How to Nurture and Grow Your Treasury Career with Lee-Ann Perkins

Foreign.

And welcome back to this week's Treasury Career Corner. This is again another amazing archive episode from 200 plus episodes. This is with the amazing Leanne Perkins. Leanne and I spoke back in December 2019. OMG, quite a long time ago now. She was at that time with Ion Geophysical oil and gas company. She then made a move throughout lockdown. She now works remotely. You can hear her journey at the end of the episode. She's an incredible lady. She gives you some more nuggets, she's done some further study and everything else. Just enjoy it. Wherever you listen to the podcast, give us a thumbs up if you would. Much appreciated. I'll shut up. I'll let the episode speak for itself. Listen at the end she gives a great update and I can't wait to see you guys all soon. Let's get on with the show.

This week's show joined by Leanne Perkins, assistant treasurer at Ion Geophysical. Now, as I just described with Leanne before the show started, she will describe what Ion do because they technology lots of different areas and she gives it much better framing if you like as well. Now Leanne is actually a South African. They recently won the Rugby World Cup. Not that I'm bitter and twisted, but damn you, congratulations on that. But actually let's take ourselves back because you've got very interesting start pre treasury and everything else. Leanne, perhaps before your career started with the treasury, take us back to how you got started and then how you discovered the world of finance and then treasury and then we'll jump in and around. And as we said also again before the show, towards the end we're going to do an early wrap up and what I mean by that is usually we ask the top tips with Leanne. She's actually got some really good areas to explore. So we're going to start that a little bit earlier this week so Leanne can really dig into some of her tips for success which I think are fantastic. So Leanne, take us back to the beginning. Over to you.

Great, thank you Mike. It's so nice to talk to you again and to be a part of your podcast. And thank you also for bringing up that South Africa just recently won the World cup again, but England was a great player. So thanks to the whole country for competing. So yeah, as you said Mike, I'm the assistant treasurer of Ion Geophysical. We are a US based publicly traded company and we have significant international operations and we're a technology leader that creates value through data capture, analysis and optimization to enhance critical decision Making for our clients who are the E and P companies. And we're a very interesting company. One quarter of all our employees have advanced degrees. So we have very smart people working here and people are very passionate about what they do and it's a very nice company to work in.

Yeah.

And the strategy of the company is to deliver the power of data driven decision making.

Okay, so but you didn't, obviously, you know, you've got there now you're the assistant treasurer there in Houston, in Texas. But you, as we said earlier, you're from South Africa but you started in a different career area, a different area if you like, with a dancing career and well, you know, maybe take us back to that. And then when you first came across and discovered treasury and finance and things like that, give us, give us a quick whistle stop tour of that earlier part, if you would.

Yeah, yeah. I have probably a very different career path into treasury than most people. I'm 44 years old and I'm on my second career already and I was a ballerina for most of my career into my early 20s when I had a career ending injury. So I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with the next part of my life and I had to think about it and I decided that, well, because I enjoyed accounting at school and one of my dad's degrees was accounting. So I thought, well, this sounds like a good field to get into and you should probably have a career for life with accounting. So I went to university and got a management accounting degree. And after I graduated I started working at a global petrochemical company in South Africa and that's where I first really fell into Treasury. I was in accounting for about six months and a role in the Treasury Department opened up. I didn't know anything about it, what treasury was, but I liked the people who worked in that department. So I thought, well, this is a great opportunity. I'm going, go ahead and give it a try. I worked in treasury for three years in South Africa and then we were expat it over to the US for my husband's job. My first job in the States was at a Global 100 company in the Treasury Department because I already had some experience. I feel like I was really lucky being able to be in treasury and you don't go to university to study treasury necessarily, but it was just a field that I happen to be good at and walked into and I'm so glad that I have and I think it's gone pretty well from there.

Yeah. So you started off with universal weather and aviation within the US that is, what did they do and what was, you know, what was treasury night there?

They're a private company, they do weather and aviation analytics for private airlines. And that was really my first foray into debt management in Treasury. So we were a small department, there was only two of us. So I got to learn from the treasurer. And at that point that's where I decided that a CTP designation would be how I distinguished myself and how I move up my treasury career. You know, I had to start educating myself in that area. So it was really enjoyable to learn from people who already had that designation and to also start in a smaller company where things were quite complex. So it gave me a good opportunity to eventually become what I think I am now as a deep generalist in the treasury field.

I mean, you say that, you say you did that role. What would the sort of, what was treasury like in those days? So this was back in 2007 into 2008, and around then I talked with some of our clients about it being a big driver now, you know, now. But, you know, back in those days, what was it like? Was it more spreadsheet driven or what was the sort of structure of treasury as it were?

Yeah, I think it was, you know, it was very different to the way it is right now. And I think everything was spreadsheet driven. The TMS and the workstations at that time were incredibly expensive and a lot of capex spend. So a company that small, with a small Treasury Department couldn't afford the cool technology. So we were just kind of learning the ropes, doing what we could to get cash management put together to manage the debt and just really figure out how we were going to mature the department from that point on. So it was very different. And also the regulations and compliance were not nearly what they are today. And so learning how to do treasury from the beginning and then learning the whole other aspect that comes along with risk management of treasury was something that I had to start learning from the early parts of my career. Because as the 2000s came around and the industry started changing and the compliance and regulations started becoming more important in the US and globally, that was something that I had to concentrate on as well. So I think we've had quite a big shift and I think that's what I find so interesting about treasury too is it's so future looking and always changing. And I recently heard actually a statement that said treasurers should be astronauts and not archaeologists. And I think that's a great way for anyone to look at their career really, that you've got to be forward looking. Changes are coming, they're inevitable. You have to be adaptable and agile and that's, I think, how you can summarize treasury in a nutshell.

Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the other things I've talked on quite a few recent podcasts, a lot of the time the CFOs, you know, they seem very, very busy, but they're using their treasurers, if you like, as the sort of scout in front and say, look, can you just go and scout what's coming down at me down the line, whether it's technology, blockchain, bitcoin, anything, you know, cyberware, the lot. And they're saying, can you go do that? I do the day to day and.

You do the future.

And as you said, looking up to the stars in that case.

Yeah. And I think it's actually an exciting opportunity and a place to be because the CFO obviously has other things he has to take care. And you have to be that person, that mature treasurer who understands that there's a risk side to treasury. And you have to send solutions down the road to meet you because they're coming at you. So you have to manage what's coming. And you also have to remember that risk does not respect organizational structure. So any solution you come up with has to be global in nature. And I think risk has become more important over the years. And as we get into things like cyber risk, fintech offerings and exposures, you mentioned bitcoin, different technologies, the Internet of things, AI, it's all coming at us. And if you don't adjust and accept it, it's just going to make your life more difficult. So I think it is really, because you can't change it, so you might as well embrace it.

Exactly. And then you, so you worked for a private company for three years, decided to make the move to ies. You know, NASDAQ quoted Big construction group. You know, what was that transition like for you?

You know, it was, I will say it was a great experience because I had never worked in a public company in the US before. So it's very different to how I grew up in South Africa. And I think also at that point, you know, I was already more mature in my treasury career. So I started getting exposed to a lot more of the finance and the treasury side and then it became the SEC reporting. And you know, I remember my first quarter there, I was like, what was I supposed to do during the quarter to prepare it was like baptism by fire at that point. But it was honestly very interesting and very exciting to learn about the whole SEC aspect and how treasury has a lot of input into that and what you have to do every day to make sure you're staying on top of the regulations and the compliance, and you have to protect the company that way, too. So it was a very good exposure. And I honestly had a great boss at that time, too, who helped me really understand from the treasury side and also more into the finance and understanding the business side as well. So I think I enjoy being in a public company more than a private company.

Why is that?

And I think because I'm one of those structured, more black and white type of people, that's the way I think. So I like that there's rules and there's procedures and policies already in place, and if they're not, you can put them in, but you know exactly what you have to do, what your timelines are. And it's just, I think, a more structured approach to the way I work and how I excel, I think.

Yeah. And then you made another move. You know, talk us through how these moves came about, sort of thing. So you were IES for a number of years and then you joined Franks International. Talk us through that.

Yes. And I think 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 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. That was right at the end of doing my MBMA dissertation and IPO at the same time. So it was a lot of. 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.

You were working. You were working construction, you weren't laying bricks. So you did the construction industry, then you went, obviously you're in Houston. So oil and gas, massive industry, you know, so you made that move. You know, how did the industries contrast? And then you moved on to Qmax. So, you know, walk us through those moves in terms of industry, maybe.

So Q. Max and Ion and Frank's were all really oil and gas services companies in different areas. So I think for me, treasury doesn't really differ so much by industry. You know, it's always the same requirements as cash management, it's debt management, it's capital markets. And I think the biggest difference and the biggest maturity that I've had to learn going through those different types of industries is learning the business. 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, you know, 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.