How Innovation and Automation Transformed Treasury at a Leading University

28 Apr 2026 · 36 min
Episode

28 Apr 2026 · 36 min

0:00

In this episode of the Treasury Career Corner, host Mike Richards interviews Karen Kearney, Treasurer of Stanford University. The conversation traces Karen’s unconventional career journey—from audit at PwC, through culinary school, to finance roles and ultimately to leading Stanford’s treasury. She describes Stanford’s complex financial landscape, with diversified revenue streams, over 45,000 individual funds, a $2.3 billion research enterprise, and a $6.3 billion debt portfolio. Karen explains how she and her team set a “North Star” of streamlining and automating treasury functions: building an in‑house AI‑driven cash‑forecast model, implementing a Treasury Management System (TMS), operating an internal bank that funds capital‑expenditure and a large mortgage program, and creating a straight‑through‑processing merchant‑services application that won the 2025 AFP Pinnacle Award. The discussion covers cultural challenges of moving treasury into a consensus‑driven, non‑profit environment, rebuilding the treasury team, and the importance of governance and upskilling for AI. Karen shares advice for aspiring treasury professionals—seek rotations, say yes to projects, develop institutional acumen, and stay humble. The episode closes with a plug for the Treasury Salary Survey, highlighting that lack of progression, not pay, is the top driver of dissatisfaction among treasury staff.

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