How Gary McGuire Climbed the Treasury Career Ladder

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So we approach episode 200 of the podcast. Incredible. We decided it was time for a look back over the previous 195 episodes of a weekly podcast that's lasted 195 weeks with no breaks, no season by season, over 200amazing treasury professionals sharing their golden nuggets of career wisdom and value for free. Yes. With me, your host, Mike Richards. I loved it. I've loved it all the way through. Global guests from everywhere, every single continent of the world. Over 70,000 plus downloads. Incredible journey since very first reflection. An episode we're bringing back to life. Yeah, it's episode 100 with Gary McGuire from Dow Chemicals, our centenary episode. If you like, I'll share my thoughts about my chat with Gary at the end of this podcast. My first reflection of the day, if you like, is I'm so pleased we change the music. If you listen to the most recent music, it's much nicer and much more gentle on the ears. So as I say each and every week, let's get on with the show.

In this week's show, I'm delighted to be joining joined for what is a milestone episode. Actually, we were at this, our 100th podcast when I first started. I sort of started to interview treasures about their amazing career stories and it's got to this a hundred podcasts later and I'm absolutely thrilled. I've got a superstar treasurer today. Got Gary McGuire. Gary is the Vice President and treasurer for Dow Chemicals globally now. Dow are massive. If you don't know them, he will describe them better than I. They've been going for many, many years. He's actually joined the group way back when as an analyst from his Bachelor of Commerce degree. We're just talking about that. I'll let Gary tell his story. I'll let Gary describe Dow because he's been there for many years. But it's not just ow. That's it. He's grown and grown and grown. We had a call the other day and it was really fascinating about his treasury careers taken off from different areas of the Dow Group. But Gary, you're Canadian by background. You originally started with a Bachelor of Commerce. That was your first introduction really to commerce and industry, but it wasn't actually in finance and Treasury. Talk us through how you first ever started, sir.

Yeah, sure, Mike. Happy to be here and glad we had this opportunity to connect. I'm honored to be your guest for your hundred podcast. So I always knew I wanted to do business from an early, early age. I think I had finagled a way to get to the school I wanted to get to without having to study French which was mandatory in Canada. And I was no good at, could hardly spell English, let alone French. So I did actually year at the University of Victoria and then transferred over to the University of British Columbia to get a Bachelor of Commerce as you indicated. I actually took transportation logistic when I was the specialty within the Bachelor of Commerce. And that was really just because a fascination with the professors and the hands on nature of those classes. We were out in industry, visiting airlines, trucking companies and railways and going on ships and finding out really the nuts and bolts of how things ran. And I quickly discovered while doing that that it's all, it doesn't matter what business you're in or what you're doing. You know, it all comes down to, you know, trying to get a future set of cash flows and discount them back and spend an amount of money that's less than that discounted future cash flow. So that's how it all started for me in beautiful British Columbia. And everything from there was an adventure.

And then with that you say you started there but you then were materials management. And then back in 1990 you discovered treasury itself. How did your sort of early career sort of follow itself through again? We'll have people listening today that might just be starting treasure or thinking about it.

Sure. So like a lot of people, I started as an intern at dow. I did a summer out in Sarnia, Ontario, which was their Canadian headquarters. Doesn't even exist anymore, but that's how much things have changed. But at the time it was where they ran Dow Chemical Canada from. And then I went back, finished up my last year, my degree and then came back full time. I spent about six months in Sarnia just doing your typical entry level analyst things. And then I was transferred out to Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta where we have a major manufacturing site. And for the most of that time I was there I was a production planner. So I ran the production planning side of some chlor alkali plants that make caustic soda and chlorine vinyl edc. I ran a power plant and then. Interesting. I had our west coast distribution center out in Vancouver where we would rail product out there and then load it onto ships. So really great job. Gave me good exposure to, you know, actually making and shipping product. But it never really floated my boat, so to speak. I always had this drawing to get back into the financial area. And so DOW had ran an ad in the Globe and Mail newspaper which is the Canadian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. Looking for a financial operations analyst. And I saw it and I said, hey, I can do that. And I made a few calls with MDAO and before you know it, I was back in Sarnia working in the treasury group.

Tell us just again for, you know, I know about the group because you know, some of the competitors, we've done some recruitment in the sector and things. For the guys listening today, how would you describe. Just give us the official overview of Dow if you like, you know, over many, many years. Because we did this on a couple of weeks ago. But you described it much better.

Sure. Dow is, you know, is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. It's very well known for probably, you know, the flagship product plastics. I mean about half of our revenue comes from plastics. Chemicals are in almost everything we use these days. You know, whether it's automotive or cleaning products around your house, consumer products from face creams to shampoo. So we're in all of those markets. We're about 40 to 50 billion in sales depending on where the price of oil is. That tends to drive our revenue. We're 36,000 employees globally and treasury is about, was about 220. We just made a change, we can talk about that later. And we're now down to about 140, 40 people in Treasury. Dow is in selling in over 100 countries and we manufacture in I think it's around 35 countries.

And you got into Treasuries, you said you plan and got that sort of starter role if you like, talk us through then how you sort of grew through the function.

Sure. I got lucky I suppose as the way compared to today because in those days treasury in Canada did a little bit of everything. So I got to manage a little bit of pension activity. I did cash management, I did financial planning, I did a little bit of credit and I did some tiny M and A deals that we had to do. And then I got to run financial risk management which really meant trading currencies. And there it was primarily the Canadian dollar. And that's really what floated my boat. I was fascinated with that. Dow has always had a risk taking mindset. So I was actually allowed to trade, not just hedge our exposures, but actually trade for profit. And that's really what started to turn me on. And that's how I ended up going to Royal bank of Canada after two or three years because I wanted an opportunity to, you know, play with the big boys and get a job on the trading floor and see what that was all about.

Did you think that you had to leave the corporate function in order to do that to go to a bank.

I mean, certainly didn't have to leave. My career was going well at Dow, but it definitely accelerated things for me. I know where I left out, where I came back. I wouldn't have achieved that in a couple of years had I stayed within the company. And I really went deep in a specialized area where I was doing foreign exchange at the bank. And I obviously didn't have the breadth that you may get in a corporate area, but I got the DAP times in spades. Going to the bank and really spending all day, every day deeply immersed in.

Fx, getting to know it from, well, from different customers, I suppose as well. And their different approaches, were they quite different to Dow or was it just a set approach to the bank, or what was the situation?

Well, and that's really what drew me back to Dow is, you know, soon after I arrived at the bank, you know, a couple things. One is I learned what a special place I left because I kept Dow as a customer of mine. I left on very good terms and I started to cover other large major corporations in the US and in Canada. And I quickly realized the way we approached risk and treasury in general at DOW was very different than the way a lot of other corporations were doing it. We kind of treated it as a profit center per se, but more of a place to create value and really make an impact on the company, rather than just sort of a necessary activity to produce and sell chemicals. So that became pretty evident to me that I left something pretty special. But, you know, I was having a great time doing the currency work for World bank, and I really wasn't planning on leaving. It's just, you know, was sort of serendipitous. I was at a conference. The treasurer was at the conference. The head foreign exchange trader for Dial had quit and he told me about it. And I thought maybe I should go to the us, get a green card and, you know, see what happens. If it works, I'll stay. If it doesn't, I'll go to Wall Street. Lo and behold, it worked out and been there a lot of years since.

And then you made that move across, as you said, and you made the move to the US from Canada and then later on you moved to Europe. So talk us through the sort of the career from there.

Yeah, so I got the opportunity to move to Switzerland, and DOW had established in 1995 Risk management centers around the world. So we had one in Oregon, Switzerland, which is very close to Zurich, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Midlands. So I got the privilege to go and run the one in Europe, which is probably the most active one for foreign exchange because that's where most of the exposures were. And also was fantastic because it was right when I moved, was right at the launch of the euro. So I got to steward the company through all the changes from the lira and the deutsche mark to the common currency. So that was super exciting. I got to lead people and kind of run my own show over there. And actually it was during that time that I worked for one of your previous guests on the show, Michelle Beckers, who was the global head, head of Risk Management at Dow at the time. And I was his lieutenant running Europe and Asia. And that was just a great personal experience for me because prior to starting that role, I had never even been to Europe. So when I landed in Switzerland to check out the office, it was not only new for work, but it was a new experience for me and my family as well.

What was that like? How would you contrast that again? Treasury in Switzerland, Europe and the focus? You know, again, we spoke about this before sometimes because the flows, not because of the nature of the company, but the flows are so massive at the center of a global multinational. Whereas when you're at, as you say, financial risk management is a different kind of focus of Treasury. Did you find that within the center or was it exactly the same? No, that's it. This is the way we run Treasury. Boom. Do it like that or how was it?

Probably for Dow, it was more the same because we had a very strong emphasis globally on strong processes. So financial Risk Management, which was basically FX interest rates, a little bit of soft commodities for our AG business, that was set up the same way globally, same systems, we all reported back to the, you know, the global director in Midland. So there wasn't too much change there. Definitely the biggest change was more on the personal side and, you know, sort of the social interactions at work. But you know, Switzerland, fantastic place to live, beautiful, safe, pretty heavy on the rules, but all in all was a great experience because, you know, every weekend was an adventure to a new country in Switzerland, Switzerland, which was a real treat. And I have at the time, I had two children and a third one born in Switzerland. So we lived the full adventure over there.

I really enjoyed it. And as you say, it's quite a different cultural shift because Switzerland is very. You're not allowed to have your bath after 9 o' clock because they have set rules and it's just the way of things that's the right way to put it. And the treasury, as you say, just sort of, it just ran and you, you got that progression. After three years, was it time to head back to the US or what was the sort of other stuff coming along? What was the situation?

Yeah, this was a typical expat assignment at Dow, which we say they're three to five years and it really depends on the opportunity. So, you know, a great job came up for me back in the U.S. in Midland. Our world headquarters are in Midland, Michigan. And that was really my first sort of left turn in, in what I had considered very much a markets career. You know, for me it was stay at Dow or you know, go to a hedge fund or some other sort of trading shop. Could have been a prop shop at a bank. And I got this opportun opportunity to come back and you know, I jumped at it to really broaden myself beyond just financial markets. I'd been very deep in that space. But you know, I hadn't been learning a lot about, you know, corporate finance. So I took on the role of global planning and operations for Dow. And you know, the operations is really our name for cash management and systems and all the intercompany loans and in house bank. So that was a fantastic way to see how business really gets done in all the different countries. Because as I mentioned before, you know, we're in over 100 countries. Many of those have heavy regulations and currencies just don't free flow. So it was a great experience on that side. But then on the planning side is really what set me up for my role that I have now. I got deep into capital structure and all the different thoughts that go into shareholder remuneration between dividends and share buyback and a lot of work on leverage as well. You know, when I started that job, I was writing a white paper for the board on the impacts of cutting the dividend. And when I was leaving the job, I was writing the same white paper on increasing the dividend. So I got to see sort of BAM into feast, if you will. And that was just a great experience that really gave me my first sort of flavor of what it's like to run a global finance or treasury organization in terms of the work and the decisions that need to happen.

And then I know you moved, you made this sort of move, or was it by then that you made the move to chief investment role, Is that right?

Yes, I did a very quick stint in something we called Enterprise Wide Risk Management, which I did for six months. And then I Carried that with me over into the pension role. So yeah, we at Dow we have a very large defined benefit pension plan. It's not, it's common with, you know, hundred year old companies that are in the industrial space to have these big legacy plans. And so today, you know, just to put it in numbers, it's about 25 billion of assets, 32 billion of liabilities. And that was just a fantastic job. Like many things in our careers. I wasn't expecting to go there. Phone rang, the gentleman who had the role before me had quite a. And he was off to Lockheed Martin to run their pension. And I, unbeknownst to me was the heir apparent. And so over I went. And at that time it's interesting because pension had always been kind of a sideshow, you know, over in a different building for us and it wasn't really integrated into the, you know, the treasury for sure or into the finances of Dow. But if you Remember around that time, 0607 pensions were brought to, onto the balance sheet of corporations. So they really became an integral part of the capital structure. So when I took the role it was hung under treasury which made perfect sense. And then we were able to not only run the assets, all the great things to do with asset management, but also how the pension fit into the overall capital structure of the company. And as you know, rating agencies now look at the deficit in pensions as synthetic debt. So it's become an important piece of how corporations look about their leverage and their financial liquidity because those plans have to be funded as well. Yeah, that job was fantastic. I have to say as one of the best jobs in my career. I mean it's wonderful to be the customer and to have $25 billion, it gives you a calling card for anybody. You get visited by the smartest brains on Wall street and we were, you know, an innovative shop willing to look at anything and everything and as long as it made risk adjusted sense, we would consider it. And you know that you have so much autonomy on that job within your fiduciary responsibilities to really push the envelope and, and invest in things that are of interest to you and where you think there there's good returns. And I also started that job mid 07 and the crisis was upon us, you know, within my first year I.

Was going to say, and with that, and you say exciting times, you know, you've gone into pensions, that's like the quality or area, keep a lid on it, just keep it ticking over. But it wasn't like that. And again this is I'm going to say to the people listening, hang on. You know this is from our conversation the other day, but explain to the guys how is different to that and how is a far more active role.

I mean imagine the case of GM before PP used to call it a pension plan that happened to own a car company. The pension is big and in our pension the daily change in the value of the assets is in these markets, hundreds of millions of dollars. But in a normal market it's probably plus or minus $150 million on any given day. And you have carte blanche, so to speak within some strategic asset allocation guidelines to position that portf to maximize returns for the company. And when your plan is underfunded, you know, every dollar you make in that pension plan is a dollar less the corporation is going to have to put in. So it's impactful, has a big impact on earnings, on leverage, on cash flow for the company. And as I said, it's fun because I used to look in the Wall Street Journal and flip through pages and realize man, I have to read all of these. This every single article in here. Some way, shape or form is impacting my portfolio. Whether it's you know, a housing project in India or you know, aircraft jet aircraft engine leasing that we were doing or pharmaceutical investing, it didn't matter what it was, it was all part of the portfolio. So you really felt like you were connected to the world because you knew the people, you knew the players and you know, you had ability to make decisions and really help the company with those decisions decisions.

And it was interesting again the guys listening today that when Gary and I spoke the other day we had a really good pre brief called that that role. It seemed to really encompass 360 of everything and you were completely outward facing and then you made the move to become the sort of global, to become the global treasurer, not sort of dude, to become the treasurer and then taking responsibility. Talk about the step from you know, CIO to that role where you assistant treasurer, then treasurer etc but talk us through that and then taking responsibility for massive team and a shift in focus. What was that like?

Yeah, I mean it was a big challenge, you know a challenge I was up for and excited to do. Just mention my co cio's at other companies. The chief investment officers are a tight knit group because it's very generic what we do so there's a lot of benefit to sharing and there's a couple really good industry groups there so you get to know them very well and they tend to do their jobs forever. I mean, it's hard to pry a CIO out of their jobs because it's such a fascinating and great job. But they thought I was crazy. They're like, what are you doing? Like you're going back to the puzzle, to the puzzle palace where, you know, you're not in charge anymore. And that was the biggest adjustment. I mean, when you're cio, you're really in charge. Yes, you have an investment committee that you report to four times a year. But it's a lot like being CEO for a corporation going to a board. Right. You call this shot. People judge you on your result when you go to committee, but it's your schedule, it's how you want to run things. So I quickly, although I got a promotion, I was, you know, I was back in the trenches again, so to speak, working day to day for the CFO and the CEO and you know, the rest of the finance organization. So it was a big change there. Just on the personal autonomy kind of evaporated for a lot of things and you're back in the trenches.

What tempted you back to Treasury? I mean, I know why, because it's perfect and we love Treasury.

Yeah, I mean it was a natural move. My boss when I ran the pension was the treasurer. So, you know, that's the natural move up in the organization, which is for all the normal reasons is attractive. But I also, I wasn't giving up on pensions. I still have that under me. And I get to expand into other areas. We divide it into processes globally. So I have risk management funding, big captive insurance companies. We have that. So I run the insurance group. I have corporate real estate operations, compliance planning and then customer financial services. So, you know, I got to keep the pension, expand my horizon. You know, big people leadership role. As I said, we had over 200 and you know, now that's around 140. So that's a whole new challenge on its own. And we're very global. So you know, I have people working from Thailand to Buenos Aires and Argentina. So we got people everywhere and which is fascinating opportunity and I love you. Just I do get into whatever I'm doing. So at the start it was a little bit hard to leave the day to day of the pension world. But you know, new challenges pop up and before you know it, we had done a merger with dupont and we were deep into this merge and spin because Dow and Dupont merged together to one company company and split into three. So I became assistant treasurer basically January 2016 and our merger was announced December 15th. So right before I even got the job. So it kind of had a whole new flavor to it before I even got to sit in the seat.

And when you, when you did get in the seat, what's been the best bit about it? You've been out of treasury, you've been back into Treasury. What do you enjoy? What's the get up in the morning? I love this treasurer job, you know, what is it that for you encompasses the job?

I mean, first and foremost for me, it's the markets and the risk aspect of the job and the ability to make decisions and make an impact. I mean, some people don't like it, but there's nothing that charges me up more than doing the homework, doing the analysis now more so, you know, having my team do it, coaching them through it, you know, and then making decisions and living with those decisions and knowing sometimes seconds later was it a good or bad decision. You know, I love the thrill of that. I tend to trade my own account a lot, maybe too much, but it's just something I've always enjoyed and the ability to impact the company. Dow is the company full of risks because of what we do. We basically sell. Although we try and differentiate our products, we're still a commodity chemical company in a lot of sense. We have a lot of specialty products, but we still have a big component of commodity chemicals. And we buy a lot of highly volatile feedstocks being basically tied to oil and gas. And that puts a lot of volatility into our margin and that manifests itself in volatile cash flows. A lot of cyclicality in our business. So the leverage goes up and down. Working capital can swing around by a billion dollars in a quarter. So that makes the role of the treasurer important and gives it some profile within the company because we're not just like apple minting money. Where the treasure role really is a money management role because you're trying to optimize hundreds of billions in the bank. For us, it's a survival. You know, we're a levered company on purpose and we're in a cycle. So at the bottom of the cycle, leverage becomes critical to manage. And then at the top of the cycle, you know, obviously we have cash flow coming out to reward shareholders and look at M and A. But right now is one of these situations where, you know, we were just downgraded by Standard and Poor's, triple B minus. We definitely want to stay investment grade. So there's a lot of focus, focus on treasury and how to maintain the liquidity during these tough Times and how to stay investment grade. We'll see good times again and we will get back to a solid triple B. But in the meantime it just keeps the spotlight on treasury and what we're up to.

And looking at that spotlight on treasury and looking at it sort of that's the today's treasury and looking towards the future of treasury before we go on to people throughout the stage of the career and things like that. But what do you see is the future of Treasury? Where are you seeing it going? There's technology coming at you guys. There's perhaps a CFO saying oh can you investigate blockchain? Can you look at this? I say this to a lot of treasurers and some of them are like well we try and some grasp it. Someone say we'll just wait, we'll be late adopters. What's key to you is I know there's the back to basics approach which we definitely talked about but what are you seeing coming at you that think is right? That's important, that's coming down the line. We've got to be aware of that, as it were.

Yeah, I think, I mean I would just have to mention at its core I think treasury stays the same and that's just liquidity keeping the company solvent and providing liquidity and financial capacity to pursue its objectives. But I think we will see changes in the payment regimes. Are they going to be materially impactful to the corporation? Probably not. They're going to mean a lot to a few specialists within treasury who are setting up in house banks and all these payment mechanisms of receive robo and pobo for receiving and paying and virtual bank accounts. I think we're going to see a lot of innovation in that space but it's not going to be really visible to the rest of the organization. It's just going to be efficiency enhancing for Treasury. We're always going to have to be on the toes for the risk management side of the company be it peg currencies that could either peg break. We are a big player in Saudi Arabia. That currency has been pegged forever. But with oil at these kind of prices starts to come into the conversation of will that peg hold? Much like in the past during the Asian crisis with the Hong Kong currency we have all the financial regulation I think is another key one that we have to stay on top of and the accounting regulations. I mean we try to drive everything through economics for our decision making but in the end how it's accounted for in the books has a big impact and we're Seeing that change every year for what's off balance sheet, what's coming on balance sheet, what has to be disclosed in certain footnotes. So I really think the regulatory side is probably going to have the biggest material impact on how we conduct ourselves. That combined with how the world evolved just in terms of growth and GDP and currency. Does the euro stick to get hang together or do we have currencies spinning off? You know, all those things will get sort of top door focus for us and we probably won't be bleeding edge on payments because it's just not a huge part of what we do as it, as it could be, let's say for a more of a retail person where they have massive transaction volume.

Yeah. Which is, you know, a key part of their business, as you say, accepting point of sale and everything else and things like that. Gary, you've been in treasury this many years, you know, so many years, and you've grown your career in that time. Now when we spoke before, we sort of, you know, outlined, you know, if someone's thinking about, you know, a career in Treasury. So a lot of our European listeners tend to be earlier in their stages of career. They're analyst managers wanting to work their right way up and get some advice there some in middle part of their career. Sort of assistant treasurer, deputy, sort of going, hang on, I want, I want that job. When Gary maybe moves on. Not yet, I know he's enjoying it too much. But then also, you know, at the top table moving on and some of the bigger roles and things like that with those sort of three stages, if we just starting with, if you're at the start of your career and you're a Treasury analyst, what sort of advice do you give? You know, you've got all of those guys in your team, you've got the different groups, maybe the advice you give to your teams or just in general, what advice are you giving to the junior guys, mid level and senior guys? And I don't, we didn't actually discuss this before, maybe have discussed it with your teams at Dow, but over to you. So what do you do?

Yeah, I think the early level, the key is to eat hungry, read everything, talk about everything and to really something I see that I encourage our guys to do more of is to leverage the bank relationships. We hire a lot of young MBAs and they want to teach themselves everything. They're embarrassed to ask questions. And I found a lot of what I learned has come from some of the smartest people at different banks. And when you're a Client, you have the beauty of I can pose a question or a situation to three of the brightest minds out there on the subject matter at three different banks, get back the answers and then triangulate it into my own answer, which really becomes a best of. So it's a very powerful way to really vet a topic and not miss out on anything. But too many people, I find they don't use that. It's all gratis when you sit at a bank, they love nothing more than to field questions from customers and build that sticky relationship. And I just think people are used to all, you know, like, you know, sort of a consultant to sign a weakness or I need to pay to have this consultant and not at all. I think it's the fastest way to build your knowledge and really build it from people who are, they're the creme de la creme on that subject. Middle career, you know, I think key in that part of the career is to just not put any constraints on yourself. The more constraints you put on, you know, the more doors are going to close. And I always kind of ran my career of is this move or opportunity good for the Gary McGuire resume, be it internal endow or external. And if, you know, I could answer yes to that question that I typically would just jump at it, I wouldn't worry about the next role. How is this going to, you know, what am I going to come back to? What if I'm, you know, over in this country when the role becomes available that I want, I just was hungry and said, is this good for my career? Is this something I want to do? Boom, I do it. And that worked out very well for me. A lot of mid level career people are, they're just so worried about this move and the next one and how it's all going to fit together and the world just changes too fast. What you thought you were going to do two moves down the road, you know, the company's merged, it's split off, the role doesn't even exist. So you have to be agile and just keep worrying about is the current job going to add value to your resume. Yeah. And the more senior part, I think the biggest piece of advice I would give there is to really, you have to decide if you really want it. I don't know many senior executives that don't pay a high personal price to have the privilege of those executive roles. And it's not for everybody. I mean, you are going to not be able to, you know, in most cases coach your kids, Little league sports or you Know whatever you want to do because you're constantly involved in work related things, whether it's travel or after hour meetings, at least that's the way it is at Dallas. So you get to a certain level where you have to decide, okay, I love this, it's for me and I'm willing to make that personal sacrifice for this period of time because your family's going to have to lay second fiddle as well, just in terms of your time that you can allocate to them. And I think, you know, if you go to the treasurer role, for sure you go to the CFO role, well then it's just that much more demanding again in terms of time because as you get higher, your presence is required at things just to give them profile. So you might not be there because they need to hear from you or that you add some particular value, but it's a retirement dinner and you need to go because of your profile or it's a training or it's an can you give some opening comments for this meeting? So the demands just keep growing. Not necessarily the job is becoming harder, but it's just the profile of the role brings a whole nother dimension to it.

Usually we wrap up a show each week with what are the key three pieces of advice you give any treasury professional, but it sounds like you've actually given those. Would that be right? You sort of junior level, be hungry, ask the banks and ask them for their knowledge mid level to have the constraints, internal, external, don't want to be hungry and go for that next role if it's there and release yourself to go for it if you like. And then they say there's a certain level of personal sacrifice or other things that you should. You would also add, you know, the piece of advice again that you would give to a Treasury professional who's wanting to follow in your footsteps if you like. They look at your background and go, do you know what? I want that job without repeating it. But are there other things that you think or just the final closing sort of words that you say, look guys, this is me. Brilliant career, brilliant role. You're the global treasurer for dao. You're there. What would you say?

Yeah, the one other thing I would add and thank you for the question is just that I tell my team is I don't really care where you went to school, what your pedigree is, but you need to fill your quiver with enough arrows to compete. And you know, I tell people you can learn through podcasts, like listening to something like this, maybe More, you know, of a technical. Ben, you can read books. You know, this subject is probably the most researched subject there is now with Google, you can go to school anytime you want on the web. And then, you know, as I mentioned, talking to the banks, it's not all about that you got an MBA from this school or that school. That's definitely a very powerful head start, and it's one way to do it. But I have a lot of people that. They're engineers, they're doing a cfa. That's where they're getting the training. There's no right answer, but I just tell them you need to be able to compete, you know, with a guy from Harvard or Wharton or Chicago. And how you do that's up to you. There's no glass ceiling at Dow anyway, if you don't have a certain degree. But you just need to, you know, be passionate and enough to figure out the subject so you're able to compete and hold your own. And there's many ways to do that. So, you know, it's constant learning really, is probably what I'm trying to say. And if you're willing to instantly keep upgrading your skills just through reading and your own research, then, you know, you'll probably put yourself in good steep versus everyone else.

And what brilliant way to finish 100 podcasts. So don't worry, there will be 101. We're not finished finishing it. That's it. But. And that's why we did it. That's why I did it. I sort of wanted people to listen to Gary's story, to listen to your story, about the fact you can constantly learn, you can upgrade, you can listen to this podcast or other podcasts. Obviously not as good podcasts, but joking aside, Gary, that's been brilliant. It's been an honor. Thank you, sir. To have you as my 100th podcast guest. I couldn't ask much more. I'm absolutely thrilled Mr. Becker's recommended you. I will have to get him a beer one day. But an absolute honor to have you on here, guys. If you want to become global treasurer, listen to today's podcast. Gary will tell you. Just follow and do what he said. There you go, Gary. You've been a superstar. Thank you for your time today, sir.

Yeah, thank you very much, Mike. It's been an honor to be your 100th podcast guest, and I wish you all the best in the future on the show.

Thank you, sir. So hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

I re.

Listened to it the other day, was amazing. Amazing how diverse the backgrounds of my guests, just like Gary are. Rather than everyone loving maths, studying accounting, becoming an accountant and then finding the world of treasury each as you hear and all that. It's never that, actually, I don't. Well, I think, I think probably one out of 100 is like that. So, you know, treasury is all welcoming to anyone and everyone. Gary, as you heard, went from corporate within Dow, then went to banking and then came back again. He made then a move, an international move to Switzerland. That's a theme I hear from a lot of international, the success stories from some of the top treasures I've spoken to that they will make a global move. You know, and I've had them on the podcast and they've been open to an international move. Now, I know treasury is international, but it's very nature. But they've actually embraced the chance to move. For him, it was a full adventure for both him, his wife and his kids. And he was open to, you know, just going there and experience the culture. As you hear on the episode, he was also open to move not just in treasury and you also maybe heard that as well in there. You know, he didn't just say, right, I'm gonna go in front office from, you know, this is my comfort zone. I started an analyst, then a dealer, then a manager, then head of front office. He didn't, he, he stretched himself. He did other areas, pensions, asset management. And then he made a really good point. I thought that all the way through. You can just. And you hear, I think you hear it in the episode and mine as well. He, he really had fun and you know, throughout the episode, Gary's enthusiasm and how much he enjoys the diverse challenges, challenges the treasurer has given him throughout his career. And you know, he's at the top of his game. He's global treasurer for Dow Chemicals. Amazing. I then asked him a bit about where he saw the developments for treasury and he talks about innovation in cash, liquidity being the lifeblood of the organization, being a key measure, if you like. He, he also mentioned, I thought was an interesting, you know, anecdote, if that's the right way to say it, about how to leverage your bank relationships and get the best answers from them. So if you need, you're developing your career and thinking, all right, what should our strategy be? Easiest thing, ask three bankers, see what they say and they give you the insights, the inside answers, if you like. Again, don't constrain yourself when developing your career. You know, don't over plan your next moves. This is from global treasurer really at the top of the, of his game. So you know, just be agile with your skill set as well. As he said, you know, it's great taking some of these notes. It was just like you know, 101, a bit of a, you know, Treasury 101. These are the things to do, these are the things don't do. One of the other things I thought was admirable. He actually did say that there will be some sacrifice in your personal life but to keep a balance. And I know that he has made those and I think I've heard that a few times that in order to get to, to that top, top level, you know, you do need to be aware of that and have a balance as well. The closing words, I loved it. You know, as he said, fill your quiver with a Treasury subject knowledge. Yeah. And he said, you know, refer to some, you know, some of the, you know, those very difficult tools to use. That's right, Google. You know, it was good to have an mba, but you could listen to podcast just like you are doing today, be passionate enough to be able to compete. Constant learning. Oh just that's what, that's what all the podcasts is about for me. So I hope you guys, each and every one of you listen, enjoy as much as I did. I want to say thank you to Michelle Beckers who originally referred me and connected me with him way back then. But you know, thank you, thank you to him and thank you to Gary and thank you to all of you for listening. If any of you are listening today and you want to be on the podcast, let us know. Go to the sign up page on the podcast page. I'd love to hear your stories and you can share it. This is what it's all about and I just want to thank you once again and I hope to see you all soon. Many thanks.