“If Cash is King, Data is Queen” The Future of Treasury with Kirsty Craig

Foreign.

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 Kirsty Craig, the regional treasurer, emir and APAC for General Mills. Kirsty leads the emir APAC treasury operations for General Mills, global manufacturer and marketer of branded consumer goods sold through retail stores. You're all going to know them. Portfolio includes Cheerios, Betty Crocker, Haagen Dazs, all my daughter's favorites. She's like loving this. It's a Fortune 500 company. GMI is headquartered in Minneapolis and is this still on the New York Stock Exchange? But Kirsty's scope covers cash and liquidity in house banking, foreign exchange hedging, supply chain finance and many other areas which in fact Kirsty's going to explain. But she's based in Neon, Switzerland. Prior to this, she worked in foreign exchange hedging at Eton in Switzerland and in India. There's so much there. She is also a rising star. We, we'll talk about that as well. But everything else, Kirsty, going to hand the microphone back to you. Take us through, if you would, from how you started your career and bring us up today. Over to you.

Hi Mike. So first of all, thanks so much for inviting me to this podcast. I'm really excited of sharing my journey so far and yeah, at first I will. I thought of starting this by my short journey, but it's not been, it's been now a few years. So it's been eight years now that I've joined Treasury first as you mentioned, at Eton and now at General Mills. How did I start? A bit by chance, like a lot of treasurers, right. It's not a field which is, I would say it's the field that can be qualified sometimes as niche. So my story is that I got an internship in a Bank in 2016 and on my very first day my boss tells me I have a good news. I am now leaving the bank because I'm becoming a Treasury professional. So she was leading cash management back then for the bank at Eton and a few months later I thought that's been, I really liked working with her for this few weeks. Let's meet up and see how it's going. I met up with her and finally it was great because she, we had a fantastic Dinner and she talked to me about this opportunity to join the Treasury Department of Egypt. So that's how I got in, how I became a Treasury professional.

You did your sort of cash management role in the bank to begin with though. Was that giving you a sort of. Is that an area. I know a number of European treasury professionals. They will come in and that's where you start. You start to learn a bit more about what the clients do as well. Was that a good start would you say?

I would say it was a good start but it was a short start because it was like probably a six, seven months internship. But it did give me some basis to learn what's a Treasury Department. So it's not necessarily something that you would know about without really like just fresh out of studies. So I started understanding during this internship. So how do Treasuries interact with banks cash management products? A bit on fx2 you and it did give me a first taste of that can also be an interesting career on the client side. And the opportunity to join a corporate treasury came sooner than later in my career. I think if it came later it would also have given me some advantages and some disadvantages. But I'm very happy it came sooner because the last eight years were a blast in corporate Treasury.

And then talking about Eaton, I know the group as well. We had actually Bruno, Laura Lee, just a recent paintings guest. So Bruno was there for many years. Can you explain though for somebody maybe fresh to the. Fresh to the podcast. Who are Eaton? What do they do? What's Hesco?

Yeah, Eaton. So they're a power management company roughly the same size as General Mills but obviously industrials. The products you mentioned on the start would be a bit less sweet at Ethan, you're talking as an example electric switch gears. I know now they're quite big when it comes to everything around electrical charging for cars and so forth. BRNO actually was one of the persons who interviewed me and finally hired me.

Oh wow.

So yeah, he was the last interview I had at eight kill I remember with important US person. So he was based out of the US at that point. He was assistant treasurer if I remember well.

Yeah.

So yeah treasury is a small world and that's one of the things I love about it is that it's a lot of the different trolls and so forth.

We'll put a link to his show in the show notes but talk us through your journey then at Eton because you came in fresh faced. You've been by this lady you knew and she said you're a Treasury now. You're like, okay, what's Treasury?

That's exactly the reaction I had. I was thinking, wow, I. What is Treasury? At Eaton it is. My job was to manage fx and from day one I was surprised. I remember being quite surprised by the volume and just the responsibilities at treasury in my role as an analyst. Responsibilities I had so a bit overwhelming to start with, but again, I had a fantastic manager at that point. So the lady who recruited me, Andrea Laplace, she did a fantastic job in really guiding me through both treasury as well as the corporate world, which was also quite new to me. And so I would say my job at Eaton was divided in threes. There was these two first tiers where I learned my job. I learned about Treasuries or interactions between FX loans, cash management, how, how a Treasury operates, everything from what's a relationship bank to. To. To how hedging works. I had then six, seven months where I was located in India on a project, you streamline Treasury FX operations between EMEA and apac and that was absolutely fantastic. So both in the content, I would say it was one of the first project management roles I had, first taste of leadership, project management, driving a project forward. And also simply the cultural aspect. Right. I was living in India, I had to adapt to a new country, a new life for a few months. And it really gave me a taste also of working with different cultures, different countries and so forth.

And what would you. What was key about that? I know that way back when I had a client who was in the Netherlands, he'd gone quite an early placement himself out in Vietnam, and one of the things he learned to do was become part of the culture. Couldn't carry on being a Dutch guy in Vietnam, he had to be in Vietnam. It didn't matter where it was. So how did you. And again, this is a tip for anyone that may be at an early stage in their career doing a similar move. Do you say this is a good thing to do or don't do?

It's a take it or leave it in my. So I agree fully with what you said. If you're living in Vietnam or in India, it's. I don't think the right approach to it is to always compare to Switzerland. The right approach is to try to understand where you are, the culture, the people, the ways of working. And this is how you are still, I imagine, both at work, but also personally to have a good time there. And for me a good time is first and foremost to find friends, to understand the different culture, to experience different ways of living. Definitely it was a great experience also because it was obviously facilitated by my employer, which helps. But I would definitely recommend anybody to raise their hand if they have an opportunity like this because chances are you're going to gain a lot out of it, both personally and professionally and highlights.

If you like or things that you did. Again, I'm thinking how old were you then when you went out there?

Oh goodness, I was 45 and I, yeah, I turned 26. So. 25, six.

We're 25 year old lady in thrown into culture. Do you not find it a bit scary, bit daunting or how did you get past that? Because again, I'm doing this for the listeners because they sometimes say that that's why they, that's why they listen to the show. They're thinking they've got an offer to do this and they're going, wow, should I do it?

I would say two things. So first of all, I am myself multicultural. So I grew up in Switzerland. My name is very Scottish because actually my father is Scottish and my mom is Lebanese. So from the start I'm used to traveling many cultures, many points of views and my parents really grew up in Glasgow and in Beirut.

Spending weeks by herself.

Yeah, so at home from day one when I was a kid, I've always been used to this is the Swiss like reality or the Swiss culture. But there's also my mom's culture and my father's culture and that's fine. And it's even not only it's not a drag, right. It's an advantage. It's a plus to see the world from different perspectives. But I would say over overall India is one of these countries where I did, I felt always safe, I felt always welcomed, I felt I had a fantastic time. But you need to approach it in the right way, which means you need to understand where to go, how to be dressed in certain areas, where not to go. And so it's really you need, you cannot approach it like Switzerland once again where you probably can walk more or less, at least in my small hometown of Nyon, whenever, however, without having a problem. Obviously in some areas you need to approach it in a more knowledgeable way. And so that is my tip is to really try to understand where you're going, talk to your colleagues or to who, whoever you are meeting there and really understand what are the do's and don'ts of each area you go to. And this applies to India, but it also applies to the US and to Vietnam as we are talking about and to Other parts of the world. So not going there as well. India equals yoga and everything is lovely and fine. No, you need to approach it in the right way. And if you do, I'm sure you're going to have a fantastic time.

And then you did what, four years or three years at Eton. What, what happened next?

Four years at Eton. And I got a call at after three years and a half from General Mills. And what interested me in General Mills was it was a smaller treasury and therefore I could explore a bit more than FX Management ether much larger treasury. Which means it's a bit more in silos, in my opinion. When you're doing fx it's a job by itself and you can. So you. And so if you want to, you can obviously move to another department. But here I had a smaller treasury, which was which the recruiter told me, smaller treasury you can do and learn bank account management cash, build on your FX capability. I thought, okay, that's great. And I like to say I got more than what I bargained for. It's had already many lives at General Mills and it's just. And this probably isn't where my learning ends. So I joined a senior analyst at GMI in March 2021.

And I know that then there were a number of things that sort of happened. You got transition in terms of your role. You were then doing the. Your play divested. Talk us through some of the stuff you did there.

So I would say I had. The first six months were not very non eventful as you would expect.

Getting used to the job.

Exactly. There were two big announcements that were done. So there was. And I would say the main one was the sale as well. The fact that General Mills would not own anymore your play in. In Europe and would concentrate its activities in North America and in Canada. So for the yogurt business, for your play. So there was a divestiture which was announced and which was close in. So that was an announcement that there was also a restructuring within the company, but which did not affect treasury too heavily. Yeah, I would say so the first six months rather uneventful. And so where it changed was during my holidays in September 2000. I remember very clearly because I was in Spain with a few friends and when in movies you get the call and it changes everything. That's more or less what happened to me. I got a call, it's written Minneapolis on it. And I'm wondering is Mari. Is somebody from Minneapolis calling me to ask me how Spain is? Maybe they want some, I don't know, tips Advice or whatever for sangria. Maybe not. And actually, no, my new manager, the new assistant treasurer was calling. She was in her job for only a month or so and she told me that unfortunately I was the only one left out of a team of three in treasury in emea. So once I understood the situation, which was stable for now, I thought, what do I do? What is my next step here? But I took this now with a few steps back, this great decision to just work as, as hard as I could for the next few months. And it was tough, but the right, it was the right decision because I learned, I think, more than what I would have learned in a normal time because of the urgency, because of the divestiture and so forth. So, yes, I ended up co leading this divestiture with the assistant treasurer and the treasurer, well called a bit more than I would usually. And finally, it was a nice story because it all went well and we managed to stabilize the treasury and execute the data situation.

And you talked about there just being prepared to drop everything, get stuck in and everything else, which you did. Any other key learnings again, for someone listening or thinking, wow, if I get that, anything else as you step back and except for saying more sangria, obviously.

Definitely more sangria, that's a good learning. No, I would simply say that over and over again. I think raising your hand where you can help makes a lot of sense. I never planned of saying, okay, I want to lead or help in this divestiture. It wasn't on the radar for me. But hey, this is an opportunity where I can have an impact. I can learn. And I can also learn with some senior treasury professionals within my company and also from outside. Right. So you're working with different departments, you're working with external professionals, lawyers and so forth. That I would say is the number one advice I have is if you spot an opportunity, raise your hand, even if it's not in your plans. That's also what happened on Supply Chain Finance. I didn't have it on my list of I want to learn this, but an opportunity arised where I can help and I finally really took a liking in it. So that's the first one and maybe a few other tips is definitely not to go beyond treasury as a department where you're working with so many other people. Right. So sometimes treasury, like professionals, can be perceived as being very niche and in their world. But it's so critical, I think, to really how I call myself and my team is that we're treasury business partners. That's a word I love to use. Because that's the. Yeah, that's what we are. We are. We need to have a customer service mindset for the partners we serve. This can be first and foremost the business rights of finance. It's also tax, it's also accounting. So I really love to remind myself with you with this wording of this partnership we have and really see myself as a center of excellence here of treasury of the treasury function. So that's a second tip and maybe the third one which is probably more for the more junior treasury professionals. So if I had to tell myself one tip profile is to read more new publications Macroeconomics what is happening today in the world. And I would say it's you. It's difficult to do this job correctly if you're not very connected to the current environment.

Yeah.

Which is dynamic to say the least these days.

And you mentioned there about your team partners business. You're actually in business partnering things. I know that there was a sudden transition and you had to go from senior treasury analyst to actually leading the team leadership being thrown in that leadership role. What helped you the most would you say during that time or how did you get through that sort of thing?

That's a good question. A tough one too because I am not sure if I it all went so fast. I'm not sure if I had the time to actually stop and think about the transition and so forth. What I would say is what drives me is that they want to provide the best treasury service for the partners but also for the team. Right. Work is such a big chunk of your day to day life. So it's critical for me is that my team is really sees their job as something very positive, something where they grow, where they have fun, where they learn. And so I would say these two topics like providing the best treasury service I can to to the company I work for and the partners I have, as well as providing just a great or helping to provide a great work experience for my team is really what helps me and it's. And I think on both fronts it's going rather well. So I'm. It's something that brings me a lot of work satisfaction and happiness.

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And going to some of the practicalities without digging too much into General Mills itself. We keep that separately but I know you oversee treasury operations across Europe Middle east challenges. It's a large diverse region. How do you manage it effectively? Would you say what are the again someone's listening and saying oh yeah, I'm being given that responsibility. What are your tips? Go out and meet the business or meet. What are you saying? What are the key things?

It depends on your pain points and on how you want to and how and where you're standing. Treasury can be sold diverse depending if you're in a company which I don't know has a debt position. If you're a cash ridge treasury, that's already two different ways working. How I like to see it is wherever we can have processes which have efficiencies, wherever we can have a single process which is driven across the company, we should have it as an example. We have some topics which are best in class such as an we have a strong cash pooling structure, we have some topics where we can do better such as forecasting and it's really seeing where are we standing, where are the low hanging fruits, where are the biggest pain points? And so start working around these two. I can say that one thing that I am currently working on or that drives me for the next six to nine months is I like to think of countries that I manage from a Treasury perspective. So not from a geographical perspective but from a regulatory perspective. So you have some countries which are restricted where you need to have a look at them on a standalone basis and you have some countries where you can execute cash pooling. The currencies are not restricted and so really trying to streamline these countries in an approach which is process driven and which is as, yeah, as flawless as possible. And so trying to look at them in buckets. Bucket 1 Countries where you can do cash pooling in and out.

Lovely. No problem.

In and out, probably no problem. Exactly. Bucket 2 a bit more complicated but you still can work around. So as an example in Korea cash pooling is possible but the local currency is restricted. On my bucket two and bucket three are countries like India. You look at it on a base to base and on an on a country by country approach and you can, you have to review it by itself. So that's currently where I'm standing on this very new and fresh combined job.

Which is an APAC you I'd heard of yourself and we were joking about it. But you are you recently got an award. So can you talk us through that as one of the youngest women within a regional treasury center and leading it and everything else. Can you talk to that and why you think that's important within your role and everything else and wider then maybe that links into say conferences like Euro Finance and other things as well.

Yeah, that was a big surprise was the process and that word I first thought this award is given every year to one person and treasury today is organizing and discerning this award and obviously this is a Treasury publication. They had contacted me a few times to participate in a panel or in an article and on the panel side it's often in London. So I saw myself saying no a few times. And I was going to London on a business trip and I decided to grab a coffee. It was the editor Meg to tell her about what I do and like this we can have maybe there would be in the future a way to. To work to together and a way for me to participate. So I grabbed this coffee, I told her about my story exactly like in this podcast. And she listened carefully and mentioned that I should probably try to apply for the Rising Star Award. And I did and was the tie I won and I was really very happy. I would say that another part which isn't necessarily visible is that I had two. I had a few recommendations both from my former manager, my current manager, as well as from partners, so business partners. And that was extremely heartwarming to see that clearly it's the relation is is going well. I find that doing a positive impact on a daily basis is so important. Right. Because you're working eight hours a day, sometimes more. It was extremely touching to see these recommendations coming up forward. So all in a fantastic. And yeah it was very heartwarming to go through it this year.

But you as you say, you have achieved so much. You got through so much just in the time that you've been doing it as well. Advice to we could give advice to young professionals, but actually can be any age, any experience, you know, when they're looking to make the mark. You touched on AI there. That's all the hot topic and everything else. But are there any general rules that you think actually this is what when you're talking to people at conferences as well. We both just did the Euro Finance conference. Any tips when people come in and say oh what shall I be doing? What tips success Sort of thing. What would you say again, I think.

A very important aspect is really being open Treasury. What I really love about treasury is that it's a field which is extremely diverse. You have something for everyone. If you are very commercial, this is a part where you can develop and grow. There are some jobs which require you in treasury to be very commercial. If you love data and you're somebody who's very analytical, so what you love is learning about data analysis, how to drive the right decisions with data. There's also a job for you in Treasury. If you absolutely love project management, that's fantastic. There's a lot of roles that require very strong project management change management skills. So what I would say is find what you love to do and try to find a job where you do a lot of that. Because virtually what you love is what you're really good at. And so find a place, find a company, find a role where you can do what you are good at and what you love to do. That's, I think would be best advice.

That leads very nicely into the future treasury, where you and I see it going. Now, we talked earlier and you talked there in the show as well, that when I first started in treasury, treasury become a specialist area. Look at our somebody special. And that was good because it got. People got good pay rises. But then quite quickly they were like, yeah, that ivory tower treasurer, they've been dragging yourselves back out and partnering with the business. We've seen much, much more now, which is definitely a thing. But how do you see treasury from here? Today we're recording this at the end of 2024, a few years ago, the blockchain. Hang on, that's. But AIs come along. AIs not going anywhere yet. I don't want to just make it a techy conversation because I had this chat with Dirk, he'll have been on and Dirk was. We were talking about. I said to him about AI Dirt. What do you think? He said, mike, some of the treasurers I know and I think we did some of it on the show, some of it off the record, but it's okay, we can't talk about that. They said, I know some treasurers who don't know how to use their treasury management system and yet they want this bright, shiny new thing of AI. He said, maybe learn how to switch on that box in the corner and make use of that and make it work. And I was like, yeah, very good point. Your thoughts on this? What are you thinking?

No, look, like I would put. I'd Put it into two thoughts here. The first one is that I do things that treasury is going to see an ever growing use of technology.

Yes.

And AI will play a role here. More than AI, I like to use the word machine learning.

Sorry, what's the difference? You would say because I agree but people just don't get it. The chat, chat, GPT and stuff.

Now the difference is the use of the word intelligence. Right. Are we using so machine learning for me, and again I'm not a specialist here, but are we looking at a certain set of data and trying to do the best out of this set or is are we really faced here with an intelligence that can go beyond an analysis but can actually create? So create new ways of working, create new processes and go beyond. So that's why I'm going to use the word for now. Machine learning. I can see machine learning help in order to improve. As an example, cash flow forecasting. I can definitely see machine learning algorithms help analyze large data sets. But like to say if cash is king, data is queen. This is as powerful as a good underlining data can be. And for a lot of treasury professionals I think the challenge isn't necessarily technology, it's actually your underlying data set. So I would say AI and machine learning is going to be a topic but another strong focus is going to be data governance and quality, which is key to enabling a lot of these technologies.

Yeah.

Before the intelligence really hits.

Amazing. Okay, I'm taking a lot of your time now as we wrap up the show so thing we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and things like that. You've given us some great takeaways already. But to summarize it, to bring it together, people are sitting here, they're doing their walk or they're having their morning coffee and they're just hearing you and what are the things they should do?

What are your thoughts as to what to do next to have a good career or how or any of the above.

Any of the things that reflect on yourself that you thought, you know what, I'm glad I did that. Or things that I shouldn't have done when I've done it before. I do a lot of my sessions doing session at AFP in a few days time actually. And one of the things I always talk about is having a Friday morning coffee and I talk to different people. Just coffee with yourself, with someone else. To just take in some time reflecting and then thinking what can I do? What I've done this week that's improved it. What Can I do next week? And it's the. I've done speeches with power and marginal gains and doing this, that iterative process like machine learning and everything else, it just compounds that compounding effect. But with yourself, what sort of takeaways would you give to people?

Maybe one point we didn't touch too much on and this is how we met. This is how I also probably grew my career a bit faster than expected is the power and the strength of the treasury network, which I think so as an example on supply chain finance, I did learn what it was and how I can have a positive impact on it in my company rather fast. But it's only possible with having the right set of the right network, the right business partners where you can pick up the phone, ask questions, read also a lot about this field and specific pain points you may have. So I would say the power of the network in treasury is not to be underestimated. So a good habit is to be connected to your local treasury association as an example. And I would say a key takeaway is don't start building your network when you need it. Build your network when you don't need it because nobody wants to be called only when you need something. Right. People usually help you if they see you as a friend, if they see you as somebody who is positive with who they had interactions and from time to time obviously they want to help and you can help them too. But don't start building the network and these connections only when you need something. You need to. It's something which is constant and especially in a very small world like treasury, it's something you want to grow over years. It's a small community. I like to think about it like sometimes a musical chairs because you'll have this treasurer here and the next time the person is in another role, other country. And it's the same with Becks. I guess you, you probably know the drill. So I do like to think of network as something you want to work on a long term and really when you don't necessarily need it.

Totally. And I will say that I'm going to come back to your points, but someone asked me the other day, they said about my networking tip and things like that and some other things. When's the best time to start building your network? Yesterday. Yeah, you should already be doing it because there are some people that I then get their resume, get their cv, comes to me and they go, oh, I'm losing my jobs or this or I'm thinking I reached out to you three, five Years ago to be nice, just to connect, to get to know them over a coffee. No, not interested. And then they come to you and they only come to you when they need something and it's. I was there to help you and I think if you pay it forward. TRISY is a very collaborative discipline that I think.

Yeah, exactly, Exactly.

As you said, we're here to help each other. And then by paying it forward, I've helped people with their different businesses. Did it with a guy today. I just reached out, said that if I can help, give me a call. I haven't got anything. I said, no, I'm just saying please start a new thing if I can help. And then it will come back, pay it forward. So I think. But I'm going to come back to your. So build your knowledge, grow your network. And we got to finish on how many cash is cree. Cash is king. But they. Come on. That's a great one.

We need a bit more queens in Treasury.

Always. I'm happy to help you get there. So fantastic. So thank you for. Thank you for your time. Amazing. And looking forward to seeing the next conference as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

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