This is a YouTube video titled "How to Nurture and Grow Your Treasury Career with Lee-Ann Perkins" containing a detailed monologue by Lee-Ann Perkins from June 5, 2023. In this career-focused talk, Lee-Ann shares her personal journey and insights on advancing a treasury career, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, understanding the business, and self-driven professional development. The content is a single-speaker narrative without conversational interaction.
So you were IES for a number of years and then you joined Frank's International. Talk us through that. Yes. And I think the. The driving force there was because I had the opportunity to do an ipo, and I'd never done that before. And I love learning. And at that point I was working on my mba. So this was just one of those areas that I thought, man, if. If I can get this great exposure and this understanding and really get into the depth of treasury, this would be the perfect opportunity. So I was really fortunate to get the position. And I knew going into the interview that they were going to ipo. So that was really what drove me to change. And it was honestly one of the most fascinating experiences I've ever been through. It was so difficult. I mean, I didn't sleep for a very long time because I was right at the end of doing my MBA dissertation and IPO at the same time. So it was a lot. But I think that I've learned so much from that experience, and I bring it into the public company that I work in now. I just. I think I understand a lot more having gone through that process and working with investment bankers and understanding all that technology and jargon that goes into an IPO and roadshows. So it was. It was a great experience. So I'm very fortunate to have gone there. The biggest maturity that I've had to learn going through those different types of industries is learning the business. Right. And I think as you mature in your career, you really have to realize that your understanding and your way that you manage and the way that you work has to change, because it's used to being just managing teams, getting the work done, and being good at what you do in the treasury side. But as you move up, you have to really understand the business. So it's been difficult because I'm not a technical geologist or engineer, so some of that stuff is a little bit difficult for me to understand. But I do everything I can to try to learn more about the business and the industry. And I do that by really inserting myself into any business meeting I can get into by reading about the industry, by talking to people who live and breathe that every day. So I think I have a good general overview of what we do in the oil and gas business. And my husband's a chemical engineer, so that helps, too. I can go home and ask questions about things, but I think it's very important to learn the business. I started my finance career a lot later than most people, so I've had to really be very directed and methodical in the way I made sure my career was going, because I know what I want, I know what I want to be when I grow up and I know what it takes to get there. So I've trained myself, I've educated myself, and I've grown my treasury career to what it is by basically being good to myself and knowing exactly what I need to do to get there. And people will sway you along the way. You know, if you're not really structured and know exactly what you want, you can easily get into a situation where you're doing stuff that doesn't really suit your skill set. It's not exactly what you want to do and it's not your passion. And so for me, growing up as a ballerina, I always knew from the age of three I wanted to be a ballerina. I knew that it was going to be a lot of hard work, it was dedication. I missed out on a lot of things, but it was what I had intense passion for and what I wanted to do. And. And I think the same with my treasury career. I sat down as a young treasury person once I got my first CTP qualification and I was like, right now this is the person I want to be. What do I have to do to get there? And so I've been very structured and nurtured my career. And what I will say is, a lot of people have said to me, oh, well, we can't get our companies to pay for these things, so basically we just have to do free webinars. But one of the things I've done, and, you know, it's been a sacrifice for sure, but I've paid my way through both of my degrees, my CTP qualification and my ACT qualification that I'm doing next year. You know, it's not company funded, so it's because I'm so passionate and driven about what I want to do, I make that sacrifice to nurture my own career.
