Mastering the Automotive Treasury Landscape with Linda Dixon

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 them about how they've built 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. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Linda Dixon, director of treasury at Multimatic Inc. Multimatic is a privately held global enterprise supplying components, systems and engineering services to the automotive industry, now the private company. So we're only going to give what we can say out there. We understand that, but they're headquartered near Toronto, Canada. Manufacturing divisions and engineering facilities right the way across North America, Europe, Asia, as well as relationships with global partners across the world. But we'll get into that later on in the show. Linda explained that because she's got some great background, she's also worked alongside the amazing Dan Ferguson who was at rsa. He's been two time guest on the show, two time veteran. So we'll put the link to his show as well in the show notes. But let's take it back if we would, to the beginning the origin story for yourself. Linda, if you would take us back to how you first discovered finance and then treasury. Over to you.

Sounds good. Thanks for the intro there. So I was actually one of the very fortunate people in the world where I kind of learned very early what I wanted to do. My mom and my aunt worked for the same company and and mom took me in there one day and my aunt was the accountant and being like 10 or 11, I was being like totally bored in an office and my aunt said, okay, well here, try and see if you can balance it. She was having trouble balancing a spreadsheet and those were back in the days when everything was on paper. And I spent probably about an hour doing that and found I absolutely loved working with numbers. So I knew right then, okay, that's what I'm going to do when I grow up. I'm going to be doing something with numbers. So fast forward to after high school. I got my designation, my accounting designation and started in that field. I originally worked in a bank in their accounting department and kind of was there and thinking, well, I'm not, I'm only seeing a little part of what really going on. So decided I wanted to move to a smaller company and I was offered a job as an assistant county manager with Barrick Gold Corporation, which at the time was called American Barrick. And they were very small, they were a junior mining company. And I actually Remember sitting on the front porch thinking, geez, I want to go to a small company, but that one may be a bit too small. Like There was literally 20 people in the office, but decided to take the chance, join the company. And I'd been there probably about three years when I was approached by the assistant treasurer and said, look, we're growing, we're going to be expanding our Treasury Department and we want to know if you want to come over. As a Treasury analyst at the time, I had no idea what treasury was. And I'm like, maybe, but can you tell me what you guys do? And the way he put it was, well, treasury is present and forward looking, whereas accounting is sort of more looking in the past and recording what was done. So he goes, so all those things that you're recording and analyzing, we actually do, yeah. Wow, that sounds great. I love that idea. So join the Treasury Department there. And never looked back from Treasury. I sort of found my passion, as I like to say. And with Barrick, it, it was a ride. I was there for 18 years and it went from a very junior mining company to the number one gold mining company in the world. So lots of activity is very entrepreneurial, very hands on. I was there when, you know, they started their gold hedging program, which they ended up making billions in realized gains for and then lost billions in realized losses when the gold market went against them. But there was definitely a very strong basic understanding of treasury because it handled everything, investments, cash mint monitoring, liquidity, foreign exchange, letters of credit, and then also a number of mergers, acquisitions as they were growing. So it was really good basis for understanding Treasury. I started in kind of a back office function and then eventually went to the front office where I was actually putting trades on. So it was exciting times there. And after about 18 years there, the gold market crashed. So believe it or not, gold at that point was down around $200, which is hard to believe nowadays. So they did some restructuring and I ended up leaving there. And from there I went to Rogers Communications. Now Rogers is one of the three major telecom companies in Canada. I went there as their treasury manager and it was interesting education in the beginning because the week before I started, they had a Treasury system that became corrupt and their system treasurer went on stress leave.

Oh, wow.

So sort of walked into a situation where nobody knew anything about the cash. So they were straight lining everything. Which, you know, if you sit back and think about it, when you're paying your cell phone bills or you're paying your TV cable bills, you do it Once a month. You don't do it every day. So spend a great deal of time sort of really getting into understanding the cash flows there. And that's where I started learning how to really build relationships with people within a company, because you need that in order to get the information that you need. And so doing that along with, you know, the usual treasury stuff, the core treasury things, I like to think of them like the fx, letters of credit, you know, cash management. And Rogers was pretty diversified because they own the Toronto Blue Jays, which is a Major League baseball team. They own the Rogers center, which is where the Blue Jays play, as well as other concerts. They owned a shopping channel. So there's a whole bunch of different types of businesses. So definitely gave a lot broader experience than just working at a gold mining company. After I'd been there a year, to be honest, it became very mundane, very clerical. And when I was approached by Siemens Canada to come over and run the Treasury Department for all of Canada, I thought it's a great opportunity. It would be my first time ever managing people, which was also definitely something I wanted to get into. So, you know, you feel kind of bad after a year. So I talked to the treasurer at Rogers and basically they said, look, there's nothing that we can offer you in the future like new responsibilities, so, you know, go ahead and take it, leave with their blessings kind of thing. And then went over to Siemens. And this is where one thing where I would say to people that I learned from Siemens is to say yes to opportunities. Because when I was there about six to eight weeks, the VP of Finance actually asked me if I could also take over managing the corporate credit card and accounts payable departments, which standard treasury experience in the past didn't handle that. But, you know, I said, okay, sure. And I remember the first few meetings I sat in with them, I thought they were speaking a different language. No idea the acronyms they were using or anything, but it turned out to be fantastic opportunity. And both of them were going through major changes. So with the accounts payable was being outsourced to the Siemens subsidiary in India. And then we were also changing corporate credit cards at the same time. So learned a lot right there about project management and how to keep everything on track and, you know, how to deal with different people when they're upset about changes and kind of getting them on board with what needs to be done. So definitely a lot of experience there. Siemens also ran into a bit of difficulty with the securities Exchange Commission. And so we actually had the SEC come into Siemens and want to check the internal control. So a lot of it came down to writing some new policies, procedures, et cetera, to just make sure that everything was running safely and correctly. And they went through all the countries that Siemens was in during this time. It's not really a secret what was going on then. So that all went well. And it was probably about 18 months of very long hours, like working weekends, working till midnight, but getting a lot huge sense of accomplishment out of what was getting done after that 18 months, Siemens was looking at cutting costs and they ended up outsourcing the three areas that I managed to the US and combining it with their US operations. So myself, my entire team, as well as my boss, who was the VP of Finance, were all basically let go from Siemens, which was unfortunate timing because that happened to be right in the middle of the financial crisis. So finding jobs was not necessarily easy at that point. So I actually got into the contract world at that point, and that's another thing that I found very beneficial, because you're there, they're depending on you for your expertise, but you're also learning a lot when you're there. The first one I went into was actually with Brookfield Asset Management, which was an audit of their front office trading floor for electricity. And the reason I got offered the position was that they said the traders could talk circles around their internal auditors. They didn't know what they were saying. So, okay, six weeks, I can do that while I'm still looking for another job. And it ended up sort of snowballing for that, where I went from there to working for the Ontario Power Authority, setting up their Treasury Department, and then went to a company called mds, which was in the medical field while they divested two thirds of their business, and then went back to Brookfield to do about three or four other audits, including, like the capital markets in New York and System Close and as well as their back office trading floor. So lots of great experience, lots of being able to understand how different businesses run and how they run their treasury areas. By that time, things have started to calm down in the market a bit and I was also feeling like I wanted a home again. I was approached by somebody I worked with at Barricold to come over to ACORN Group as a Treasury manager there and run their Treasury Department. So went over there and the big thing with Akon, which was in construction, was that they have a lot of equipment financing, so heavy construction equipment or fleet vehicles. So I'd never done that before. And I thought, okay, this is an interesting opportunity. It was one line on the job description that ended up taking probably about 50% of my job. You know, I was able to bring in a very strategic process for awarding the business that they didn't have before, which saved the company millions of dollars in interest. And while I was there, I kind of went from treasury manager to senior treasury manager to director as responsibilities increased and, you know, we sort of moved up so started handling things such as renegotiation of this syndicated credit facility and looking at building relationships with more and more financing people and bankers. And during that time we implemented SAP, so got involved in that whole system implementation and testing on the banking side, sort of similar to at Barrick, you know, you kind of get to the end where you're sort of used to the company and you're seeing you start getting a little bit comfortable. And I thought, okay, I need to kind of expand it. So I reached out to, we had a lot of joint ventures at the time. So I reached out to one of the gentlemen there and said, you know, if you need any help or advice with regards to how you're setting up the joint venture or what you're doing, I'm happy to help out. And end up getting involved in the foreign exchange hedging for the Gordie Howe Bridge, which is a major billion dollar project here, a multi billion dol project here that I think one of your previous guests, Todd Yoder, talked about. So that was case where, you know, all hands on deck, we actually managed to put in like six ISD agreements in three days kind of thing in order to get ready to do the hedging. And we were also having the government saying to us, look it, you can't go in and hedge all of your exposure right now because you're going to move the market too much. So trying to work with how to strategically hedge while also not moving the market and having a negative impact was sort of one of the challenges there.

And you touch on that, Linda, just to jump back in because again for the listeners, obviously you worked at some of the largest Canadian companies. As you say, it's an interesting one because you know, when you're in a market like that, which is Canadian market, we do speak to a number of Canadians within from the podcast and I do on a daily basis. But it is a microcosm in some ways similar to say the Australian market, you get, once you get outside the top 20 companies, they get a lot smaller and things. But you know, some of the top 20 are amazing and some of the Numbers and probably bigger, actually, I would say they want to do Canada down, but you got your top companies there. If you do major actions, you move the market. What was that like for you, having to sort of think about that on top of your treasury day job?

So it was an interesting situation. It was definitely not something I had really thought about when we first started down this idea. And in Canada we have basically five major banks as well, like five schedule one banks. So those would be the ones we would want to hedge with. You're also looking at how to let the banks know that you're going to go out and do a competitive bid for a wack of hedging and trying to get them to make sure that they're not offsetting that position because they're going to know, okay, you're going to go and you're going to put this in. We want to do the opposite.

Yeah.

And trying to kind of manage that, it was challenging. You know, we kind of had to break it up over a number of days as opposed to doing one major transaction, which would have been our preference because the way this deal was set was that on a specific day, like when you do a bid, you normally put in an FX rate when you do the bid. But what they did is once you won the bid, they said, okay, on this date when we actually sign the contract or when we're closer, we will set the rate on that date on the market. So you know what that rate is going to be, what your exposure is on that particular day. So that's the day you actually would like to go out and hedge it. Because it was a billion dollars, which is a lot in the Canadian market, you couldn't do that. So we ended up doing breaking into smaller lots over three or four days, which definitely helped. But you know, you also gotta look at bankers and say, okay, we know you want to cover your position, but come on, don't make it turn against us.

At the same time and with the actual role itself and going back into it, we had Patrick McCarty, Global Treasurer or VP and Corporate Treasurer at Caterpillar. And I know that when he'd spent a lot of his, his career with Caterpillar and the group and things like that with yourself, he and I talked about construction, resourcing, energy and transportation. It's really interesting industry, but also quite interesting from a Treasury perspective because you get closer to the business. You touched on that a little bit. Do you find that something that you really enjoyed because you can actually see physical bits of the business, you Know, how was that for you as a treasurer?

I love it. Like, I, I really enjoy seeing it, like with construction, especially like you go down and you can see, oh, we built that. You know, you're looking at something like, we have a light rail transit here that goes from the Toronto Airport to downtown Toronto. And it's like we were walking the tracks before it was actually built, like finished. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you walk by and say, hey, my company built that. You know, I can show it to people. Or my husband always laughed at me because we would drive by a construction site and I could tell him how much each piece of equipment was worth or what they were called. And he's like, I never expected you to know that. Like, you know, you know, this is an excavator. So I find that that's really important. Like, I think sometimes treasury people and accounting people, people get too involved in what they're doing and don't understand the business. And in treasury especially, you need to understand the business. Like construction, for example, cash flows. You need to know that from basically February to November, you're probably going to be borrowing on your credit line because that's when you're ramping up everything. And especially in Canada, where we have the winters, where things are slower, ramping up everything. You're paying people, you're buying your materials, so you have a huge cash outflow and you don't get paid until you meet certain points of the construction. So your inflows are lumpy and they come later on. So later in the year you may be able to pay back the credit facility, but you need to make sure that you continue those relationships with the syndicate so that you have the good relationships and you could continue to borrow. And you also want to make sure, same thing, you're not borrowing too much. And we used to look at specifically was quarter end, do we need to hold our payment so that we can pay back as much on the credit facility as possible? Because whatever much you borrowed, that would affect your rates going forward. So for the next quarter. So you want to make sure that you are very strict with what's going out at those days. So I used to say, okay, I'm going to hold all payments for a week or two weeks before, but two days later you can pay everything, I don't care.

And then, you know, you've been there for a number of years, you've been there sort of eight and a half years. What came next?

So they took my position and they decided to Eliminate my position and move it into with the VP of Tax. Because we at that point had VP Finance who used to be a treasurer. They wanted to cut costs. So similar to sort of other parts of my future or in my past, it was restructured out and I had the opportunity at RSA Canada, which is where I worked with Dan Ferguson. And RSA was another one where I looked at the job and it was kind of like, okay, treasury, no problem, but there's this other area called investments. So as a Director of treasury and Investments, I thought, okay, that's, that's a new area, I can learn that. And that would be really good experience not realizing there's over a billion dollars of, of investments that I would be handling. It was a challenge going in, which is what I looked for. And it became even more of a challenge because six weeks after I started Covid hit. So, you know, with my team, I had a team of three reporting there that I barely knew at that point what their strengths were, what their weaknesses were, what kind, what level of supervision they needed and assistance that they needed. So during that time I actually set up like a daily call for 15 minutes every morning. And it worked out great to keep the team. Cause it wasn't even like we talked about business all the time. Like you got into all kinds of different conversations, you know, what people were doing or how their families were, you know, just sort of things to keep everyone connected during that time. That definitely helped. Insurance industry was, was definitely different than any other industry that I'd worked in because it was highly regulated. So things that you don't even think about in the normal industries that I've been in, like going out for lunch with bankers was not an issue in the insurance industry. Because of regulations, all of that had to be recorded. You had to put down how much the lunch was worth kind of thing. And you had to make sure that you met certain criteria for the regulators to make sure that you had the right coverage of assets versus your liabilities, et cetera. So it was a huge learning curve there. But it was definitely a great group to work with. Dan was great for asking questions too. And I remember on his podcast him talking about the number of bank accounts he had. And I had to laugh because he was always after Canada to reduce the number of bank accounts. But yeah, it was definitely different. I mean, the treasury stuff was not as intense as other companies because we could always fall back on the UK parent if we needed something, if we needed an info of cash for any reason, we could fund them. But we also looked at taking some of our risk and sort of moving it to corporate office. So that was a big analysis there that we had to do to make sure that we continue to have the liquidity that we needed for the risk that we had while moving some of it to the UK office with that.

Transition from machinery, heavy leasing and all that stuff to then that transition into insurance. I know that I've spoken to different candidates in the past who have sometimes struggled to make the transition because it's can't necessarily touch insurance. You know, it's on paper and it's risk and liability. How did you find that? Because obviously that was a thing in your mind going right, okay, we've still got the risks, they're still there and actually you, you physically manifesting them. How was that for you?

Yeah, it is different. I mean I kind of take it back to being a mining because even though with mining you can see gold and you can feel gold, you don't actually see it on a regular basis. So it wasn't until I got into the insurance where I actually went to a gold mine and saw the whole process. So in some ways it is different for sure. As I said like with Rogers where you know, where the Blue Jays, you knew the baseball team but it was the same thing with wireless services. You didn't really know you can't touch it. And I find I like it better when you can actually touch something or see something which you know, similar to where I am at Multimatic you can actually see what we do. It's, it's a physical product. Having that non physical product that is still important to people. It is a different mindset to me it does have a bit of a disconnect.

You were there for a period of time, RSA was then taken over as we know and things like that. What happened next with yourself?

Well, probably about the same time that RSA was being taken over I was actually approached to join Multimatic and it was like one of those usual, do you know anyone who might be interested? So I knew my debt intact was going to be, the deal was going through. So I thought, okay, let's investigate this further. And actually probably the first interview that I had here I knew it was a company for me. Just the people, the way they talk, their passion for what they do. And I had three different interviews and that passion went all the way. Like people were really invested in the company, they really wanted the company to do, they were very proud of the company and it was also very, this is going to be your area, we need you to hire somebody to assist with it. But you know, you're the expert so you can run with it. Which is the kind of, especially at this point in my career is the kind of situation I want to be in. I don't want somebody watching over everything that I'm doing. And multimatic, it is private, but it is innovative and it does do a lot of business with the OEMs and it does do some very interesting cars as well, very specialty vehicle kind of cars. You can kind of see it. They do some racing dampers, for example, that are on race cars that help them sort of win. So you know, you then get invested in, you know, what are these races doing and who's, who's winning and are they using our materials to do that? So yeah, it was sort of a no brainer to come here, shall we say. It just felt exactly right in so many ways and I haven't regretted it for like a minute. It's been the perfect company to be in.

So treasury wise, what was treasury like for you in that industry? Again, this isn't to pry into the, the company more the industry, if you.

Like, it is different. Like, I mean you're very dependent obviously on similar to other companies, you're dependent on, on your suppliers paying you on a timely basis as you're putting the materials into things. And during COVID you know, you're running into things like the chip issues, supply chain issues. None of that's surprised anybody. So you're kind of looking at what are the forecasts for production of various vehicles that our equipment goes into. And then you're having to manage your supply chain to make sure that you have the raw materials to make those without having too much raw materials, for example. Or you're looking at managing those relationships with the different auto manufacturers. I mean, it's hard to kind of talk too much about it because as you said, you know, we are a private company. We don't say too much about what we do. There are a number of things that we have developed that, that are out there such as like the Ford step on the back of the F150. That's something that our company designed and built. We have our bread and butter kind of business but we also look at how can we improve things or the OEMs will come to us as they look at we want something that would do X and we, our engineering group would love to see how they can develop that X.

You're not allowed to talk about stuff, but the Stuff you do talk about is very cool. So that's all right. We'd like that.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, this is another thing like, so I handle the insurance here, which is one of the reasons why this job was also one that interests me because I hadn't done insurance for quite a while. And so going to the manufacturing plants and actually getting on the floor and seeing what they're doing or saying some of the niche cars that we build, it's interesting and it's similar where you can actually put your hands on it and see what we're actually doing and see the machinery that takes to make things like novel hinge and you know, you've got these things that are making that. So it's actually quite interesting that way.

With yourself, treasury wise, let's focus on that. And you as a Treasury professional, what are the key things that you're, you know, you've heard a few of the podcasts now. We had an ex colleague, Dan on there and you know, he talks about a number of different things and actually we had a lovely update episode. Dan was a originally with rsa, then he brought his story up today with Resolution Live. But you, in a similar way, you've got this great treasury background pedigree. What are the things you're thinking about yourself? Each. Each week I, I ask this question and every week it's different. I talked to a treasurer yesterday about who's going to be a future guest. When we were talking to him, he said, well, how do you make the shows different? I mean, well, I was at Euro Finance a year or so ago and within 10ft there were 10 treasurers and each of them does treasury different. One's decentralized, one's centralized, one's cash rich, one's debt laden. But they all have the same title, all do the job totally differently. That. Oh, okay, all right. So with yourself, what are the things you're thinking of as a treasurer and you think that, you know, other treasures need to be thinking about?

Well, I mean, obviously cash is always at the top of every treasurer's list, right? Cash is king, as they say. And in my career I've been with companies that are cash rich, other the ones that are cash poor, you know, other ones that have like very, very smooth flows of cash are the ones that are all over the board. So I mean, I think that's always one thing that first thing I look at is how do we best monitor the cash and how do we best make sure that we have, you know, the tools in place to ensure that we've got the bankers on our side who understand our business and are there to support us. I mean, I think that's huge. Like the relationships that you build are going to be your saviors at the end of the day. You know, I mean I, I always hear, you know, people, bankers, you know, blah, blah. I said, you know, bankers are your friends. I actually found that especially during Akon where I had a number of banks and financing companies I dealt with through crypto financing. And you treat them fairly because they may not always have the lowest price, but if you haven't done business with them for a while, you want to shift some business to them because you need to maintain that relationship. I've always felt that that's really important. And part of building strong relationships with these guys is actually getting to know them as people. Like, sure, yeah, they're bankers, but they're also people. And some of my best friends now are bankers that I dealt with when I was at Akon and they're there for their great wealth of knowledge. But it's a two way street too. Like I actually had lunch with one of the bankers that I dealt with at Akon who he thanked me for when he was starting out. I would spend time talking to him about how corporate looks at things. What he's trying to present to somebody isn't working for him. It's something to me, I didn't even think of. I was thinking of a general conversation. But for him it was, you know, great experience and great understanding. So giving that back I think is really important for treasurers and people both internally and externally to know the people and know the business. For me like right now, obviously fraud is always top of mind. Like there's so much fraud out there and trying. We are a decentralized company. So trying to get everybody on board and doing fraud training and, and helping them to understand there's certain risks out there and we'll put policies in place that they maybe they don't understand with like verifying, you know, bank accounts for people who are changing their banks. Well, they may not understand the need for that until you start talking to them and saying, look at this is what could happen if we don't. You're always wanting to see where you can make a material impact on the company.

How do you impress upon them the importance of that and you know, the importance of what you're doing in Treasury. You're saying this and I'm, you know, I'm sitting here as an audience member thinking that's all very well, but how do I convince these guys if you don't do this, this, or how are you bringing them into the party?

So like for example, the last thing that we did, we actually had a controllers conference. And during that I just did a presentation and afp, like the association of Financial Professionals does a survey every year on fraud and just showed them some, some of the stats from there. So look at this is what's happening. And if you get hit, like if you look at companies in our range, this is how often they're getting hit. This is a percentage of them that have experienced fraud. And this is how many of them have gotten nothing back. Some people get something back, but most of them don't get money back. Right? So and expressing them like this is a high risk and you are responsible, you know, as, as a controller of the company, you are responsible for safeguarding the assets of the company and cash is the big asset of the company. So you need to make sure that you follow this. And you know, I also followed up by saying, look at this has already been approved all the way up the chain. So if you don't follow this, I don't want to be in your shoes if something happens because you have no reason for saying you didn't follow the procedure when it's been drilled into you guys over and over and over again. And I also find like the banks give great fraud presentation. So if we see something come across, we will, we will send it out to the organization and say, hey, anybody wants to go on it, go on it. This is great. You should do this. In Canada. A lot of it, people need certain number of hours, for example, for their professional accounting designation or the treasury designation. It's like, okay, you can get an hour, go listen to it and pay.

Attention to it and other issues, you think, or other challenges. You know, we touched on Covid a little bit and you explained that very well. You know, you went through that process and everything else, but now we're out past that. Where do you see treasury going next? Or what are the other things that, you know, maybe your approach, will you come and speak at this conference or whatever else? What are the other things in your mind, whether it's at a conference or not? You know, you as a treasurer, I.

Think that treasury is changing rapidly all the time. Like, I mean, I've seen it since the beginning of my career. Like I remember with bank accounts, I could usually just phone up the bank and say I need a bank account and they give me a number later on Like a week later, two weeks later, you'd send the paperwork in. Now with the know your customer kind of paperwork that's involved, it's very extensive, especially in, in certain banks more than others. And I think that's something that's just going to continue to grow. They're looking at anti money laundering and, and the regulations that are hitting the treasury world and the banking world are just going up and up. And same with, if you look at Basel III and the fact that it has on banks, which then affects our funding, sort of the rates that were charged on things, all that affects sort of our bottom line as a company, the foreign exchange market, the supply chain issues that we've had, all these things come down and affect the bottom line, affect the cash flows, affect the amount of inventory we may have on hand, that sort of thing. So I think a lot of it is external that you really start to see the effects in treasury and that's kind of where I look at it. And then you look at things coming down the line like real time payments and what's that going to do to, you know, your cash flow if you're paying by check, you know, as opposed to electronically?

As we come to the end of today's show, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. So I know that there'll be a boost to your LinkedIn connections and everything else. There always is. What are the takeaways you're going to give? And again, I said, as I say each and every week, getting your career, mid career or later, any of those levels or any particular takeaways for the.

Audience today, the things that I think really helped me, that I think are important, first of all, take on challenges, don't say no to opportunities like with myself, taking on investments, insurance, AP credit cards, take those things on when you have the opportunity, you will learn so much. And as part of that continuous learning, keep learning, keep going to webinars. Treasury changes all the time. Regulations change all the time. Fraud changes all the time, all the time. So those webinars are very, very helpful. And as part of that, you know, get a designation, whether it's your certified treasury designation, whether it's the UK designations, just make sure you have that because as someone who's recruiting, that shows to me that you're invested in, in your career and you're invested in the treasury world. I also look at volunteering like I volunteer for the association of Financial Professionals. I was on the committee that redid the Book of Knowledge, which is used for the CTP designation. I'm on the committee now to look at the sessions for the conference. I spent many years on the board of directors for the Treasury Management association here in Toronto. And lastly, network, network with your bankers, network with the people inside your company. Get to know the business that you're in because that will definitely help you and help you expand your viewpoint on the things that affect Treasury.

I want to jump back into the. Just to quiz you a little bit, really, as you say, and I'm. We're very pro qualification on the show and everything else because it gives you rubber stamp of your level of expertise and things. But one of the things that I was having a conversation just with a client today and we were talking about, yes, it's great to have that. But what if you, you know, struggle to get your company? You know, a lot of companies, you know, most companies, most are pro it, they're great. But there has been a pushback in terms of sometimes cost and you know, training and things that people say, well everyone, some, some companies aren't at the moment, they are cash strapped. You know, what would you suggest if someone is in that situation if they can't quite do CTP or the act qualifications, what advice would you give to.

Those guys I know here in Canada, like if the company doesn't pay for it, you do get a tax refund for it. So that, that helps. But if you're strapped for it and you can't do it in the company, won't do it, then I would make sure if you're interviewing for another job that you explain that that's why you haven't been able to do it, that you're interested in doing it. Because I look at some things where if I'm hiring somebody, either they have it or they're doing it, or maybe they haven't heard of it before but they're like, oh wow, yeah, that'd be great. I actually had some person go, why would I need that? And it was like, okay, well you're off the list. There's so many things out there, so many webinars like you like Strategic Treasurer puts on webinars, AFP puts on webinars. There's a lot of webinars out there that you can get onto that. You know, you don't need your designation to get. But you're showing that if you have a list of these, these are the things that I've taken and this is where I'm showing that I'm increasing my knowledge. That definitely helps as well because it does show that you are learning, even if it's not your designation.

Again, going on to. I'm speaking at AFP later this year. Looking forward to it and everything else. It seems that you're very pro those organizations and you give up, you know, voluntary. And again, one of the things you mentioned, they talked about networking. And I would highlight the fact it's work. It is hard work to do all this stuff. Why do you think that? Why is that given you so much, would you say?

I think it's given me a lot. It's given me confidence in what I know and my ability to build relationships with bankers, as I said, with financing companies internally within the company. It gives you the confidence to be able to walk up to somebody and start talking to them and saying, hey, what do you do and how do you do it? And once you have that network, you have people you can reach out to if you're facing a situation you never faced before before, for example, or you want some feedback on what are you seeing in the market. This is what I'm seeing. Are you seeing the same thing? You can bounce ideas off them. I was never somebody in the beginning who was good at networking. I was. Thought you go to business lunch, talk business, and I never knew what to say. But I met somebody who said, look, talk to people. People love to talk about themselves and what they do and where they've been in their company. So talk to them. And then you start building up and then you get your confidence to keep doing that. And then you're able to go up to somebody in a plant and say, hey, what are you doing there and how do you do it and why are you doing it? You know, kind of thing gives you that confidence. To me, it's twofold because have your network of people that you can reach out to if you have a question or you have a problem and you need some insight. But it also increases your confidence and your knowledge and your ability to understand how the business runs.

Amazing. With those words. I'm gonna. I'm gonna let you sign off there, Linda. Thank you for your time today. Look forward to seeing you in real life soon. And thank you for your time. You've been an absolute superstar.

Thank you so much. Have a good day.

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Sam.