How Do You Build a Treasury Function from Scratch in a Global Company?

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see.

Both themselves and the treasury profession going to next.

Let's get on with the show. This week's show, I welcome back a former guest, Anshul Patney. Anshul is now the vice president and treasurer at Bakerlight Synthetics. I'll tell you about those shortly. But he originally when he was on the show, he'd had a great career. He was the senior director and treasurer at Instacart when I spoke to him just over two years ago now, actually back in 2023, now we're recording this in August 2025. He's been with Baker Light Synthetics for a year and a half. So what you're going to have is way back when, when he was at Instacart. We then bring the show up to date. We get to the end of his time at Instacart, then we have a short break and we pick up his story from there and how we made the move across from Instacart to Bakerlight Synthetics. As we say, enjoy the show.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you again for having me on this podcast. It's been a while, about 15 years back. In fact, if I go back to my school years, I would go back to the college when I was doing bachelor in economics. Very interested in knowing about micro and macroeconomics of the world and very relevant at all point of time, even now with everything that's happening with the macroeconomic headwinds. I knew it's a great start, but did not know what to do with my career at that point of time. Thought about what's the next step. Did well, do I go into economics, are there enough career options? Or do I do mba, which opens different lines of finance for me. So that's where I think I got some idea that that's what I want to pursue and was very clear that that's an area of finance and international business is what I wanted to focus on during MBA and was very focused on different areas, whether it's portfolio management, equity analysis. But one of the key areas that even while studying it was highly relevant and something I thought I could do well was foreign exchange, risk management, interest rate hedging. Was very intrigued about how do corporate professionals actually manage it. Whether it's banking professionals or companies, how, how are they managing it at that point of time? During second year of My mba, I got an opportunity to do internship with Ernst and Young at that point of time with their firm in India. Great opportunity. Learned how they were managing their foreign exchange risk. They had certain strategies in place, really learning about it then also trying to give my viewpoint as to how that can help them. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about how companies practically manage their hedging risk. In fact, at that point of time when I did that internship, I got nominated for the best internship during that year in my college, actually won that award successfully. So that kind of gave me this feeling that yes, this is the world I want to go in into finance. There were several companies when I was applying for jobs during my MBA that were coming into my campus. But my focus was very clear. I wanted to get into risk management. At that point of time I got an opportunity, Mike, to work with Reval, which now is actually part of Ion trading. So they, at that point of time used to do derivative risk management, hedge accounting. They had a software for that and I worked with them for about five years. Great opportunity. Worked with them for about two to three years or actually about three years in India, then moved to the US in New York. Wonderful opportunity to work with all the big companies to name some of them. Working with companies like Coca Cola, ge, Anheuser Busch, Starbucks. Great opportunity. Learning how they are managing their portfolio, providing them advice in difficult matters when it comes to FX risk management, interest rate, hedging or even how do they manage based upon FAST and IFRS based requirements for hedge accounting. Wonderful learning over the years there working at Reval, I felt at that point of time that I need to broaden my horizon and I'll also talk about this later during this interview that something that treasury professionals should continue to look at.

Is there something audience, if you like. Now, whilst you and I both know the company very well, you know Rebal was a hedging system, if you know or you, you can perhaps explain it better to the audience because obviously as you say, it was then taken over. When you were there, you were, you know, looking after the hedging and the accounting matters for lots of different companies, weren't you? But can you just explain to people you know, because it wasn't a Treasury systems company, if you like, you know, got the car rebas and everything else, it was far more specific. Can you again, for the listeners, some will know the name very well. I do, but some of them don't. So how can you explain that for us?

Yeah, absolutely. So Reval, when they started, when Jiro, who was the CEO at that point of time, he built a company which or a software which could not only do the derivatives mark to market valuations, but could do hedge accounting. Which means companies wanted to elect hedge accounting. They can actually pass certain gain and unrealized gains and losses to other comprehensive income. And this product was one of its kind, especially in the North American market, at least between 2010 and 2016, when there were not other TMS who used to do hedge accounting like Karibas and FIS. They actually provide those solutions now. But Reval had that product advantage at that point of time. And my role Mike was focused on a team called Reval center which was acting as a Treasury team for different clients. Companies which had very small portfolio or did not have enough people in their treasury teams, they would come to Reval to look at their portfolio, make sure we are actually managing their middle office and back office responsibilities, which included mark to market valuations, month end close and doing hedge accounting. So pretty much once the traders have executed the trades, managing the whole trade life cycle and accounting from there on. And that is where the experience was highly relevant. Understanding how companies could use different hedging strategies, what could work in different markets? Could you do plain vanilla forwards? Could you do some FX options? And what would accounting allow you? So rebal as a product was great. And for me the learning was even more useful because opportunity to work with different big multinational corporations came through working with Reval and as you said, you.

Spend that period of time with them and that provided a springboard if you like, if that's the right way into your next role. Can you maybe talk through how that happened?

Absolutely. This was 2012, when I think I knew enough about hedging. Spent five years by that time with Reval, learned a lot with respect to risk management and I wanted to broaden my horizon. Really do still wanted to remain in consulting at that point of time, but wanted to focus on other areas. How companies assess their treasury, how can they transform it with respect to whether it's cash management, doing M and A deals or capital markets. And that's where I got an opportunity, Mike, to work with Deloitte. I spent about eight years with Deloitte at that point of time between 2012 to 2020, very good experience. And I think an advice that I would also give to young treasury professionals that if you get an opportunity to work with sometimes with consulting firms, you get an opportunity to work with different kind of companies. You can really see end to end, how are they managing their process, how can you really help them transform? One of the first projects, Mike, that I did was with Coca Cola, which was doing a big treasury system implementation. At that point of time they were implementing Wall Street Suite, which is another ion trading product, and they were implementing that solution for different entities all over the world. Very, very complex project and really required you to understand how they are managing their process right now. They were mostly manual or using SAP at that point of time, helping them understand what would a new solution do to you, how does it really impact you in terms of your resources and operations you're managing? And really getting them through that implementation was a very complex task. But how it helped was really helping them break down into different milestones and solutions to make sure that they can achieve what they were looking for as their end goal. And even now, Mike, as I look at my career, that's what I try to do with different priorities that we have, make sure that we are looking at in the right direction. What is important for us, is it optimizing cash, is it investment? And really helping down with respect to making sure that we are looking at from the right lens. So I think from Deloitte's perspective, great experience. I got a chance to work both in the US and Canada. I'll talk about some of the experience in Canada. I worked with the firm for about one and a half years there. It was an international assignment and it was more about helping them set up their treasury team. Deloitte at that point of time in Canada did not have any treasury professional. So helping them think about what kind of market is it, what kind of team structure that we need and really pitching to the clients how Deloitte can help you. So I think that experience was again immense in terms of making sure you are learning, you are working with different clients. And some of the clients that I worked with, like I talked about Coca Cola, hpe, I was involved with HPE when they were actually doing separation of the firms, initially when they were HP and then two different firms got created between HPI and hpe, helping them think about how would the different treasury structures look like. And again from all the process that are involved in treasury, whether it's capital markets, whether you have interest rate, FX rate, risk management, how would the cash management work for two different companies and what kind of team structure you need, helping them think about is the current banking structure the right for you or do you need to think about new banking partners now that your geographical entities could be changing? That would also have impact on how you would like to operate so really I think that experience over about eight years working with Deloitte, I joined there as a senior consultant, got promoted to senior manager, had responsibilities for both doing sales for the companies as well as managing such long term projects, was very valuable in terms of helping me get through where I am right now.

Sean, can I ask the. You know, and we've explored a little bit on some of the previous podcasts when I've had a number of treasury professionals who are now in corporates or then some of them were in consulting firms themselves in a similar way to yourself, how do you balance out the sales and being pushed towards a sort of sales route and right, you've got to sell a piece of work and you've got to deliver this and you've got to do that delivery model because it's different to when you're in corporate treasury, you're working for the corporate, whereas as you say, you're working for Deloitte who are providing their services but they want to get value for money as a client and everything else, that balance, if you like, you know, those scales, delicate balance between delivery but also, right, where's the next piece of work going and everything else. And obviously you were, you know, became more senior and that must have been a challenge. How do you deal with that, would you say?

Yeah, Mike, that's a great question. And I think including me, a lot of people struggle with initially in terms of what to do now that you're getting promoted, the focus is not just on delivery but also sales. How do you help the company with that? I think it's important to understand at that point of time what are you really good at? What is the area that you would like to own within treasury and that's what having a right mentor also helps you. Thankfully I did have few people who I could talk from different point. They knew what are my skill set, what am I strong at. So given that I had a lot of experience with risk management when I came through Reval, I knew technology well as well. So my focus, talking to my peers as well as my leadership was that I should focus on clients who are focused on managing their risk, improving them with their hedging practices as well as focus on technology. Am I really good at Kariba? Yes, I am. I know Rewal, I know a few other solutions. So I think at that point of time that's where I made a niche for myself at Deloitte and then I knew what I needed to focus on in terms of clients conversation. Because when you have delivered it for over the time you kind of understand that some of the problems could be very similar and then really helping them drive through those conversations. I think when you're selling, it's not about really generating sales or getting the revenue. It's more important thing is to understand what the client is struggling with, how you can help them. Because if you try to bring a solution to them rather than bringing a sales pitch, they understand that this person really wants to help you and that really becomes key point in terms of you helping them, not just in short term, but in long term with different opportunities that come up. So I think Mike, knowing what I wanted to do was important. There's then it was more about focusing on it. And the key area that I would focus on is if I am trying to bring in a client with a long term engagement through sales, I would try to be on the delivery model as well because the client's trust is in me as I was involved in the sales process. And if they see that person is linked through the whole implementation cycle, they know that they have the right trusted partner whom they can go to. So I think that's what I would advise to other treasury professionals, especially who have been in consulting space or aspire to, that it's not just about sales, but it's also about how you support the client through that end to end engagement.

And with your experience of.

If you look back now, maybe at your experience as a Deloitte consultant and you were walking into a number of different treasuries and I'm not specifically talking about Coke or HP and things like that, but when you came into a consulting gig, you know, when you're coming into an assignment again, this is for some of the maybe more junior consultants because you grew in your experience there seven and a half years and everything else with that. How did you coach the other members of the team? Or if you're in a situation where you're walking in the door, it's a fresh assignment, maybe a bit later on in your career. This is, you know, maybe before you made the last move. What would you say that those consultants need to think about, you know, when they're helping a client? Thinks what's your checklist? If you like.

Yeah, no, I think one of the key things that helped me at that point of time was being very flexible and keen to learn different areas that are coming to you initially when, especially when you're new in your career, you may not get the top layer work of the project. You may start with something that is more of a filler work at that point of time. But that is again, important for you to understand that this is bringing different skills in you, whether it's project management, whether it's making sure that you're delivering key aspects of the project at that point of time. And then as you are learning, learn and focus on different things. I would advise the consultants that if you are a cash management expert, not just focus on that, learn about technology, because you cannot do anything without technology during this time in the world, especially that we are working in an environment where we do not go as much into the office as well as if you know cash management, you learn about technology, you learn about risk management, you learn about capital markets. So that is where I would say, for a person who's new in the career, don't just focus on one part of treasury, rather be knowing different skills, because that's what really helps you drive and get you the next opportunity. If I, as a corporate treasurer, is looking to hire someone in my team, Mike, I have a very small team right now. If I need someone, I would rather have someone who has done some work in all different areas of treasury rather than a person focused on one specific aspect. Because we pretty much have to do everything on our own and we are still in the process of improving our banking and technology infrastructure. So that's where having holistic knowledge of treasury becomes very important.

I was going to talk about you making the move to Die Bolt and stuff, but before we do that, 2020, January 2020, you made the move across. So where did it so stack up with regards to Covid and Pandemic and everything else? Obviously that's a. I don't want to get deep into Covid. You know, we're. We're moving past that now and. But there's these new ways of working with my colleague in an hour about it and, you know, on another podcast, you know, what was it like for you? How did that affect you with consulting and everything else? It's still on everybody's lips.

Yeah, absolutely. 2020 was very interesting time, as we all know, especially with respect to making the move at that point of time. And personally, my. Where I was at that point of time, felt that I needed to spend more time with family, have a young daughter and wanted to spend more time with her and my wife. That was one of the key drivers to think about switching to Diebold Nixdorf at that point of time. And there was that nervousness with respect to what's going on in the world during Pandemic, how it could impact different companies, what could be relevant versus what may not be relevant after a pandemic was a key part to think about. But I did switch make that switch. Decided to join as a director at Diebold nextdoor. I think very rewarding in terms of career experience. What I learned through treasury consulting with working with four different clients really helped me shape the vision as I joined dbold. Diebold is a very global company. It probably operates in more than 80 countries in the world. And initially when I started I was very focused on FX and interest rate risk management. Before my role got broader into other aspects of Triji. We were having some very high challenges with respect to managing the FX risk. We were operating in Latin America as well as in some Asian markets. And with FX risk being very volatile, we needed to think about rather than being more static in terms of hedging, adopt an approach which was more of a risk management model base. So we decided to use value at risk models so that we can try to correlate our hedges in terms of how those would work and really come up with a model that could work for the company. And at that same point of time, another key aspect of working at DBOLD was we were able to refinance some of our long term debt with respect to changes in interest rate at that point of time. So that's an opportunity that Mike I had not worked at Deloitte, I worked with the treasurer at that point of time. It was a very long term project in terms of making sure what we are doing for the company is the right structure from the capital structure perspective. I think what we did was create. We were able to refinance at very attractive rates, especially in the market that we were in. And so really, really proud of what we did in terms of making sure that our treasury was operating in a way that helps the company and then I think finally helping the company at that point of time automate all their treasury process. We were pretty manual at that point of time. So helping get all our FX risk, interest rate, risk, hedging hedge accounting into Kariba. As a tms we had issues with our netting and in house banking process. Those were further automated using Kariba. So I think really key learnings and making sure that the team delivered some of the goals that we had set up with my treasurer.

Talk us through the next couple of moves to bring us up to date with Instacart things and how you got there.

Yeah, absolutely. After working with Diebold, I spent some time with Deloitte again in terms of consulting. It turned out to be relatively short move because this great opportunity came up with Instacart and I was offered an opportunity to work as a treasurer of the company. As Mike, you described earlier during this podcast, Instacart is a company which is transforming how people do their groceries with respect to not just helping them during Pandemic, but becoming a relevant lifestyle in terms of how people want to shop. The opportunity came up for me to lead the treasury team. We did not have any treasury professionals at that point of time and where we are, we are a late stage private company looking to go for an IPO when the timing would be right. It seemed like an opportunity where I could use all my experience that I had during my consulting days, really think about what is right for the company in terms of treasury structure, how can we better manage our process and also think about what kind of team structure do I need to create now. Mike, six months into this role, we are a team of three professionals. Still a relatively small team. Hopefully will grow up further next year, but already some key opportunities that we have started working on. We have started thinking about do we have the right banking structure. We operate, Mike, mainly in the US and Canada region, but we also have some operations in Australia and China. So want to think about as we grow further in future, is the bank that we are working with going to support us with the right structure in place, do we also need to think about how we manage our payment aggregators? So there is a lot of work that's required there and then also thinking about what is the right capital structure for this company that we can have as we grow further. I think a lot of rewards in terms of working with this company, in terms of what you could do as well as helping them shape what would be the right vision for the company, is what I'm getting here.

One of the things I wanted to ask there actually is I know that a number of my clients have actually used the podcast that I've done with them to sort of attract staff or to explain to them about why come and join you and things, you know, with I come join Instacart, so feel free to use it. But when you're doing that, where would you see the treasury team and department for Instacart developing to you? You've seen. The great thing is you've seen a number of different other treasury teams. You see what's good, not so good. You know, you judged it, you, you know, we don't have to name names, that's fine. The good thing is you've seen that with yourself. What would you be thinking about? And again, for someone's coming in and you're presenting Instacart of the future. How would you explain that to the people?

Yeah, I think my, when I hired my team initially, I think the great thing about where we were, everything needs to be done. We did not have any treasury policies in place or process in place. When I hired a senior manager in my team very recently, it became an easy fit because there's a lot of work to be done. And when I hire someone, I also look at in a similar way, is the person motivated, does the person have passion to work for several years in Treasury? So I think that was a, that was a key pitch at that point of time, really telling the candidates that, well, there is a lot to be done. We have to think about our banking structure, we have to think about automation, we have to create treasury policies and procedures and then as we grow there is more to come with respect to effects and capital markets. So that delivers that message to the candidates that this is a role which will continue to have responsibilities, which will continue to grow as we move along and as Instacart grows further into international markets. And I think that will become highly relevant because treasury team is the one that provides a strategic vision to the finance organization, how we can manage cash if we need to acquire certain companies, what we need to do in that sense. So I think it was key from my perspective, to make sure that I'm delivering the right message, which is to be honest with you, all the truth, because there's a lot of work to be done. But then that really becomes rewarding for the person because that gives you the recognition when, when that work is being delivered.

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I know again we spoke before the episode that I said which areas are you really passionate about? And one of the key things you just touched on there is technology. So you've got this real strand of technology all the way through you, your experience and utilizing it. But I've just, you know, returned from a number of different conferences and you know, I'll be in the room. And there's so many different providers and they're all different sizes, different cost structures, different ways. If I was to ask you, you know, when you're, when you're at those and they're sort of deluging you, it's quite funny because you'll be like, look guys, I've done your job, I've stood at your stand. When you're doing it, what are you assessing? And again, this is to try and give some of the listeners a bit of advice really that they walk into there. What should they be thinking about or what should they be avoiding? If you like, you know, because you've been, you've seen behind the curtain. So what are you looking at?

Absolutely, Mike, I was in the same conference in the US as you were attending a few months back and really the number of vendors have grown up. But I think your point, it is very important that I, as a Treasury professional, I'm looking at what are my business process, what is the requirement of my company. And then don't just go by the name of the different products, really see what is relevant for you. Do you really need a full blown system which has very good functionality but it could be very complex for you as a Treasury team? Or should I go with a system which is relatively smaller in size and in functionality, but it meets the vision that you have set up for the next five years? That is what I would see in terms of choosing the technology. And then like I said, all organizations are different, Mike. If I talk about my organization, for us, cash visibility and payments, visibility is very important the way our business operates. When we are assessing these different systems, we look at different technologies. We use certain payment aggregators like Stripe and Marketa. Could they actually connect with these aggregators? Could they provide us real time payments or visibility into my cash? So again, I think going back to my message, it's important to see what is your need and making sure that it aligns with it's what is not important for you or not as important is looking at what other company has done. It may be a right system for them. But unless you look into your requirements and scope in detail, make sure the Treasury's vendor that you are meeting with, you do proof of concept with them, make sure the requirements that you're providing, they can actually show you that those can be implemented in the system and then you execute that project. Because I've seen working with different clients that you may have spent a significant amount of dollars in terms of implementing a system. But the effort that was required during the selection of the system was not done right. And that could impact you in the long term because you may not be satisfied with the system and then in a year or two you may already be thinking about moving to a new tms which may not be the right thing to do.

I think it brings in actually something I think the Dublin conference did our.

Treasure career called Alive.

And one of the things that came up about technology actually was one of the talking points that you know what had happened throughout lockdown and some systems had been found not to be quite as helpful as they might be. I'm not going to name names, name a sh because otherwise we'll have a lawsuit on our hands. But it was more that I referenced a conversation I had with a very dear friend, Jean Philippe Dweller Johnson Controls amazing guy. And we were having meal one night and we talked about. I was had a speech coming up for Euro Finance and we talked about where technology and they've really utilized it to the max using Mario, their amazing systems guy.

But what we brought out was about referencing.

So if you're going to bring a brand new employee you would minimum two references, probably three or four make sure how have they been conversations just like this. You'll go through all that reference checking. And he said well when you're bringing a system which is actually in some ways probably going to cost you more than an individual and can be used by more people and being used across the organization wider sense, how many references do you take? How many other customers do you talk, how many? Do you do a real in depth study of their backgrounds or do you just take what they're saying at face value? And it was a great piece of advice and I've now it's more and more, more recently as we come out of lockdown I've noticed more people looking at their technology needs and reviewing that and you just talk there about some of the integrations with things like Stripe and everything else and making sure it all works and getting that value. So that's a long prelude to the question but how do you make sure and how would you recommend that any of the listeners really get the most out of their systems or before they even get there? What are the recommendations from you as an experienced person in that sense?

Yeah, so like I said, two, three things are very important. One is knowing what you need from your system. Is it just going to be utilized by treasury? Is it going to be utilized by other teams in the organization which could be accounting which could be your AP professionals to centralize payments within the tms. So first, understanding the scope of what you want and what you want to achieve in the next three to five years. How is your company growing like in our sense or for our company? Mike, we do not have very heavy FX exposure at this point of time, but we know that we will grow in future. We will look at expanding in international markets. So that is one area we would consider that that TMS should be able to support. As we bring on more effects, we bring on say we get into a debt and managing the interest rate risk. So knowing the scope and requirements is very important. The second thing is doing the thing for concept is another key area that I would always recommend to all the treasury professionals while choosing the system that when you know your requirements, make sure that those can be actually tested within the system. I know you have a very short timeline in terms of selecting and finalizing the contract with the TMS vendor, but provide those requirements and make sure the vendor can actually commit to implementing those in the system. And then the third one, Mike, like you said, having at least three to four reference check would be highly important. And if you can do a reference check with the company which is in the same industry, at least couple of clients like yours and if they can say that this is the right system and they meet most of the requirements that you have, I think that that helps you think about that you are going in the right path. So three things like I said. One is knowing the scope and requirement. Second is doing a proof of concept. And third is reference check with especially with someone who's in the same industry.

Excellent feedback. That's great. I think not too far from the end of the show because it's been great advice all the way through. And she'll we're not going to go to the top tips just yet. I'm just going to ask any other areas that you think that treasurers out there should be, you know, thinking about not keeping them awake at night, but they should be considering if you like and making sure that they've got an eye on what are the key things that you've obviously got global events happening and lots of other things. But what you know, what particular things do you think?

Yeah, Mike, that's a great question. From my perspective, always having visibility to your cash, how much cash you have in different entities, how are you managing it? Optimizing the use of that cash is very important. Could you centralize the cash and make sure you are taking the right opportunity, especially in the environment we are in significantly higher compared to what we have seen in the last few years. There's an opportunity for companies who have excess cash, who invest in securities that can provide good return compared to what we have seen in the past. That's an area I would keenly focus on. And then I think third, like I said, risk management becomes always remains absolutely important for the company. Make sure that you are, if you have cash within the foreign entities, how are you managing it? If you have receivables or you have different kind of exposures, how you're managing it. And then I think the final thing is, which I think most of the treasures would talk about is having visibility to the forecast that you have for cash always is important for the company, especially in this environment where there are so many macroeconomic challenges that you can forecast your cash accurately, you have that relationship with different finance teams so that they can provide you the right information that you need to make sure that your forecast keeps becoming important and accurate for the companies. So I think those are three, four, four areas that I would advise all treasury professionals to keep a focus on.

Welcome back to our Treasure Career corner. Now this is an interview with Anshul. Obviously you've heard from Anshul on his journey so far, but that was last time we caught up was a couple of years ago now 2023. Last time Anshel was at Instacart. Now he's moved on. I won't take up a story. I'll let you tell your story, sir. So bring us up to date with when we last left you, you were Instacart. As the treasurer there. What's happened to you now? You know, very different business. Over to you.

Thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to be talking to you today. Like you said, I have moved to Bakelite Synthetics. It's an industrials company which is into formaldehyde and regions chemicals that are used as adhesives for large scale construction. In layman terms you can say that it's used as an adhesive if you are building houses or even building planes. So it's actually used across the industries. And BigLight Synthetics, it's kind of a startup because there was a divestiture a few years back from the legacy company. This company has grown significantly, being backed by two private equity owners since Bitlight was started. It acquired a couple of companies, Georgia Pacific Chemicals, LRBG and we recently acquired Systech, which is a Polish company for their R and D technology. It has been a great experience and the reason to move from Instacart was it was a very successful career experience launching the treasury practice. They were helping them go ipo, really establishing all the treasury policies and readiness with respect to SOCs and going into a private equity company, which is very different industry, but it was very global. They have operations in Asia Pacific as.

Well as Europe and North America.

And that was a reason to consider a global company where cash forecasting was significantly more important. As the cash runs tight and also making sure that we are optimizing how we are investing that cash, really forecasting it well, as well as making sure we are covering for any FX risk that we had so very different experience than Instacart, where a company had high amount of cash, which we were using for investment. Here we are actually optimizing it so that we can manage the capital structure well, as well as making sure that we are able to just manage our day to day process in a much better way. So that was the reason to get a very different experience with a global company and really establish their treasury process.

And when you say that when you came into Baker, like what was the treasury structure? Because you've been there a few couple of years now, what was it when you arrived and what was your checklist? I often ask this, you know, we probably did in our previous episode, but, you know, how did you take it through?

Yeah, great question, Marik. I have a global team, so I manage treasury credit collection and insurance for Treasury. I have a team of about 15 members and this was a hire or having a new treasurer. There was somebody who was in the previous role, but not on a full time basis. So the company felt that it needed someone who can really get hold of the process. When I came in, there were no set process and procedures. So one of the things to really establish was having treasury process when it comes to cash management payments and making sure we have better control of things. There was no technology that we were using. So one of the key aspects was which tms do we implement and how do we automate our process. And as we did that, we are right now in the middle of implementing Kariba as a Treasury management system for us, which I have done at previous places as well. And it is really going to improve our process because our operation really lacked that transparency. Being a global company, how much cash we have at different locations and how do we really create pooling structures, that was one of the key aspects. So with implementing tms at the same time, our focus has been really creating our cash concentration. And in House banks. We have focused on having in house banks in Europe, North America as well as South America so that we can have regional liquidity structure and internally manage.

Our cash needs better.

We did not have any investment policies. We implemented JP Morgan's tool Morgan Money as well as we are in discussion with ICD to see if we can use their portal to invest our excess cash. That has been a big achievement. We have been able to generate interest income over the last couple of years which the company was not even thinking about. And that has been helping us offset some of the interest expense we have as a private equity leverage company. Having even a small amount of investment really helps us offset that interest expense. That has been really a great point for treasury that we are not really there as someone who is supporting the company, but being more proactive and thinking about different ways that we can generate revenue or help company get more income.

And I'm going to give a shout out to ICD who sponsor our show now as well. And as you say, if you don't, if you don't use ICD and then we want to look at it there on our partner's page and people find a link in the show notes, as Ashley, their treasurer said. And it was before he was even a, before they owned Ashley from Trade Web. He said, if you don't do this, you're just leaving money on the table. That sounds like it's worked for you guys. And how have you implemented that? You know, was it just you saw this lazy cash sitting around or what did you do?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. We, like I said, we are private equity owned company. There are a lot of controls with respect to how we invest cash. So it has been an approach on a country basis. We have started implementing in North America. We have been investing cash for almost a year now and now our focus is shifting towards Europe as well as Canada. Due to certain restrictions, we cannot pull Canadian cash to our U.S. balance. But we are, like I said actively now discussing with ICD because what they really do is they have both offshore.

And onshore investment funds which provides us.

More flexibility as well as availability of higher rates based on our investment policy. So that has been the focus. Go slow but go in a steady way so that we can establish what we need.

And then, so that's the cash side, then the foreign exchange side. Obviously foreign exchange in a tech company like Instacart, which is very one way of operating. That's one of the things I will say. People say, how come you've done so many podcasts because I talked to a treasurer like yourself who one minute you're in a tech firm, next minute you're here with the synthetics and chemicals company. How has foreign exchange been different, if you like, in that sense?

Yeah, great question. I think foreign exchange is a key consideration for us, although we manage it on an as needed basis. In Instacart, the company was not as global. They were mostly in Canada and in the us so the exposure was somewhat immaterial and we did not need to have an active FX policy. But here we keep an eye on where our exposure lies. We have a significant exposure in South America with operations in Chile and Argentina. And those currencies being volatile, we continue.

To look at materiality of that exposure.

And see if we need to do any FX hedging. Similarly, Europe and USD, how the REITs are changing. We keep an eye on it and then we do that. And throughout my career, even at other companies prior to this, at Diebold Nixdorf, we had a FX policy where we were looking at balance sheet hedging, cash flow hedging so that that can be optimized in terms of protecting our margins. And I think having that leverage in terms of connecting that with DMS is very important to us to make sure that data is integrated and we are able to see how those exposures are being actively managed.

And you and I, when we spoke a few days ago about the show and things like that, the company itself has been through a period of change. You've joined and you're part of this.

New wave of change. There have been some challenges.

What's the culture you want to create.

In treasury, as it were?

Yeah, my great question, I think being a startup which has really gone through acquisition phase and really grown fast, people have really tried to go at the same pace, but it has been difficult because that integration of process is always challenging. So my focus when I came to BCL Synthetics was how do I understand the motivation of my team, what is the right structure for the organization and how do we optimize the process that we have? And I have always invested in the career of people I work with. Knowing people who are working for my team, how do they want to grow, how do I help them and really give them that leadership opportunities by setting them that path for success has been important for me so that with some turnover in my team and new people coming in, I wanted to make sure that their vision aligns with how I want to grow with this company and then giving them the path for the success. So that has been important and I feel that my team is at a much better place compared to where I started when I joined Bakelite.

So we are enjoying today's episode and if you actually want to go and work with Anshul, well you can. We are currently recruiting a treasure analyst role to go and work with Anshaw and the team at Bakerlight Synthetics and as he leads the team through a period of change, it's going to be a great role. All you need to do, go onto a website, you'll see a role there in Atlanta that's working with Angela the team. So if you're listening today and you're interested, drop me an email mike@treasurerecruitment.com Anyway, let's get back to the episode and you then talk about the technology there. What's the hardest part, if you like of that get that treasury tech right? Is it the, the platform itself or the people or going through the process or is it a combination of both? How have you seen it or you've been through it a few times yourself in other companies? What's the sort of what's the flow if you like or ebb and flow of that?

Yeah, no, great question Mike. Thankfully I was a consultant for long amount of time so I, I have invested in knowing these treasury tech. That experience has helped me which system would fit our organization's needs. So that really helped me think about what would be the right system to implement. But like you rightly said, it's about the people and how do you make sure your process get right. A lot of pain goes through when you are implementing systems because you're managing your regular day to day process. You are also getting trained on the system, going through scoping sessions and making sure you are having a successful go live. That is a very difficult process. But I think that understanding of how the system is going to help your jobs make better your payments process are more secure, there are less chances of fraud, you have real time visibility into cash which you are caught. Earlier we were coordinating with your pay, how much cash you have, how much.

Cash we have in North America and.

Can I make the debt payment today? Do I have enough cash? And really now being at a place where system is able to do that in an automated way, my team is now more focused on other strategic things. How do I invest excess cash, how do I look at other opportunities to grow? We have been recently talking about okay, we'll be done with this phase of Kariba soon. What can I do Next. So next focus is can I do GL in Kariba? Can I do multilateral netting? So our team is already thinking about how automation is going to further help us and not really thinking about those old days.

And you've been through obviously some crises and stuff like that. And this is one of the things I'm gonna say. So you've gone from. You had Silicon Valley, you know, that's been. And done. Thank goodness that's over. But, you know, now you're getting through, you know, leverage debt. And that's one of the key things of the group. And that's a public thing. You know, how do you approach, you know, leading your team through that, those periods of time? And what's the sort of, what's your leadership style?

Yeah, I know that's.

That's a great question.

And thankfully a great support network with our private equity investors as well as our CFO who have taken lead on debt refinancing opportunities. But I think having that conversation with the team, that if we are refinancing debt or even if we are having high leverage, why is company doing that? How is it going to help? Because our focus has been to grow Bay client in a way where they continue to have EBITDA growth. They have. The volumes are supporting our business. So having that conversation that, okay, is the higher debt supporting acquisitions? Is it supporting some dividend recapitalization strategies and making sure our team understands that higher leverage does not really mean a bad thing because this business is continuing to grow and having more debt will only support it.

And with yourself, you know, the future of. I know we spoke about it a bit on the previous show, but where do you see it going next and how are you developing people sort of thing? What's the, you know, the ethos? You know, we'll go to. We'll put your LinkedIn. Lisa, we're not quite there yet. Sort of just talk to me about that, you know, how are you developing, Coaching your team?

Yeah, I think it's important to understand what are people's aspirations? How do you. How do they want to grow? I met someone who we were actually interviewing for an analyst role in my team, and I said, what do you want to do in five years? He said, I want to be hungry and I want to be a manager in three years. I want to manage people. And I said, well, this is an organization where people grow. If you are really performing, and I've seen that happening within my organization and my way of promoting them, that if you're really performing well you're aligning with other teams. It's very important to have cross functional knowledge and if you're continuing to do well with the right motivation, there's nothing that can stop you. So that has been my leadership style, coaching people what you want to do, helping them take the lead and making sure that I'm there to support them if there are any issues to make sure they are not feeling left out. And I think it has really worked well for me and I've helped people get invested in people and their growth.

Fantastic. And we're gonna again as we did last time but again we've tweaked it a little bit with this catch up episode. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. If someone is listening and they are that junior level, what sort of choices should they make and if they're more maybe more senior. Any advice that you, maybe when you go to a conference and then people say oh what, what choices do you look back on and think oh yeah, this is what you should be doing as a treasurer, what sort of, what takeaways would you give to people today?

Yeah, great question Mike. I would say that somebody who's just starting their career in Treasury, I would like them to learn anything and everything within treasury, cross collaborate with other teams, ftla, accounting, tax, so that you're really learning how different process are affecting treasury as an organization and don't feel hesitant about trying new things. Yes, mistake could happen but that will give you an opportunity to learn. I've seen people who have just focused on one aspect of treasury and that has really stopped their growth after a while because then you don't have that well rounded focus. So focus on fx, focus on day to day cash management, focus on debt capital optimization. Once you have knowledge of all these things that will really help you jump start as to how you can grow within Treasury.

And if you're a bit more an experienced practitioner sort of thing, any things that you think is you as a leader and you, you know again you're, you coach them and say these are some of my tips for success. What do you think they should be thinking about?

Yeah, so I think somebody who is more senior, they've probably learned different aspects of Treasury. What's really there to learn is people management investing in their career and making sure they are helping you grow as a leader as well as them growing. Because I think that naturally then makes treasury as a successful organization and that really takes your journey from a manager to assistant treasurer or treasurer pretty quickly. Whether it's within the same organization or somewhere outside.

Thank you sir. We're going to wrap it up there. You've been great advice and great company as always and look forward to seeing you at a conference very soon. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mike. Been a pleasure.

Thanks. Today's episode of the Treasury Career Corner was brought to you with the support of our partners, icd. If you're looking for a smarter way to manage your short term investments, ICD's independent portal gives you access to a full range of investment products, integrated analytics and a simple centralized platform built built specifically for Treasury. If you head over to treasuryrecruitment. Com Partners, you can learn more and we'll be able to connect you with the right person ICD for both you and your business. Many thanks for listening to the show and thanks for your continued support.