But Tyco, as I said, was divesting a lot of the segments. Right. So one of the proposals was they had the flow control division which was going to be divested sometime in the future was for me, hey, why don't you, why don't you go move outside of treasury into this FP and a role for a subsegment of flow control which was called tycothermal. Right. And then you learn a little bit of the FPA and the P L. Right. And that will help you as a backdoor into a kind of rating agency discussion as you're kind of trying to prepare the rating or the indicative rating for this company that's soon to be public and so on and so forth. For me it was like okay, I can learn a little bit the capital markets, how the interactions work and I can learn an entirely new function. And that's why really I decided to take now what was not with a an easy decision for me to step out of Treasure because something I really like. But I think no as going back to. I think the role and the experience you get at is more important location anything at least for me. I decided to take the role and move once again because the role at the time was based in Houston. So we had to move from Princeton into Houston. And again I went to work with one of my prime mentors. He was my former boss at the audit team which was now the Lead Finance FP&A for that segment. And always about shows how about building relationships and network and having people trust that you can do it right. And an opportunity for you to deliver it and. Exactly. That's what I jump on when the opportunity presented.

And then you progressed back into treasury or treasury came knocking.

Exactly. So once the split or the spin off of Flow Control was well right in the works, they appointed the treasurer. What would be treasurer for that division which was my former boss at the old treasury team at Taiko. And he asked me to join treasury back for the Flow Control division at this time as no the treasury director for EMEA and apac. And again I would have to move back to Europe which I did. But to help him to split the treasury function from the Tyco systems and set up a new treasury function for the Flow Control which was a business that had different needs than Tyco as a consolidated corporate. I did take on that role. But no fortunately unfortunately depends how you see it. Right. Once we moved it was announced that the company was no longer being public but was being acquired or merge with Panther Inc. So the role that was really supposed to be the grandiose role lost a little bit of meat because Panther had a little bit of different mentality where they tended to outsource some of the Treasure operations. I think going through the merger and trying to set up the team was very valuable. But no, I really didn't want to be a role on a role that Was going to be somewhat empty, was going to be more managing a third party. And I did have a discussion with the Panther treasurer at the time which I devised against. Not because of my role, I thought my role was going to be jeopardy because was not. But because I had seen by being treasured long enough that no, a lot of the people that did treasury service outsourcing, like the banks, they have gone out of providing, they stopped providing the service mainly because is a low margin business. Right. And my concern was if we go down this route and the provider decides to cease providing the service, we are going to be in hot waters to set up an operation very quickly. But that's the decision they wanted to do. It's not short term cost perspective. And then for me I was not being challenged anymore. And that's when I decided to to move on to my next role which was the spun off of Abbvie from Abbott which then was different piece where I had to move companies, relocate back to the US and it was very different. Very interesting project because there with Abby and Abbott we had a two year TSA where basically we had the plan to design the strategy from the ground up. Company had a lot of resources, again, great team, a lot of support from senior management and I think we did great things at Abby. I think I'm very proud of the treasury foundation that was laid at abvi and he's a big contributor to what ABBVIE is today from a lean machine perspective.

And Francisco, can you just explain for the audience who don't know what Abby is? A lot of people will, some people won't. And how that differed in treasury terms. So you were previously with Tyco, so you had global exposures and everything else and the business itself was quite different to AbbVie. Explain what difference was if you would.

So Tyco was an industrial conglomerate, right? Very. Let's say pulverized presence on bank accounts and segments. AbbVie is a pharmaceutical. They are proprietary pharma company that was spun off from Abbott. Very top talent, top technology on the development of their products. But no, from a Treasury perspective it's simpler in a way that they have very few customers. Customers tends to be mainly governmental entities or a single distributor in a country per country. But no, very. But very high exposures to any of those individual customers. Very cash flow rich international presence similar to what no Taiko had. But the different types of need. Mainly because no we generate a lot of cash and we didn't have the customer base diversification as compared to industrial conglomerate. Right. You can I think of as the most retail presence.

Yeah.

If you think about that, it's like a wholesale where you have no few touch points from a customer perspective. But different set of challenges right there we got more engaged after sending the foundation. We had a lot of discussions. For example, as a new products have been launched right now a lot of the government, especially in the developing world, right. The budgets are somewhat constrained, right. So how do we use our balance sheet to make the medication affordable? Right. To those people that need and how can you help those local governments to get access to the medication? How do we help them to finance it? So a little bit more on the creative side in trying to partner with the business from a strategy perspective, right. Because end of the day you want to make sure that people receive the medication, the top care that they need, right. But no, but we still need to make a profit, right. So how do you balance that out.

And how did you, how was that in treasury terms? And you know what was that like?

So I think in treasury terms, first we set up a very lean operation right where I had like full visibility, full connective and access to cash worldwide. So with that piece with the technology in place, right. And everything working properly. Properly. As you may recall Mike, we won in 2015, 2015 Treasury Management International award for the best technology deployment, right. Then we, we had the time to do more value add tasks and that's when we spent a lot of time with the business and the financial controller, me especially like learning what the pharmaceutical market is, how the industry operates and then showing to the country, CFOs and financial leaders in the commercial side that we could add value, right. So once start building that report, then they start coming to us to bounce ideas now for the challenge that they may have. Right now I have this customer that how do I get them to pay? How do I get some security? Can we do some type of financing to help to facilitate? Not financing, but like payment terms, like extended payment terms. How much does it cost me? Can we do something to hedge that risk? And working with our internal partners, external partners in the banks, we came up with creative solution, right. Sometimes you come with a solution and the business says no, doesn't work. Or there's a challenge here, it's challenge there. And you become this back and forth of ideas into arrive at a state that okay, this is something that we can live with. This helps the commercial team deliver what they need. And then once you have the first success stories, I think good news spread out and then people here and then it will become a reference center or a strategic partner and that's what's really what you want it to be.

And how do you do, how do you spread the word of treasury in that sense? There'll be people listening today going, that's all very well. We were a smaller. Maybe they're a smaller team or something like that. Did you make sure to go push yourself out into the business or how did it work sort of thing for you at the time?

I think it's a twofold. Right. One is no. The finance team, the commercial finance team, they talk amongst each other to benchmark and then they say hey, you're facing a solution. I work at Treasure and do that and some people come to you because they had a reference. The other piece was me trying to push myself and my team to develop themselves. Right. So I would challenge the team to say reach out to the controllership team, embedding yourself into balance sheet reviews. Right. If you have a desire to. To learn controllership. Right. If you want to be more on the FP and a side. How can I get you connected with right people so you get exposure to it. So by. By challenging the team to get exposure to an area that may have interest or that they need development to complement a skill set that they may be lacking. Right. Then by having Treasure on that table, then the conversation naturally arise and that's kind of treasure becomes more evident and more present.

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No, I think no, that was mainly on the Treasure operation side and business strategy. Right. I think once you have to think of the cycles, right. And a little bit of a backpack, the more expensive you put in you can take out. So I closed that cycle there and for wanted to go next. No, I think you have to be vocal about what you want to do and I have always been. So now I went back my leadership and said no, hey, I feel that we are state now that it is stable. I have people on my team that know can step up to the plate to take the role. And for me I think now I'm ready for a new challenge. Luckily enough I had no a mentor and boss that no she was very supportive of development and different experiences. So we had discussion and the resolution or the outcome was based. No they felt or the organization felt that I needed to learn more about the pharmaceutical industry itself. Right. Because it's a very specialty industry has its particularities if you will. So I, I said no. If that's what's going to take for me to go into my next role or the high role in Treasury, I'm willing to step outside of treasury once again. So then I move into a commercial role and the specialty pharma division, the finance lead for a sub segment of the specialty pharma. And that was great. I learned everything that was. I considered to be pretty much the pharmaceuticals. Right. My portfolio I had had no medications or drugs that were going off patent. So I saw the end cycle of medication. We had drugs that were basically off patent but no didn't lose the revenue because they're unique and we have new assets. And I not only learned that piece but no I had a lot of insight because of my experiences. Right. When we were talking about we are launching a new asset. So what they could bring to the table was modeling around profitability and financing and cost and FX impact. If you're going to expand to foreign markets, how do we structure the billing right. For those distributions outside in outside markets, potential calls. So it was really great because I, I felt, although it was a new role for me, I felt I was not coming to the table empty handed. And that's one of the diverse background, the diverse experiences can bring it to you. I always encourage my team to although if they like treasury. No, let's say no. Get more broad exposure. If you have to step outside of trade for a little bit, it do it. I think it's going to be beneficial for you in the long term.

And then. So you did that and took us through the next steps. I think so. I don't want to run out of time today because we're, we're on the roll but keep going.

When I went into that role like consciously, I know that's going to be there. Not for a long period. Right. I say for three years. It's not short but not long. I think enough for you to get a good basis. And I wanted to come back into treasury and sometimes things don't work the way you plan, right. So there was not a role within the treasury team at Avida could come back into. I did not want to rotate into another finance role because it's not really where my deep interest resided. And then that's when the opportunity to join ingusrand came up. And that opportunity was mainly wasn't treasury but was going to give me a good chance to deepen my knowledge in the capital market side as assistant treasurer. And then for me I think that was the box that was missing. It was to get an in depth knowledge of the debt capital markets piece and that's what we have been working here with Ingerso Rand, you may have seen other news yesterday we finally got up created by S P Label as one of the rising stars. So I think we have been doing a great work here. You know we have a great team, a small team but very dedicated group of people that really are eager to learn. We're all learning together in this journey as we continue to solidify the processes since the merger, developing the team and bringing everything in house. So it's for me was the opportunity to develop a new or not develop but really to deepen a skill set that I felt was somewhat light in my career in treasury to know prepare myself for what may come next.

So with yourself you touched on it throughout the conversation there about you've got this passion for lean operations, technology driving things and then it then reflecting the people things. Can you just let's dive into technology and then people before we run out of time today. So why is technology. We do our treasury salary survey. Anyone that's not done it go to treasurysalary.com it's been a not a bane of my life, it's been a struggle but now we've got it straight through process. You click on there there boom. You put your information. Five minutes later you've got a salary survey. Global salary survey. Amazing. And I've I look to you treasury guys. Where you guys lead, I follow. I've seen how you've straight through processed everything with technology and different systems and things. I've had other people pushing back recently saying not everything seem needs to be streamlined as you know the heck out of it. But most of the time it does with you. What's it like for you technology wise? What's your. Why does that drive you so much? Much?

Yeah. So I think no as you think about treasury, right. Treasury really is a cost center. Right. I know some people like think of treasury where this great organization, a great function we are but at the end of the day we are a cost center. Right. And while we bring some direct value is talking about reduction bank fees and interest income, most of the value that treasury business organization is untangible. Right. So I never wanted the organization or the discussion to be around the cost around my people and my team. Team, right. And I think technology today can fill some of those gaps. Because I think the worst thing that you can have is a large team where everybody does a little bit but has a lot of free time because then everybody's bored. And every time everybody. No, nobody really learns a lot. Right. And then you don't to have a board and disengaged team. So what we have done, we have tried to have a team lean enough that no provides work life balance because I think it's important. But everybody is a little bit let's say stretched to the point that they're not bored but they have no time to learn other areas. And we lay technology on top of it. Right. Because if you're going to have a lean team, you need to have technology otherwise becomes a unsustainable situation where just too much going on. Given all the areas that we need to manage. At Taiko ABVI and English Friend we're always looking to add technology and that doesn't really mean one technology. Right. It's a. The latest and best. No treasury erp. Right. It is important, but no technology about what I refer to is also processes, right. If you look at the process, I always tell my team take a step back. Right. How do you put a process? No, it's lean, it's clean, it's simple. I would say simple. It's better. Right. And I think if you can take a process and transform it to something new that's more efficient. To me this technology being added. Right. Either be your know how or something. But this technology has a whole component, right. So you need to have a system to support it. You have to have process to support it. And you need to have the people. Right. Engaged in order to drive this forward. And we have achieved like Abby. When you think Abby and Abbot. I think Abbot had a very large treasure organization upon the spin off. Right. I think there. I think there are over like 50 headcount worldwide because they tend to have a lot of treasure people. Every single location at abvi, right. We cut a headcount by less than half than that. And it's not like people got fired because not the intent. Right. You had to be conscious. But no, remember we had a two year TSA so As a build organization, we laid down the tech knowledge framework. So we didn't need to staff up for that that for that many people, right? Especially because Abby was. When I joined, right, they had Homira, which was the largest drug patent was about to expire. So we had that thing that no, if we could extend the patent then and or replace, right. The revenue, the organization would know progress. But something happened, right? I need to be able to react like support scalability or. No, streamline everything if needed. Same thing with Inga Suran, right? We are, we are growing, right? The desire of the company, we are going to gonna grow aggressively. You know, management has laid out that part of the capture structure A is one of the key foundations of it, right? And then we don't want to staff too quickly, right? Because something happens. Then you see what happened in the tech sector, right? That people are just being laid off because they overstuffed. So we want to be more conscious about it to say no, let's have the technology to take us forward so you can rely less on people. And the people that come on board, we know they're here for the long term. Not just because they engaged and they are interested in their learning, but also because something happens. No cyclicality or to the company need to. To cut anybody because I don't have fat. So I'm. We try to be outside those discussion because we delivered a lean solution to the organization.

And you talk there you touching there on people. So people wise, what's your ethos around that?

Early in my career, right, I was lucky enough and to have no good mentors and good bosses that kind of helped me to push me forward and to provide the feedback that I need to grow and to develop, right? And I think that what anyone can do is pass that along, right? So as if you ask my team, I always try to spend time with them to provide constructive feedback, right? A timely feedback. So I think it's important because the same way that I like to be developed and to receive feedback and to feel that my contributions are valued people, other people like it too, right? So I try to do the same thing for others not as I would like to receive. So I try to be conscious about that, right? I'll make sure that people work hard, but they also have fun and they enjoy it, right? I want to make sure that no people feel challenged. And I'll do that very simple ways, right? Sometimes people come to me, someone on my team say no, hey, I have this issue, right? I think normal management answer would be no. Can you do this to fix it? My. My first reaction is like, what do you recommend that we do? I try to throw the question back consciously so they can think about it and can I walk them through the rationale if I agree or don't disagree. And sometimes there's no right or wrong as a preference but at least we can have a conversation about it and they see where I'm coming from and they can about different aspects. Because I think we need to keep the big picture mind given that treasury touches many different aspects of the organization. So I want to avoid people going to a silo. We try to do that no on the treasury functions. I try to do that by exposing them to other areas. And if no the development is in outside Treasury, I'll be the first sponsor. Right. I think no. Whatever helps them grow overall is great for the organization. You don't want to have someone that know you, you don't develop or is great, but you don't develop and then leaves the organization because they feel there's no growth opportunities. I think there's growth opportunities everywhere. You just to know where to look for them.

And that probably nicely segues into as we approach the end of the show. What are the. You've touched on a lot of the areas. You've had this international experience. You've got people, you got technology. If you're bringing those all together each and every week on the podcast we get the top tips from people. What are the takeaways you're going to give other people today? That we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. But what would you tell people either coming into treasury in the junior end or or more senior colleagues. What are the takeaways? You tell people to think about two takeaways, Mike.

So I think one is know whatever you do, always think about holistically. Right. So if you're doing a single task, don't think of just that task, but try to have a broader view. How could this task impact other things or could it impact right. Some people may outside organization may not realize you can help to bring that value. I think too is no be open to get a different exposures. Right. And be vocal. Talk to your leadership, talk to your management to express your desire. I think some people get afraid if they express different opinion then they're gonna lose growth opportunities because they'll do something else. I think the opposite, right. If we know what you want or if people know what you want, right. They can help you to get there. So I think one is no make your no wishes known and try to get different experiences and exposures. And most important is no, don't go for the salary or for the location. I think most important is the role. Think about it. Know where you want to be long term, how that next role or your current role can take you there and who are going to be reporting to. I think your boss, your mentors are fundamental in your development. And let's be honest, sometimes there are people that block in your career. Right. And you want to avoid that. So I think when you're considering move or next move, keep those three things in mind because those are key pieces if you want to be successful and really enjoy what you're doing. And, and last of all, have fun. Fun.

Yeah.

At the end of the day it's business, right. Nothing's personal. So just have fun. Don't take it personal.

So I've got some great ones there. So take that wider view, holistic view if you like, and about your career and everything else. And with the next moves and with any of the moves, no, don't just think about the salary and location. Yes, they're a part of it. But actually choose your boss, choose your role. Choose your boss carefully. That's the key. And have fun. What's he doing it? Wow. Amazing. Thank you, sir. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. I know that lots of people want to connect another good episode with yourself. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Thank you very much for your time today, sir.

Thanks, Mike. Happy to be here.

Lovely. Thank you. Okay, so welcome back to today's show. We left Francisco last time. Francisco was previously the assistant treasurer, Ingersoll Rand. We're now catching up with him, which is two years later. Later. But it's a year after you've transitioned roles and you move there as well. Francisco, if you would. We rejoining you now. People have just listened to the original episode. Now they're joining you. Bring your story up today. If you from where we left you two years ago when you were in Ingersoll round. Over to you, sir.

I'm Mike. Thank you. No, very happy to be back on the show talking about the Korean career moves. And I definitely have listened to the show. It has helped me quite a bit in trying to learn things from peers. From my perspective, when we last spoke, I said if you recall, every movement I have done in my career has been fairly planned. Right. It's look a little bit of a backpack and trying to check the different experiences that you need to have in Treasury. Be Cash management, BFX big capital markets, all sorts of things and also learning how to deal more with the senior leadership level. And that's what the ingis Orion role did for us. Me great team, very driven organization, very disciplined. But I had a great exposure to know the capital market side and also to the senior leadership on exposure initial exposure to the board. I had a great mentor there Bert Jameson who's the treasurer. I think it's ran great person. And then the opportunity for J came up a little bit smaller organization but no international presence in Europe and the US and Canada.

Say obviously we described in the previous episode Ingersoll who were gel dwin they can look on your LinkedIn profile. But just for us who are they? What do they do as a company?

So J it's one of the global leaders in manufacture of windows and doors. So we we are within the building products industry. About $4 billion in revenues global footprint. As I mentioned U.S. canada, Canada and Europe. Their big presence in Europe and the company is building products is an industry now given the economic environment that's it's hurting a bit. I think you have seen through their earnings results and when I joined the company I knew that was the case. So I joined the company. They are looking to refresh the treasury organization to modernize the department and bring in really new ideas that could help support the company money in this transformation journey that they're going through. From a margin expansion, from becoming more efficient on how we manufacture things, on working capital, better measurement effects. So everything treasury really need to be refreshed. I think family founding company has been with the Went family until recently and then the company was purchased by Onex was a private equity group and then went public around 2017. That's when they went public so recently public treasure company company but it felt it fit what I was looking for quite well was a small organization, global presence, public traded. The challenge there is coming out of a private sponsorship where things needs to be really down to the bone. We had to be smart on how we rebuild things, keep costs down even where the industry is but we deliver the services that the organization was looking for. So I got exactly what I was looking for when I joined the company company more of it. I think we were talking earlier before the show started being the treasurer role it changed your perspective a bit. There are a few things that I definitely took for granted that can I'm learning and I think have to be smart on how to learn and identify those soft skills if you that's needed. I think it's more. And I'm talking about know how to deal with the board members. Each one has a different perspective and a little bit different way of looking for things, how to interact with senior management and kind of trying to understand and being very succinct on what they're looking for and how to respond to them. And I think most important, you really have to up your game in terms of being ready. What I mean by being ready, you may be in the middle of a meeting and you may called up by either the investor relations person or by the cfo, say, hey, have an investor here that has a question for you, or no, there's a board member is going to reach out and they want to find out more about X. So you always really have to know what's going on and enough detail that you can explain in a very summarized way to those external stakeholders. Because at that point you're really the face of the company. And you can either make it or break it and make or break it because it can change the perception and try to sell the story to the outside as you want, or you can really give the impression that the management doesn't know what they're talking about and it can really harm the organization. So I think this is quite important and you don't really realize or see it until you're exposed to it.

And how can just how do you prepare for that? You're, you're there in that seat. You've been there a year or so now and if you reflect back over, it's actually quite good having a year under your belt sort of thing. You come into it, it's all brand new and fresh and now you're getting into the routine, the rhythm of things. But if someone else is, you know, early and they're a month into it, or they're listening to this podcast today, or maybe they're even lower down. They're making their first move to international treasurer or deputy treasury treasurer, and they're being expected more asked of them as their boss is the treasurer, they're being asked those questions or you're the deputy, you go off and do the other presentation to the board. How do they prepare for it? What's the, what's your advice?

Yeah, I think something benefited me quite a bit, Mike. And as I think about some of the other treasures that I have worked for, one thing in common that kind of really has helped me and some of those folks and talking to them was an exposure to the FP in the organization. Right. I think either I had, I Have done a few stints in EFP one in Taiko early in my career and then at AbbVie where I was leading the specialty pharma division for Abby. I think the exposure to the FPA and how budgets and forecasts and how senior management try to be the build a story to the outside is what really helps And I draw back on that experience quite a bit either when I'm talking to senior management to try to get understand how they look at things from a bridge perspective from a flow from a relationship growth and also with external investors. Right. Because then it's a mix of FPA and really having good banking partners is also important because they with FPA and with the bank's knowledge trying to advise in the beginning on how investors are going to look at things it can help you to form your opinion and then once you learn the trade which like everything then you. You. You find your comfort zone and your. Your mechanism to how to deal with it and progress. But I think FPA it's one key thing understanding what well and also know I think the people talk about the banking group I think the banking group is more than lending money have good bankers to advise you I think is also a key piece and I fortunate to have both in my career and.

Where do you see. We last spoke two years ago and it's amazing how quickly things change future treasury obviously automation data a lot of things around that if you like it processing and everything else has suddenly become come top front page news if you like. Are you seeing that with you guys? And as you say you come in and refresh the Treasury. Is that the sort of things you're doing or what are the other. What's top of mind for you as a treasurer?

So we haven't spoken about that Mike but our treasury organization really needs to be. We are not as advanced as some of the other treasury group. I think we have a very good treasure organization but we are doing a lot of the basic things at this point. I think during the private equity years a lot of things got not know. Not ignored but really not much attention was paid to. So we have to clean up from a bank amortization perspective from legal entity flows that that centralization I would say so you can have a better handle on how we do FX programs. So we are more launching those kind of things cash flow hedging, commodity hedging those kind of things to get the operations in a solid footage. And of course as long as the back of mind people talk about AI and automation. How do we integrate that. So that's part of our discussions as I can try to design these new processes, but we need to have a solid foundation before we embark. Right. I do have a concern that if you embark too soon, right. Just because despite all the hype, you're going to be setting yourself up for failure. And if you know me, it's not my cup of tea.

Right.

I like to be, I tell my team, I like to be the best treasury organizations out there. And every treasury organization have gone through this. Definitely has been my goal in helping them to achieve that. It's a discussion point, but I think probably a year and a half away, maybe two years from being able to fully embrace the concept of AI and how things can we leverage those things.

You want to make it work first of all and do it in the right, right way. We had on the show recently and one of the points he made, he said, mike, everyone's coming about all this new technology. Said some treasurers I know don't even know how to switch on their treasury system, so. Or make the best use of it sort of thing as well. And I was like, ah, okay. He said, yeah, let's use what we've got first of all, optimize that and then move on sort of thing. So pretty similar.

Yeah. It's a very important comment, I think, because it's right on. I think people sometimes feel the pressure to get out of the gates first. And while there's definitely some advantage to being the first mover, there's also disadvantages and I think you have to see where you are to make an informed decision. And I agree with Dirk's comment about no, hey, you have to have a solid foundation first.

That's great. Okay. You've. You're lovely to have come back on the show and you're looking forward to seeing you next year and everything else. But any takeaways from today's. I know we had takeaways from before which people can listen to and they'll just literally listen to. What are the final takeaways from you for today's show?

I think my final takeaway to with listen who is on that journey. You want to become a treasurer as diversify your experience. I in my new role, I as. I think if I had a much narrow experience, it does not mean that, no, it doesn't work. But I know if I had a very narrow treasury, only experience for me would have been probably a much bigger struggle to adapt to my new seat, I think, versus if I with a diversified experience that you can draw upon and provide more value to the team that you are now supporting and to senior leadership. We can really rely on you for advice. That's going to be now actionable.

Love it. There you go. So diversified experience brings you that level of knowledge and. Yeah. And just something in the back pocket if you like.

Perfect. Yes.

This is amazing to chat. Thank you for your time today. I know that another good episode and people have had the original one, so thanks very much for your time and looking forward to seeing you very soon.

Perfect, Mike. Same here. Thanks to bring me back in the show. Always happy to come back and share experiences, courses and, you know, for all of those in the US side, this is about Thanksgiving, so I'd say happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

Lovely. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mike.

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 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 do. No, the reason we do the content is to get to know you guys, to give you back the tips for success, if you like. 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 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 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 maybe. Thanks.