Key Tips for Progressing in Treasury with Doug Knebel

Foreign.

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 built their careers, where they are now, and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. In this week's show, I'm joined by Doug Nebell, the director of treasury operations at AVX Corporation. Now, ABX Corporation is an American manufacturer of electronic components headquartered in Carolina. They're a leading international manufacturer. Vast portfolio. I won't go into all that. Doug can explain a little bit more about the business later on in the show, but suffice to say, absolutely huge. They've been serving automotive, industrial, medical, military, the lot, transportation markets for nearly 50 years. But that's enough about that stuff. Doug will explain. As I say later on, Doug and I talk before the show. We're going to, you know, cover a number of different areas, deep dive on some of them. But first of all, Doug, talk us through your career and how you first got started in finance and then discovered the wonderful world of Treasury. Over to you, sir.

Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Mike.

Pleasure.

It's a pleasure to be on your show. My schooling was actually in finance, so I had kind of made up my mind while I was in college that I wanted a career in finance. When I finished with that and moved on and actually got my master's degree, I started thinking that maybe to get a more well rounded background that I wanted to venture into the world of it. So after I finished with my master's degree, I spent the next year or two in entry level jobs in it. And at that point kind of felt like it might not have been the right move. And in a way, through a headcount reduction at the company I was working for at the time in telecom, finance found me again. So I wasn't really seeking finance out, but finance found me. So I spent the next seven years or so working in financial analysis and accounting and had never really heard of treasury before. I didn't know what it was. And once again, I was not seeking treasury out because I didn't even, wasn't even aware of what it was. But treasury once again found me. So the company I was working for is called vwr. The treasurer was sitting at the corporate office in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, I was working in the Atlanta, Georgia area for the company and the corporate treasury manager left the company to go work at Sungard. And that left the position open for the treasurer to offer it to me.

Yeah, you know, how did he know about you? How do you know about your background? Was it just you got to know each other through the company or what happened?

Yeah, that's right. So my boss in the Atlanta office reported directly to that treasurer and so his name was Scott. And Scott used to come down to our office every few months or so just to check in, get to know us a little bit better because everybody in that office actually reported up to Scott. You know, thankfully it was because I actually had a relationship with him already due to that. And the boss that was in my Atlanta office would talk me up and say some kind words about the work that I was doing. So when that and opened up, it worked out well.

You thought to liberty to foster that relationship so you could get a move into treasury or was it just you thought actually going well with this guy or, you know, again, for some of the listeners today, they'll be in a similar situation to when you were there as a finance analyst. Should you get to know your treasurer deliberately, you know, on purpose, you know, you know, what's the sort of thought process, as it were?

Yeah, I think it was more of the latter. It was more just a matter of sheer luck for me because even at that point, I still really didn't know what treasury was. I didn't. I wasn't working in Treasury. It was really more that the credit manager in the Atlanta office was Accounts Receivable and credit. I was working for the credit manager. So even at that point, I didn't really even know what treasury was. Even as I was coming up, they kind of, the managers there in that office, I think saw the writing on the wall and they would tell me to go, that I should sit for the CTP exam. And I said, what's the CTP exam? I don't even know what that is. So just about a year later, know, the position opened up. And so I'd say, like you said, if somebody on the younger side of their career is listening to this, one thing that I look back on is that I took a chance, it required a relocation. So my family and I moved up from Atlanta to the Philadelphia area. And at the time, my wife was nearly eight months pregnant. So the timing wasn't ideal. But we just decided as a family, we took a chance and made that relocation. And that's actually how I got into Treasury.

When you made that move and what was treasury presented like at that stage? What was come and join us in treasury and you're like, whoa, okay, what's treasury about? Sort of thing.

So an interesting time for this to happen, because this all happened. The move happened in September of 2008, so I had no idea what I was getting into.

Yeah. At the high depths of recession as well. Nice.

Yeah. It was very interesting times to make a change, a career change like that. So not having any experience or background, and I was suddenly being asked to be a manager. My first task was really getting educated on how it all worked. And so when I arrived at the new office at the corporate headquarters in Philadelphia, the Treasury analyst was training me, so I was her boss, but she was the one training me on the. On the routine functions and, you know, the basics of Treasury. Wow. She was a wonderful trainer and taught me a lot, and away I went.

And how did you manage that relationship? Because, again, there'll be people in that. If you're being trained by someone junior than you, how do you deal with that? You know, how do you then reciprocate that, if you like, without being. But I am your boss, you know.

Right. It's a delicate balance, I think. You know, first of all, you have to stay humble. You need to make sure that your interactions with your junior employee there are respectful. And I think coming into that situation, she and I both knew what the score was. She knew that I was coming in. I made it very clear that I knew absolutely zero about treasury and what we were going to be doing. So I think she understood that and she didn't hold any resentment. Luckily, she was only maybe two or three years out of college. She understood that she wasn't quite yet ready for the position herself. Right. So it's not as though she had any feelings like she had been passed over.

So she was. Yeah, sort of. Legitimately, you had that much more experience of finance as well. So moving through that role, you know, what was it like? You know, the company and things. Obviously, they were laboratory supplies and distribution. So good company to work for, good place to sort of round out your initial treasury expertise.

Absolutely. It was a great place to work. I mentioned Scott was the name of the treasurer there, and so I got to work a lot more closely with him and see how things went. You know, the first thing that I did when I got there, on top of being educated by my treasury analyst, was then finally taking the advice of my prior managers and sitting for the CTP exam. You know, Scott said the same thing. I said, look, you know, I'm willing to spend the extra time, evenings and weekends. I want to, you know, is there a textbook on this stuff? I just want to learn everything there is to learn. About this as much as I can and I'm willing to put in the extra effort. So, you know, of course the response was, well, the best thing you can do right now is, you know, study for and sit for the CTP exam. So the first year at VWR was really, you know, during the day learning the practical applications of it all the basics. Yeah. And then in the evenings and weekends, studying for the exam with a newborn baby. Course with a newborn baby. Yeah.

You just make it easy on yourself. Yeah, Chilling, relax, just by the pool. Nice. I remember talking to Heather, one of our treasurers, and she was asked about the UK exams and one of the guys, one of the senior people from the exam board asked her, said, well, how did you, you know, what was your key to success? Because she got award. She's very bright lady and everything else. What was your key to success? And she went, Pinot Grigio. And the guy's like, what? And she went, yeah, but what she meant, and he didn't quite get her sort of tongue in cheek reply was that what she would do, she'd finish her day, she'd go in, she'd have a bite to eat and something like that, and then she would sit at the dining room table with a bottle of Pinot Grigio or maybe just a glass. No, not judging Heather, but what she would actually do is she would study, quaffing away at the wine, but just nice, relaxed as part of her evening routine. She'd do that every night for a couple of hours and then watch a bit of Teddy and then off to bed and repeat. And that's all she did. And that's where, you know, just that consistent approach, work all day, food, study, boom. And just did that. And, you know, that got her through it was that similar with yourself sort of thing. Because that's quite a challenge.

Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. You know, it makes me think of the expression, how do you eat an elephant? Yeah, you only just do it one bite at a time.

Exactly. Love it.

As soon as I got started and made up my mind that I was going to sit for that exam, I didn't take the approach that I needed to learn the entire seven book set in one night. I knew this was going to be several months spread over time. Then it was nice because my company was willing to pay for a little bit of training. My analyst and I sat for the exam at the same time. And she and I took a class at Villanova University once a week in the Evenings too. So that was like a 12 week course. And I think that course was very helpful as far as educating me, first of all, but secondly, helping me to pass the exam on the first try.

So that's what, you know, anyone thinking about ctp, do what he said, you know, just take your time and get through. And then you were there three years, you know, moved on, talks about the move and progression.

So the next company that I worked for is called Cornerstone Chemical. It was based in Louisiana. I was happy at bwr. I didn't leave that company because I was unhappy with the, the company. It was more like I mentioned before, we moved our family up there. I'm not from Georgia, but my wife is, and she's a Georgia Peach. And you take a Georgia Peach and you move her up to Pennsylvania. And a lot of times doesn't mix so well. So I had made a deal with her when we took that chance and said, look, if neither of us are happy or even if one of us is unhappy, as I fulfill my end of the contract that I signed when we made that move, then no questions asked, I will try to get us back down here. Well, by the time that happened in 2010, 2011, the financial crisis had really made an impact on the job market. So it was really, in 2010, 2011, it was really hard to find a job in Treasury. By that point, I had kind of been bitten by the treasury bug and I knew I had finally found what I wanted to do, where my career was supposed to be. I kind of finally found it. So I really wanted to stay in treasury, but it took a while, but finally I was offered a job in the New Orleans, Louisiana area. And while it was in Atlanta, it at least was closer to my wife's home. She's very close with her family and really didn't want to leave in the first place. So we didn't really quite get back to Atlanta at the time, but we got her back closer. But as far as the company is concerned, it was a much smaller company compared to vwr, but that had a lot of, I think, advantages to it from a Treasury standpoint. When, you know, when you work for a company that's smaller in size, you get to deal with the CFO and even the CEO on a much more personal basis. And it gave me a lot more responsibility as I grew there. So that was a great role for me at Cornerstone.

Yeah, and you grew this. So you made the natural move from you learned from your junior treasury analyst to become the treasury manager. Then you made this move to Treasury Manager before then, you know, this most recent role as Global Treasury Operations Director, which is, you know, great role and everything else. But talk us through the progression you had at Cornerstone, because that was a role where you really came into yourself and you took a more and more responsibility globally. Talk us through that. And again, this is for more of an expression for the listeners that they'll be in a similar situation. Oh, actually I'm doing a similar thing as Doug that, oh yeah, I'm being asked to do this. So what was your attitude to work? You're ensuring liquidity, obviously, but what were your key top tips for people and things?

It was interesting because this is maybe a lesson in the concept of titles, because when I left vwr, my CFO wanted to meet with me and get a sense for my decision and why I was leaving the company. And he wanted to know where I was going, what the title was, etc. But if you look at the titles really from VWR to Cornerstone, I had really the same title, Treasury Manager. And so he said, why are you leaving? Just to take for a lateral move? Well, it was a little bit of a different situation because of the size of the company. So Cornerstone being so much smaller, I was really the top. Even though my title was Treasury Manager, functionally I was essentially the treasurer. And I was even told that as I was interviewing for the position, I reported directly to the cfo. So there was no treasure in between myself and the CFO as it was at vwr. So there was a lot more responsibility heaped on my shoulders in that role for that reason. So there was no filter if there were any mistakes made in the world of treasury at Cornerstone, everybody knew who was responsible for that.

Then talk to me about how you were implementing all these different things. And again, this is for the listeners. What was your approach bringing to your most recent role? But in that role, was it very much just hands on, just get stuff done day to day or what was the sort of situation?

Well, the situation, the reason why that role was created in the first place was because this was a company that was the result of a carve out. So the company based in New Jersey, that had several plant locations around the country, and they were looking to shave off their ancillary businesses so that they could concentrate on their core and then be sold themselves. So part of that process was selling this plant, L.A. and in February of 2011 they did that. The deal went down, they sold to a private equity group. And for the first time ever, this company was a Standalone. So the business then needed to staff a finance department. They had a few accounts payable clerks and a couple payroll employees. But aside from that they didn't really have, I think they had a financial analyst, but they didn't have a cfo. They didn't have anybody in Treasury. They didn't have an FP and a. Because all of that stuff was. All of those functions were done at the corporate office in New Jersey. So the role really was created from scratch for that reason. So it was. The first year or even two years of that experience was a whirlwind. It was a great experience for me because I learned so much. We went through an ERP implementation and I was a big part of that. And it was really about establishing the treasury team. Even though to give you an idea of the size of this company, we were 600, 700 million top line sales annually. But our entire finance department, including the CFO was 14 the headcount there. So it was a very small. The entire company didn't even have 500 employees at the time of the sale. So it was just that, you know, a very small kind of family oriented culture. But it was wonderful because everybody that was in that department, everybody on that team had their own responsibility and everybody knew how to work well together. But it was from a Treasury perspective, it was wonderful because I got to get my hands on, especially the debt management. This was a company that was highly leveraged and I got to really get, you know, roll up my sleeves, get my hands dirty and really get a good education on debt management. Covenant Complian.

So when you're doing that debt heavy, we'll move on to your current company a minute because obviously it flips actually. So when you're that end of the seesaw. Is that all about bank relationship management? Be nice to those guys, manage it, get your cash flow, get your cash in efficiently and everything else. Is that the sort of ethos behind it?

Absolutely. It was the absolute top priority. Especially once I was three, four or five years into that position, the financial ratios for that company became a little bit concerning because we were really flirting with flipping on the other side of the covenant compliance coin. Yeah, the balance that was extremely important that we don't break our covenants. And so cash management was absolutely critical, both sides of it. Collections, accounts receivable, vendor payments with accounts payable. I was overseeing a lot of that. And I know that my cfo, when I left that company, my CFO shook my hand and thanked me for all my work because he knew that A lot of the efforts that I made in a lot of cases, in his words, he said, really kind of saved the company essentially, which was nice to hear.

As well as keeping the cash and making sure that was efficient in. Did it mean that you were reaching out to your banking partners and everyone else, other finance partners, you're making sure all the time that you're taking them out for the nice lunches and keeping them apprised of the story? Was that more the CFO's responsibility at the time or what was the situation?

We were pretty frequently having those kind of interactions with the bankers. The New Orleans market is unique. It's a smaller size market than I expected, having never lived there before. But even our banking relationships were out of town. So we actually didn't have any bankers that were in the same city as us. Our primary FX guy was in Chicago. Our primary relationship manager was in Atlanta. But given that we were located in New Orleans or just outside of New Orleans, those bankers would enjoy coming down to pay us a visit, right?

Yeah.

New Orleans is a great city to visit.

Yeah.

And have a nice meal and then maybe a little bit of entertainment.

Cool. Yeah. Good advert for New Orleans.

Yeah. It was definitely an important aspect of that relationship. I think that the bankers enjoyed coming down to pay us a visit. We talked business during the day, but then we'd go out for a nice meal and even stay out late afterwards. Just ask my wife about those nights. Yeah.

You didn't have the newborn then. You were right. So that's right. Not quite so stressful. What happened next? You'd had enough of. After six years of that sort of environment. And was it quite challenging as Treasure? You know, it's great. Your stripes, as it were. You then made the move. What led to that again?

I was. I was happy at Cornerstone. I could have stayed there longer, but this opportunity came up with abx. And you know the interesting thing, you know, if you do have younger listeners listening to this podcast, you know, this is an interesting point in my career because again, back to the titles, etc. But this is the first time that I was being offered a director level title. However, it was actually as far as compensation was concerned, I'd say a significant pay cut. But I took that chance because during the interview, I interviewed with the cfo, this was yet again, just like Cornerstone, a company that did not have a treasurer level employee. So I would then once again be the top level treasury person within the company. And he told me that his title was CFO and treasurer, but that he wasn't really interested in keeping that treasurer role. He said, I don't have a background in Treasury. I don't really want to be the treasurer of this company. What I want to do is hire somebody to come in, be the director of treasury and earn their stripes, show, add value to the company and then eventually promote that person to the treasurer level position. So I looked at it as a, once again taking a bit of a bet on myself and despite the pay cut, you know, take the chance on it and, you know, with the ultimate goal, eventually hopefully being a treasurer role for the first time in my career.

And what's it been like? Because obviously lead your team, a global team, as you say, you're sort of taking over the top job. Could you give again, the listeners, they don't know abx, you know, from, from the next company, maybe just give a very brief oversight what you guys do, because I think that then feeds into some of the other conversation, cash flows and things like that.

So just like Cornerstone, AVX is a manufacturer. Cornerstone was a manufacturer of what we called intermediate chemicals. But AVX is a manufacturer of electronic components. So primarily capacitors, transistors, et cetera, products that are smaller than the size of a dime. And these products find their way into, like you said at the beginning of the show, the automotive sector, the healthcare, medical sector, law enforcement, government. There's a wide variety of end uses for these products, but it's comparing to the other two companies in my treasury career, it is a good bit smaller than vwr, but a good bit larger than Cornerstone. So it's kind of right in the middle. Again, it's another company where I think I said before that it's the top level treasury position reporting directly to the cfo. This has been an absolutely wonderful opportunity for me coming in. The company had treasury directors or treasury managers as my predecessors. But those treasury people throughout the last 20 years or so always kind of had a split role where they'd be for a long time. The gentleman who was the treasury director was also the tax director. And so he'd be spending a good 40, 50% of his time on tax management. Then his successor was also the director of Global Insurance and Accounts Receivable and Credit. So she was kind of split between all these different roles as well. But when the CFO at the time retired and his successor was named, who is now my boss, as the cfo, one of the first things that he wanted to do was really bring in somebody who'd be 100% dedicated to the treasury function. The company had grown a lot over the last three years prior to my arrival via acquisition. So because of that growth, he felt that there was a need to have somebody dedicated to Treasury.

Let's just talk about some of the dimensions there. You've gone from debt laden to suddenly cash rich as a company and it's different and you can describe it as you're allowed to, but more maybe if you would, how did that change the external things as well? Because now do you have the banks coming to you or what's the sort of ethos and how does it change your role within Treasury?

Well, it changes it quite a bit. So yeah, like I mentioned before with Cornerstone, it was a daily challenge to make sure we were on a daily basis complying with debt covenants, credit facility covenants here at avx, like you're mentioning, the company has no debt on its balance sheet. Absolutely zero, outside of intercompany loans, of course, like you mentioned also, Mike, it's a cash rich company as well. Obviously the role changes quite a bit. 0% of my time is now focused on debt management, but now a much larger percentage of my time is spent on investments. So coming in the door, I was honest with the CFO and said, look, I'll be honest with you, one area of treasury that I don't have any experience in and I by that point had 10 years of experience in treasury, but still I've never touched investments before because the two companies I've worked for before had debt and we essentially took all of our excess cash and paid down debt with it. So we weren't investing anything. So that's an area that I'm going to need to get educated on. So I think your young listeners could always think a message that I would have is that as you go through your career, you're never too old to learn something new. If you ever go about thinking that you've learned everything there is to know, then it's going to be a tough lesson for you to learn when you realize that you don't. So there's always, within the world of treasury, there's so many different components of it with debt, investments, fx, cash management, risk. And there's still things that I have yet to learn myself. I'm only 12 years in into treasury and there's still a lot that I have to learn. I know in a lot of companies insurance and risk is a huge aspect of it. I've never actually managed insurance policies before. There's somebody else at AVX that does that now. So I think one piece of advice that I'd offer is that you should always be looking to add tools into your tool belt and there's so many different tools within treasury that you can put into your arsenal that will help you in the long run.

I was going to say you've moved from this sort of, as you said, debt laden to cash rich and investment focus, as it were. How have you educated yourself? What have you did your CTP ages ago. So what did you do then? To bring yourself up to speed or to increase your knowledge? What did you do? Meet with lots of bankers, say what should we do with this? Because obviously, simply speaking, they're going to come at it from a biased position. So how did you deal with it?

Right. Well, I think anytime you're in a situation like that, even not specific to investments, but just anything that you're being charged with managing that you are coming in the door with zero experience on. Like this was for me. I think that the first thing you need to do is just get up to speed with how the company you work for has managed it before. Just get educated on what the policy is. Immerse yourself in this case in the investment policy statement. Get a feel for the company culture because the AVX company culture is very conservative and that bleeds into the investment strategy and policy. So it's safety of investments is absolute, most important aspect of the investment policy.

So very vanilla. You have to be very safety conscious.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. But then once you get up to speed on how ABX handles this, then I view, and I haven't quite gotten to this point yet, but I view that the next step after this is meeting with outside advisors, bankers, et cetera, that can educate you on perhaps what might be out there that the company has not been taking advantage of. If there's any opportunities in the area that you're talking about, you know, at least maybe explore it, get educated on it. And if you think it's a good fit, if it bring value to the organization you work for, present that to your superior CFO, etc. And see if it works. You know, I'll say that a lot of the ideas that I've already brought to the table, the CFO has, has shot down. But that's okay. That's what the CFO's job is to do. He's I'm coming in, I'm bringing my experience and presenting to him what I think we should be doing, not only in investments, but any other area, fx, et cetera. And I'm okay, if he shoots down nine out of every ten ideas that I bring, that's okay because I view that if the CFO is doing that, as long as it makes sense and the logic that he's using to do it and applying it to our policies, then he's doing his job well too. But, you know, my job is just to kind of think outside the box and bring new concepts to the company.

Where I can using that as an intro to those ideas. One in 10 that maybe gets through. What. What is the key thing about that? Would you say? Maybe or. Again, I sometimes talk on the podcast about treasurers being at the forefront of those ideas, you know, and saying, look, you know, sometimes the CFO is pushing. Can you go and assess those 10 ideas for me? I want to know what the one that works or, you know, some treasurers saying, actually I want, I want to look at IT technology or this new cash management initiative and things like that. I mean, what are the areas that you think you should be exploring as a treasurer and the development of things. What excites you?

Well, for me, and we haven't touched on it yet, but in the one and a half years that I've been with avx so far, the project I've been working on is a bank rationalization project in our APAC and EMEA regions. But once that project is complete, and hopefully I'll be able to wrap up a bow on that project within the next coming months. You know, I think the projects that I'm looking at, one of them is AP automation, a revision of how the AP function works within the company, perhaps a centralization of that function globally, but also looking at tms. I think a tms, a company of this size should be probably using a tms, and today it doesn't. It never has used a tms. The company is going through a quite an undertaking with a global ERP implementation on SAP. So that's going to be several years that it takes to implement that. But I think a TMS perhaps to augment that ERP platform is going to be important. There's a number of other projects that I'd like to take on, even a netting function. I have other ideas, but it's all going to be what the CFO guides me on.

Yeah, there's only so much time in the day sort of thing as well, you know, to do it all. So we're not quite at the end of the show, but we're sort of approaching it, you know, rapidly. But just looking across the roles, if you like, so come from debt to, you know, cash rich to everything else going back to you. And again, the piece of advice, maybe that will put your, you know, LinkedIn details in the show notes which people can look up. What's the advice you would give? Not the top three pieces, just more, you know, I know that we were having, we had a really good pre podcast call where we talked a lot more about cash being, you know, king and it was different, you know, maybe even just reflecting on, you know, the current situation in the world and you've got Covid and everything else. Everyone's so bored of it. I think we all are. But, but how have you coped in treasury terms and what have been the key things for you? AvX, maybe you've been working from home and stuff, but you, at the same time you're doing the bank rationalization, has that been a better thing for you guys? Or has that been more challenging or where has it left you?

Well, the bank rationalization thing I think is going to be an absolute positive for the business. Again, we're not fully complete there yet, but it's going to achieve so many different things. Number one, because this company had all of its banking spread across so many different banks, there were actually 50 banks used globally. And to squeeze all that down, rationalize it, we're going to do a much better job of reducing or even eliminating our idle cash. And secondly, we should be able to see a reduction in bank fees. So I think the project that we're undertaking right now is going to be an absolute positive. But I would say as far as advising the younger listeners, I'd say as far as what I've done, I always look at it this way. I even said this to a colleague recently. I said, I always try to learn from my mistakes, but what's even better than that is to learn from somebody else's mistakes. And I think that that's kind of applied here in my current role because, you know, I've heard stories of my predecessors in this role, especially on the FX front, where they might have taken a misstep, made a mistake, and it's really hurt them, not only where it's hurt the business from a financial standpoint, but it's hurt their standing in the eyes of the senior management of the business. And so I really try to examine what it was, what went into those decisions that they made that turned out to be poor decisions. And the more you can learn from those type of things, whether they're your own mistakes or someone else's, it's really going to make you a more well rounded person because decision making is a huge aspect of Treasury, I think more so than other areas of finance.

Does that mean that you're really conservative and you have to run everything past your boss and you don't ever make a decision yourself without his say so?

Yeah, it is a very conservative company, but actually there's a bit of a. I don't know if it's the right word to use, but maybe a bit of a tug of war there because the question you ask is very appropriate because even in my performance evaluation, the one thing my CFO told me was that I'm maybe too timid, I am not taking enough initiative with some of these decisions. And so kind of where I've stood as the new guy coming into the business, I played it cautiously because I understand the conservative culture at this company. So I don't want to overstep and make any decisions that my CFO is not approving of. So that's a challenge for me, is trying to balance that because he's told me directly that I need to take more initiative in my decision making. But at the same time I still want to be cautious and make sure it's in line with the company culture and the policy.

But at the end of the day as well, and one of the other things you're not, you're still 18 months in, you know, you're so the first year, we sometimes say this, first year to learn a job, second year to do the job, third year to get bored of a job, you know, so after three years you've been through those cycles and you've learned it and stuff like that, but you're now you're amidst of that doing cycle. So you're, you know, you're getting to know this, you know what the CFO wants the first time, two or three times cycles, there's two or three things, you're like, hang on, what's going to float this guy's boat? Or not. So, you know, you're sort of coming through that and now you found yourself and it's like, right, okay, this I think will go, this will fly, blah, blah, blah. So that seems to be, you know, certainly something that, just from our discussions there, I think that's a key thing as well. So would that be right, do you think? Sort of just to give you the sort of the right of reply.

I think it can work out to be that way. But I think if you find yourself in the third year of a role and you do find that you're getting bored with it. A lot of things within your career could be outside of your control, but you really have to look in the mirror and see what is it that's actually within your control. Because if you find that you're getting bored in the role that you're in, really ask yourself, is there anything I can do and anything within my control to change that? Because if I'm getting bored, you know, that's not good for either side. It's not good for the company, it's not good for the treasurer, in my view. The world of treasury is so exciting. There's so much out there, it's always changing. And if you find that you're getting bored, I would say to challenge yourself, to really look, to see what is it that your company is missing, what can be changed to make things even more productive, streamlined, efficient. There's always something that you can do to improve and so take on a new project you can really be proud of down the road and be able to point to your CFO that this really brought value and it even turned into profits.

Well, pay for yourself. And that's one of the key things, I think a lot of treasurers, sometimes when we get engaged by clients, they're like, oh, it's quite hefty fee. Or, you know, I said, look, the treasurer that we place with you, if they don't save their money in the first month for our fee and the second month, their wages, then they're not doing their job and they're like, oh, right, okay. So you guys make a real difference every time you sort of land in a new role sort of thing, which I think is key to sort of. Of bring to some CFO's attention, as it were.

Absolutely. And my boss even told me that exact line.

There you go, you see, I like him already. So let's go back to you. Forget about the roles. Let's look at you as a Treasury professional. You did CTP a number of years ago, you've done everything else, but someone looks at your profile on LinkedIn, we'll put that, as I say in the show notes. What are the top three or four things, maybe about yourself that you would say, or the piece of advice you're. Or having a beer with a junior treasury analyst to say, oh, God, how did you get to where you are today? What are the key things you would give to people as the golden nuggets of wisdom from you as you sit in your armchair? But over to you.

So I mentioned Scott was my treasurer, the first guy that took a chance on me, I think within the niche of Treasury, I think if you listen to, and I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and other podcasts dedicated to treasury, and it seems like one thing that everybody has in common with that is first of all, you can't get a college degree in Treasury. There's no, in the States, we'd call it a bachelor's degree. There's no bachelor's degree of Treasury. My bachelor's degree was in finance. So you don't come out of college of school already knowing that you want to be in Treasury. So most people early in their careers have never heard of it or don't even know what it is, which is unique compared to accounting or FP and a type aspect of finance. So I think because of that, everybody finds that they get into treasury because they in a way luck into it or fall into really comes because somebody else, usually a mentor type role or somebody along the way in their career, took a chance on that person. And that happened to me, somebody who saw something in me and gave me a chance, understanding that I didn't have any background in Treasury. But at some point in everybody's career, you have no experience in Treasury. So in order to get into it, you have to start somewhere. So somebody along the way took a chance on you to get you into Treasury. And I think everybody comes into the world of treasury with that as an experience, knowing that somebody else senior to them took a chance on them. So I think that most people, as they advance in their careers, understanding that, would like to kind of pay it forward. And they also turn around and see the same kind of it still exists today where still even today there's no bachelor's degree in Treasury. So in order to find the talent to get out there and get good treasury analysts that are one day going to become treasury managers and treasurers, you have to take a chance on those people. So if I were to advise somebody, I'd say, even if you're not in a role of treasury now, it's never too late to make a switch in. If it's something that sounds like it's of interest to you, talk to somebody who's been doing it for a while and if it sounds interesting and there's an opportunity, go out and snag it. Take a bet on yourself, take a bit of a risk. To me, it's kind of ironic that, and my treasurer always told me that if you really want to make your way in treasury, first of all, you have to be willing to move geographically. And that's been true for me. I moved from Atlanta to Philadelphia to New Orleans and now South Carolina. You know, I haven't done any international moves. I don't know if my wife and family would be game for that or not. But you have to be able to take chances. And so I find the irony in that is that in the role of treasury, your job is to protect your company from risk. But on the flip side, as far as your career advancement, what I'm advising people is to take a little bit.

Of a risk, take a measurement.

And I did that. I've done that a few times. I moved my 8 month pregnant wife and our other son across the country to a different spot just to take a chance on a role that I didn't really know anything about. And then more recently I took a job moving us once again geographically, even though it involved a significant pay cut, which, you know, had an impact on our family finances, et cetera. So it's a bit of a risk. I'd tell young people that. It's if you're confident in your skills and you and you're hungry for learning something new and what treasury is, sounds like it's something that would excite you for the duration of your career. Take a chance on yourself. Yeah.

Take a measured risk, basically. Yeah. Has all good treasures. Yeah.

Right.

So amazing show. Thank you, Doug. Been great to sort of go through, you know, we deep dive into a few of your roles. Some, some weeks we sort of quickly go through someone's career history. But I think each of those roles offered different tidbits and different things going making that move, particularly from debt laden to cash rich. We talked about that. I think that really helps and I think anyone certainly in the earlier years of their career really grab some benefit from today's show. So all remains for me to say is thank you, Mr. Neville. Thank you very much, sir.

Been a pleasure, Mike. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.