https://www.listennotes.com/e/8420972b2cba4f07b89bff6091e49ee6

There was a point in time where professional development was a way to accelerate your career success. And I don't believe that to be the case anymore. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, that's a baseline requirement today. I don't know how you don't fall behind if you're not doing that. The talk about upskilling and professional development and growth, I think all that is true, but I think it's accelerated to the point where this is baseline requirement today. If anybody that is listening to us talk over time, if they think about their own career path has, there's that Jack Welch quote that I love. If the rate of change on the outside exceed the rate of change in the inside, the end is near. And I feel like that is where people need to be thinking about their career trajectories and how they're going to remain successful.

It's a.

It's a new world as far as I'm concerned.

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 joined by Pat Culkin, the current Executive Vice President of the association for Finance Professionals and soon to be President and CEO, replacing the lovely Jim Cates. Pat will take over from Jim, who retires as the President CEO on June 30th after more than 25 years of amazing service. Jim was on the podcast previously a couple of times. Great guy and everything else, but Pat is taking over. So big shoes to fill there, Pat. No pressure or anything, but as Executive Vice President, Pat leads AFP's global strategy and partner development for international markets at the moment. With over 20 years experience at AFP, he oversees the membership data analytics, technology, business development, marketing, events, hr. Folks only got a little. A couple of things to do there as well, but obviously we had a chat earlier on in the year and got to say a big thank you to Pat as we begin the show. It was Pat's suggestion that maybe the podcast counts for AFP credits, CTP credits, which it does. So thank you for that, sir. It's been a journey we've got there, but I want to explore your career journey, if you would or re explore it. Take us back. How did you first start in? Well, how did you encounter finance, then Treasury AFP over to you.

Sure. Well, first off, I want to thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited for our conversation today. My journey with AFP is a bit of an interesting one. Way back when, earlier in my career, I actually started off in more of a recruiting role and I was working for an external recruiting firm. And at the time, that was right around the time frame where Jim Cates came on board to afp.

So.

So at the time, there was shift in strategy for the organization. There was a bit of turnover. They had some new positions that they were adding. Long story short, AFP became a client of mine. So I was placing people at AFP before I was a staff member at afp. And over time, what I realized is that the. You start to identify the profile you and your business. I'm sure you understand this. You understand the profile of person that really fits within an organization, the organizational culture well. And the more I got into it, the more I realized that AFP sounded like the type of place that I wanted to be. That really is what drew me into the organization. Fast forward a little bit. I ended up working for the organization. I came in in an HR function. My primary responsibilities were again on that recruiting side. But what happened over the years was it turned into. I started to realize I always have had this curiosity. I'm the type of person that tends to. I tend to get bored easily. I like to keep learning new things. I've always had this push for what else can I do? So come in. You learn a function, you tend to excel at a function, and then you want to figure out what's next, like, what else can I do? And AFP has been an. It was an outstanding place for me to help get those opportunities. I started to dive into different parts of the organization. Every time I raised my hand and asked if I could maybe help or be part of something or be a contributor somewhere along the way. That I always had the green light there. And what it did was it sparked a passion of mine that I probably didn't know that I had when I started with the organization. I'm just. I have this passion towards. I realized what was rewarding to me. What I get the most satisfaction out of is being able to have a positive impact in some way on others. Like, I find it incredibly rewarding if something that I had done or been part of had an impact on someone. You can look across and say I played. Even if it was the tiniest little fraction of a percentage of the. Of the impact on someone's success, it was a charge for me and when you start thinking about organizations like afp, professional societies, that's what we do. Like that's our mission as an organization. And it just clicked. And to this day I still get that charge.

And when you first started, Pat, we, I mean we zoomed through afp. You and I understand it, we've got UK associations, we've got international associations. When you started at the organization, association of Financial Professionals, what was it then and what is it now? Maybe just give us a snapshot of that just for maybe some of the UK listeners or we hear of it, we know of it, oh, that's their associate. But you're wider than that and I know that you also now do FPA as well. So it's a wider remit. So can you explain that for the listeners?

So over the stand of my time with afp.

Well, just. Or the snapshot of what it was then and then what it is now sort of thing and how it's changed.

So I'll tell you this. When my offer letter, my first offer letter from afp, it was on Treasury Management association letterhead. It was back when we were TMA, AFP's official first day as AFP was my first day of employment at AFP. Way back when, in the beginning, like from the. When I started to where we are now, I mean it was a Treasury focused organization. Over the period of the 20 some odd years that I've been with the organization, we've started to really focus much more on really our mission. I mean our mission as an organization is to serve the finance professional and that's broader than Treasury. So we started to drive further into the FPA space. We developed the FPAC certification that we offer. Then it started to become a little bit more. We started to really focus on how global of an organization we could be and how more. How we could serve our mission more effectively in areas outside of the United States, outside of that North American market. And that's turned us into, over the course of time, we're international organization. We have presence in the Asia Pacific region, presence in the MIA region. We have global partners across the world that, such as yourself, Mike, that we work with that gives us the ability to be able to kind of broaden the broader ecosystem of community of information, of content, of services that we can provide to help people again, go back to that mission, to serve their success, to help them to be successful in how they grow as individuals and as professionals within treasury and Finance. So it's been a wild ride to see what a P was to where we are today, which only makes me more excited about where we're going to.

Be and going again. Seeing that evolution. How have you seen the priorities and challenges evolve? Might touch on Covid, but the fact is that that aside more their challenges of treasury professionals and finance professionals more generally. How has it changed, would you say? Or how from your perspective, you. The great thing is you've seen it. I've seen it 25 years similarly and the treasurers I was recruiting 25 years ago, we were just talking before the show and the treasurers I recruit now, there's a lot of different challenges, but also they are different people. What about from your side?

When I think about kind of what treasury looked like and it's all through my lens, but what treasury looked like back in the day versus kind of where it is now and where it's going Treasury's been, we see this heavy drift and I know we chat a little bit about this before the show towards like implement how technology and AI which is the buzzword. We keep talking about it over and over again, but it's relevance to that and how it's accelerated what treasury can be doing, how treasury can create efficiencies and effectiveness in order to in the processes that they have to be able to work through in order to be more strategic and really be that business partner. We see treasury right now being much more of a. How to say this effectively, at one point in time my perspective was that treasury was a little bit more of a siloed part of the finance organization. And I think that what we've seen over the last 20, 25 years is that treasury has become a much more integrated part of the overall finance organization as well as a more integrated part of the broader business. Organizations need strategic treasury is critical to the success of an organization, especially in times of crisis, when you're coming into periods of time where there may be some economic headwinds that we're facing. Understanding even the basics of effective cash management is critical to an organization and organization's success. I think that what we've seen is this realization from businesses and business leaders around the world that treasury is a critical part of their organizational performance and can be a massive contributor to the organizational strategy moving forward, which I'm not sure was necessarily as accepted or as prevalent as it was as 20 years ago versus where we are today.

And I agree. And one of the things I've said, I think it was also related to salary.

Sure.

A lot of treasurers, if you like, they didn't mind treasury becoming this specialist area and look at us. But by doing that, they allowed themselves to be put into a corner office and, yeah, well, the treasurer will look after your cash. Give it to them, they'll look after the cash. And then they're like, hang on, no, I don't just want to look after the cash. I can be part of the business. And I've seen Treasury battle its way back out and now it's certainly in the past four or five, five to five to 10 years, five years in particular. It's really part of the business. And I've talked on a few podcasts recently and are saying, yeah, it's a real part of the business and the difference you can make. And it's back. Back to where it was, where it should be, if you like.

So I suspect that you hear about this, you probably see these trends also when you talk to clients about what they're requiring of treasury, like the people that they're recruiting, what are the requirements or what do they prefer to see in those roles? And I suspect it's a very different role definition than what it was as you're. When you kind of working through a job spec with a client. Like what? The definition of that role is very different today than what it was even 10 years ago.

I suspect it's not just that. It's. Again, we were talking, I recently spoke in Texas just last week, and I said, look, you guys have a wish list. And they're like, oh, no. I said, no, I'm telling you, it's a wish list. It's a like to have. I said, we. I spend a lot of time working with you. What's your must have and like to have. Yes, we all want to have people that have loads of really good data and data. Data skills. And yeah, I said, have you guys got them? And they're like, yeah, maybe not. So I said, no, I know you want to hire them, but have you. Do you know anyone that's training them? Do you know anyone that's training these skills? Yeah, these guys are coming up. But you can't have someone that's got. You see the jokey ads, don't you? Sometimes we want someone that's got five years AI experience. Well, they don't because it wasn't around five years ago or they do. They're probably the ones that invented AI. Yeah, no, it's like, no, we're not having that.

I think that some of that is based on the fact that sometimes organizations don't know what they don't know and if you don't know what you don't know, you shoot for the moon. And I think that some of those wish lists, I actually think that a lot of those wish lists are very relevant to where, what we should be looking for and what we should be focusing on. And I think that really boils down to that education of. We'll talk specifically about treasury for a second, but that development of the treasury profession and the future of the treasury professionals, like, how do we get those potential candidates for future treasury roles? How do we prepare them for what it is that's coming down the pipe? Because for those of us that have been in the world, in the, in their career paths for 20, 30 years, we're still learning too. I mean, all this, like when you go think about technology and data and AI and you know, what data is available and how you can mine that data for information to help develop your strategies and your forecasts, until we can see and kind of see, touch and feel what that looks like and what it can do, it's somewhat hard to articulate. And I think that we're seeing some of that with organizations and what they're looking for. They don't quite know exactly how to define it.

You were saying just before that you want to invite people. I'm very happy to do that. You want to invite people that have started to get a handle on this to sort of engage with you guys so you can find out the best use, isn't that right?

I'd love to, yeah. I think that when you think about technology, implement AI in particular, it's a topic that we're all talking about and we don't need to go into, we don't need to do a deep dive into AI. I think that there's, it's very clear that it is a, going to be a prevalent part of our future and that we need to figure out how to effectively utilize it in a way that can be strategically beneficial for the profession. Which means that individuals are going to have to learn how to, how they can apply it into their roles. For us, a lot of our, our members, a lot of our customers, they really look to others to learn about how they've done it in the past. Effective case studies like organizations that are out there that have effectively applied artificial intelligence to drive effectiveness and efficiency, to be able to free up staff time, to be able to be more strategic and really be able to drive growth for their organizations. For those of you listeners out there that have, that can talk about what they've done, I'D invite them to reach out to me, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm all over the AFP website to be able to find my email address. I'd love to hear from you because I think that the stories that we can garner from the broader community will help the rest of the community. I think that helps kind of bridge that gap for the people that are out there. And I am one of them. I mean, we're all one of them. At some point, we don't know what we don't know. Help us understand what that might be. Show us what you've done, and we can use that as a way to help educate the broader community.

That's a lot of what we do. We do the. I'm speaking at AFP in Boston later this year. And it's that collaboration. It's, as you say, I've seen them before where people put forward their sessions, and it's a very narrow slice and things like that. It's got to be value to the rest of the community. And that's where collaborative learning and everything else and. And that could lead very nicely into. Jim, I know, was very passionate about the why being the success of your members and them doing well. What's your why? As you sort of take over by the time this comes out, you'll probably be in the number one seat by the time what's your why? As the incoming CEO, My personal why. You can be both your personal why and your why for the organization.

For the organization. So Jim and I have worked together very closely for many years. He's obviously been the CEO of AFP my entire time at the organization. He's been my direct supervisor. I've reported him for many years, my coach. He's my mentor. Jim and I align in a lot of ways, I think for organizationally, why AFP exists and why we. Like, our beacon is really around helping to people. People to be successful. Like, if you ask me, why does AFP exist? Like Jim, I would say we exist for the success of the corporate finance professional worldwide. That's boilerplate why. And I think that it's just as powerful now as it was the first day we kind of came up with it as we were talking about it as an organization from a personal standpoint, like, that reward I get from having an impact. My personal why revolves around that. Like, I want to have a positive impact on AFP and AFP's ability to be able to serve its organizational why for the broader market. Like, if we can. If I can help the organization and help the organization to drive more success for the broader corporate finance treasury market. I, I would find that incredibly rewarding. And it's just, it's interesting. You don't. Some of those things. You don't kind of what you don't know, what you don't know. Twenty years ago, I didn't know that was the thing that was going to be such a driver for me. And it continues to be.

And you guys, we partnered with you on this certification ctp, because we're pro education, and that's why we've partnered with you guys. We're pro education wherever it is. And that's a, that was a big discussion point that Jim and I talked about. But also you've got other things that come along. Education, networking, we'll come on to personal, brand and things a little bit more. But where do you see AFP and adding more value to its members, if you like, as we go forward? And it was funny. I was listening to a podcast just last night, and the lady said, oh, predicting in recruitment, where you'd be in five years. And she said, I can't. She actually said it, I can't. But do you know where you're gonna be in five years? I was like, yeah, it was a good point. It was like she could barely know where she is, what it's going to look like in a year. And I thought, yeah, and I want to say the three to five years with yourself, but, yeah, what's the direction of travel?

So I think for afp, we've got our core business. We can, between the certifications, our events, our membership, our training, I really think that the value that especially kind of in the day and age of where we are, you know, the. What we're all dealing with, like around the world, we're all dealing with very similar flavors of challenges, let's say, right? Things are moving quickly. How do you stay relevant? How do you make sure you're not falling behind? I think that a lot of the value that aop, how we can provide that value, Let me say a little differently, how we can provide that value to that broader market. I actually think community is a really big part of it. I think that. Have you ever heard the expression, I'm sure you have the expression, it takes a village, raising children, it takes a village. I actually think that applies very much to the profession. I think that the value that we can drive is largely based on how we can learn from each other. And if you think about an organization like afp, a professional society, we have A set of expertise in house. Right. We've got a team of subject matter experts. We have people that come from the profession that have been corporate practitioners in the past. But we leverage members, we leverage volunteers, we leverage partners, we leverage organizations. People like you, Mike, we talk with you about what are you seeing, how are you seeing these challenges evolve? Our ability to be able to take all that information in is leveraging the community to be able to then dissipate something to distribute some of that information back out in a manner that can be applicable across a broad swath of the market. Now, I think that for afp, as we continue to build community, we like things like our member meetups that we're doing. We do virtual meetups and obviously this, the in person events, it's a big part of it.

Yeah.

AFP Collaborate, which is a online platform, in order to be able to communicate with other people within, within the broader AFP community, we're doing our member meetups, roundtable sessions. It gives individuals the ability to be able to learn not only directly from AFP and AFP's team, but also from others in the broader marketplace. I see that as being a huge value for us and a significant contributor to how we can drive towards that mission moving forward. It also helps us all to keep up. Kind of going back to that same theme. Right. We're all continuously learning. I am, you are, your listeners are. We all have to be in order to keep up with the, with the pain world.

Yeah. And this is what. And going back actually is an interesting one. We'll come back to the global nature of it. So when I first started in treasury recruitment, AFP was a very US centric organization. Now it's much more global and people have asked me, actually I was just asked couple of days ago while I was a Treasury recruiter, I said, look, I didn't know what treasury was. Met all these treasury guys, they often were the first of the bar, the last to leave it. Very relationship focused. I really like them. I was like. And I just thought, yeah, I found my people love this. But joking aside, I also realized quite quickly that I was doing it. Started doing it in the UK and then I was like, oh, actually I can do this across Europe. Oh, hang on. And then off I went to Singapore taking my wife and kids and it was great. And it took me around the world and now it takes us across the US and it's got that global nature. So as you've grown your presence as an organization, is that where you plan that to continue that Momentum or where do you see it serving its members, or what's the growth going from there?

Absolutely. There was a point in time, way back when, where we were a very US centric organization and we had this belief that, an inaccurate belief, to be clear, like. But we had this belief that really our product and service mix was really a product and service mix that would be much more geared towards the US market. And I'm thrilled that we were wrong. I'm thrilled about that. Because what it's turned into is that we see massive. We were seeing a significant percentage of our overall growth coming from outside of the United States, whether it be the Asia Pacific market, Middle and African markets. We're seeing, we're seeing significant growth in the European markets. And I think that, and particularly with ctp, like this window for our, this current window for our CTP exam, it's the highest registration number that we've ever had. And a lot of that is coming from outside the US and it's not like a concentration of we're seeing this huge growth in the MIA market, but little bits and pieces here and there elsewhere. It's coming from all over. And I think that when we kind of bake it back, boil it back down to AFP and our mission, the way I look at things, when approached about a different, another market, or should we be looking at another part of the world or a different geography, there's really only two questions. Like the first two questions I ask are one, can we effectively serve our. Is there a market to serve our mission there? And if the answer is yes, that quickly leads to the next question of how can we do so effectively and obvious and of course in some level of financially responsible manner over a longer period of time, but how do we do it effectively in that market? And it's been interesting because just keeping it simple, like I'm a fan of simplicity, like keeping that simple approach of should we go here? Should we look into what we can, what we might be able to provide here? The question becomes, is there a market there that we can serve our mission? Because our mission is to be the global organization helps drive the success of corporate treasury finance, and then how do we do it? And those two questions have, looking at that way has really kind of opened up a much broader world for us. And I think it's been a part of how it's led to the organizational growth. I mean, or AFP as an organization is looking at, we're not looking at the constraints of where the US borders are, we're looking at the constraints of where can we serve our mission? And that is a very big. It's an enlightening way to look at things.

And also do you find then the requirements the same? I'm imagine they're different from your non US based members or how does it differ sort of thing. I know certainly for me when I've talked to people, they say oh, what should I study? And in fact a guy in the US the other day was saying should I study ctp, cfa, frm? I was like well what do you want later? What are the stepping stones? And I was just talking him through that and I said if you want to be in treasury in this period, do this. And we're giving him some advice. But that was the thing. If you want to be in treasury, do the treasury qualification but more not just the qualifications, but are there different ask requirements from those guys or what are the thoughts from those you've seen.

Like in terms of our certification, like the ctp?

Not just the certification but more the membership is they. What are you hearing from other members or other. Because I know that you've done a lot of stuff in the Middle east and Egypt and various other bits.

That's really an interesting question because. And we're still learning to some degree. Yeah, what if we go into a different market? So let's use the Middle east as an example. Like as we started to work more effectively in the Middle Eastern region, we've got a partner that we work with, Beacon Financial Training. They've been instrumental in helping us to understand that market more effectively. And I think that largely the challenges, the, the skill sets necessary, they're largely the same but they apply differently at different levels. And that's where there's been some fine tuning that I think we really had to focus on at a given title level. We can map out in the United States that this is typically what their job might look like at that same title level in the UAE or in Saudi or in Egypt, that same title level, the job is defined differently. And it's not that the overall treasury function is drastically different, it's how. It's the puzzle of the treasury organization and where the functions land in different positions, which. It sounds a little bit silly to talk about it this way because it, well, Treasury's treasury for the most part, I mean outside of the like US specific regulations are going to be different than Saudi specific regulations, but the overall function as a whole, it sounds silly to say that it's the same but different but it kind of is. It's the same. It's just structured differently.

Well, I want to jump in there because people talk to me. In fact, I was interviewed by a magazine just today about our salary survey. And they were saying, well, what's a treasurer? I said, yeah, it depends. And they were like, what do you mean? I said, well, I get a treasurer, someone will call themselves a treasurer, and they might be in Europe managing three countries with a couple of, with a couple of currencies, and that's it. And they call themselves treasurer. They're not a treasurer, they're a treasury manager. So for a salary survey, and then you go to someone's housing association and they have only one currency, but they've still got a team of eight or 10 people. They're a treasurer, but they're not a global treasurer. You know, they're not a global treasurer of a mega major multinational corporate with 80 staff in five different service centers. And so we put them in different baskets. And that's what I was explaining. I said, the one thing you can be. They're all different. I just said, yeah, none of them are the same. And it's the same with the podcast. Just like when I've said to people, what? How come? And I said, 375 plus podcasts. Every story is different. One treasurer is debt laden, one is cash rich, one is centralized, one is decentralized. And people listeners have heard this time and again that I can be standing within 3ft or 10ft of 10 different treasurers, and they all have the same title. All their jobs are different.

I think there's a huge benefit to that when you go back to the whole community aspect, like as you. So using your podcast as an example, you had, would you say 385?

300, yeah, we're 378, I think at the moment, as of now, I'm counting. But yeah, so you'll be a 380, I think. Yeah.

So about 380 podcasts. And you got different versions of people's stories of how they've developed in their careers. And I think that the fact that you've had, you have this level of diversity, it's added to what the podcast can provide to your listeners. Yeah, and I think that it's very similar when we think about Treasury. And you're exactly right. What is a treasurer? Well, it depends. It's different. I think understand acknowledging and understanding those differences gives you the ability to listen to what their challenges are because you can frequently learn something from it. You can learn like there's A challenge in this particular area with this particular, in this particular role that might be applicable maybe not to the, to the same title across another organization, but that might be applicable elsewhere.

Yeah.

So leveraging the. It's a little bit of a concept that our differences make us stronger. And I think that's the case. I think that's a, it's a challenge that people like you and I and your organization, afp, we're going to be dealing with for the rest of our careers. But I think that if we look at it as a challenge, every challenge is an opportunity. And I think that opportunity is to take that information, learn from it and how do you aggregate that and put it into a format that can be effective to teach and to help people learn and help people drive their growth and.

Nice segue. It's like we haven't planned this bit, but education and learning, obviously, I know they've been a real passion project for you and for Jim about and early career engagement. I'm shouting about it from the rooftops to say to people they should do more treasury in universities and things. Why is that such a big priority? Maybe even for you, personally or professionally.

For you, they're the future of the profession. I mean, I think that when I ask people like in conversations I've had, whether it be at our events and any one on one conversations I've had and actually you've alluded to this a bit before about your career path. When I asked how they got into treasury, the answer is very frequently some version of by accident.

100%. Yeah.

And I think about treasury and I think about what the career options are and the opportunities that exist and the contribution that people can make in a Treasury career towards not only their own personal success and satisfaction but to the business success. And it honestly drives me a little bit crazy that people are only falling into treasury by accident, that there's not enough information or education for people earlier in their career path, even at the student level when they're at university, about how like even what is treasury like? I don't think that most people understand it when they're coming out of school. I mean, you mentioned that you didn't really know much about treasury when you got into it. Very honest. Neither did I. It was. I started when I first started working for AFP as a contractor. I didn't have a good understanding as to what treasury is. And I think that's. That is a massive opportunity for us, I think for AFP and how we serve, the focus on serving the profession, building Helping to build and develop and educate people. Actually, let me take it a little bit differently. First step is how to just inform them, inform them about what treasury is. Then notice that after they've been informed, they can understand a little bit about whether or not they have an interest. And once they have an interest, they can start to dive into it a little bit. Maybe that's starting with a, like more of an introductory course, something on the basic side, maybe do a little bit of reading on it. And that might lead into something that could turn into a Treasury career, a decision around a Treasury career that could be much more of a informed decision, strategic decision about where someone might want to take their career path versus they found it by accident. Yeah, we just did a Treasury benchmarking survey and one of the things that came out of it was recruitment, like how people are finding. And we asked a question about how people are finding, recruiting and bringing people into treasury and it's the same story. It's, we're bringing people in from the outside, they're frequently coming from accounting, and then we try to educate them and train them, teach them the job on the go. Now, it's not to say that's a bad pathway, but it just makes me wonder how much of an opportunity that may have been for to start developing that talent earlier. Or even for those people that are transferring, transferring their careers from another component of Finance into Treasury, maybe they could have been a few steps ahead. If treasury is ultimately where they were going to land, they could be a little bit further ahead of the game if they could start building those treasury skills and those experiences earlier.

Yeah, and you and I have talked about it and we will do it. And Jeff and I have talked about the earlier's guide or something actually, to give more information which we, which is on the roster. We will get it done sort of along with everything else. You've only got an EOSHIP to do.

Yeah, we've done a lot of work in terms of our early career content development. We have a university partner program that we're working through, trying to identify and work with universities around the world that might have some interest in integrating some of AFP's curriculum into their curriculum. Because we think, Eric, with the content that we have in the curriculum, we have the ability to help at least provide a guideline or some information to help put together coursework for a university quickly. And if we're able to do that effectively, I think that builds the pipeline of talent for the profession moving forward, which benefits all of us.

Yeah, it's fantastic. Okay. I know we spoke earlier about, and I don't want to run out of time. We're not that far from the end of the show. But you and I talked about how treasury professionals now have to embrace branding. That's what I'm going to be talking about with personal profile. And this is one of the things they'll talk about, AFP in Boston and things. But you know, just on that, you've worked across many departments, afp, and now you've seen how treasury and treasury professionals have to be more adept at networking. And on top of that, it's not just enough to do your day job. How do you see it now?

I think that really for anybody out there, building your presence, your network, building your relationships, talking with others, it's something that I can't recommend enough. I think that there's a couple different pathways that will help people in like one kind of that broader learning, which I won't. I know I talk a lot about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause on that one. But the broader learning, be able to learn from others.

Yeah.

The other piece of it though is it starts to put you in a position where you start doing things that might be a little bit outside of your comfort zone. And I think that anything that is outside of your comfort zone means that you're testing yourself, you're expanding your horizons and you get out and build that network more and more, I think positions you in a way where when others are thinking about opportunities that exist, projects that exist, other career pathways or jobs that could exist, upward mobility opportunities, I think it puts the person in a little bit of a better position than if they were a complete unknown. Getting out there, making a name for yourself, expanding your brand, sharing your knowledge, asking questions, gathering knowledge, I think that drives credibility, drives skills building, it drives recognition of the individual. It's all good, it can't hurt.

And it, and it comes down to basics as well. When I was delivering this, and we've talked about everyone having their little black book, one of my recent podcast guests, she sends herself an email every Friday that she puts in a folder about what she and the team have achieved or the team have achieved firsthand herself. So when the CEO CFO walks up to her and said, oh, how you getting on? What have you done this week, this month, whatever. She goes, hang on. Well, I was gonna just read it off, just, that's great. But like the people there like in the room going, oh, wow. And it's like wide eyed, like baby D. I'm like, guys, come on, you've got a shout about this. You can put it on LinkedIn. I'm just saying, look, when was the last time any of you update your LinkedIn? I did a New York session and 90, this was to the New York Cash Exchange. So it was a virtual session rather than our actual in the room session. 90 of the people admitted they hadn't actually put an achievement on their LinkedIn profile in, in anything or done any change to their profile in about six to nine months. I went, guys, this is your calling card. Just update it a little bit. Just put, just update it full stop. Just say, what are you doing this week? Nothing confidential. What are you doing it? And people are like, oh, wow. It's just like, you guys do an amazing job. So tell people about it. That's one of the key things. I think treasurers for too long have just hidden that light.

Yeah, I think that, I think for the. It all depends on the profile of person. Yeah, right. There's some people that are a little bit more introverted, a little bit more reserved. They kind of want to stay behind the scenes. And I think for people with that profile, that's a difficult thing to do. And I would challenge those that can fit that profile. Try it. Get yourself out there. It can start small. I mean, it could be simple LinkedIn posts, it can be reaching out to one or two people that are in your network, people that you've worked with in the past, just to check in, see, see what they're doing, see what their, where their, what direction their career is taking them there. There are people out there with the profile that are going to stand on top of the mountain and shout from the rooftops about all the things that they've been part of and what they've been able to do. And I think that's great. But there's a lot of talent, There's a lot of talent, a lot of capability, a lot of experiences that are had by those people that maybe are a little bit more reserved. You don't want that to be a limitation. You want them like, I would encourage them to come to an event, be part of, like from an AP standpoint, I would encourage them to come to an event, maybe be part of one of our meetup sessions, maybe participate in a discussion on afp, collaborate. It's just another opportunity to start small and get out there and help someone else share a little bit of information, ask some questions. It's a starting point and we had.

A real life example in Houston When I did my session recently, I said to the room, you've come here, you've made the effort to be in this room this evening. By the time you leave here, you need to have made at least three more connections. That's the challenge. You can't leave here until you've done three. And one of the guys came up and went, I've done seven. I've done seven. I was like, what are you talking about? I've connected with seven people. I said, don't just connect with them. I said, you're not allowed to just go, oh, can I connect with you? I said, you have to have a meaningful conversation, introduce yourself, talk about what you do. Didn't do the elevator pitch too much, just about what you do, who you are, and expanding the network and see if they're not going to be useful. It a useful connection for both of you, then obviously don't connect. But he was like, I've got seven useful connections. And they said it because. And they said, well, tell me about why. And actually, he could justify all seven. I was like, that's fantastic. And I was like, great. And then he was just like, oh, I'm going to keep doing this. I went, yeah, look at it. And it's.

I'm going to give you a little bit of credit. I wasn't able to attend the live session in New York that we had talked about, that I would. That I would join, but one of my colleagues was able to make it. He's telling me about the fact that you told people, I want you to connect with three people. And the way he described it was. At first, it was quiet, maybe a little bit. Maybe there was a little bit of awkwardness and uneasiness about the discussions, but within a few minutes, it was loud, like people were talking, there were conversations happening. And to your credit, you pushed those people, that group, at least some number of them, out of their comfort zone. But they did it.

Yeah.

And they saw the. They saw benefit out of it and also figured out how to make it happen.

I did feel bad because I do guilt the audience a little. I said, look, you can come here and just waste your time. It's a. Could be a. Just a complete waste. Yeah. You've got some great knowledge from these great treasurers, but you could walk away with this bonus, and the bonus is two or three connections that could actually help your treasury career. You could help their treasury career. Wouldn't that be amazing? And they were like, oh, yeah. And it's like, come on, guys, come on. This is it. You're good at this. You can do this as well.

You just encouraged me to reach out to a few people that I haven't spoken to in a while. After we hang up, that's it.

Well, yeah, they go, sorry, sorry, that's a couple of hours extra work. Oh, God. Now we're nearly at wrap up, but I've got a couple more questions just before we do. So if someone listening today, maybe they're a Treasury analyst, mid manager or something like that. And afp. Yes. And I've got the. I've had feedback, actually, I've had feedback over the years. Originally the feedback was, oh, afp, it's more junior guys going to the AFB conference. And I've gone, no, it's not. And then, oh, what? I said, no, the people I met and I talk about some of the people I meet and they're like, oh, crumbs. I said, yeah, you get the full mix. And now that's the great thing. So it's all the way. But if someone is listening today and they are maybe a more junior analyst or manager, how can the AFP help them? And what, how should they engage? You mentioned there about, and I've said to people, put your hand up, get on a committee, put on a panel, just join in, go to the events, anything else.

I mean, I think you could, there's a couple different ways you could do it, depending on the level of comfort for someone getting started. But you know, as I mentioned, there's some easy ways to kind of get involved. If you collaborate, you could participate in a meetup, you can attend one of our events for those that want to maybe dive in a little bit deeper, be part of our, one of our volunteer committees. I mean, we are always looking for people to help us. As I mentioned, we learn from, from the profession as much as we can to help be able to reconvey some of that information back out. Like help us with that, like help us to understand what you're seeing and what we could be doing, what we could be providing or what we could be doing differently to the broader market. I challenge people frequently, dedicate some time to every week towards learning. And I would challenge that. One thing that people can do with afp, take some time, read some of our content, like go on our website, look at some of our research, look at, read some of our guides, read some of our articles, read the collaborate board. I think that dedicating that time is important. I would, you know, I'm going to stop a little, just a Little bit short of doing the whole sell on afp.

I would like sell. So we don't mind. It's all right. We can cut it out afterwards if we don't like it. No, we won't.

I think that clearly engagement with AFP is a, is an objective of mine, whether it's through the events or certification, training, membership, the meetups, collaborate. I could go on and on with all the things that AFP can do for people if they want to start small, like really small. I would just say dedicate 30 minutes a week, maybe twice a week. Let's push it a little bit. 30 minutes twice a week to read a piece of content, listen to a podcast, use it as a time to, to reconnect with others in the profession. Ask someone on LinkedIn through Messenger A question, like ask them about how they've done something or their career path. I think that these are all ways that people, you know, particularly those that are kind of getting started in the profession, maybe earlier and even into the mid career level, actually expands the spectrum. But you can get, if you think about the opportunity to be able to take something in a couple times a week, it's invaluable. AFP can absolutely be a pathway for people to do that. But I think to get that started, you got to take that first step.

And also what I would add to that is. And again, it was one of the conferences a while ago and I just said, be selfish. And they were like, oh. I said, no, if you are, you can make your life easier by reaching out to someone who's already done it. You know, you put your hand up and AFP is a great network that. Oh, have you done something like this? Oh, actually, and we do this. I've had it again, we had a bubbling session where I said, right, ask the person next to you, have they implemented a Treasury management system? And they all went, what? I said, do it now. Oh, God. And I said, right, ask them. And they said, okay, which one was it? Ask them in this, ask them a couple of questions like this. And then afterwards maybe you could all, you know, and then, oh, wow. And as you said, there was. I had to then calm it down because they were all going, oh, they were buzzing. And I'm like, yeah, guys, how Five minutes ago, you know, you didn't know each other. Now you're exchanging that. Oh, yeah, it's through the collaboration. That's what treasurers, if they get out of their own way, they're really good at.

There's a theme that we utilize Internally at afp that I think is very applicable to that. Like we're always looking for collaboration and try to drive an idea and kind of kick it around to see if you can make it better. The way I like to pose it is like if I have an idea, I'll share it with a group. I'll spread it out there. Like here's an idea that I had first question and this through process of discussion. But first question is to evaluate whether or not the idea has any merit. Right. So is it, Is there anything there? The second thing is help me to make it better. Like if there's merit to an idea, help me to make it better. Because it's the collection of that, that critical thinking, that questioning and challenging that helps to drive to a better outcome. And what you just suggested is exactly that. Ask a question. Oh, you've done it this way. And it creates that buzz. And that buzz is the opportunity to help make an idea better, Help to make a process better or help to make a. A strategy better. And I, I think that's invaluable for people.

Yeah. Some is greater than all the parts put together and that's the key thing.

And everybody has something to contribute.

Yeah.

And I think that's important.

And run. Use those as your closing words. We'll put your LinkedIn details. You mentioned it earlier on the show, but we will put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. Any final takeaways for anyone else listening today? Obviously the great thing is they get to listen about afp, but they get CTP credits by listening to the show. Fantastic. They get to you, meet you and I and they'll get to see me live on stage and meet you in Boston as well. And if they a website, they can get a discount as well. So they should be in Boston seeing us. But they can be if they get in the discount. I might even buy them a beer. I don't know. We will see. I don't want to go too far to all the audience, but great.

Are we going back to the first in the bar? Last to leave.

I love my treasury folks. That's it. That's the only reason I do this job. But yeah, for you. How would you close the show today? Over to you.

I am. First off, I think that anything that any opportunity that I have to connect with individuals and in the broader audience to talk, to, learn from, I welcome those connections and absolutely invite everyone to join us in Boston. I'd love to see you there. I'd love to shake hands with you at the AFP booth and talk a little bit about what you do. And really I'm going to ask you questions. I'm going to ask questions about how we can be more effective, how we can help you to be better at your role and better at what you do. And I'm not shy about asking for help. I will ask your audience, and if you come and see me in Boston, I'm going to ask you to be part of PfP, to be part of the broader community and to volunteer and contribute your expertise.

And they don't have to wait till Boston, do they? They can reach out and connect now. Why not?

So if you connect on LinkedIn, I want to get all the connections first, then I'll subtly ask the questions. But ultimately, yes, I think that being part of the broader community is something that is of benefit to all of us. And my parting words would be engage in the profession, engage in the community. And I think that we can together go a long way.

Fantastic. I'm going to leave it on there. Thanks very much, sir. You've been an amazing guest and you would be. Thank you very much, Mike.

It's great talking with you as always, and I'm looking forward to that. Pinton Boston.

Oh God, Mike, thank you. I hope you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast just as much as I did recording it with another amazing guest. Now, don't forget to subscribe on your usual platform, whether that's Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you listen, so you never miss a future episode whilst you're there. If you're listening on Apple podcast, maybe give us a five star review. Why? Because it helps other treasury professionals find the show, join the conversation and get even more value. Now also, we're helping you guys in Treasury. If you are thinking about studying for your CTP or FPA qualification, then listen up. We partnered with the AFP to offer a discount on study, both for all the studying and for the preparation platform as well. So you can get through us. 150 discount, yes. $150 for each. My goodness. Yeah, we, we're here to help. So it's a great step for your career and always good to save where you can. So all you need to do is go to treasure recruitment.com forward/partners. You've got the codes there. Then you head across to their website and you get the discount. You also as well. If it wasn't enough, we're going to be heading to AFP Boston later on in the fall, as the Americans call it in October and we also offer 150 discount off your registration. So wherever you might be, it's a great conference. Whether you're in UK and Europe. You should go. I'm going. It's gonna be amazing. So, incredible few days, great insights, proper networking, great conversations with lots and lots of treasurers. Last time in Nashville, 8, 000 + one of their biggest ones ever. It was amazing. So just go to the Show Notes and you'll find the link or treasure recruitment.com forward/partners and get it all from there. Remember, if you're looking for a role, visit treasure recruitment.com if you need some advice, reach out mike@treasury recruitment.com or come and meet us in person. We've got our sessions coming up. We've got sessions throughout this year in Texas, then we've got London, we've got Dublin, then we're back to the US for Chicago, then New York. Crumbs everywhere, Euro finance, the lot. And then AFP and then back to London and then we'll do Netherlands as well. So it'll be great to see you. We're going to be everywhere, so looking forward to it. Thanks very much and until next week, enjoy the show.