How Treasurers Move from Operational Roles to Strategic Impact

This week's podcast is one of our Treasury Career Corner live event podcasts. I interviewed 3 amazing treasurers in the heart of New York. I had Bob Kane, Corporate Treasurer at Neptune Retail Solutions, Deepali Chawla, Chief Treasury Officer at Moody's, and Keith Gorb, Vice President Assistant Treasurer at Bristol Myers Squibb. It was a great night, a great way to kick off our events for 2026. We've got lots of them, come along to them. They're amazing. And I have some amazing guests that come and join me. Let's give you a little snippet from each of our speakers, just so you know what the episode is about. Enjoy.

I was lucky when I was looking, there was an opening in treasury. And then I was like, I don't even know what that means. But one of the finance senior person who was there in the organization at that point, he said, why don't you come have a chat, see what it means. And if it interests you, then what's there to lose? I was like, yeah, sure. So I went to I went to the UK, had a chat, and it was fascinating. I just felt like all that money that I can move around, all that money that I will be in control of, maybe somebody's going to trust me with that. Why not?

4 years ago, I got to a point in my career where I felt like home run opportunities only. Like, there's just no reason to take jobs that you're uncertain about or industries or sectors. I was in the absolute no-brainer, can't turn it down. And at that time, Bristol-Myers was hiring for their assistant treasurer. Sandra, the treasurer, put out some feelers to some banks that said, do you know any people that are probably ready for that role? Some of them commented that you might want to talk to the guy at Zoetis.

Well, when opportunity calls, I would say you go for it. When I was a very young child, there was a game Shoots and Miners. You ever saw it?

Yep.

Careers can be kind of like that. You be trudging along, going up a couple levels, and suddenly you hit a slide and You're going somewhere or you're out where you can get a ladder and you can shoot up. So I would just recommend that if you need to solve a— are you ready? And if not you, who? And if not now, when? You turn down an opportunity like what came to me, it can go away and it can go away forever.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview Treasury professionals about their Treasury careers. Each and every week I'll talk to treasurers about how they built 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.

Right.

Oh, this is fantastic. Well, great turnout. Thank you very much for all coming here to Treasury Career Corner Live in New York. Hands up if you've been to one of these things before. Look at that. We must be doing something right. Hands up if you haven't been to one but you're definitely coming back again and we haven't even started yet. Great, no pressure, Bob. But you listen to Bob's story and you want to come back. So you see this each time we do the energy thing. We're not doing that today. I'm going to get a big, big good evening from you guys. Good evening, New York.

Good evening.

Ah, there you go. Yeah, keep Brian under control, someone, please. So the The structure of this is, firstly, you're going to get to hear from 3 amazing treasurers. You're then going to get to ask them some questions. When was the last time you got an intimate setting like this where you could ask them about their treasury careers, get some tips for success? Basically, the last time was actually last time you were here, but 3 different guests. Each and every time their stories are different. And how did this come from? Well, this actually started with a podcast. So I'm a Treasury Recruiter. I talk to Treasurers each and every day. I love talking to you guys, even Brian. And the key thing is we also do lots of other stuff. We do our salary survey, we do the podcast. Started it 7 years ago, grown and grown, 400+ episodes. And there's the team that support me doing it. But one of the key things, these events wouldn't happen without the support of our sponsors. So firstly, welcome here, Chrysler Coalition Greenwich. Can you put your hands up? Where are you guys? Come on, over there. Right, now stand up please. Get up. Yeah, stay standing please. Tradeweb, Tradeweb, get there. And Treasury Spring, Treasury Spring, great. You need to go to them to get your drinks tickets, otherwise you're going to be very thirsty later. There you go. But joking aside, we couldn't put these events on without their support, so we really thank them. And they come along. And also Herbert Smith. Sorry, God, yeah, I better not because Ken will get me. So Ken, partner here and looks after us, and we've had some amazing sessions today as well. But getting on to it, this is what we do. We talk about people's Treasury careers, how they started, where they are now, and where they see both themselves and Treasury profession going to next. We're going to do this across the panel. They'll each introduce themselves. I'll let them do that. They'll do it better than me. And then What we'll do is we will go through how they started, some of the bit as they progress their careers a little bit more, and then you will talk about lots of other topics. Yes, we will cover AI technology. We, yeah, it's a thing, but we will cover it not in too much detail. You will also then Q&A, we'll do some wrap-ups, and then we'll get to do some networking drinks. And what we will be doing is we'll be here from 7:30 till about quarter to 9. And then Herbert Smith has been lovely, but then we'll be going around the corner to O'Connell Lease, but I'll show you some of that later. So firstly, I'll hand over to Bob. Bob, over to you, sir.

Okay. Robert Frost always likes to say, I took the other road and it has made all the difference. So my career is a lot different than probably many of you are experiencing. It's not linear through Treasury. I spent the first 20 years of my life at Exxon and Pepsi and controller roles, financial engineering type roles. I segued into private equity with a Carl Icahn-owned company and started there as the head of FP and the treasurer there was— take one step back, it was a private equity-owned, they owned West Point Stevens, which became West Point Homes. It was a towel and a sheet company. And when Carl Icahn bought them, he basically terminated the group down south and hired all new people. So we had an entire new finance group. And the treasurer they had stayed a month and then announced he's taking another job that he was looking for when he got our job. So the CFO came into me and said after a month, "How'd you like to be treasurer?" And my first response was, "God, I'm not even sure what that means. Let me think about it over the weekend." So when I came in on Monday, he told me he went to someone else on the list from when he was hiring people. So I lost out on an opportunity. Fast forward. 3 months, and that person was terminated. And he came into the office and he said, "How would you like to be treasurer?" And I said, "Yes." So I'm kind of a quick learner. So that is how I got my first introduction to direct treasury. But again, I kept the FP&A role but added the treasury cap to that. Now there were holes to fill, so I needed a place to find where I could fill in the parts I didn't really understand. And someone from a bank at Wachovia said, you need to get involved in AFP. I think there's some AFP members here. Basically, they wanted me involved in that because they said they can kind of show you and lead you to people that will fill all those holes for you. So I'm very much indebted to AFP and absolutely a disciple for them. Currently, I'm with Neptune Retail Solutions, which is another private equity deal.

What do they do? Can you tell the English people?

Sure. It used to be the digital marketing arm of News Corp, the Fox News guys, and it was spun off to private equity. And we had to change the name because it was News America Marketing. We weren't allowed to use the word news.

And we're going to come back to you, Deepali, if you would. And Deepali, I talk about the podcast. You— Keith has already been on there, one of our top performing episodes. So no pressure, Keith.

Yeah.

But Deepali has recently recorded one with me as well. So you can get a more in-depth listen on that at treasurycareercorner.com. But Tapali, if you would, over to you.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks all for coming, and I'm deeply humbled to be in a room full of such great Treasury professionals. My stepping into Treasury was, I would say, just by chance, nothing planned. I moved from India to Belgium right after I got married, and as I did that, I was challenged to find a job in a French-speaking, French/Dutch-speaking English-speaking country, and my first landing was in finance operations, working with the AR team, the accounts receivable team, which I did, and ended that stint with a transition of that function to a shared services team in Bangalore, in India. And then it came to the point of what next, and as a family, me and my husband, we decided let's move to UK. And for me, the obvious thing was, you know what, let me just try and find an internal transfer because I don't want to start with the searching for a job again with a new company, a new country, everything. I was lucky when I was looking, there was an opening in Treasury, and then I was like, I don't even know what that means. But one of the finance senior person who was there in the organisation at that point, he said, why don't you come have a chat, see what it means, and if it interests you, then what's there to lose? I was like, yeah, sure. So I went to the UK, had a chat, And it was fascinating. I just felt like all that money that I can move around, all that money that I will be in control of, maybe somebody's going to trust me with that. Why not? And then I took that and I came to UK and that was my start into Treasury. And that was again with Hewlett-Packard. So spent 11 years in total with, and that was somehow my foundation school. And I just seen John walk in He was my last manager actually in HP before I left, yes. So Jonathan was there and great stint with Hewlett-Packard, moving across different treasury roles from analyst to systems implementation to what we call an in-house consulting team advising the businesses, being a stakeholder partner, and then eventually leading that team and then finally leaving I thought I would like to take a break in my career after 11 years, having 2 kids, take some time to spend with them. But that wasn't to be, as I was soon headhunted for a job at GE Capital, where they were trying to build their own treasury function, taking it away from the US back to the regions to support better the bank-like institutions that we had. And so that was my next stint in treasury. Worked there, fascinating time, lots of learning. And again, the decision was made at one point that GE is too big. The conglomerate has to then wind down GE Capital. And then that's where I started working on being a part of the team selling piecemeal by piecemeal our capital businesses. And just when that was ending and I thought, you know what, now I definitely will take a break before the kids go too big. I was asked for this role in Huawei, which is where they were setting up their risk committee for financial risk evaluation for known, unknown as they look through their processes across Treasury. And this role was reporting into the CFO office, and the role was really to report out to the CFO after reviewing each function on sort of white papers to them on what they can do better or where are the inherent risks and how they do what they do. So 2 years with that and wasn't really looking, but then Moody's happened. And again, in a role where they were trying to set up the International Treasury team, the International Treasurer role in the UK. So took that and 7 years and here I am sitting as the Treasurer for Moody's. So that in brief is my career.

You're actually in New York now as well.

I did, for all my sins, I relocated to New York last year. I, again, professionally, I think it just made sense and personally as well, which I can go into later if there is time to where I was at the stage where, you know, empty nester, kids out doing their own thing, and I'm here thinking like, why not? Let's do it. So moved to New York last year. It's been a year already now. So yeah, so far so good.

We'll go deep dive on some of our guests a bit more about some of the early steps they made and everything else in a moment. But Keith, I'll hand over to you.

Thanks, Mike, and thanks everyone for coming out. Glad to be here to speak with a bunch of Treasury professionals about their journey. I think mine is extremely arbitrary as well. So I played baseball in college. I traveled a lot. I missed a lot of class and I really wanted to graduate on time. So I went to one of my professors and said, "Is there anything I can do to make up extra class time?" And he said, "Look, if you can come up with a really compelling independent study, I'll give you some credit for it." And I happened to be having this conversation with someone in the dorm. Person across the hall said, "My father works for Lehman Brothers. Maybe he'll talk to you and you could do something over there." I didn't even, seriously know what Lehman Brothers was, but had a conversation with him. He said, sure, come on in, we'll figure out something that you can do. It was like an unpaid thing. And I started working there and really just doing some things for my class. But then I started engaging in what they were doing and it wasn't, it wasn't anything business-facing. It was more of an accounting area, but I just took an interest and they started giving me responsibility that this rotating analyst was going to do when they started. So I was doing the job at this rotational analyst, and the day before the analyst was supposed to start, he or she took a job somewhere else. And my immediate boss was all angry about this, and she said, "When do you graduate?" And I said, "6 months." And she said, "Could you work part-time until then?" I said, "Sure." She said, "Do you want this job full-time?" I said, "Fine." She said, "Well, $45,000 a year work?" I mean, this was the negotiation that we were in. And I just accepted on the spot. And then a year went by. I'm in this group, but it was very back office. It was a lot of shared services, AP/AR style. And that same SVP called me into his office and he said, look, he said, you seem like a young, ambitious person. Like, why don't we maybe put some feelers out and see if there's areas more in finance closer to the business you might be interested in? He said, I know the controller really well. And I know the treasurer really well. I'm gonna send your resume to both. So he sent my resume to the treasurer and the head of controllers. Treasurer responded back right away and said, we have 3 open roles, have him come interview. If he likes one, we'll see which one we like him for and maybe there's a match. I went over there, I interviewed for all 3. I preferred asset and liability management. They agreed and they made me an offer. And right as I accepted the offer, the controller got back, and this is going back in the early 2000s, and said, I think he was in Japan. I didn't see this until now. We have open roles. Send him over. And I didn't want to go back on, on my commitment. So I honored that and I stayed in Treasury. And I do think back sometimes about how different a career might have been had he not been in Japan and had I preferred that area. I do think there is an arbitrary nature to almost all of our careers. So I was at Lehman and my first 2 years in ALM and really enjoying it. And that SVP called my boss's boss and said, We have an open role back in our group. I'm going to make him a young VP and we want to bring him back. And that boss called me into his office, talked to me about this opportunity and said, look, I don't have anything for you now, but we want to keep you. What I can do is I'll put you in a special projects role. I'll have you support the liquidity management desk. And if any of those roles open up, you'll be— you'll go on the trading floor. So I said, fine, I'm going to take a flyer. And he said, look, I got to be honest with you, there's probably not going to be any opening for any reasonable period of time. And sure enough, 3 months went by. One of the people went to Merrill Lynch and I got the call to go down. And the guy who was running the desk was all screaming. He was kicking stuff because he didn't want to take me because I was a young guy and he didn't feel I was seasoned enough. But I spent 3 great years with him. I went into a few other business units within Lehman Brothers, secured financing, municipal sales desk. Then the financial crisis happened. I ended up leaving Lehman just before they went bankrupt. I went to work for an asset manager that then went bankrupt because of their exposure to Lehman. So Lehman still got me. And then I saw a random Treasury job at Shear. I applied for that job. They called me back and they said, look, that job's already been filled, but your resume got flagged during the interview process. It's a job doing modeling for a marketing group if you're interested in. At that point in time, I was like, let me just take any job out there. So my first day I'm in my apartment, I'm getting dressed, I'm putting on a suit to look nice. And I see a big announcement that Merck acquired Shearing Plow. I'm like, do I even go in? I'm not even sure what this means at that time. So I was at Shearing Plow, Merck for a year. And then I got a call from someone to go back to Barclays who acquired Lehman Brothers assets. I was at Barclays for 3 years, just had a different feel to it. Two companies that saw the world through very different ways, very different lenses. And at that time, Pfizer was spinning out their animal health business. I had a former baseball player that was on my team in college. Look, we're spinning out our animal health unit. I know they need treasury people. Are you interested? And I said, let's do it. So I went over to Zoetis. I spent a great 9 years there. Robin's in the room now, who took my seat when I moved from treasury into IR. But it was a really unbelievable opportunity to stand up a treasury function. I mean, I think most people's roles you step into, someone has been doing it for some period of time. You come in, you make it your own. But we were just building this thing and I found it really engaging. It really developed some of the skills that I think really helped me advance even beyond that. And then 4 years ago, I got to a point in my career where I felt like home run opportunities only. Like there's just no reason to take jobs that you're uncertain about or industries or sectors. I was in the absolute no-brainer, can't turn it down. And at that time, Bristol Myers was hiring for their assistant treasurer. Sandra, the treasurer, put out some feelers to some banks that said, do you know any people that are probably ready for that role? Some of them commented that you might want to talk to the guy at Zoetis. She and I had an informal conversation, went through the interview process, and I've been there for 4 years, really happy. I oversee our capital markets group, which is really extensive. I oversee all of our interest rate hedging, all of our cash investments, our FX hedging. And our International Treasury Group as well. So it's the journey and there's always arbitrary nature of it, but I've seemed to weave in and out of Treasury and I just keep getting pulled back in.

Cool. So we've got quite a mixed audience here. So we'll start with Bob and then we will mix it up on the panel as well. So we won't just all do this, but we've got a range of experiences. Some guys more junior in their careers will get more experienced questions, but you had that unexpected start in Treasury. Would you recommend that to people? You know, we talked about study and AFP supporting you, and then we'll come to you, Dipali, because you've got your own views about that as well. We've talked about it, and then we'll come to you, Keith, about the move from banking to corporate. But with yourself first of all, Bob, what are your thoughts? Or what should some of these guys in the earlier stage of their career, what would you think they should be doing?

Well, when opportunity calls, I would say you go for it. When I was a very young child, there was a game, chutes and ladders. make a stop.

Yep.

Careers can be kind of like that. You be tips along, going up a couple levels, and suddenly you hit a slide and you're down somewhere, or you're out. Or you can get a ladder and you can shoot up. So I would just recommend that if you need to stop, are you ready? And if not you, who? And if not now, when? You turn down an opportunity like what came to me, it can go away, and it can go away forever. So, uh, I would just jump on that.

Yeah, to Bali, study and HP, and you did a range of different roles as well.

Yeah, I think specifically in terms of qualifications or studying for Treasury, I think, so my background is I have my math honours and then I did an MBA in finance. I think for me the most learning was on the job, and I think that is where I felt was the most in terms of doing these horizontal movements across, trying to grab any role that I could do within Treasury or outside with collaboration projects outside of Treasury and try to learn and expand my skill set like that. I don't know how much of us early on in our life are very committed to say that, yes, Treasury is where I want to spend the rest of my career. I don't think I was. At some point I wanted to navigate my way through and see where else I could land up. Pretty much like what Keith is saying, Treasury kept pulling me back. Must be the stars aligned for that. But if you have that clarity, definitely I would say having a good Treasury qualification is an asset. But I wouldn't restrict your career progression with the fact that you don't have one, so you should not think about a career in Treasury. I think it's— or right now, the way the world is changing, and we've been talking about it in the last couple of hours as well. With the way the tech space is changing with AI and everything, the skill sets, I don't think, Mike, a job description that I would have handed to you and say, Mike, help me find somebody, is going to be the same that I give you today. Because I don't think I would put as much focus as a hiring manager on whether you have a Treasury qualification. I would look more in terms of your agility or adaptability or you know, how much you can play with different skill sets around that present themselves right now. I think that to me is more important than a formal qualification.

So I do a weekly newsletter. I'm going to come to Keith, but on that, we did one of our most popular ones recently, which where I just— big statement— I don't do banking in the nicest way, because I don't. I recruit corporate treasurers like yourselves. I did do banking, and the first two roles I recruited, funnily enough, were heads of ALM for Barclays Bank and then NatWest, and then was like, wow, learned lots about ALCOs and value at risk and everything else and things that I never want to remember again. But Keith, you sort of skated past that a little bit. We had a very popular podcast with you because you made a definitive choice about banking moving into corporate. And I think maybe just explore that a little bit more if you would, because I think it was a fascinating choice at the time. A lot of people commented on it.

Yeah, and I can't remember exactly how I phrased it on the podcast, but the move to leave from banking, which was Barclays at the time, was the only time I ever actively sought to get out of a role for anything other than just what I thought was the best opportunity. It was just culturally not where I saw myself. And I, again, I think it's reasonable. I'm sure they have all these issues sorted out by now. It was a long time ago, but you had two organizations that again maybe wanted to do things differently, and it was so much infighting and friction that it was just hard to get things done. And I made a point in time in my career that I just wanted to do something different, and I figured it would be a good time to just try something outside the sector. And Bob used kind of Chutes and Ladders. I think if everyone has seen the movie Karate Kid, you know, where he's getting taught to fight but he's really like waxing floors and doing all that type of stuff. That's kind of how I felt when I got into corporate from banking. I had been molded in ways that I didn't even actually know until I got inside of a corporate. Like, I felt like I was very polished because I'd been speaking to clients and really senior people with inside Lehman, so that when I was in front of management and CFOs inside Zoetis, like, I just had a very comfort level, or a very strong comfort level around them. And then in banking, the technical expertise was in so much demand, the level of complexity that we had to go down. On the corporate side, it was softened up a little bit, so I felt like I could take, like, relatively complex challenges that we were trying to solve and just products and bring it down to a level that management could understand. And I felt like that enabled us to really open up more possibilities to what we can do. So I loved the banking into Treasury background for sure. I would certainly never say it was mandatory, but I found it so much more beneficial than I thought I would do because it was really just learning a new business. When you go from a bank balance sheet to a corporate balance sheet where you're manufacturing products, you have things to learn there. But the skill set, I felt very prepared.

Okay, I'm going to stay with you for a moment. Talk about mindset as well, because you and I have talked about how recently you've done big, some big deals at Bristol Myers, and one of the key things you and I talked about is how brutal a process, but you had all your internal relationships and you'd worked hard at those. I want to talk to you about that and then we'll come back to DePali and then Bob. And again, to explain to these guys listening here, how do you maintain those? We had some talk today about banking partners, which I'll also dig in with the three of you, but how do you keep that going? How do you manage that internally? And we'll talk about external in a moment.

So managing up the internal stakeholders Yeah, I mean, I think you approach everything with some level of humility. I think that is just the way to go about it. I think you want to make sure that— we talked a lot about it in the roundtable sessions, like really understanding the business, understanding your business partners, understanding what their core objectives are, and then focusing everything at the enterprise mindset. I think the problem that some groups can fall into and some individuals can fall into is when they get just too micro. Everything we do at BMS is enterprise mindset. I remember one time early on at BMS, I was in a meeting and it was with my boss's boss, who, a very senior person, and it was a cross-functional group. And one of the members on that call made the mistake of saying, well, that's not in my shop. And he said, there is no in my shop. Like, we are an enterprise. Everything is our shop. And I do think that has allowed me to gain more of an understanding around the various different areas and things they're trying to accomplish and how I can enable that through the Treasury function versus thinking about necessarily like not competing groups. You're really, you may be trying to accomplish different things, but it's all part of the broader enterprise strategy. And I think when you embody that mindset, you're going to build those relationships, you're going to establish trust across your organization, and you're just going to be a little bit more dialed in to what ultimately you're trying to accomplish.

Pali, you and I, when we did the podcast recently, we talked about global teams and how you've led those and you communicate with those guys. How do you do that? And again, I think you could share it with the room because that's a challenge.

Yeah, I think the— I would say since COVID it put everyone on the same level playing field, I would like to think, right? So no longer people were coming into the offices, no longer were you getting that in-person advantage if you were based in an HQ. And I think that opened up a lot of opportunities for many, right, including myself. I would say I wouldn't be probably considered for my role, which has always been based in the HQ, while I was back in London. And the fact that the board and my CFO at that point thought I could do that role from there was because— somewhat because of the fact that we are in this environment today. But I think going back to the global, global role and global leadership I don't think leadership style really has to change based on how big or how small or how widespread the team is. I think right now, from— if you really have to, you have to lead by example. And I say that because you need to start embracing a lot of what we want the teams to be and how we want them to perform. There are 4 or 5 things as an organization that we have really come out with as our cultural values. Guiding rules for everybody in the organization, from right from the top to the bottom, and that two of which I'll state here. One is own it. If you see something is broken, if you see something is not working, even if it's not in your function, say it and own it and run with it. I don't think anybody would question you if you come back and say, I think we could fix this process and this is how we should go about it. Go ahead, even if it's not yours. We'll make way to where it has to be fixed. And then no spectators, right? Now, we all have to be, first of all, focusing on ourselves, our own careers, making sure that we can push ourselves in the direction in which— how it aligns with our career aspirations. And you cannot do that by sitting on the edge. You have to be in it and own it to be able to move that forward. And I don't think that's the job of the leader essentially to come up to you and find opportunities for you. Yes, if the leader knows exactly what you want to be and where you are planning to go next, that is— the leaders need to be helped by you too so they can help you. So that's how I would put it. So that's the way I've always been with the team in terms of try and create those Avenues for yourself, self-help yourself, and then of course, you know, that things will fall in place.

And Bob, international, I was going to talk about international teams, but talk more about relationships. We've talked more about your internal relationships, but also one of the things we did, the round tables, were maintaining external relationships with your banks and things like that. I know that's a key part of your success. So talk to that if you would, how you've done it with your teams, across the group and things like that. Bring us—

Okay, well, raising the financial literacy of non-financial players at our company is a major accountability of our team. It's expected of all. We work hand in glove with the FP&A team. When you're relatively new, I make sure that you truly understand on my team that we're— how we make money, how the company makes money. And then from that learning, then they share their learnings on the financial literacy. Towards the other functional personnel. Internationally, we don't have a strong footprint. We don't count Canada as quite international. It's more like a 51st state.

But then also, sorry, but we were also talking about the other things I was going to move on to was banking and banking partners and stuff, because I know that was a big topic that came up when we were talking about this. So we've done some roundtables. In a time when you're busy, obviously you're talking to your banks all the time, but when it's quieter, That's more challenging sometimes. How do you keep feeding them, or what are your keys to success to manage those relationships? And then we'll pass that back across the panel.

Well, we do meet through Zoom, I guess you would say, right? Our teams with our banks on a monthly basis. We want to go over what's out there, what's new, what they can do for us. They're always looking for a little bit more of a share of wallet, and we're always looking for a better deal. So we have an open relationship with BMO, who's our primary. We're owned by private equity and they did a deal with Cerberus. So a lot of our debt is— we did an acquisition about a year and a half ago and we did a deal with Cerberus. That relationship's a little bit different. We make sure that we hit our covenants and communication's always key. If you're going to fall short, you make sure you don't surprise your bankers. That's never a good idea. And when we do that, we usually get a positive response. Yeah.

So for us, it's a bit of a tricky one because banks We don't only deal with them, it's both buy and sell for us, right? So banks are our key customers as well. So for us, the share of wallet management and the whole RCF becomes a very sensitive discussion sometimes. When our CEO is going to meet a bank, he is going for a different agenda, and I can't say, oh well, but this bank is not really doing well in this. I have to tell him exactly what we think we can do, how much we can support from a finance perspective. And then of course he has to have that informed discussion with the C-suite. So I think for us there is a lot more that goes into thinking around how we distribute that wallet across our banks, how we work with them. And then the other side of that also is the banks are our key advisors. So when we are looking at putting together our annual guidance for the year, which we just did, The banks are a key advisor in terms of what they think the year would look like, in terms of the issuance, in terms of generally what's happening in terms of the M&A market. Because all of that goes into how we plug into our models and how we then plan— project in terms of what the year would be. And then also in terms of the analytics, which is the other part of our business. So ratings, for all those who are not fully aware, Moody's is not just a ratings company, we also are 50% rating, 50% analytics, which is where we provide all the tools that help you with your credit assessment, KYC, and all the good stuff. So that part of the business also is where we have to be— we are partnering very closely with some of the banks to do proof of concepts and stuff like that. So again, for us, it gets a little bit on a sensitive side of how we manage that relationship, but I think Like any other corporate treasury team, we would go down, we would not just give away business because we have to please somebody, no. We have the decision-making in terms of we bid out everything and we will select the best bid. But of course the banks are aware there is a way in how we look at them as well.

Yeah, so I think the most important thing in this area is just transparency. So I've told every bank this, I'll tell my management team internally that The banks don't work for us. We're business partners. They extend us capital in return. They look for opportunities to generate revenue. Like any corporate that makes the mistake of thinking banks work for them is probably heading down a little bit of a dangerous avenue there. So what we do, and I think we do pretty well, is we're overly transparent. So we have a $5 billion, 5-year revolving credit facility that we extend every single year. And while we're going through that extension process, I talk to the relationship manager at each of the 19 banks. And say, this is how I see the year playing out. These are what I think the opportunities are. Now, granted, we come at it from a little bit of a favorable position because we have such a large flow business with $5.5 billion of interest rate derivatives, $12, $13 billion of cash, $11 billion of FX, $2 or $3 billion of cross-currency. So we have a lot of natural flow to do. But I had a bank tell me, hey, without M&A business, it's going to be really hard to remain in your facility. Here's our capital hurdles. No problem. We will replace your position. We have banks that, that want to get into our revolver and we work to get them out. So there's just try to limit the number of surprises. Like there's a few banks in our facility that say, hey, if you could leave on, if you think you can give us some level of assurance that you can leave a $250 million deposit on with us all year, that's probably going to get us there. There's other banks that say we're in it for the long game. I don't care if it's a lean year. We know that ultimately you guys are going to be acquisitive. You're going to hit the capital markets. You're going to do things like that. So As long as the bank understands where we're coming from and we understand the bank's needs, then the relationship is good. And I do think we provide a lot of advanced analytics to the banks. We have no problem showing that we have a gigantic matrix of every trade that we bid out where the banks came in. So using FX, for example, I can tell them by currency, here's the number of trades we showed you. Here's a number of that you hit on. Here's how wide you are to the competing other banks. So it's just all open book. I mean, I know there are certain— I'm not going to name them by name, but I've spoke to some of my peers at other pharma companies that are literally open up their wallets to the bank and say, this is what I see you made this year. Is this revenue consistent with kind of what you need to further the relationship? I don't think we're quite that open with it, but we do make sure that they understand what the year is going to look like. And if for some reason it's not a good fit, let's make a change.

Cool. We'll stay with you for a moment, but just to give you guys notice. So in about 10 minutes we'll go to questions, so do put your hands up and I'll come round and get some questions from you. Then we'll do some wrap-ups with the guests to do that, but before we do, we'll stay with you, Keith, for a moment. A lot of the people here in this audience, you're 3 successful treasury professionals, allegedly. That's why I've been to Bob. Bob keeps telling me this, yeah, and he buys me drinks, so that's fine. But joking aside, what advice would you offer to some of this audience that they're maybe looking to move from the operational side to become more strategic as treasurers, or how should they develop? What are the steps that you think they should do? So we'll start with yourself and then come back through. What should they be looking to do?

Yeah, I don't know if there's a very prescriptive plan there. The way that I— so when I mentor a few people with inside BMS and some young people, and I get really careful about giving specific advice, I will say I'll never tell you should do this or you should do that. I'll talk through things with you, give you things to think about and consider. But the one overarching kind of analogy that I use is have an idea what the endgame looks for you, right? Like you play chess, you line up the pieces on the board, your goal is to checkmate the other king. How you get there is how— is a strategy that you're going to determine best suitable to your career. So if you know that your goal is to knock over that king, Every move you make needs to be in that direction. It doesn't mean you can't go sideways here or there, or even take a step back, but everything has got to be ultimately towards that goal. I am a very purpose-driven individual. Like, I don't do things just to do them. Not to say you can't take a chance on a role that sounds interesting, but I always have an idea as to like, where am I going after this? Don't just move to move. Don't develop a skill that you don't know what you're going to do with it. Like, I am a plan in place kind of person, and I go from there. So if your goal is to be a treasurer, every single move you make has got to be to acquire a skill that is going to allow you to be successful in that role.

Yeah.

I would say two things primarily, and again, because we have a range here from very early professionals to mature senior professionals. For the early-ons, start being connected at the core of what the organization that you work if you want to progress in the organisation. Again, a good place to start would be start tuning into earnings. If you have, if you work for a publicly listed company, see what moves the needle for them in terms of the market for them. And I think the more you listen, the more you understand, the more you start connecting to the top in terms of where the organisation is headed, or where the sector more broadly is headed. And I think that's just a good way to familiarize yourself outside of just the day in and day out of what you do. Second, I would say, is network. Give, invest in yourself. I think early on in our career we can just get lost in a lot of other things, but I think the time and the commitment that we put in our own career through networking is— and events like these, I think they are very important and a good way of doing that. And again, third, I would say, is make sure you make your career aspirations known to your mentors, your managers, and talk openly and very freely about that. Because— and that's how you get to understand where are the gaps that you need to fill. The growth doesn't always have to be like this. It can go like stepping stones to what Jaskeet said. You can move along different ways and then get to where you want to be as well. So—

Al Newhart was the chairman of Gannett when they created USA Today. And he had a little thing in his book, Confessions of an SOB, that speaks probably to people at the beginning of their career to further on. So it basically went like this. Through your teens, play all you can. In your 20s, take all the risks you can. In your 30s, learn all you can. In your 40s, earn all you can. In your 50s, like moments like this, lead all you can. In your 60s, prepare to turn it all over with the most grace that you can. And can anyone guess what you do in your 70s and beyond? Play all you can.

And Harley, we'll come back to you for this one because again, we discussed this on the podcast, but also today we've done these round tables. We did about people. We also did about cash and investments and various bits. But one of the key streams was AI and technology. So whoever's going to ask about that, sorry, I've got in there first. But you and I talked about it, there's a lot of noise. Where should you— where do you think treasury professionals like these treasury professionals, where should they focus their energy? What's a false flag or what should you do? We'll go to you and then to Keith and then back to Bob.

Yeah, again, a topic that we discussed at length earlier as well. I think we cannot avoid it. If you're sitting on the fence thinking that this is 'Probably something that'll go away.' It's not going away, it's here to stay. So acknowledge that and get in it. Get on board with spending time in terms of upskilling your— whatever tool you have, whatever your organization has made available to you, or even it's worth spending the extra dollars to try and get a subscription and try and just play around with it. But do take the time to familiarize yourself with AI, the tools that are available. More broadly as a function, I think definitely it requires taking a step back and thinking through whether we are talking about pure automation or whether we are talking about AI or GenAI or agentic AI. We cannot solve for everything all at once. I don't think things are broken to the extent that we need— AI will come and solve it all for you. So Pick up where the most impact will come and then focus your energy there. Because remember, this is in addition to your BAU and day-to-day jobs. So you want to make sure that there is a right balance there. But one thing I'll say, and this connects back to the earlier question on the career, and there's a very interesting book from Marshall Goldsmith, if you haven't read, What Got You Here Will Not Get You There. And that sort of resonates for me all the time that whatever skill set that we acquire, maybe to where we reach today, is not necessarily what will take us forward as well. So we need to keep adapting and changing ourselves. And that's where the agility piece comes in.

Yeah, and that's really well said. So I'll certainly won't add on to that. I'll take it in a little bit of a different direction. But what I would tell young people in Treasury or people that are, have moved into Treasury is it's not an operational function. You can't look at it that way. It is a strategic function. And I remember when I joined BMS and I had my list of people who they wanted me to meet, I went into my CFO's office and he just sat down and he said, "Tell me about yourself. Like, who are you? What do you stand for?" And I said, "Here's who I am." I said, "I am the type of person that is going to leave no stone unturned. We are gonna chase down every single idea. We are gonna generate ideas and we are gonna assess it if it's something appropriate for this company." because if you ask me about something, Keith, did we look at this? And my answer is yes, we didn't think it was appropriate, so we didn't bring it to you. Even if you disagree, I can live with that answer. I made a decision, you may not be aligned with it, that's fine. But if they say, did you look at this? And we said, no, actually we haven't, let me get on that. That's a bad answer. That's just not gonna be acceptable. I won't accept that from the people that work for me. So I don't think at one point maybe Treasury was looked at as kind of like a, keep the lights on type thing. It's not that anymore. There's just too much opportunity. The landscape changes too quickly. We're too spidered into the organization from a capital structure standpoint, from a risk management standpoint, to think our jobs are just to make sure nothing blows up. It's that, and then it's way beyond that. So that's what I would tell anyone in Treasury is look for opportunities. They're there, and at a minimum, assess them.

Well, relative to AI, I would just caution and I'm a little more conservative than some of the people who are on panels today, but make sure we're not doing any harm when we look at AI. Make sure we're not sacrificing or outsourcing judgment or security in the interest of speed and efficiency.

Great. Very summarized answer. God, that caught me by surprise. So I know it was great. You've— the three of you have navigated across different industries. Global markets. What do you think is going to define success over the next decade within people's Treasury careers? Yeah, we'll stay with you, Bob, because you— I mean, I love the examples there about leading and things like that, which is great. Maybe it links into that. Or what do you think is going to define success for Treasury professionals as we move forward?

It's a good one. Sorry. That's all right. I'm not sure it changes a lot. We have a specific role, we have a specific job to do. Our team looks at relative to cash, security, then liquidity, then yield, then cost. It's kind of a simple model for us and kind of in that order. So if there's anything safety, security-wise, stop the presses, we're not moving forward. Could be AI, could be something else that we would approach on that.

I think again, the role of Treasury hasn't changed. I agree. We still have— we're still responsible for our capital allocation more broadly into which everything else feeds in ultimately. How we manage cash, how we manage our— in terms of our derivative debt portfolio, everything feeds into that. So to me, that is the one big pillar of that, that as a function that cannot change for us, or as an accountability that cannot change for us. In terms of looking at what success means, I think given where things are, as long as We have built ourselves like a robust dataset to work through with good visibility, with good infrastructure to support ourselves. I think we are going to the stage of where we are now at the convergence of these things and we are trying to reduce the information float. As a deliverable to our organization, we want to make sure that whatever we produce as our end product is decision-grade. And I'm loving this term decision grade more and more, something that was coined by our ratings team. But it's decision grade because nobody is then spending additional time scrubbing that data, questioning that data, because we know that is where— that is the rulebook of what defines everything that we would do as a corporate. So again, I think for Treasury, the function, I think the goalposts aren't changing. The role isn't changing. I think it's how we execute on those definitely is changing. So I think the sooner we try and get on board with that, the better for us.

So go to you, Keith, but then we're going to do questions and you will also get to mingle with the guests afterwards. So if it's a more one-to-one question, but if it's something you think is going to add value to the room, but Keith, over to you.

Yeah, I think for me it's strong execution. At BMS, we always kind of have a slogan. It's the say-to-do ratio. So it's something that we keep really top of mind. Probably one of the legitimately proudest moments I've been is that our CFO got back from the JPMorgan conference in January and equity investors were complimenting him on Treasury's financial discipline and capital execution. And I couldn't believe that because I was in IR and equity investors didn't really seem to be overly concerned with those things. But the reason why is because in 2023, heading into 2024, we ended up doing 3 acquisitions. We ended up putting on debt north of $20 billion to fund them. and we really wanted to maintain our A2 credit rating at Moody's. We knew we were gonna be on a thread there, and we sat down with our CFO and we said, look, this is how we can get there. We did all this long-term cash flow planning. We looked at the levers we can pull. We looked at the way we could structure the debt to pay it down. We met with the Moody's analyst. We walked them through and we said, this is our plan. Can we deliver it? And our CFO said, Keith, can we message this externally? Are we confident? And we said, we can get this done, and we delivered on it. And I think a track record of providing management with things that you can execute and then being able to deliver on them is just the— should be the pride of any treasury professional. And then for me personally, I'll define success by just the people on my team being future leaders. I see myself after corporate going into an education career. I want to be a college professor or something in that nature. So while I'm at BMS, I see myself as someone that's trying to cultivate future leaders, people that we can put in the organization in really key positions. So I'll take a lot of great pride in making sure that I'm keeping their talent development on track, putting them in positions to succeed, which is great for them and great for the enterprise.

Great. So questions? There we go. Trish, straight away. She's straight in there. Be careful.

You've already talked a bit about the differences in corporate culture in the impact that has had on your careers, your decision-making. I'm curious to hear not just how corporate culture has impacted Treasury-specific decisions, and I'm going to stare directly at Smali because I'm most interested in your response here. Not just corporate culture, but culture as you're crafting Treasury strategies in different countries. And what was the most similar and what was the most different about Treasury in those different countries and what surprised you the most about the similarities or differences?

Great question.

Yeah, thank you. So I think the— if I look at, I'm thinking back here because in all the organizations that I've worked with, there's always been that corporate view at the top, right? So there are no regional or country-specific rules that apply in how you manage treasury. Yes, as there is a tendency that when we are based or when we establish these centre. So if I was to talk to somebody who manages my APAC team, she naturally would be a bit more inclined to talk that language of the business and be a bit more of a partner to the business as opposed to thinking from a corporate hat perspective. That's natural because you're there, you're looking at that sort of operations in and out in terms of how you want to look at— in terms of being a good partner to them on the ground. So I don't think there is much in terms of the flexibility that I would inherently want to offer in terms of saying start creating your regional playbooks or country playbooks on how we manage it. There has to be a bit of flexibility, but with a bit of control and governance at the top such that we are still making sure that we are playing by the rule on how we are not putting something at risk more at the corporate level. So I don't know if that answers the question, but it's more to where it has to be balanced. You can give some flexibility, but you cannot let them define the rules of the game, so to say.

And any other contributions from you, Keith, or—

Oh, no, no, good, perfect.

Right, other questions? Come on, hands up. Any other questions? I know you're thirsty. Ah, there you go. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have a question.

To Keith, I wanted to expand a little bit on the AI.

What are the most recent successful integrations of AI that you would see implemented in Treasury?

Yeah, and I think as Mike mentioned, we had a working group session where we talked a lot about AI, and I think we're all having similar themes. There's a lot of good uses for it. I still think everyone might be looking for sort of that breakthrough use case, and I think at least with the teams that I manage, they're looking for once it's fully integrated with some of the other systems where we can, don't have to pull data out and manually feed it in. It's sort of spidered into our SAP system or our TMS or a data lake. But a couple of the things that we've found truly remarkable from an AI perspective is on the short-term cash flow forecasting side, it's completely changed the way we do that. So we have it completely fed in to our SAP system. We pull in the receivables, the payables, it's giving us a remarkably accurate short-term forecast. And then I have a member of my financial risk management team who on a monthly basis downloads from Atlas all of our FX positions. Right. And it comes down in this big, massive Excel file and it's just, it's like fragmented, right? It doesn't have all the rows perfectly copied down and it's just probably takes hours and hours for them to format it without any AI background. He just went into Copilot asked for a Python code that could help format this spreadsheet, put the Python code in, took that out, put it in VS Code, and in VS Code, dropped down this Excel spreadsheet in a matter of seconds. So I still think we're scratching the surface around those types of things, around efficiencies, around reduction of time with manual processes. I think we're still in search of the one that's gonna be like the real, value-add case. And I think it's a process that's going to evolve. But I think we're finding ways to do things with AI in that nature. We just haven't found like the exact one that's going to be like sort of the home run there.

Okay. Time for one more question or we'll go to— there you go.

Thank you.

As treasury professionals, do you have any experience or advice to treasurers managing expectations of the CFO around how treasury should be run, through no fault of their own, historically they've come up through the accounting side of the house versus the treasury side.

Who's taking that first?

So I think this is again where there's a reason why the CFO has then you as a treasurer, so she or he doesn't have to bother with these things, right? And then you become their sounding board or the guide on these matters. And I think again, this is where And I'm not saying that we are— we have to be at the forefront in terms of— but I think we are at a position where we should anticipate what a CFO would look for, right? When she or he is going for a board meeting or an earnings presentation, what are the things that the Street can ask or the board can ask them and be able to provide them and share to them and build that trust and confidence in working with the CFO to prep them. And I don't think that when the CFO should— ideally, the CFO should not be questioning in terms of why the need for real near-time data, why the need for investment in this TMS, or why do you need to have this done in a certain way? Why can it not be done if I don't have the data in a week's time, or it takes a week to pull the data? Why?

What?

What would happen? And this is where we need to go back and have that discussion with the CFO to be able to explain that and articulate that, because I think the results will show in terms of how we drive the data. And in times like this, right, where things are changing so quickly, you open one day, the markets are somewhere else, and then the spreads— you think there's a rate cut, but there's no rate cut now, or you think the spreads spreads are tightening, but they're widening. All sorts of things are happening right now, and I think that's the power of where the treasurer comes in, and in terms of proactively keeps that information going to the CFO and the C-level suite to be able to tell them and guide them with what they need to know of.

I can add one thing there too that we implemented at BMS is we meet with our CFO on a quarterly basis, and we call it our treasury strategy meeting. We walk them through our FX forecasting, or sorry, our FX hedging program, cash flow forecasting, capital structure, interest rate risk management. And we just talk through the environment as we see it, the risks that we're identifying, how we're mitigating them. We just get him engaged in what Treasury's doing and realizing the importance of it. I mean, if you think about it, right, like Treasury's at the center of cash. Every company's value is based on its discounted future cash flow. So cash is the single most important asset of a company. We try to get him engaged in that process so he understands when he wants to do a business development transaction, his treasury team's telling, this is how much we can do without changing our credit profile. When he's wondering what our dividend rate should be, we're showing him, hey, this is where we are relative to our peers, this is what an increase would do, share repurchase, all these various different things. We just make him a part of the treasury engine And I think that's really helped him get grounded in what we do, understand the importance of what he do, and feel like he's in there with us to some extent.

Yeah, if I could just add to that. So there's an old 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and seek to understand and then be understood. So I don't know the specifics of the transaction you're referring to, but having an honest conversation and shouldn't say, hey, where's this coming from? What is it you're trying to achieve? Having that kind of a conversation hopefully could end up with a very positive reaction. I grew up on the controller side and that was open the books, close the books, and they thought their job was done. But with Treasury, we're thinking about the future and we're funding for the future and it's a critical role. So again, not sure what's behind it. You can expand if you'd like.

So we'll go through some amazing takeaways from these guys and then I'll give you a challenge as well. So First of all, yeah, we've done the questions. Well, takeaways.

Well, first one's up there, but you own your careers. Do not expect that anyone should or will have everything that's in your interest on their mind. So you must own it and react to it that way. Always seek out opportunities outside of your area. I like to be a net exporter of talent, so I'm very happy flipping Treasury analysts P&A people, bring them in, give them an opportunity like that. Most careers— and Keith, I don't want to speak too much for yours, but feels like it went hyperbolic, you know, within kind of a treasury finance way. My career is more like a subway map that bounced back and forth between accounting, P&A, treasury, and the like. And I wouldn't change that for the world for what I went to college.

A portfolio career, it's great. Portfolio career. Area, a wider range.

Deepali, I think I've said it through the discussion as well. Again, very important to be invested in how you would like to understand how your role impacts your organization. So please take that time. As I said before, earnings releases are a good place to start and get yourself familiarized with that, or more broader context as well. And the network, and I like again Make sure that your career aspirations are known to your organization, whoever matters in that space in terms of furthering your— furthering the opportunities and making sure that you are able to get those opportunities in the organization. And not only within the organization, but try and have a mentor, even if not in the direct line, outside or inside the organization, that all of these things help a lot.

Yeah, so maybe starting with the bottom one, I can't really use that chess analogy and put it on the board, but there is no right or wrong way to do a career. I mean, sure, there are things that are wrong, but they're— the moves you make are unique to you. I don't know if there is a blueprint that's going to fit everyone. So make the right choices for you, not what you think is the right choice or what someone is telling you is the right choice. Make it because you believe it's in your best interest and it's ultimately gonna to help you get where you want to go. And then to challenge yourself. There was a quote from— I forget who it was— that they said, "Confident basketball players shoot shots to make shots. Unconfident basketball players shoot shots to take shots." Shoot to make a shot. Don't be afraid to fail. Have confidence in yourself. Everyone's got to make a vertical climb when they do something different. You're going to get in there, you're going to build comfort, you're going to build confidence. And if you fail, as Henry Ford said, it's just the opportunity to start again, this time more intelligent. Definitely.

Cool. So, mine. Yeah, it's talking about people. I'm going to go with that one. Stay in touch and follow up. Connections wither and fade if you don't nurture them. They're all good, but to be honest, what is more important to me actually isn't up there. It's actually what's in this room. And I'm tempted in the hours leading up to this session, we get the emails come through. My daughter's poorly, my dog ate my homework. I can't make it, I've sprained my toe. And sometimes the hardest thing for me is to look at the empty chairs and to really— to go, oh no, we could have— and then, and this is the great thing about this evening, I don't look at them, I look at your faces and look at what fabulous time you've had. And I actually now feel a bit sad for those guys. 'cause they've missed out on this. Yes, they can hear it on the podcast, but do they then get to now network with them and have some one-to-ones? Well, it comes onto my challenge, which I do. So this is your live challenge. Now I'll take this back to Texas. Did this challenge in Texas with a guy who was, as he said afterwards, Mike, I'm a terrible introvert. He said, I really find it difficult. I was surprised he managed to come to the session. He said this was the thing. I said, right, my challenge to you— and we didn't do it on the screen— was to go and make 5 connections, to talk to 5 different people. And he wasn't allowed to just go along. Same to you guys. You can't just go, great, let's connect on LinkedIn. You could, but that's not what this networking is about, is it? You've come here to enhance your Treasury careers, so do that. Invest. You've invested in yourself. You've come here, whether it's for 10, 15 minutes meet another at least 3 people, maybe 5, because that's going to help you on your Treasury careers. And that's why you've invested in yourself. So when you go outside, yes, we have some nice networking drinks and stuff, but this is an investment in you. So as well as in a moment you're going to thank and congratulate when you put your hands together for our speakers, I want you to put your hands together for yourselves as well when you're doing that now. We will also see that we're here till just before 9. And again, you could, the networking carries on and don't worry, Brendan's card's behind the bar. So that's fantastic. But put your hands together for the amazing panel and yourselves and the bar does away. There you go. Thank you. Before we head off, we've just released our latest Treasury Salary Survey. Most people take part for one reason. I want to find out if They're underpaid. Fair enough. That's what it's there for. Now, with over 1,700 treasury professionals already in the dataset spanning right the way across the UK, the US, and Europe, we can give you a pretty accurate— but here's the bit most people don't expect. It's not just about the salary, because when you dig into the data, as we do each and every time in our survey, the number one reason people are unhappy in their roles isn't pay. It's lack of progression, not bonus, not benefits, progression in their actual roles. That tells you a lot about where the market really is right now. So if you're listening to this and thinking, am I being paid fairly? What does someone like me earn in the market? What are the averages? What are the ranges? And actually, what's next for me? You can head to treasurysalary.com or go to the Treasury Recruitment website, look for the salary survey, take part. 3 minutes later maximum. If you've done it before, it only takes 30 seconds. But you can benchmark your salary, get a clearer picture of where you stand. The more people who take part, the stronger the data becomes for everyone in the treasury profession. So fill it in, share it with your team as well. Thanks again for listening. I'll speak to you next week.