How Treasury Builds Credibility with Boards and Rating Agencies

I'm rejoined by Stephen Coulthold. Steve and I, we originally spoke way back in 2019 when he was the Senior Vice President and Treasurer at Allergan. You'll hear that show. And then I catch up just recently with Steve. Now he's the Vice President and Treasurer at Insight Group. He'll tell you a little bit more about them as a group on the future calls, but have a listen to a couple of bits of gold. Up to Steve.

7 years ago, you never heard of AI, artificial intelligence, and so forth. You didn't have crypto. I think those are two big areas and what that may mean for Treasury going forward, incorporating AI into processes and so forth. Those are two extremely important areas. The basic Treasury stuff is still the blocking and tackling of what needs to get done on a daily basis. With evolving technology, you need to stay current. Otherwise you end up being a dinosaur. What's important is making sure that you're always adding to your toolkit of skills and so forth so that you're always marketable out there in the marketplace.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview Treasury professionals about their Treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build 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. In this week's show, I'm delighted to be joined by Stephen Cawfold, the Senior VP and Treasurer at Allergan. Allergan, a global pharmaceutical company focused on developing branded pharmaceuticals, devices, biologics, surgical, lot, all in the medical products world for patients around the world. Stephen will actually explain that a little bit more later on in the show. As always, we're going to leap straight in. You know, Steve, take me back if you like, how you first ever discovered treasury back at the beginning. We'll go through and then we'll talk about your views on the future of treasury and everything else. But let's perhaps go back to your degree days and how you discovered the wonderful world of treasury, as it were. Over to you.

Thanks, Mike. And first, thanks for the invite to participate in this, and I really look forward to the conversation regarding Undergraduate school, I was a business undergraduate with a concentration in economics and finance and had a lot of accounting classes, advanced accounting, cost accounting. But I knew deep down I didn't want to be an accountant, and I really liked the finance aspect of it. I was kind of following the stock market and so forth, so I wanted to do something on that spectrum, whether it be in Wall Street or working for a corporation. So if you looked at my first resume out of undergraduate school, it would have said to get a job into Treasury. Took me a few years. You know, I started out as a credit analyst, or actually I started working out in consumer finance for U.S. Bank, which is no longer around, and then moved over to TNT Credit Corporation, as it was known at that time, as a credit analyst. There was a Treasury job for a Treasury analyst opening up. This was in January of 1988, and jumped at the opportunity and been glad ever since.

And then you sort of made some good early moves within treasury. Talk me through the development for you. You know, you said it was amazing. You know, I've not heard of many people— a lot of the time we say people accidentally discover treasury, but you had this drive towards treasury, which is unusual in itself. But how did you then grow your treasury career? Did you then choose each of the roles saying, I want to build out on this, or what happened?

As we thought about treasury back in those days, it was important for people to rotate through the various different treasury roles. So for example, in cash management, A lot of times when we hired people in the Treasury, that's where they started. We kind of viewed that as a good foundation, you know, cash management, bank accounts and understanding all that. And after that individual spent some time in there, then it was moving into one of the other roles within Treasury, whether it was on the capital markets side, which was really the debt execution, FX hedging, whether it was in securitization. We were as a leasing company, that was one of our financing tools. So we took the opportunity to rotate people through the various different disciplines within Treasury. So really creating a well-rounded Treasury professional, you know, they may not be an expert in everything, but again, they're grounded in all those different functions.

When we get later on the show, we'll talk about technology in the future of Treasury. And I've talked to people in previous shows about wire transfers and fax machines and things. Obviously Treasury's evolved over the time. But when you first started, when I first started recruiting, and it was quite different at the beginning, and it wasn't something that you sort of, when you're interviewing one of those cash guys, you weren't saying, right, which systems have you used or everything else. But how have you seen that sort of evolve since your early days?

It's a night and day difference. I remember there wasn't really much in the way of bank systems back then. From a cash management perspective, you would be using whoever your lead bank's system was to release wires. It was very primitive. A lot of times it was through phone calls to the bank. I remember on commercial paper when we were a big commercial paper issuance and those days trades would settle by runners running trade tickets back and forth. And today you kind of fast forward, everything now is done either through Bloomberg terminals, whether it's trading FX. So you're no longer getting FX traders on the phone. So it's really leveraging using technology today. It's really a world difference from when I started.

And when you did start, so you made those moves, was it a very planned progression? Did you think, you know, now I've been system manager, now I want to do the corporate financing, now I'm going to do global banking?

And probably one of the things I regret was not taking an overseas role, even though I had responsibility for international treasury. It was really all managed out of the US. For example, Back in the '90s, we actually started an Australian commercial paper program and we would trade that from the US. So we had no people on the ground in Australia. We would be in the office Australian hours placing that paper. So as I progressed through my career and eventually became an assistant treasurer, now you say, okay, Steve, what's next? Do I want to stay in Treasury? Do I want to go into another finance role, whether it's in business development, whether it's in financial planning and analysis? Or do I want to become a treasurer? Now, at the time, the person who I reported to who was treasurer wasn't much older than I was, and that individual was committed to the company. And again, for family reasons, it was working for them. So I really didn't see them moving on. So then, you know, what do I do? Do I now just stay at AT&T and hopefully things work out within the company? And again, there's no guarantee that, you know, if that person decided to move on, that I was going to get the nod and that they weren't going to bring some somebody in from the outside. And that's when I took the opportunity, when it arose, of a much smaller company, that being Virgin Mobile, who was looking for a treasurer. They were building out their infrastructure because they were transitioning from a joint venture to a public company. And I said, hey, here's the opportunity to get the treasurer's title. And secondly, here's an opportunity to work on an IPO. And I think from a treasury perspective, That's one of the things that, you know, a treasurer or a treasury professional would love to have on their resume is the opportunity to take a company public. And certainly, as you know, Mike, those opportunities are far and few between.

And when you were sort of convincing them that you were that beauty parade of people, what did you do to enhance yourself? I was talking to a couple of candidates rather recently and they were like, oh, what do you think of my resume? And I was like, it's great. Really fills out, you know, ticks a lot of boxes. However, this client, these are their pain points. You need to highlight this or bring this out. You know, so people often say to me, oh, what's my resume like and stuff? So look, it's a great building block, but this is gonna be their issues. Now, as you said, you've not been through an IPO before, but they were like, right, we're gonna IPO. It's great, attractive to you, but what was your— convinced it to them? What was saying, oh yeah, but why are you the best person then?

I think, you know, when you looked at going from CIT Group, we could talk about the various acquisitions, what led from AT&T Credit to be the CIT Group. Virgin Mobile was a much smaller company, 425 people. So it was very important that the people that were being brought on demonstrated some skills. One, they were very well-rounded. So as I view it from a treasury perspective, having spent time on cash management, in the capital markets, international. So it kind of gave me that broad-based Treasury background. Okay. So that was the skill sets that I brought to the table. And what was also important too is from a personality perspective and also demonstrating that you're a team player and it's more of an entrepreneurial type of spirit they were looking for at that point. And it's really, again, drilling down on teamwork and being not afraid to roll up sleeves and help out wherever you can to move the ball forward. So I think it's a combination of the skill set. Even though I didn't have the IPO, I had the capital markets experience and then also the teamwork aspect.

Talking about team, so probably a bigger team that you were leaving. Was it just yourself when you first started there or how was it structured?

When I moved on from the CIT, probably at the time we had about 40 people within Treasury. The biggest, let's say 20 of that or a little over 20 of that would have been on the securitization side, whether it was on the execution or the reporting that goes along with securitization. It had to be done on a monthly basis, the monthly securitized reports. When I went to Virgin Mobile, we were a total of 2 people, myself and one other person.

Oh, wow.

Okay. So it's a big night and day difference. But again, you know, for me, that carrot was the treasurer's job and then also picking up that new skill of, you know, the IPO. And certainly, you know, kind of fast forward today to Allergan. When you look at the treasury organization here, including my admin, we are a total of 8 people. So I think, you know, people say the benchmark is about 1 treasury person per billion of revenue. And yet our revenue is a little over, you know, $12.5 billion today. So it's, it's been a very lean operation.

Just going back. So you did dropped from that 40 to 2, and it was like, right. And again, we'll have listeners to the show who are in that situation. How did you cope? How did you manage? What was your, you know, your blocking and tackling, but how are you doing it? What are your key things that you're trying to make sure where you don't drop the ball when you move into that? I know you'll have your priority list. How do you drive the treasury forward towards that IPO?

Yeah, I mean, it was a lot of long hours exploring taking the company public as well as through a sale, through a private sale. So, you know, the challenge was two different banks leading both processes. So as you're working on the S-1 filing and getting that filed, the other banks chomping at the bit to get on your calendar, to get the pitch books together, get the information together for the private sale. You know, when you get the initial S-1 filed and you usually have about 30 to 60 days, you're waiting for SEC comments. That's usually a time to decompress. Unfortunately, the day we got the S-1 filed, the next day, boom, now we're dealing with the other bank on the private sale. Being able to multitask and if you're doing a job that you love doing, I really don't look at Treasury as a job and it's something I enjoy doing. You don't mind taking on those additional hours and whether it's working in the office or working at home at night just to get the job done.

Went through the IPO, as you say, immediately thrown into the deep end. But how did then the role evolve and would you contrast the sort of private to the PLC environment and the demands on you as a treasurer?

So if I follow you correctly, going from Virgin Mobile, which was a private company, which was an interesting prospect because you have two masters. You have both JV partners, and this was a joint venture between Sprint and the Virgin Group out of the UK. So they both have their own priorities and so forth. So it's really kind of managing their expectations and their deliverables. And then certainly going to Allergan, when I joined the company, it was known as Watson Pharmaceuticals. Which was a Corona, California-based US generic company. When Virgin Mobile was sold, Sprint decided to purchase us. My manager of I/O then moved to Watson, and I said to her, where are you going? I've never heard of the company. They're in New Jersey. I made the transition then because they were looking to put in place the infrastructure. Believe it or not, and this was a company with about $2 billion of revenues, you had the person who was a CFO He was a controller. He was the head of tax. He was the head of business planning. Treasury was really a part-time job between himself and the head of FP&A. However, with the new CEO they brought on several years earlier, he wanted to really take the company to be international. And to do that, you need to have the infrastructure in place. You needed to have a controller, you needed to have a treasurer, you needed to have a head of tax and so forth. And that was my door that I was able to come through. Thankfully, you hear a lot about pharmaceutical companies that they like to hire within the industry, but at least with Watson, they were open-minded to individuals from outside of the pharma industry.

And you walked in the door, it's, well, you've just described it was, at least it was a blank sheet of paper. You could make it up as you went along. So you walked—

It was. And then, you know, this was back in 2010. And then we did our first large acquisition, which was in 2012. We actually closed it during Hurricane, I believe it was Hurricane Sandy on November 1st, 2010. You know, that was an acquisition that probably in fruition took about a year or so as we worked through due diligence, doing the analysis and so forth. And at the time, you know, as I mentioned, this was a Corona, California-based team. I was in New Jersey. The rest of my treasury team, you know, which was about 4 people, were in Corona, California. I didn't see them for 12 months. So it was very important to have some really good people. I did inherit a very good treasury team because I didn't see them for 12 months as I was working on that acquisition. And then If you asked me at that time, I would've said, hey, it would've been another 2 years for the next acquisition. But I would've been wrong because it was almost every year we were acquiring somebody, whether it was in '13, it was Warner Shilcott, '14, it was Forrest, '15, it was Allergan. We changed our name to Allergan at that point. And then I thought at that point, because the Allergan acquisition was $72 billion, okay, we would be done. Lo and behold, we announced then we were selling our generic business to Teva for $40 billion. And potentially we were going to merge the rest of the business with Pfizer. We had 3 things going on at one time: the integration of Allergan, the divestiture of the generic business, and potentially the merger of the rest of the business with Pfizer. So let alone each one of those is a major transaction, but we had 3 of them going on at the same time.

Talk us through the people aspects of that. So the people transition, you said you were East Coast, Your other 4 guys were over in Corona and you were managing across there. But how has it transitioned and what have you been like as a manager, director of those people?

Sure.

The experience of doing it remotely, even though it was, you know, one coast of the US, the other, at least you're nearly in the same time, you know, only 3 or 4 hours time-wise.

I was on the East Coast because there was a new CEO. She lived on the East Coast and of course headquarters is wherever the CEO is. So East Coast was the administrative headquarters. A lot of our finance function was still on the West Coast. However, after that activist acquisition in 2010, the decision was to migrate the headquarters to the East Coast. Unfortunately, I did lose some good people. I was able to retain one and I still have her today. She's been with the company for over 25 years and does the work of 10 people. It was then hiring people here on the East Coast.

I hope she's listening. You're paying her 10 times as much. I mean, yes, obviously.

Yes. I'll even give her a shout out. Debbie Wong. So She is a phenomenal employee, and a lot of the success of this company is due to her and the other individuals of the treasury team.

What's the key to her success? Why is she so successful?

Well, I think she's another person who loves treasury and loves the work that we do. And I think, you know, when you look at treasury, treasury really has a front row seat to a lot that goes on within the business, whether it's on the business development side, working on due diligence, working on integration. So it's a good place to be at the core of the company. So I think that what drives a lot of people who like Treasury, I think, you know, viewing Treasury from outside, even business units or even other groups within finance, you know, who may be adjacent to where the Treasury group sits, is they view Treasury as a black box. They're not sure what exactly goes on within Treasury. What kind of puts the onus on us to take the opportunities as other groups say, hey, can you come into my team meeting? Spend 15, 20 minutes, talk about Treasury. What do you guys actually do? How can we help you? And again, this gives us the opportunity to present to them, educate them. And so, as I said, 15, 20 minutes, usually these conversations turn into be 40 minutes, 50 minutes. We run out of time and people walk away with a different impression of Treasury. And we look to partner with these business units to move the ball forward.

Yeah, I've spoken recently to Severin from European Treasury over at Honeywell. She does a very similar thing in a way. She also takes it out to the masses in a little way. She sort of lectures at a local university or engaged with the guys there to sort of educate those guys and then gets her junior employees a lot of the time from there. I've told her to stop doing that because we are a treasury recruitment company. We do need the employees. So we've tried to stop that, put a lid on that. But then again, one of the other things, just like yourself, she's then also by involving so many other people like the finance analyst lists and things, whenever one of her vacancies comes up, she doesn't even have to go onto LinkedIn. She just puts it on the internal job board and they've got people knocking at the door. Oh, can I apply? Do you find that as well yourself?

I have not lost anybody from a treasury perspective. Debbie, who's on the West Coast, has been with the company for 27 years. The rest two of my treasury folks have been with me since 2010 as I hired them. As I mentioned earlier, as we moved to treasury and the finance functions from the West Coast to the East Coast. You know, so I haven't had really to experience replacing people and having to go out and hire people to replace people who have left. I did hire several years ago a treasury analyst that was a person straight out of college, no treasury experience, dual major, both economics and psychology, and Again, this was an opportunity to bring in a very junior person, put them through the same paces as I mentioned earlier, you know, starting out in cash management, taking advantage of opportunities, whether it's now FX. So this person is actually doing the FX trading for us on Bloomberg, also getting involved in systems. Since it's been relatively quiet on the acquisition front and integration, which you know, you can imagine is always just a constant state of change as you're integrating businesses and so forth, bringing on treasury technology. So for example, you know, a year, year and a half ago, we brought on Quantum and we're implementing that. So this individual now is working on that as well. And if you think about it, in about 3 years' timeframe, coming in with no treasury experience, very good understanding of cash management, actually is leading up our FBAR, which is the foreign bank accounting reporting that we need to do here in the U.S. You know, he's working with our outside consultants in doing those reports. He's now doing FX trading on Bloomberg and also on the technology side, the Quantum implementation. So it's really, you know, instead of trying to micromanage folks, it's really empowering people and letting them run with the ball. And, you know, again, I think that's what makes it interesting for, for the folks as well, because always in a constant state of learning, always learning something new.

And when you say learning, so what, just you've got system side, you've got the sort of development for them. Where are you team develop? Is it just that they're sort of taking on more responsibility, different areas, or how's it been evolving sort of thing?

It hasn't been dull around here. And that, you know, when we sold the tech, you know, the generic business to Teva and, and, you know, we got in approximately $40 billion of proceeds for that. So up until that point in time, and I think You know, this is going back to my leasing company days and the CEO pounding on the table saying, you know, cash is an inefficient asset. We were managing the company with about $500 million of cash globally. Now you wake up and the next day you come in and now you got $28 billion of cash. Most companies grow into that cash over time. So you're able to, you know, put in policies, put in procedures and build out an infrastructure to manage that amount of cash. It was really for us a flip of the switch, you know, $500 million one day, $28 billion the next day. And now, you know, you want to get that cash invested, maximize the yield. Again, certainly not risking the principal. So again, that was a whole new opportunity for folks to learn and a whole new part of the business. So it's always been something fresh. And then thinking about capital allocation, are we going to declare a dividend? Are we going to do stock repurchases, managing that? And then we also had a position in Tether shares that once the lockup expired, having to liquidate those shares. So it really wasn't, all right, here's the same treasury functions that we're doing day in, day out for the last 9 years. But as this company continued to evolve, it's new areas, whether it's, like I said, managing large cash balances, stock repurchases, selling stock, dividends and so forth.

And looking at that evolution and of the team as well, we've touched on, you've got a new system coming in there, you've got all these new things. Where do you see the evolution of the treasury? Everyone's going on about all the latest companies, AI and robotic learning and everything else, but is that the core of things that automate as much as you can, get rid of the labor stuff? And there's that labor.

I think you're absolutely right, Mike. I think that's where it's heading in the use of robotics, AI. I think treasury is going to become more digitized as we get into the digital world and so forth. And it's really looking at those type of functions or areas really to automate as much as you can, especially the low-hanging fruit and the non-value-added aspects of treasury, consolidating bank statements and so forth, which then gives the ability for treasury to really focus on the value-add. And at the end of the day, I believe the only way treasury is successful, or how to, how to judge a treasury team, is, is the group adding value to the business.

Just take it back a stage and looking at you, say, New Virgin Mobile, as we talked about, is you and one other. And there'll be people listening today that there's, there, you know, there's them and one other. And then, you know, we've talked a lot of these shows about, you know, bringing some technology and do all this. And then the guys are like you, they're all, you know, as you were back in, you know, 10 years ago, it's just them. They go, hang on, I don't want to add another 2 or 3 hours to my day to get this technology implemented, or, and you talk about the low-hanging fruit, how do those guys do it? You know, what, what sort of advice would you give to them?

Certainly undertaking any type of system implementation, it's very hard for a treasury group to do it by itself. It has to be sponsored by the executive management, the CFO in particular of the company. You need to have IT support, and especially in this day and age with internal controls, SOX, and so forth, you need the accountants, you need the you need the Sarbanes-Oxley folks, you need the internal auditors, you need the external auditors. So I wouldn't recommend a treasury group saying, hey, we're going to go and implement now a new treasury system. You're not going to be able to do it by yourself. You need to have the buy-in of all the various disciplines within the company, and that's the only way you're going to be successful. And we had that support here within treasury. So right from the CFO, as we prioritized what we're going to do from a technology perspective within the finance organization, the Treasury System was one of two systems that had that sponsorship. And that's critical because I've also been part of system implementations in prior careers which never got out of the starting gate because, again, the support wasn't there.

Yeah, you need everyone pointed in that right direction and everything else.

Yeah. And I think, you know, from an individual perspective too, as you start implementing these systems and and you're seeing, hey, wow, this is pretty cool, this is making my job more efficient and so forth. You see the benefits of that, so you don't mind putting in the sweat equity.

And just looking to the future, less about the stuff that you're looking at now, you know, the AI and all that. In the US, there are different challenges, you know, political and economic and everything else. But what are you looking at as a treasurer? You're thinking, right, these are the things on the horizon. A lot of the time the CFO's probably pushing you forward, and we've heard that a lot from treasurers you're the front man, you're like, right, off you go, Steve, look at all this stuff. You know, what are they saying to you?

Yeah, I mean, from a Treasury perspective, conversations I've had with the CFO here, it's really about capital allocation is extremely important. And how are we deploying our cash? How are we investing in the business? If we are divesting of an asset, well, then let's say it's an accretive asset from an EBITDA perspective. Taking a look at, okay, what are we going to do with that proceeds? Is it going to be invested back into a business development opportunity? Are we going to buy in stock from a dilution to manage dilution? Do we want to pay down debt? And one of the focuses for us is because of all the acquisitions that we've done over the years have taken on our debt balances have very dramatically leveraged, went up, you know, close to at 1.4 times, which was a little bit above what our ratings would dictate So it was very important for us as we thought about how we redeployed the capital, really deleveraging the balance sheet to address stakeholder concerns, whether it was debt holders, equity holders, or the various rating agencies. Again, that's where the focus has been for us is really on the capital allocation.

As we come towards the end of today's show, we'll put the LinkedIn profile of yourself into the show notes if we want to connect with you if you want them. But you look back over it and, you know, I think a lot of people will look at your profile and see Wow, that's a great progression. We've really got into some of the nuts and bolts there, but what advice are you going to give to the analysts, the managers, maybe even some of your peers? What nuggets of advice would you give to people as we wrap up today's show? What would you say?

Sure. I mean, when I started in Treasury, starting in January of 1988, there you go. Back in those days, a lot of times from a career perspective, it was cradle to grave with one company. That has changed dramatically, and we didn't talk about all the different ownership changes that we went through, and it almost seems like 5 years in one job is a lifetime. Unfortunately, I think at the end of the day, we all become contractors at the end of the day. And it's important that as individuals progress from a career perspective, they're really thinking about fulfilling or filling out that resume, taking advantage of opportunities within the company. When somebody comes to you and says, Steve, we want you to spend some time in cash management, And some people may think that cash management is not the exciting part of Treasury because I think if you give people most choices, they want to be on the capital market side dealing with the banks and so forth. I think they would be doing a disservice if they're not taking advantage of those opportunities and really kind of having that solid foundation from a Treasury perspective. And then sometimes in my case, I had to make the jump from the CIT Group to Virgin Mobile to get that treasurer's title, to get the experience of taking a company public which I would not have had within CIT Group, that, you know, sometimes you may need to take a look outside the company, take that risk, take that leap of faith, knowing at the end of the day that you're going to be better off at the other end, no matter how that opportunity turns out, because now you're adding new skill sets to your career development. And again, that's just going to make you more valuable as you progress and pursue other opportunities.

So a portfolio of skills is what you're Right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Even though I had international experience, if you're starting out and there's an opportunity to take an international assignment for a year or two and you have that flexibility, that's something everybody should take advantage of.

Well, thank you, sir. Great advice as always. Hope you enjoyed today's show. I definitely enjoyed it. It was great fun. And we'll keep talking to Steve in the future as his career continues to grow. But thanks for your time today and look forward to Appreciate it. Seeing you soon over in the US.

Thanks, Mike.

So welcome back to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast. You have just heard me speaking to Steve. Well, he was one of my early guests, episode 74, back in 2019. He rejoins me now beginning of 2026. Steve, if you would, you are the Vice President of Treasury at Insight. When we last spoke, you were SVP Treasury at Allegan, if that's the right way. You were at the heart of things. Largest capital markets transactions going on in pharma. What was it like? Bring us up to date from there. And when I handed the baton on to you, you were nice and busy then, but over to you, sir.

Hey Mike, it's great to be with you again.

Thank you.

And I can't believe it's podcast 74 and here we are today. When we last spoke in 2019, I would say it was kind of a little bit of a quiet period. I mean, when you look at the history of Allergan and especially my career going from Watson Pharmaceuticals and starting in 2012 and It seemed like every year we were doing a new acquisition. At the end of the day, we went from a US generic company to an international brand business. So it seemed like a new transaction every year. And so in 2019, it was kind of a little bit of a quiet period. And so I was able to focus more on my team and from a career development perspective, making sure understanding what they needed for their next roles, whether it was a senior manager or director in one case. Being qualified to be a treasurer of another company and so forth. And so that was my primary focus in 2019, 2018, I think right around that time, probably right after we spoke or maybe right before we did do a euro issuance, which was a leverage-neutral type transaction where we raised euro, we took advantage of the low interest rates in euro, paid off a like amount of US dollar debt. and those two transactions generated about $180 million a year in interest rate savings. And figure that over 10 years, that's $1.8 billion US dollars. That's meaningful. That's money that then can be used for R&D and so forth. And so 2019 focused on team, and then it was announced that Allergan was going to be acquired by AbbVie, and that transaction closed in May of 2020. Right during the COVID period of time.

Yeah.

Still felt I still had a little left in the gas tank and while I could have easily moved on and retired and so forth, a great opportunity came up at Insight. And in a lot of ways, the culture where the company is in its history kind of reminded me of my Watson activist days and so forth. So I'm excited to be here at Insight.

And who are Insight, if you would? You're NASDAQ quoted and things like that. It's similar but very different, or what? You know, describe.

It's a brand business. You know, it's been around since 1995. It kind of traces its roots to DuPont. We have 3 main businesses, which is in hematology, oncology, and immunology. Our biggest product is Jakafi, which generates a couple of billion dollars of revenues per year. We are going to lose exclusivity in 2029. And so now it's really about focusing on the pipeline and bringing our next products to market.

Okay. Again, a period of transition for you. You had a big team before. We were just talking about before that.

Sure.

What's it been, you know, so you've gone from big team there to, you know, bring us up to date with that as well. 'Cause that's a change for you. Yeah.

Mike, I wouldn't say it was a big team. I mean, when you look around to a lot of pharma companies and so forth, you know, I always hear the benchmark of one treasury person per billion of revenue. And I don't know how true that is or whether that's been pressure tested or not. You know, at Allergan, there's 13 of us, including my admin. And here at Insight, it's currently myself. And I rely on some of the folks in accounting, whether it's in the US or Europe, when it comes to the cash management side, because again, you still need to have those necessary controls in place in releasing wires and so forth. And we require approvers. So, you know, it takes a team to do that.

And I know it's thinking back a while, but But what surprised you first when you got there? You got transition of company and things, but any other things that surprised you? Again, for the listeners out there, if they're making a similar move, what should they prepare themselves for?

Yeah, I think when I made the move from Allergan to Incyte, again, Allergan was big pharma. Incyte market cap is about $20 billion. So I would classify this as more of a mid-size pharma, and the company traces its roots to DuPont. And so it feels like we're in that transition period of going from mid to a larger size pharma company, a much more complex business with multiple products versus just being a single product shop. So it just, that transition. And I think that's one of the skill sets that I bring to the table is coming from a larger pharma to a smaller size pharma.

Your views on capital structure, how do you manage that? Or talk us through some of the stuff that's been going on Yeah, I mean, when we look at—

again, we're very cash generative here at Insight. And, you know, the focus is because our largest product is— we're going to lose exclusivity in a few years. It's really the focus of R&D, and that's really our first call on capital is R&D. Second would be, you know, from a business development perspective, if it makes sense and it's in one of our core competencies and so forth. That's where our primary call of capital is. We are currently debt-free here at Insight, and so that's where the focus is because of where the stock price was, because of higher cash balances a year, year and a half ago. We did do a stock repurchase through a Dutch auction where we purchased $2 billion worth of stock. I think in hindsight it was a very good transaction. I think the price of the stock back then was about $65 a share. and today we're up around $100 a share.

And you sent me some very good notes. We were talking about your transition and one of the things you, your words, you know, it's been a career, Mark, with transformation, change, a constant theme. Not always by design, but you're grateful for. Why are you so grateful for it? Some treasurers, they're like, like they want a steady ship and things like that, but you're loving the changes and things. Talk us through that.

Change is good, right? I mean, and we've got so ingrained to change that if there wasn't a transaction like we weren't being acquired or we weren't acquiring somebody, felt like nobody loved us, you know, nobody wanted us. So, and as you, you know, made mention, Mike, you know, again, I've been privileged to work in 3 different industries: financial services, wireless communications, and pharmaceuticals. Again, we were purchased by Nomura Securities. We were then purchased by Nucor Credit. We were then purchased by CIT. CIT was purchased by Tyco, and that's when Tyco blew up. There was the accounting scandal and so forth. Our debt costs went through the roof. And so we were the backbone to a lot of other captive finance and private label finance. And so we had to separate from them as quickly as possible. We took CIT public again, and at that point, that's when, you know, the opportunity came up with Virgin. You're going from a large financial services company that dates back to the early 1900s to a company that's only been around for a couple of years, a joint venture. But the attractive part, it got me the treasurer's title. And also there was the opportunity to take the company public, which we did list in the New York Stock Exchange. And then we got bought out by Sprint, who wanted to then combine us with their other prepaid mobile offerings and so forth. And then I joined Watson Pharmaceuticals. And then in 2012, we started going on this acquisition And so by doing all these transactions, it's getting all this exposure to the rating agencies, working with the banks. As our debt portfolio grew, when I joined Watson, we had about $850 million of debt on the books. By the time we acquired Allergan, we probably topped out at about $45 billion. So now you have to start getting creative as your debt capacity starts shrinking. You got more debt on the books, making sure now you're using all the tools out there, whether it's term loans, whether it's fixed bonds, whether it's mandatory converts, straight equity issuances and so forth. I could have stayed there, but, you know, taking a leap of faith, going to, you know, a company that was only around for a few years and knowing, hey, I'm going to pick up skills there that I'm not going to get at CIT. So I'm kind of adding to my resume, which then allowed me to move to pharmaceuticals. I don't think I would have been able to make the move from financial services to pharmaceuticals directly. Especially if I was still at the CIT Group. And especially, you know, back in that time, you know, I think the belief was pharmaceuticals hire within their own industry and so forth. But, you know, I was fortunate enough that, you know, Watson took a chance on me and so forth. I was very fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time.

So you are an experienced treasury professional now that we can see this. How was that then your relationship, for instance, with your CFO and the board and the C-level? You compared to earlier roles, you find more comfortable with that. Are there any secrets for any people listening today? What do you do? What do you do different? How's it changed?

Back in Allergan, got a lot of face time with the board, especially around acquisitions. I would be the person who would then be presenting to the audit committee, to the board, that, okay, we have this transaction and this is how we're going to finance this transaction. And laid that out. To me personally, I think it's very important that the treasurer is very involved in it. I'd rather be in the driver's seat on that, which means that you have to be credible.

Yep.

In front of the CFO, in front of the executive leadership team, in front of the board, and so forth. So it's very important for me to always have my finger on the pulse of the capital markets, that if, for example, we had to finance a transaction, how we would do that. It's interesting, the speed execution. I remember doing one of the first transactions at Activus. It seemed like we worked on the transaction for almost a year before it was announced. Now it seems like, okay, we're going to, you know, we work on a deal midweek, we're looking to announce this Monday morning when the market opens, and so forth. So it just seems time spans have compressed dramatically. So, you know, I've had instances previously where, hey, we're going to acquire this company. We've got a board meeting on Saturday. We need to present how we're going to finance this. So it's imperative that, as I was saying, that I have my finger on the pulse of the market. I understand if I have a transaction, let's say up to a quantum of a couple of billion, how we're going to finance that, because I'm going to then present to the board and say, this is how we're going to finance it. The worst thing is I go and present something, then I go and speak to our banking partners and they said, no, that was news 6 months ago. Things have changed. Now I got to go back and say, hey, forget what I told you, this is how we're going to do it. At that point, I lose credibility and that's not a good thing.

And touching on that credibility for boards, you've got external boards and sitting on those boards as well. How has that influenced you as, you know, with treasury accountability or you've just talked, touched on a little bit there. Can you just take it to the next stage? So again, if someone is, you know, in that treasury seat and they say, hey, come on our board, you're doing various bits. How has that influenced you? How has that changed you as a treasurer?

It makes me more aware, you know, personally and so forth. And I think relationships are important and building good communications and And getting— I would recommend people, you know, if they're at an AT level or another senior level within Treasury, and if there's an opportunity for them to tag along with their treasurer or their CFO, you know, to attend an audit committee meeting or be part of a presentation to them, I think, yeah, I would certainly recommend that versus, okay, now I got a treasurer's job and now I'm presenting to the audit committee or the board for the first time. And I also think, Mike, what's important is, you know, when you mentioned credibility and you mentioned boards and things like that, it's also credibility with the banks as well, too. I mean, it is a partnership. And the one thing is I always pride myself on is transparency with my banking partners that, you know, I'm good at my word and so forth when I said we're going to do something. And I think that's imperative as well, too.

And you very kindly came to our Treasury Career Corner Live.

Yes.

We had one of our previous podcast guests, Predicto Bauchi from Zimba Prime.

Yes.

It was one of our onstage guests and he was brilliant. But also he was crediting you as one, you know, his best ever boss, you know, and it was a big loving. We, we, there, we, not because I was there.

Okay. And that certainly took him by surprise. He wasn't expecting me to be there cuz I didn't tell him ahead of time.

But what made you his best boss? Or I know cuz I was there in the room. Room, but he was sort of crediting you with bringing him along to some of those meetings as well. You know, what's your ethos there?

I think Pradeep does a brilliant guy. I have so much respect for him. When he joined Allergan as my aide, the one thing I think he was thinking longer term that eventually, and he worked for some very large multinational companies prior to joining Allergan, that he wanted So thinking ahead 5 years, hey, I want to be a treasurer of a company. I've done a lot of these things, but I'm still missing a couple of things. One was rating agency exposure and board exposure as well. So I remember, and we went to the rating agencies. It was a pretty large team. We kind of traveled in teams even when we did the Euro due diligence for our bond offering over there. It wasn't just me and him. We had the CFO, we had the chief accounting officer, we had a couple of people from investor relations. So that enabled us part of the day to break up into groups and to cover more investors and so forth. So when we went to the rating agencies, I presented to the first two agencies and when we went to the third one, and since Pradeep helped me put together the deck and so forth, I said, Pradeep, why don't you present this? And I'll listen in and so forth. So again, getting him out to the agencies and then I remember him and me being in the city and then we got a call from the CFO that there was a board meeting going on at the same time and we had to be there as well. And I said, "Juanito, why don't you come with me as well too and sit in on the board meeting?" So, you know, it's, I think it's important for the treasurer, right, to share the experiences, not to say, "Hey, you know, I'm sorry you can't come." And I think that kind of helped him to get where he is today.

Okay.

And just so you, we talk about getting there today, you and I last spoke, but we recorded it, you know, 6, 7 years ago. The world has changed a little bit. Things have moved on a little bit. What do you think treasury professionals should be thinking about now? You know, looking out to the world, it's, it's, you know, we've got all technology coming along. We've got lots of different other challenges, but what are the things you think should be uppermost in treasury professionals' minds?

It has been kind of crazy, right? 7 years ago, you never heard of AI, artificial intelligence and so forth. You didn't have crypto. I think those are two big areas and what that may mean for Treasury going forward, incorporating AI into processes and so forth. Those are two extremely important areas. The basic Treasury stuff is still the blocking and tackling of what needs to get done on a daily basis. With evolving technology, you need to stay current. Otherwise you end up being a dinosaur. What's important is making sure that you're always adding to your toolkit of skills and so forth so that you're always marketable out there in the marketplace.

And how do you do that? What things are you seeing? What are you doing? If you like, you talk about that toolkit, and I've talked about that with lots of treasurers that they've gotta keep adding. And I feel for you guys sometimes you've got like a full-time job. And in addition, they expect you to keep developing everything else and sometimes coach and run a team. But what do you think? How do you do it?

Yeah. And the third thing too is cybersecurity. Again, these are three big areas and it's just a matter of keeping abreast of all the latest developments out there. Cybersecurity, making sure that, hey, what are the tools out there that Treasury should be using, especially when it comes to cash management, to protect the network, fraud detection and so forth. And so you just can't rest on your laurels and think that the skillset that you have for tomorrow is gonna carry you forward. Again, you just need to stay abreast of what's out there and is there something out there, whether, you know, it comes to crypto or whatever, is it, is it, is it, is there any application within the business?

And as we did last time, we'll put your LinkedIn details. And what are the takeaways from today? If you're again speaking across the range of Treasury professionals, junior guys through senior, what do you think those guys should be thinking about or doing?

Well, I think especially with all these different ownership changes that I went through, and while each of them were good, it always seemed to be that the Treasury team that I was associated with always ended up to be the Treasury team of the combined company. So I think what's very important is as an individual, making sure that you're taking advantage of opportunities within Treasury. I know sometimes, you know, people think, oh, the great area of Treasury is the capital markets. I get to work with the banks, I get to do the execution and so forth. But there's other areas within Treasury. There's cash management. If you're in a finance company, there may be securitization or other things that may not be as cool as, hey, I get to hang out with the bankers and do a debt deal and things like that. I think it's very important to have a solid foundation, build on that foundation, add to your skill set. It just makes you more important within the organization and also builds on your skill set. And that way, that enables you to take advantage of opportunities. Sometimes you get comfortable being in a job, especially if you've been in for a number of years. That's fine, but take a chance. I'm going to take this opportunity. I'm going to pursue this. This is what this opportunity is going to get me incrementally that you may not currently have. And you know what, if it doesn't work out in a couple of years, well, you know what, you added to your skillset and that's just going to make you that much more marketable for your next opportunity and so forth. And I think also what's also important too is, and I tell this to people Well, it's not bad as a treasury person to spend some time as a non-investment-grade rated company. That's CIT, AT&T Capital. We were AA, single A rated, and so forth. At Virgin Mobile, we were non-investment grade and pretty low down on the totem pole. There you get to see things that you don't see as an investment-grade rated company. And I think it's a great experience that Treasury folks could operate in different investment-grade rated entities just to see all aspects.

Great final words. I'm going to leave it there. Thank you very much, sir. You've been very kind and looking forward to seeing you once again.

So the next time, I guess, will be at Podcast 800 when we next talk.

Podcast 800 or Treasury Credit Corner Live in the month, actually in New York. So when we're recording this. We'll do that at the beginning of March.

We'll see you then.

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Thanks.