Navigating the Path from Treasury to CFO with Sam Pallotta

Foreign to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where 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, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession Going to Next I'd like to say thank you to our sponsors, the lovely team at Flywire. For those of you who want to learn more about how Flywire simplifies cross border receivables which then eliminates foreign exchange risk and in turn reduces also your day sales outstanding and your receivables which then gets rid of those reconciliation headaches, what could be better? If you want to know more, just follow the link in our show notes. You can find out who they are, what they do, and how they make your lives as treasury professionals much, much easier. And as I say each and every week let's get on with this week's this is one of our update podcasts where I catch up with one of my previous guests. I'm going to be joined by the amazing Sam Pelota. He and I spoke way back in April 2020 when he was the treasurer Rockefeller Group. He's now moved on. He's the CFO Russo Development. Now Sam is actually going to explain a little bit more about the transition from Treasurer into his new role as cfo. We'll reflect on some of the things that made him successful in that CFO role, some of the things that he got from his time within treasury, and some of the things he didn't actually have. He expands on that in the show. So what you'll get to do is listen to the original podcast. We'll then add on at the end. You'll hear a nice move on nice and smoothly to Sam talking about his new role. So as I say each and every week, thanks for listening and let's get on with this week's show.

Mike, I'm really looking forward to joining you today. I began my career. First significant job I had was with Johnson and Johnson, their corporate finance team and I was working as a financial accountant pulling together P&Ls and balance sheets, doing market analyses from a finance perspective. And I really enjoyed corporate finance and Johnson Johnson was an excellent organization. But I envisioned for my career obtaining my mba. So I was able to get my MBA at the University of Virginia. While I was doing my career search and trying to restart my career and think about what my next step would be, I was attending a lot of symposiums and information gatherings on different careers and different opportunities and I happened to attend a workshop that was run by General Motors that was seeking summer interns for their Treasury Department. And that was just a light bulb went on when I went in and heard about that opportunity, because it was. I never really knew what treasury was. I was a finance person. I had majored in finance and loved corporate finance. But then sitting here in this meeting, all of a sudden I heard about treasury. And to me it was these complex financial transactions that were key to the strategy of the organization. And it just fascinated me. And kind of the light bulb went off and I said, I really want to pursue this further. I abandoned the other opportunities and I just focused on getting a summer internship with General Motors, which I was fortunate enough to obtain. And it started my career in Treasury.

And then you made that move as well, didn't you, with J and J. And you actually joined General Motors from that rotation. Explain that because that's a great company to work within and to really have that on your resume.

Yeah, when I was at General Motors, I felt as if it was a very prestigious position. Their treasurer's office globally had almost 100 people in the office and the transaction that they were taking on were innovative. A lot of the case studies that I learned at school were from General Motors and their treasurer's office. And you know, I went in for my summer internship and then ended up working there for over five years in a variety of rotations. And it was just a fascinating and such an exciting time for my career to start my career in treasury there. I'll be eternally grateful for the opportunity and all the work experience I obtained, you know, as a summer intern working on, you know, selling the company's corporate aircraft and leasing them back. So a sell and lease back transaction for $100 million of corporate aircraft. And then first day in BAS basically as a summer intern and then first year working on the capital markets team, I was managing a fixed income portfolio of near term cash. And it was normally a $500 million to billion dollar fixed income portfolio, which was interesting enough. But then we ended up doing the largest debt issuance at that time was 17, $18 billion debt issuance and being able to sit at the table as the most junior person, but be able to be a part of that deal and then to help invest the cash in the near term as it came in to the organization and put it to work in the fix income market temporarily. It was just a really fun challenge to take on, especially at such a young age in my career. And then I worked at General Motors for five years as I mentioned, and I rotated into assignments in overseas finance, pension plan funding and analysis as well as capital planning. So it was a lot of opportunities to kind of learn treasury and to be challenged every day and really get that grounding in treasury that I'm able to now leverage throughout my career.

And that ethos I wanted to dive into that. We spoke about this, we had a pre briefing call and things. And one of the things that really fascinated me was you talked about it being groundbreaking for treasury, you know, because treasury can be just keeping on looking after the cash or keeping on doing the financing and things like that. What was pushing behind that? Obviously there'll be maybe some senior members you might sort of point towards or why did they bother to be groundbreaking? Was it just, well, if we do this debt offering and we make it the biggest, it's going to get us the biggest return. Is it simply just at the end of the day still about the cash or was it just that they wanted to sort of stretch the bubble, push the bubble of treasury? Or what was the sort of the driver behind it, would you say?

Well, General Motors at that time is of course an automotive company, but it's also a finance organization. It still is today, I would imagine, in that they have the GMAC where they were serving as a finance organization, extending loans, but the operations of automotive companies are very heavy into the finance. The treasury team was perceived to be an integral part of the success of the organization, whether trying to forecast billions of dollars of cash or manage a $100 billion pension plan that was really constraining the company. I mentioned earlier that debt issuance. One of the reasons for the debt issuance was to fund the pension plan. And all of these things were having significant impact on the liquidity, profitability and viability of the organization going forward. And so these finance projects were really instrument the success of the company and you know, as well as some of the challenges and troubles that it had over its, over its time.

And then you. What number of years? There were five years there.

Yes, it was five years.

Yeah, five years. You did five years. Innovative, great. You know, why not stay? What happened?

Yeah, I really enjoyed the time there. You know, it was, I think almost everybody who leaves General Motors always looks back and says, you know, that was a unique time. But for me, while I like the work, I, you know, you spent a year deeply immersed in one project, one project area. So you'd be deeply immersed in pension plans, you'd be deeply immersed in capital markets. And I wanted to try to, at some point, I wanted to Kind of have a little more breadth and kind of see all of treasury on a daily basis as well as I wanted to have it be a little more, I wanted to have a little more impact on the company's long term strategy. General Motors is such a large organization. It's really impossible for anybody, especially someone in a junior position like I was at the time, to truly influence the organization. Moving to the Rockefeller Group, we're a company of 200 people. We have a big name, we have a pretty strong balance sheet and a lot of revenue. But I was really able to from day one run the Treasury Department and be directly involved in the investment strategy and the corporate strategy of the organization. And that to me was those two things really excited me. So when I had this opportunity in Rockville, I said it's the opportunity to run a whole department up from. Build a department up from what it was and impact the organization in such a way. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

And you've been there what, 12, 13 years now, lucky for you.

Yeah, yeah, it's been great. I mean every couple of years new challenges come in and it's just made it a very fascinating career for me. So I continue to enjoy my time here.

We'll talk about it that. Because let's go back to the early days and again when we spoke before, you were coming in and you're relatively young, whippersnapper coming in from, hey, look at this big dude coming in from General Motors. Look at him. You know, and then you're working with, alongside leading people older than you and we. And you're having to influence and lead them and you're their boss. And that was a key. One of the things we identified before the show that you really thrived in that and how you took that challenge on. Can you explain for the listeners? Again, they'll be the same thing. They're going to a new place. They go right, you're going to manage a team of three, four, five and the size of the team, but they're going to be 10, 15, 20 years younger, older than you. Good luck. How was it?

Yeah, we can talk about that. Absolutely. Because building the department up and improving our cash forecasting or our bank relationships, to me that was the easier thing, ironically, perhaps because what the challenge for me was in terms of being a leader and developing my team because one, I hadn't had much experience in that 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 mentioned, 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 and 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 with the team 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 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. And they were all very unique. I only had a team of three at this time, but each one represented a unique challenge. And the way that I found the success that I was able to have was really just by kind of listening, really trying to get to know what drove each member of my team. And especially because they all had such unique approaches to their positions and unique desires for what they wanted to get out of the company in the near term, in the long term. So I think by listening and trying to build that rapport, we were able to have success. And, you know, all three of my team members that are dealt with the company still in my department, so that's a positive, and we continue to have success together.

And from that. And you just touched on it there, that sort of different drivers and different subject matter, if that's the right word to put it, because very much with your role, you've got this element of investment management, of governance. And we're recording this when, you know, at the high of the, you know, the COVID crisis and everything else. But we'll talk about that later on the show. This is more to sort of touch on how your role as a treasurer is structured versus, you know, maybe a treasure of a, you know, Coke or Pepsi or something like that. Obviously, you've got this real estate, your investment management in lots of different pressures there, which are different to some other treasures, perhaps. Describe, if you would, your. Your role as a treasurer there.

Yes, 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 to corporate level, efficiently and effectively building our bank relationships. So all of the core treasury functions and the first three to four years was really focused on building that and leveraging the team strength. We had very, very good cash management team that really understands cash management that is heavily involved in technology, has been working treasury workstations since the mid-90s. So you might have appeared like we're not a big company, we're not the Pepsis, but we had this. We've been in a workstation since 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. And in some areas like bank relationships, there was an opportunity to broaden our bank relationships and strengthen them and do more deals and do new deals and support the growth of the organization through project financing and leveraging. Our assistant treasurer, who's now our assistant treasurer, his experience in that area and his depth of knowledge around how to raise debt. And so it was really just tapping into these resources and giving them an opportunity to identify the projects they needed to work on and then communicate them up to senior management to give the senior management team confidence that we had the potential and the capabilities to help the company grow. But over time, that was kind of the phase one. But over time, once we got there, I was really interested in pushing out into what treasury and risk management can be. And that's why I think now I have the Chief Risk Officer title for the last three or four years. Because what I was doing in that second phase of my time at Rockefeller Group was really broadening our role into corporate finance, broadening the treasury team into investment analysis. So now I sit in on a committee and I have for some time we've created a committee called the Steering and Capital Planning Function. And that is a group that evaluates investments as they come through the pipeline, as they have their preliminary approval, their final approval, all the interim steps in between, and we work with the development Teams. Our business is really all about identifying development projects. A big piece of our business, I should say, is all about identifying development projects and choosing to invest in them and then executing those investments. And so I've been able to position my team and myself so that we are playing an integral role in evaluating those. Not just the cash management or debt raising of those projects, but also in the evaluation of those investments and helping guide the organization and its decision making process and governance around that.

And you talked about the sort of the quantitative analysis demands that places you on there. But then again, you very much impressed on me that it's not your job isn't about analysis. Not just, oh, here you go guys, here's some of the figures, here's a big thing. It was actually then about getting closer towards the treasury, getting closer to giving greater value to the business itself. And again, people are saying, well, how do you do that? I've done my analysis and I'm giving my information to the cfo. Or how do you actually instigate that process? Or how have you made it work?

Yeah, I would like to kind of describe that as a third phase, whereas phase two is more of a corporate overhead and continue to play that corporate governance role. What I'm trying to now accomplish phase three is to really be as embedded in our project teams as possible. So, you know that we are a trusted, valuable resource for our development officers, that they are reaching out to us proactively, that they see us as an integral part of the process, whether it be because, you know, they're concerned that they might not be able to raise debt in an adverse capital market or whether they want us to kind of be a second opinion on, you know, evaluating the risk metrics of the deal and identifying the top risks that are inherent in the transaction and how to effectively mitigate them. But I, you know, we are now looking more and more to embed ourselves in that organization and do so There's a balance there. It's hard because, you know, as a corporate office, you're often seen as the part of the decision making process, part of the no go, you know, go, no go process. And yet we are that, we are still that. But at the same time we have to try to say we want to support you and put up the best decision as well. So there's initial resistance because, you know, the entrepreneurial side of the business really wants to, you know, control the process and they want to make sure the process gets approved. This is their livelihood and this is how they drive the value to the company, and you have to be sensitive to that. But at the same time, if you're not, you know, you have to. The organization needs to understand that early identification of risks and early mitigation of them will help a deal prosper. And an example that I can give would be in our industrial development business in New Jersey. We are building warehouses in New Jersey. We've been doing it for some time. We have tremendous success doing it. And, you know, a lot of the land in New Jersey have environmental. And if you go back earlier in the 2000 and tens in our company's history, we were reluctant to develop on land that had identified environmental issues because of the headline risk and the practical risks as well. And over time, we were able to work within our team to identify insurance that could be obtained, environmental insurance that could be obtained that contained the risks, and then thorough and through thorough evaluation of the environmental concerns and how they were, you know, what the true risks were, and understanding of those risks and then directly defeating them with insurance, we were now able to develop sites that other developers might not have been adept enough to develop. And so this is an opportunity for us to buy land and make money and build buildings where others cannot. And I think that we played an integral part in that.

And we said before the show today, had a podcast earlier this week, and we're not just going to constantly focus on this situation Covid and in the 19 and everything else, but we want to bring up, because when I was talking to this chap earlier, he's in Brooklyn, Didier. He'll come out on the show shortly. One of the things we were talking about is the initial dealing with it and recognizing it for what it is. Sort of at first, initial right assessment of what the problem is. We talked about how, you know, there was 9, 11, which was terrorists. Boom, that was it. Global financial crisis was this thing that didn't have a start ender. At least with the situation we face now, it's still something that's happening and it will pass. And it's about planning and getting through it and planning for the future and everything else. But then a lot of treasurers like yourself are coming to the forefront with corporate liquidity and lots of other things. Describe how you've been. When was the knock at the door or when did it say, right, Sam, we need your help. You're going to be front and center of this. How did it come about, if you like?

Well, what's interesting is with my treasury and risk officer role, I had kind of a mandate right from the Beginning to take a look at this and you know, early on we were working with our HR team and our legal department to see if we should put a travel advisory out to our organization. Early on we had asked them if they wanted to do that. So I think that was pretty early in the process. So we were engaged from the get go. The challenges become, from a risk management perspective, how to be proactive, how to be forward looking and to stay ahead of the wave of information that's coming. You know, you get something out to the organization day or two before it becomes more common knowledge. I'm not sure if that's actionable, but in some cases it has been. It's just the information's moving so quickly that it's been a real challenge to stay in front of of it. But I think we've been. Whether it's the, you know, the treasury role, you know, in the, in the tre. Let me put it another way. In the treasury role, I think we've been able to, you know, really drive value in a number of areas. Whether it's economic analysis, liquidity analysis, evaluating our revenues. Maybe if you'd like, I could jump into a few examples.

Please do. I think it's great because that's what people want to understand, how you deal with it because they're doing the same. Oh, hang on. What else should I be thinking about? So. Yeah, please do.

Yeah, I think in the early stages it was all about trying to evaluate economics. You know, you know, what's the GDP going to be? Is it going to be negative? Oh, it's going to be negative. Okay. How negative is it going to be? And looking at weekly jobless claims and evaluating all those metrics to try to indicate how deep a recession was going to be, that's kind of become now forefront of everyone's mind. And you know, two weeks ago it was news, now you know, news to the organization. Now it's in the forefront of mind. So we've been shifting and working more through. Okay, we're continuing to monitor that of course, but now looking at our liquidity analysis, you know, how much cash should we have on hand? So, you know, the first message out to the organization is we have a very strong balance sheet. Our balance sheet is very strong today. And getting that message out to the organization, reinforcing to the staff, that this is a company that has tremendous stability and you know, that we can meet our near term obligations and getting out to our internal employees, getting it out to our external stakeholders, but then working with the banks to kind of confirm that there isn't going to be a run on the banks, that there isn't going to be any liquidity issues, then just working directly with them and then looking more internally and making sure that, you know, we're going to be able to maintain our revenue. For the Rockefeller Group, revenue primarily comes from two large office buildings that we own, 1221 Avenue in the Americas and 1271 Avenue in the Americas, and having our tenants pay rent. And so, you know, we went through and our team conducted a tenant credit analysis where we reviewed all of the financial information that we could obtain on our public companies that are tenants and our private companies and provided a risk assessment that we sent up to the CFO and the CEO and where we, you know, highlighted one or two prospective tenants that might be at risk. But overall, basically the message was that, you know, our tenant pool is very strong and we're not expecting issues. But then, you know, in continuing, then saying, keep, keep pushing forward and saying, okay, you know, from a lender perspective, you know, we have construction financing we'd like to obtain in the next two months, three months, four months. So for each project, kind of trying to evaluate where the financial institutions are, if are, you know, on a case by case basis and overall, holistically, are the banks open for business are going to be able to provide us construction financing at this time? Because that's, you know, integral part of our company and the role we play in Treasury. But also then taking a broader look, shifting a little bit to the risk management perspective, we've also been, we have our top, you know, top 30 risks, top 20 risks that we look at all the time. And we focused on 10 to 15 risks that we think are very important in this environment, that we should be, you know, making sure that our risk owners are evaluating that our key company executives are monitoring and looking to mitigate directly. So we've got that message out to them and are in kind of standby if they need assistance in further mitigating those risks. And also just fraud, Fraud management. Everybody in treasury is focused on fraud management today, I think, and especially in this environment when there is so much instability and there's a change in our routines where we're all working from home. We feel that this unfortunately creates a potential opportunity for fraudsters to take advantage of our new processes and our distance and our distance in our communications. So we're getting a message out next week, no later than next week. Just reminds everybody about our best practices in terms of payment processing.

Yeah, it makes everybody aware and Just take that pause, you know, if you like, before they do things. And that actually brings us very nicely, without being planned, actually. So it segues into where do you see the future of treasury, you know, because treasury, you know, talk to this so many times probably just to show that CFOs, I find now when I'm talking to them, they say, yeah, I use my treasurer as the sort of the scout. They're off out in front. I'm pushing them out front some of the times, you know, not sacrificially, but, you know, they have to do. You do a lot of work. But what I mean by that is they say, right, could you assess this blockchain idea? Could you assess this for me? Could you do this for me, you know, on top of your day jobs, which I think sometimes is a challenge. But what are you seeing coming at you that number one, that you think, no, we're not going to bother with that, we're going to sort of divert that after that's suited for other businesses. Well, that's an exciting opportunity. Or these things treasures should be thinking about. You know, obviously you got cyber and risk and everything else, but what are things you're thinking about for future?

Yeah, I think that it's all about risk management and being able to be a leader in that area and harnessing your company's, your organization's resources to manage risk and to directly defeat it wherever possible and to understand and fully understand the risks that you are taking and how those risks can impact that. I think that the issues of COVID 19 right now present a challenge for everyone. But you know, to me, it feels very close to home for, you know, treasurers, because treasurers need to be, as I just described, evaluating the capital markets, making sure that they have access to the capital markets, making sure that they have liquidity to run the organization. Businesses will succeed or fail based on whether they have sufficient liquidity, whether their capital structures are strong enough, whether they understand their cash forecast, and whether they have the insurance in place to protect them as a person. And so 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 as well. And that to me is such a the other side of the page. To me, the two go hand in hand in terms of their strategic importance. And the treasurers across the globe have this experience. And I think that the opportunity for treasury is to 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 navigating the company strategy, especially in times of distress.

Sam, that's amazing stuff about talking about the company and the way that treasury and Risk fits in this well, turbulent world. So we it call it just as we wind up, you know, come to the end of today's show. Tell the listeners people will look at again my, my usual closing lines of the show and this is what we're going to come to. We'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. People can connect to you if you think it's right for you and everything else. Sam, as you go through there, what are the, the key tips from you that if someone wants to be, you know, have a similar career to you, what are the tips you would give to people and what are the things that sort of, you know, are emblazoned on your, your treasury sleeve, as it were?

I think the more strategic advice that I would give is to just continue to push yourself to do more, to perform at a higher level and to champion the treasury team. I'm just a big believer and maybe even to my detriment at times, but I'm a big believer in how integral the treasury role can be within an organization. And I am just very proud of the work that my peers do. And I think that for me I would just applaud people and encourage them to reach out and reach out to me as needed, but find opportunities to take a larger role in their organization. And I know how challenging that can be because you have to keep an eye on the day job. You have to focus on those core capabilities of treasury that we've talked about here. But hopefully I've given some examples of where you can take that knowledge and leverage, leverage it and communicate it in an effective manner so that it becomes something that will get more appreciation and play a larger role in the value of the company. So that's, I think the biggest takeaway for me today.

Amazing, Sam. It's been amazing, sir. With a few hiccups along the way from my side, but I think Sam was bloody good at this. Well, we're coming on to 100 episodes. Yeah, I'm gonna say it's one of my favorites. I think we had a really good laugh before we did the show and the pre call great treasury background with Rockefeller that I think you've got some really good, interesting takeaw ways of people today. We finished on time. I Loved it. And this is a great show. So those listeners feel free to connect to Sam. Any comments you've got about it or you got further questions, send them across Sam's way or my way. And look forward to next 100 shows. And thank you for being a guest. So you've been an absolute star.

So welcome back to the Treasury Career Corner podcast. You get to see some video as well. Here you go. We've got. I know I've got a face radio, but Sam hasn't. So Sam's looking very good.

Good.

I'm welcoming back today, Sam Potta. Now, Sam and I last spoke on the show back in 2020, as you just heard. You've just heard the previous podcast when Sam was at Rockefeller Group, but Sam is now the CFO at Russo Development. You've got that right. Russell Development, one of the most active privately held developers of industrial, data center and multifamily properties serving the New Jersey market. But as always, I will get Sam to explain about that, about his current company. But we're gonna transition back. We're gonna go from when Sam was there. We've seen each other a few times, but last time we spoke was April 2020. Lots has happened. Sam, I'm gonna hand the microphone over to you, sir. What have you been up to since we last spoke over to you?

Yeah, so Mike, it's always great to chat with you and to see you recently. And, you know, after navigating my old company, Rockefeller group, through 2020 and 2021, and after we talked and navigating the, you know, the post pandemic era, I decided that it was an opportunity for me to kind of go out and seek new employment, to really always aspired. You know, one of my career goals has always been to be a chief financial officer. And while I was at Rockefeller Group, I was, you know, the chief risk officer and treasurer there. Really enjoyed my 14 years with that organization. Such an excellent organization. But I felt like my future lay elsewhere. And so the CFO at Rockefeller was doing an excellent job. So I said, okay, let me move on to Russo Development. So I found work here at Russo. You did an excellent job. You know, Russo is a privately owned company, very active in New Jersey real estate development and property management. I'm very excited to be here. I really enjoy the fact that the company has, has, you know, a very robust development and construction arm that we do construction in house. We have an in house architect and engineering team and then we have our own in house property management team. So we really are able to take projects from, you know, cradle to, you know, to a fully operational property and then continue to manage that property. And so it's a, it's a great platform. I'm really happy to be here and I get an opportunity to, you know, be a chief financial officer and really broaden the scope of, you know, financial activities that I'm responsible for. So it's been a year and a half since I've been here and I'm really enjoying my time here. It's an excellent team and having, you know, just a great time.

And when we, we did a pre podcast called the Other Day and we talked about maybe some of the things that set you up for success in the CFO role from triple treasury into now the CFO position, there were some definite things that were there you already had in your back pocket. There are also things that perhaps you didn't have quite so much and you've learned and grown into what were the key things? Again, this is an advice show, if you like. So people have heard the previous podcast, they've heard your career to that stage. Bring us up to that. What was it like making the transition?

Yeah, so the transition was very interesting, you know, even during the interview process and as I was like, you know, evaluating job opportunities, became very clear that I would have strengths and weaknesses as a chief financial officer, you know, the strengths were going to be that I had a lot of experience in risk management. Experience, of course, in treasury, you know, as a treasurer, my treasury experience was going to be the strength I would lead with. But to be a cfo, you have to be a lot more than that. And I had great experience in risk management management and investment analysis. And so I can talk a little bit more about how like the investment analysis and strategic work I did at Rockefeller, I think really positioned me well for a CFO position. Also, we should talk a little bit about the fact that, you know, one of the areas of improvement I needed was, is in the accounting space. And at Rockefeller Group, my role was clearly defined. And while I worked closely with the controller and got involved with account accounting work, that was clearly something that I was going to need to focus on more here because that's such a big part of the job at Russo, which is to oversee the accounting department, to enhance our processes and to, you know, work on our financial reporting each month. So that's something that was, you know, was something that was not the full focus of my job, Rockefeller Group. And so something that I was going to need to, you know, kind of, kind of Reorientate myself to.

So if someone is in, they're a treasurer now and they've got a similar appetite, they want to be a CFO. And you're now 18 months into it and you're reflecting back. What advice are you going to give those guys? They're sitting there in that treasurer chair going, I want to do a Samson, I want to get to that CFO position where they are now. Should you saying to them, go and sit with your financial controller, go and partner with those guys? Because I know that a big thing you already had was the investment analysis you touched on and like that you've got that.

You had that.

Can you explain that to us? And then what advice you think people should, you know, what they should be aiming for?

Yeah, I think that, you know, when we were talking in our pre call, the first thing that came to me was the work that I did with our controller Rockefeller and some of the projects, you know, we worked on together. And I wish we had done more projects together. And you know, it put in, you know, at Rockefeller there was a project to put in a new ERP and accounting system. And I had gotten involved in that to some extent, but I was like wishing I had gotten more involved because that, that would be great experience to have. As I'm now putting in a new ERP here at Russo, we're looking to launch that project in 2024. So to have been more closely involved in that project, Rockefeller would have been great. And I'm glad that I was involved being more involved in the controller, taking on projects with the controller, partnering with him and his staff. That's the advice that is, you know, is, is the most, I think, straightforward. But then really when I thought about it and you helped me prompt me to think, I think what really again was helped me to rise to a CFO was the other things that I was doing which was getting involved. After the first few years at Rockefeller, I was very involved in the strategic analysis and the financial analysis the company was doing. Specifically what I can talk about was working very closely as part of the investment committee for the company and helping the company to evaluate, evaluate their financial transactions. And so whether it was changing how the investment committee worked or expanding and broadening the investment analysis and the investment materials that went into the investment committee or at certain points I was on the committee voting on the committee or I was the secretary and helping drive all the decisions, interacting with. In real estate, the investment committee process is really discreet to one real estate project and you're working Very closely with the development office that's running that project and that location, location. So I was working very closely with them to help, you know, shape their financial analysis, make sure that they were achieving financial benchmarks, and, you know, working through structuring deals on occasion to make sure the deals were structured efficiently so that they would provide optimal returns, maybe delaying cash investments, for example. And so as you're working through that entire process, whether it's, you know, working through and helping the structure of the deal in the beginning of its life cycle or right when it's ready to come to the investment committee, or sitting in and on the investment committee. I was fortunate enough at Rockefeller to sit in on every investment committee meeting that they had for the entire 14 years I was there. So every investment they made, I was at the table and got to ask questions, participate and help prepare the materials. And so when you have that, when you have that experience, that strategic investment analysis, that you can then apply, apply as a cfo. And so it's a very natural transition. And I think there is a role for treasurers in any organization to be involved in their investment committee. You know, it can start with what you're an expert in. It can start with being involved in the cash, the debt, the cash financing, the cash management, the debt financing, the insurance. But it can naturally transition into the financial analysis process and the strategic evaluations as well.

And you made the step into the CFO chair, now you're in the hot seat, which is fantastic looking. What were the, you talked about some of the strengths. What were the other things you and I talked before about? Maybe working more with the controller and things. Other things you think that treasurer should think about?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're a treasurer and you want to be moving into the CFO role, you know, getting experience in debt management and working on transactions to raise debt is always important because then that is big piece of a CFO's job can often be to manage capital market transactions. So getting involved in debt and interest rate hedging and management and all of that, you can be the expert for that. And that's a role that a CFO needs to bring to most corporations. So I think that's definitely, definitely one piece of advice that I would recommend. I think another is liquidity management. So, you know, certainly it's paramount here in real estate, but I think liquidity management is, is very important, you know, whether, you know, leveraging what I was just saying about debt and, you know, how robust are the capital markets, how active are lenders today, how available is funding for your corporation? But you know, on top of that liquidity management, making sure that your company, company has cash flow that is going to be sufficient for not just the best case scenario or the likely scenario, but the worst case scenario. And in that worst case scenario, how is your company going to fund itself? Do you have ample lines of credit? Do you have an ample revolver? Do you have collateral that can be leveraged in any capital market situation or in most capital market situations, helping your CEO to prepare for that downturn, for that downturn scenario, for that unexpected volatility in the capital marketplace, for that extreme black swan event, pandemic, et cetera. Hesitate to say it, but whatever it might be, having that experience that as a treasurer you are responsible for cash management, liquidity management and risk management. And so when you bring all these together, if you can emphasize liquidity management and risk management, then you can really start to take on a broader role, be seen as a leader. And then the natural transition, in my mind it's a more natural transition into that CFO chair.

Now, do you know you were on the show before and you've listened back and so normally we do the career journey, which we've done with yourself. We then ask some of the future issues with treasury and finance. We just touched on that. Now I know there's lots of we're going to keep this shorter because people have already heard a lot about you and your ethos, but I know you've got some great advice for people and you want to go through that checklist if you like. So we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can connect to you, which would be fantastic to have them in the connection. But let's go through, you know, some of the, because as you said, they're like observations and there's some of the things that again, listeners today and actually viewers as well that they should be writing down. What's the sort of things that they.

Should be thinking about, do you think?

Yeah, I think that the first thing that I would suggest is trying to have that breadth in your career. Career, if you want to, regardless of whether you want to be a treasurer or a cfo, whatever your aspirations are, I think being able to take on more in your, in your position. So let's start when it comes to treasury cash management, liquidity management, those are our bread and butter, right? But can you then expand out to there? And as I was saying before, I think the next transition out is into debt management and then into risk Management, sure, you're going to probably be involved as a treasurer and insurance procurement, but can you broaden that and can you start to get in and you're going to probably be involved in fraud management and fraud prevention. But can you broaden like some of those more traditional treasury roles in risk management? Can you broaden that and create a risk awareness, identification and prevention program that spans your entire organization? Organization? This is, you know, for, for the, the audience here. That's a natural strength of treasury people, is to be cognizant of risk. You're constantly worried about fraud, you're worried about your, you know, you're involved in insurance procurement. So why can't you take that strength and broaden that out? Just like if you're doing cash management and liquidity management, it's a natural broadening to be the source of debt management and to run debt deals, you know, So I would say you start with the basics and then you expand it out. And then that holy grail is to kind of get into corporate finance, is to continue to move yourself more and more into corporate finance. Treasury people have the expertise. We know how to put together financial analysis, we know how to do discounted cash flow statements. And we are oftentimes in most organizations, one of those subject matter experts. So it's a natural transition for us to get into, involved in that analysis and to be a voice in the room for strategic decisions. Maybe it starts with answering questions about structuring the transaction so liquidity is maximized. Or maybe it talks about, you're just coming in and saying, okay, we do have the liquidity for this deal, or you're opining on how we would raise the debt or what the rate of interest would be on the loan. But over time, time, can you expand that and get into that role and do more in the finance space so that, you know, as I already discussed, I won't repeat myself, but as I already discussed about broadening it into the investment analysis. And then when you're doing all that, can you then on top of the final thing is can you stay well versed in other areas that might be outside of your daily job? Can you stay well versed in accounting? Can you stay well versed in transaction services and payment processing if that's not an area of your strength? Some treasurers already have that in their area of responsibility, some don't. But if you don't, how more, how can you get involved in working capital management, payment processing, receivables, collection? And then if you're doing all of that, I mean, that's, that's just that to me is the job description of a CFO in most organizations. I think that covers most of what a CFO does. And you could see where your core is in treasurer and then how you expand, expand your broad and your scope.

Basic. Any other final bits on your checklist or. We all done? Because I know that we spoke before and there was things you didn't to want.

Want to miss.

All done?

No, I think, I think we're good. I think it's best to keep it short. I mean, I think having. Having two podcasts might be already a stretch for me, so.

You've done brilliant on both.

I think we've gone plenty. I think we've gone plenty long here. But I'm, I'm really happy to have this conversation.

Amazing to catch up.

Thank you, Sam, for your time. It's been amazing to speak.

Thanks. Thanks, Mike.

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