Navigating Risk Management during a Global Crisis with Sam Pallotta

Building the department up and improving our cash forecasting or our bank relationships, to me, that was, you know, the easier thing. And ironically, perhaps, because what the challenge for me was was in terms of being a leader and developing my team, because, one, I hadn't had much experience in that, you know, I'd been with my career. You're right, I was young. I was 33. I had about 10, 11 years of experience and not very much experience leading teams. Then, as you mention, all of my team members have been with the company. They were about 10 years older and been with the company a lot longer, on average, maybe 15, 20 years. And so there was this challenge and it became a situation where, you know, how do you first of all establish your credibility and then how do you build a rapport with the team? And, you know, establishing the credibility was around, you know, driving change, leveraging my experiences at gm, that was good, that was helpful and became. It was easier because I was able to, you know, leverage my acumen in Treasury. And so I think both my team as well as the senior management team up above recognized that I could have value to the company early. But then building the rapport of the team was. Was even more challenging because, you know, there was the age difference. There was this concept of, you know, I should be, you know, respecting my elders, I should be deferring to their tenure. But at the same time, you're the leader. You have to drive the company's vision and mission. And in some ways, there were hard feelings. You know, you're replacing people that maybe wanted the job opportunity themselves, that wanted the position. So it was, you know, a very unique time where each individual had to be addressed and dealt with. Our role began early on as just making sure that. Very consistent with core treasury, right. Core treasury applications, trying to make sure that we had our cash forecasting, that we were investing our cash in the right manner, that we were raising debt project level, at a corporate level, efficiently and effectively building our bank relationships. So, you know, all of the core treasury functions and that the first three to four years was really focused on building that and leveraging the team strength. You know, we had very good cash management team that really understands cash management that is heavily, you know, involved in technology, has been working treasury workstations since the mid-90s. So, you know, you might have appeared like we were, you know, we're not a big company, we're not the Pepsis, but we had this, you know, we've been in the workstation since, you know, for a team of four. And yet have a Treasury workstation since the mid-90s. That's impressive and we have a great bench in that regard. And so it was an opportunity to just fine tune that and let the organization know how effective we were at cash management and get the message up to the organization. For me, treasury and risk management go hand in hand. And an organization has to be not just about the revenue side and not just about growth and profits, but it has to be about risk tolerance and risk avoidance. And that to me is like, you know, such a. The other side of the page. It to me, the two go hand in hand in terms of their strategic importance. And the treasurers, you know, across the globe have this experience. And I think that the opportunity for treasury is to, you know, continue to manage their core functions and to do it well, but to use that knowledge and those capabilities to communicate to the company's senior management team and to be an integral part in, you know, navigating the company strategy, especially in times of distress.