Leading Global Treasury Across Finance, Technology, Consumer Products, Sports and Entertainment

In this week's show, you'll get to hear from Garima Thakur, the global treasurer at Creative Artists Agency. Have a quick listen.

I think for my peers and how I'm thinking about it in my role as treasurer, this really varies by company and industry, of course, but I think being mindful of who your stakeholders are and what is the measurable impact that you're driving. For those stakeholders. For treasury, liquidity management is one of the most important things we do, not just on a real-time basis, but on a forward-looking basis as well to be mindful and thoughtful around scenario planning. So you're not waiting for things to happen. And of course there will be surprises. We adapt, that's what we do. I mean, we have the strikes in the entertainment industry. Certain industries are more impacted than others by the tariff talks. So there are things that are happening that will impact some Treasury teams more than others. But as much as possible, if we can, you know, try to be forward-looking and prepared in terms of scenario— Treasury is a high-stakes environment, particularly in cash management and Treasury operations. You hit send on that payment, it's out there. So mistakes can be very costly. But the first thing you say when you observe a mistake is the, like we all do this, right? The postmortem of like, how did this happen? What happened? How can we first stop the bleeding? But then how do you make sure this doesn't happen again? Where did the process break? And I think when you approach learning with that lens of walking the team through those steps of where did it break, do we understand it, how are we going to fix it, how do we make sure the mistake doesn't happen again.

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 Garima Thakur, the global treasurer and risk leader at Creative Artists Agency, CAA. Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the Creative Artists Agency is one of the foremost entertainment and sports agencies globally. Named the most valuable sports agency by Forbes for 9 consecutive years, CAA represents more than 2,000 of the world's sports top athletes in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, in addition to coaches, on-air broadcasters, and sports personalities, and works in the areas broadcast rights, corporate marketing initiatives, social impact, and sports properties for sales and sponsorship opportunities. But that we're going to come back to later in the show. Garima, if you would take us back to the beginning of your career and how you discovered finance and then the wonderful world that is Treasury. Over to you.

Thanks for having me, Mike Richards. Sure. Let me tell you how I got into the world of finance and Treasury. I am originally from India, born and brought up there. I did my undergrad studies in India in engineering, so very different specialty. I was an electronics and telecommunications engineer. I worked in India for a few years and then decided to pursue my MBA, which is what brought me to the US. And I pursued my finance MBA at Thunderbird School of Global Management, which is now part of ASU. And it was during my MBA program that I was offered a treasury internship at Western Union. I'll be honest with you, Mike, I did— I had no clue at the time what a treasury function did, but Western Union hired me as their first treasury intern. So it was a new program they were developing. and it was a terrific program. It was a rotational internship across 4 different areas in Treasury: cash management, debt capital markets, compliance, and foreign exchange. And I got to spend about 1 to 2 months in each of the programs, and that really gave me my first, you know, window into what does a corporate treasury function do. And I couldn't have picked a better one because it's a huge Treasury team there and so many different areas within Treasury that I got exposure to. I actually ended up extending that internship. I walked away from that experience and came back to business school, you know, aligned that Treasury is what I want to pursue.

So you gained those foundations in Treasury, but why did you think, hang on, Treasury's for me, or what was it that lit you up, if you like, and thought, actually, this is a place I want to be in?

That is such a good question. I think the thing about treasury that I find very interesting, even till date, if you ask me what do I enjoy the most about treasury or what has kept me in this space for as long as it has, it's really how central it is to the business. And that is something I picked up on pretty quickly when I was at Western Union. Strategy requires cash or capital to execute. And Treasury plays that role of stewardship for that liquidity. You're right in the middle of strategic initiatives. You're also supporting day-to-day operations, and you end up working with nearly every function across the company. That combination is what I found really interesting of being close to strategy, execution, and the business itself. And that's what makes Treasury such a unique and exciting function for for me.

And then you, as you said, you went back to Thunderbird and obviously education I know has played a big part of in your career with, you know, a lot of the different things you've done, but you know, that, did you find that that was filling in the gaps and then right now let's find my treasury career or what happened next?

Yeah. What happened next was the financial crisis. So graduating post-financial crisis was not a great time to be changing a career path. And for me, that's what this was. I was trying to get into a new area of Treasury after doing my MBA in finance. I was very fortunate. It took a while that I got hired or started my full-time Treasury career after that internship as a Treasury Analyst for a publicly traded company in California that was a conglomerate of e-commerce businesses. The company was called United Online. And the great thing about that opportunity was it was a very lean team. It was basically me and one other person. And I got to wear multiple hats in that job. So I started off with cash management, but I also quickly learned investments, foreign exchange, hedge accounting, unclaimed property management, debt capital markets. Financial reporting. There was no, this doesn't belong in treasury, so I'm not doing it, because we were such a lean team in finance. And they took a shot at me and gave me this opportunity, and I was like a sponge, just learning it all and enjoying it along the way. So that opportunity was somewhat unique, because if you think about a very large treasury function, by nature they have to be more siloed. And I have had an opportunity to lead large functions like that more recently at Ingram Micro, where you cannot have one person wear so many hats. You have to have things more siloed because the operations are so large. So I think starting off in a smaller operation gave me that incredible breadth across treasury on so many different areas within treasury. And then it was later on in my career as I continued on, I went to LPL Financial, which is a publicly traded broker-dealer in San Diego. I went and joined them as treasury manager next, and I left them as the assistant treasurer. And only to— it was a terrific company, one of my favorite places to be, but it was hard to pass up the opportunity to go be the first Treasurer of TaylorMade Golf Company. They used to be part of Adidas and were going standalone under P sponsorship for the first time and needed a Treasurer to come in and build out a Treasury function from the ground up, which is a very unique opportunity. So, I went and did that. I then, as I said earlier, led the Treasury function also for Ingram Micro, which is a large global technology distribution company. And close to about 5 years back, I came to CAA, Creative Artists Agency, and you introduced the company upfront, but it's a terrific place to be, very similar to TaylorMade. I came in and stood a treasury function from the ground up 5 years back, and it's been an incredibly rewarding position.

So you've, you know, and again, I've got sort of your background here that you've gone really broad and, you know, generalist treasury, and then you've become much more LPL, more, you know, narrower, and, you know, set of responsibilities and things through capital markets, and then become this global treasurer, obviously with tailor-made and things. But picking out any of those moves there, if you like, rather than diving too deep in them, but are there any things that you had, you know, as a guiding light, if you like, were your north star? Because if someone's listening today and they're, you know, a treasury professional on a similar journey, What was guiding you, or what was you thinking, right, I need to keep doing this, or actually, I don't want to do that stuff, or that's not going to help me in the future? How did you drive forward that way?

I'll really credit my journey successes, but also learnings along the way to the sponsors and mentors I've had. And it's been so many of them from the MBA program till date. Like I said earlier, I was born and brought up in India. My whole family is still there. So when I moved here, I moved for career, for education. And as I was working in different companies, my colleagues were not just my colleagues, they were also my mentors, friends, my network, and my support system. So I benefited a lot from, from those folks along, along the way in my journey. And I've been very fortunate to learn from people who challenged me, advocated for me, and helped broaden how I think about leadership and finance. I've always followed the mantra of knowledge is power. You mentioned education earlier, and it's, it's very, very important. Investing in learning, asking questions, and truly understanding the business has made a very big difference in my career. And finally, I'll say I've been very intentional about diversifying my experience within Treasury. I talked about this a little bit earlier, and rather than staying in one lane, so getting exposure. If you think about Treasury as an area, the bread and butter of Treasury and the core of any function, any Treasury function, what they do is Treasury operations or cash management. Yeah. You then build on that. There could be Do they have debt? It's debt capital markets. Where does insurance and risk management sit? So it then starts to build, and for some of these areas like debt capital markets and risk management, you know, it helps to go deeper, and you have to have— you have to be a subject matter expertise or have a subject matter expertise on your team you can rely on. So I, I think as I've gone through my career journey, it started off pretty broad, great, wearing multiple hats. But then as I've gone through different roles, I've really taken some of these complex areas within Treasury like debt capital markets, hedging, hedge accounting, investing, investor relations, debt management, all of these, and become a subject matter expert in those. And that doesn't mean you're a know-it-all. It's, you know, when to ask the right questions, you know, the fundamentals. And that variety has really helped me grow. It's helped me stay adaptable and continue to add value as I've gone across and evolved across roles and industries.

How did you get the role of global treasury? You know, you've been at Ingram Micro and then LPL Financial, then you've done Telemate Golf with private equity, to creative artists. I know that people say Treasury is agnostic about industry, you can move across, but how come you managed to secure this role?

It is very different. So I mean, I had worked in sports before. I had experience with tailor-made golf companies. I'd experienced with sports, but not with entertainment. The company had reached out to me and it was a really interesting opportunity. There was a lot going on here and I was very impressed with the team. But your industry point is a really interesting one. I started off with financial services money movement at Western Union, went into broker-dealer. I also did e-commerce. I've done sports manufacturing, technology distribution, and now entertainment and sports. Yeah, yes, there are aspects of treasury that are consistent and, you know, basic across all industries because it applies, but there are some very unique things about each of these industries as well that from a Treasury standpoint have been very, you know, good challenge to learn and learn a new industry, learn a new aspect of Treasury within that industry. For example, the broker-dealer industry is a highly regulated one. There is a concept of reserve requirement that the Treasury team has to maintain there on a weekly basis. You don't see that in other industries. The technology distribution industry is a low-margin business and a very heavy focus on working capital that I have not, had not worked so heavily on working capital management in any of my prior roles until I got to Ingram Micro. Entertainment has its own nuances around how money flows through a talent agency. So each of these has been unique and different, but that's what keeps things interesting.

So obviously a natural move for you, you've touched on sports and But then you have brokering, you've got, you know, technology and things like that. Now you're in talent agency. When I've spoken to other treasurers in similar industries, the variety is just, you know, it makes your head spin sometimes. Is it similar there or what's it like? What's the interest level there?

We are a fast-paced industry and, you know, if you're following the industry, you've also seen, you know, a couple of years back we had the strikes in the industry. So we navigated that. Of course, you know, the pandemic and COVID impacted everyone, and we navigated through that. So it's a fast-paced environment which keeps Treasury engaged to support the business. There's a lot of new technology that we support as well for our clients, and where Treasury can help, we step in there as well. You know, it's also something to keep in mind, and I mentioned this earlier, is we are a relatively new treasury function. And we are still in that phase of kind of building out and rightsizing the treasury function, which is on top of all the fast-paced environment that we are in, keeps us additionally busy because we are still building out the fundamentals and processes, still being a 4 to 5 year old treasury function.

And with yourself, you know, How have you then seen your role evolving as the treasurer with AI technologies? You know, it's marching, it's not stopping. You know, it's like literally, if anything, it's accelerating. How are you seeing that affect your day-to-day role or how are you, you know, planning for it with you and the team and things?

I think the future of treasury will be heavily shaped by technology, especially AI. We're already seeing how powerful it can be for areas like cash forecasting. And when I say we, I don't mean necessarily at my current company, but just broader. Statement for treasury professionals in cash forecasting, scenario modeling, compliance, capital markets. There's so many use cases in helping teams analyze data faster and with greater precision. Of course, it still has its drawbacks and, you know, challenges around hallucinations. It's not perfect and requires heavy focus on human judgment. What excites me most is the opportunity to use AI as an enabler to improve visibility efficiency and decision-making while still recognizing that it's a tool, it's not a replacement for human judgment. Strategic thinking, experience, and context will always be critical. But I think that combination of strong treasury professionals and technology is where the real transformation is going to happen. And we're already seeing signs of this.

One of the things I was going to mention was you won some awards. And that was one of the reasons why I originally approached yourself when you were hitting the headlines in a very positive manner. What's that been like for you guys, you know, winning, you know, you won this Alexander Hamilton Award. Can you talk us through that as well?

I think it's important for the team's efforts to be recognized, and I give 100% credit for this to my team, and we were lucky to be selected. We received the Alexander Hamilton Award for CAA in the Treasury Transformation category, which is a great recognition of the team's efforts and the change we were able to drive over the last 4 to 5 years of, like I said earlier, being a new treasury function getting stood up from scratch. And some of the highlights there for us were driving a banking transformation at the same time that we were also building the treasury fundamentals around processes and procedures. And also creating a foreign exchange approach. There is, there is a lot that the team did in a short period of time. So it was that transformation from being scattered across different functions to being a dedicated treasury team that was handling debt capital markets, risk management, insurance, foreign exchange, banking, treasury operations, payments, And the list goes on. And I'm incredibly proud of the work that the team has done.

And how do you, when you're doing that, what's your, again, we talked earlier about your sort of guiding principles. Was there any particular ones there that you, when you're talking to your peers, maybe you're interviewed and you go to, you and I both go to conferences when you're being interviewed, you know, how do you recommend it? You know, sometimes say, right, get the cash right, then get the risks right and then do this. Or how did you? Help drive that sort of thing?

I think for my peers and how I'm thinking about it in my role as treasurer, this really varies by company and industry, of course, but I think being mindful of who your stakeholders are and what is the measurable impact that you're driving for those stakeholders. For Treasury, liquidity management is one of the most important things we do, not just on a real-time basis, but on a forward-looking basis as well, to be mindful and thoughtful around scenario planning. So you're not waiting for things to happen. And of course, there will be surprises. We adapt. That's what we do. I mean, we have the strikes in the entertainment industry. Certain industries are more impacted than others by the tariff talks. So there are things that are happening that will impact some treasury teams more than others. But as much as possible, if we can, you know, try to be forward-looking and prepared in terms of scenario planning, that helps us support the business better. Yeah. That's kind of where my head is at.

Talking about your career, if you like, so we touched on it earlier that you had this breadth of experience in some of the earlier roles, then you became more specialized. But how important has that breadth of experience been in your own progression? And how would you recommend others follow in that footsteps? What should they be doing or what should they try and avoid, would you say?

I think it helped me tremendously. That said, You know, everybody's career journey is different. It's not to say that being an SME in one area is a bad thing. It's just everybody has a different career journey. What worked for me and I really valued, I would recommend to others is to try that, to try to diversify your experience within Treasury as much as possible. The knowledge you gain across different areas, whether it's cash management, capital markets, hedging, FX, corporate finance, IR, etc., look, that's never going to go to waste. It really strengthens your long-term career growth. And focus also, I would say in terms of advice, focus also on working smarter by improving processes and driving efficiency. Don't be afraid to experiment and fail fast. Learn from your mistakes along the way. There is no prize for perfection. I think you have to be willing to try different approaches and learn from your mistakes and then fail fast and move on.

But if you were in an earlier stage in your career, there might be a nervousness from those guys. How would they, you know, how have you handled it with your team or how do you, you know, how do you give them the space to do it or what, you know, again, this is an advice show if you like. There are other treasurers out there and they're going, well, yeah, well, we might struggle. We haven't got that much, you know, bandwidth or we haven't got that many people. How should they do it or how would you encourage it?

I think you have to lead by example. There is no other way, really. So I cannot say one thing and do another. And if I am, then I have to be self-aware and course correct. Again, there's no— I'm not perfect. I make my fair share of mistakes. We all do. But you have to be self-aware. And if, you know, the tone at the top matters, the team will pick up on that. Treasury is a high-stakes environment, particularly in cash management and treasury operations. When you hit send on that payment, it's out there. So mistakes can be very costly. But the first thing you, you say when you observe a mistake is, is the— like, we all do this, right? The postmortem of like, how did this happen? What happened? How can we first stop the bleeding? But then how do you make sure this doesn't happen again? Where did the process break? And I think when you approach learning with that lens of walking the team through those steps of where did it break, do we understand it, how are we going to fix it, how do we make sure the mistake doesn't happen again, I think it'll naturally facilitate that thinking for the team also of the mistakes. You can't, you obviously can't keep having mistakes frequently, but that you've got to learn from them and adapt quickly and move on. Yeah. You also see sometimes in project environments, especially, that sometimes it just— people can get stuck and like, I don't know how to proceed, but you're stuck. And that's where I would say experimenting, failing fast, and trying different things and moving on versus waiting and figuring out the perfect solution is a mindset that we have to encourage.

I understand that. And I think, yeah, but when you're, you know, you are senior treasurer and you're looking at different individuals, if you like, when you're not necessarily talking about hiring, but when you're looking at your team, what traits are you looking for with those people? What are you looking to sort of encourage in them? Again, how do you create that safe environment? What I mean by that is, just to qualify a little bit, again, we're an advice show. If other treasurers, you've got this successful team, you've won this award recently, you've demonstrated it by a lot of the things you've just talked about. Any other tips you think that other people should be thinking about, about how they identify people and encourage them and things?

I think intellectual bandwidth, right? You can, if somebody has good intellectual bandwidth, you can generally train them on a lot of different things.

Yeah.

And attitude. So if you, you know, if you got somebody on your team who has those two things, they're willing to learn, they have a good attitude. And they have great intellectual bandwidth, that, that's somebody that's a keeper. Or you go hire them if you're in the interview process. Because I think those things are not easy to coach somebody on. The whole thing about diversifying we're talking about, right? If you are of the mindset that, well, this is my lane and I want to stick in this lane, guess what? Nothing's wrong with that. That is totally fine. I'm not criticizing that approach. But it may not be for a small-sized treasury team or a fast-paced treasury team that needs things to move very, very quickly. So I think it just depends on the setup of treasury. How big is the function? Do you have the ability to move people around and grow them, or are they going to stay in siloed functions within treasury? Or siloed areas within treasury. It depends. There is no one-size-fits-all, but I think for me, finding somebody with good intellectual bandwidth, with the interest to learn new things and be reliable, be consistent, that is just, you know, it makes for a really good hire.

Anything else that we haven't perhaps covered, you know, that you think is important that people listening today, you know, you want them to listen to over their coffee? We're not quite wrapping up the show, but you know, they're having their coffee, they're listening to this show or that, you know, they're commuting to work and they're listening to it. What other advice would you give to the people out there?

I just want to remind folks to not ignore the technology side of treasury. AI is here to stay. Embrace it. Again, you know, I don't think it's a replacement for human judgment, but it is an incredible tool and a powerful one for areas like cash forecasting. And I have to say, regardless of the size of the company, I have— I don't really meet a treasurer who doesn't think cash forecasting is critical for their company, right? It doesn't matter if you're large, small, public, private, everybody cares about the accuracy of the cash forecast. Same thing around scenario planning or compliance or capital markets. Depending on the size of the company and the industry, some will take more of a reactive approach, some will be proactive. And that's totally fine, but I just— a reminder for everyone to keep an eye on the potential that AI has to be helpful in so many different treasury processes.

You've been very giving and some amazing advice. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. What takeaways would you give to the audience, you know, whatever level they might be, whether it's junior or more senior?

I think if it makes sense for you, consider diversifying your experience within Treasury as much as possible. Look at other areas in Treasury. Knowledge is not going to go to waste. It's going to strengthen your long-term career growth. See if it makes sense for you to get exposure to outside of cash management, maybe debt capital markets, corporate finance, hedging, investments. There's so many interesting areas within Treasury or even industries if that's something that makes sense for your career. I also think focusing on technology and embracing that where your company offers those tools, it will drive a lot of efficiency if you can leverage AI or other technology tools. So let's work smart. Let's take advantage of that. And balance growth with wellness is the other thing I would say. It'll help you stay resilient and effective over the long term. This is a realization I've come to maybe towards more recent part of my career, and maybe not so much in the early part of my career. And I realize how powerful it is, especially on a personal level, since I became a working parent recently. It's really shaped how I operate. It's made me much more focused on efficiency, prioritization, and using time intentionally. Both at work and at home. And frankly, look, there is no such thing as balance. I don't think there is. It's more on the lines of integration, where there are days when you will prioritize work, and there'll be days when you will prioritize your personal life. And that balance is actually what makes you a stronger leader and decision-maker, because you're clearer on what truly does drive impact for you.

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much, Rima. It's been an amazing conversation. We've covered so much different ground. So thank you very much, and lovely to connect. And look Looking forward to seeing you. Yeah, I'm sure at a conference very soon. So lovely. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. It was great to connect and happy to chat with everyone.

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