Navigating the World of Treasury with Amanda Schreiber

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 Amanda Schreiber, senior Treasury manager at Telti. Telti is the only global payables automation solution to streamline all phases of the AP and payment management workflow in one holistic cloud platform. We're going to go back to the beginning of her career, how she first started in finance and then she discovered the world, that wonderful world that is treasury, that's our world. So Amanda, over to you. Take us back to. Well back in the day if you like. Well actually more, more how you graduated because obviously then business administration over to you.

Thanks for having me on today, Mike. I graduated in 2010 right after the, you know, the financial crisis and everything. So being a finance major was not the best thing at the time. So I ended up going into accounting. It was pretty tough just with interviews. I remember some of the different banks like they just departments were demolished, no one was in the office, it was just layoffs all around. And so I ended up cold calling and emailing my alumni network and got an interview at Broadcom to do accounting and kind of a tne credit card corporate administration with that to get my foot in the door and you know, worked with AP doing payment processing and.

All of that and just listeners just jump in there. You and I will know all these companies. I know a lot of these US corporates but Broadcom, can you explain who they are, what they were, what they do?

So they're a semiconductor company, make chips for, you know, cell phones, everything. Pretty much there's a, a chip in most things which I guess more people found out about semiconductors with the car chip shortage and everything in the last couple years. But they're global company, big footprint, there's a lot to learn there. So I was really fortunate with that. They're based out of California, offices all over big with Asia, APAC and all of those. So it's around the clock operation.

So you went in there just in a sort of to start it in an accounting role. Did that then give you an intro to treasury or how did you find out about treasury whilst you were there?

Yeah, so I worked with treasury when I was helping on that, the corporate card side. We were doing an RFP for a teeny card and, and treasury was part of that and also with the AP side working with treasury on funding. And then later I moved to accounting to do intercompany accounting and that was also close with treasury on that side just because of the currencies and different, you know, tax issues and all that. So you got to meet a lot of different groups and work with them closely. And then from there treasury opened up spot for me and since then I've just been in Treasury.

Treasury then Broadcom Global obviously based in California. What, what was it like? What was the structure there?

So I think for the Treasury Department it was pretty lean. I'm used to, you know, smaller treasury departments but the country controllers had treasury too. They, they would do some of the, you know, the payments and relationship management with some of the banks. We had kind of the overall relationship management there, but it was a lean team. I think we were about three and a half people. You know, we always count half or some where a treasurer that had multiple hats, so investor relations and all of that. So he would count himself as a.

Half sometimes and talk me through how did the role develop? As you say, you'd, you'd come in at a tough time. 2010. I remember that we were, yeah, it was actually, it's quite an interesting one when, when we were, you know, I've been a Treasury recruitment 20 plus years but we'd been going by that stage eight years and I more or less remember that time. It was post subprime crisis. You were still. Yeah, it was an interesting time. I remember sitting with a colleague at the time and just looking at the, you know, usually you have all your jobs on the board and you know, working through them, this interview, this. And suddenly the board got smaller and smaller. You're thinking where, where did all the jobs go? And it sort of. Yeah, it was a tough time in the market. What was it like for you, treasury wise?

It was very tough. I mean I went into accounting. Accounting is always a good one to go into. It seems like there's always a need for accountants and I think it's a good background to have to go into treasury to know some of that. It's important on that side. But you know, I was lucky to find a company that was already strong in the market and that piece of safety, the safety net with that was good. But as I've grown I have seen, you know, treasury change slightly. But I think it's the fortunate part of having a company like that is that you can, you know, work with different groups and decide if you like treasury and they teach you what they're doing. Or you can help out with anything, even on the tax side, or FP&A. That I think that's important. And it was for me to get into treasury and decide if I liked it. You know, I can't just jump all in and decide to go to something else. Sometimes you like it and you, you want to learn more. And Treasury's evolved in that way that you're touching multiple things. It's not just cash management anymore. It's not just core Treasury. You're looking at different groups you're working with AP, purchasing, tax, FP&A, you know, the product side, marketing, sales, all of them, to see what they have, what they're doing, what they need. How can you make it more efficient for them? Even the whole company traveling like the spend and keeping, you know, the cards going so that they could get back and forth and making sure that, that you're taking kind of a customer relationship thing, you're taking care of the, that piece. And it's, it's not as much just working with banks anymore, which is.

And when you say you're doing all that, you're busy in your day job as well. And again, you and I just spoke before this podcast. I had a really great interview. I was being interviewed on this podcast about FP&A and the intersection of the treasury. And I was talking about. They said, how do you fba, how does he get involved in Treasury? And I said, well, have a coffee, you know, talk to people, get to know them and things. You're busy with your day job in Treasury. How did you make time for. Or how do you make time for it yourself to meet, you know, other people and not just have treasury in its ivory tower sort of thing?

Yeah, I think it's important to ask questions and talk to people and just. And it's a little bit harder if you're remote, but it's, you know, you could also send an email and say, I'd like to know more about this. Can you tell me, can you explain this and open that opportunity for dialogue? Because I think it's important, especially the FPA side. If you are close to them on the forecast and close on what they're hearing from, you know, each business unit or any say that they're managing and the communication lines open, you're. You could be more effective at your job just because you're. Then if you're forecasting cash flow or even unexpected payments, that's a big one for, for me if you have like unexpected office costs, build outs, construction, any of that that they know because of the, their communication lines with that group, they'll let me know and I could keep that cash cushion for that. I don't want to end up, ever end up in the spot where I am having to solve something or a rush to get some cash into paper for that. I think it's, it also makes your job easier. So if it takes an hour out of your day or week just to have a conversation, but it saves you, you know, a three hour, four hour long fire drill of running around trying to figure something out or cover for this unexpected payment. It just, I think it helps build long term. And then there's the distress factor. And it's good just to have a communication line, a relationship with your coworkers, that they trust you, they'll, they'll tell you what's going on or they ask for help and then you could ask for help if you're stuck on something.

Talk us through then doing well at treasury there, but then the move on to ICU Medical and things. So talk us through that.

Yeah, that was actually an interesting1. So ICU Medical was in. They didn't have a Treasury Department before and they were in the middle of acquisition, a spinoff from Pfizer that was going to double, triple in size from that, I guess for that one. Without a Treasury Department and the acquisition, it would have been pretty hard to manage. So I came in to create policies and look at, you know, different procedures, help with the acquisition side and the integration. They had a lot of Latin America entities, Europe, apac, all of those. It was very global and those are different, different areas of banking that Baking needs. And it's important to, you know, really talk to the, the local side of the business, especially Latin America. There's so many different nuances there that I didn't encounter before because at Broadcom we didn't really have a lot of exposure to Latin America, some Brazil at the time, but very, very minimal. And so just different local restrictions or tax implications or any of that new to me. But I think the other side, it's, it's nice to. When you go into a company and you kind of ask questions, get to know people before you start putting really rigid structures in. It's, it's important to talk to people about what the process is, what they're doing, especially in the other entities, see how you could help. And they have a abundance of knowledge on how things they operate locally. And it was, it was a great Relationship just to ask asset, see what they need and what can help make their job more efficient and then go back to the corporate side of the bank and see if there's anything the bank could do to help with that, anything that we could do on the finance side to make things run smoothly.

And any tips that you give to people. Because as you say, in fact I mentioned that today that Latin America obviously throws lots of challenge. Hyperinflation sometimes and yeah, track cash and everything else. How did you cope with that? Because that's, that's always been. And also it's so diverse across there. You know, one country is a different part and you know, the entire continent is all so many different challenges there. How did you cope?

Hyperinflation was one that was difficult. I mean, you can't, you could, you know, expect it and there's, there's trap cash that I think that's important to work with tax and accounting on to see what they're looking at, what they expect. The business side, a lot of it. You know, the way that we're taxed on the product that we're sending down there, it's different. And the intercompany side and what's existing, I think it's important to look at that and make sure that the FX impact isn't growing astronomic month over month. But it's also the local side, local controllers, local accounting folks in those entities to get their take on it and see how they've dealt with it. Because they deal with that around the clock, where we look at it a couple times a day or a week to see what's going on, look at the cash there, talk to tax on the trapped cash and see what we could do. But a lot of times it's getting the local side involved deal. When we were dealing with Argentina, that was one that at some point you just have to expect if you're in certain countries, cash will get stuck and inflation will just grow and grow. And there's some countries that you just have to avoid altogether. But the local side, they're really great at, especially if they've worked with US companies before, letting you know what happens, what's going on, how they deal with it normally and what they. It's always important to me to ask what they suggest that way we do and then open that, that conversation and, and see, because I, I don't know what, I don't know. So if they have an idea and I'm willing to, to listen, I think it, it makes them trust us more.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're doing. And so talk us through from there. What next? You know, you were there for three and a half years, good fun role and everything else. What happened next?

Yeah, after that I went to KBS Services, private equity owned large company. It's about 20,000 employees doing services and it's custodial landscaping and all of that. And so it was a lot different than the other companies that I've been ad. Not global or any of that, but it just was a lot of working capital management and dealing with a mismatch of your receivables are coming in so much later than your payables because the big chunk of your spend is going to be payroll related and so you're not getting net 30, net 60 on payroll. You can't. There were a lot with a lot of factoring of receivables and all of that. So it was an interesting place and then the next place. But to pulte it kind of brings everything together. You know, you're looking, everything that you looked at are pain points in treasury looking at how we could help. And so it was a pretty good move from there to have me look at how can I help other people in treasury with things that I've encountered before, automation or something that I think would be needed and different product features.

And can you explain what does that mean for anyone listening today if they're going, oh, who are they? What do they do, you know with the software and things?

Yeah, you know, I guess if we're dealing with small to mid sized companies that maybe they don't have a Treasury department or it's a very small treasury department or their AP department's very small. Are they looking to kind of outsource that or make it more efficient? I guess on the treasury side if you think about it, the payments and global payments and all of those can be very confusing if you don't. You're not used to going to the banks and looking at IBAN or different codes like you know, bank codes and all of that swift different payment types, knowing how you know how many days to settle a currency and do all of that. And so with our software, you know, you have the, we'll do the payments for you, the payments scale so the invoices are all in the system. You could see what you have. It'll tell you what's due, you know, coming up. Automate that side. We'll do a lot of payments for companies that have, you know, thousands and thousands of payments that maybe they, they can't manage with their system. It also, you know, it reduces errors and all of that. So when you automate and have more systems around this, it's, it's easier than someone that's typing in invoices and say there's duplication. That's always something that I worry about if the system doesn't flag it. But our system will flag it and I'll see it because we use our own software here and I'll see you know, possible duplication and it, it flags it, you know, hits a pause button review. See what it is to me is great because sometimes you're, you're just on autopilot and if there's, you know, no checks or any of that, then it might get paid twice. And it's a lot harder to get a duplicate payment back than someone ask for payment. It's I'll pay it if I haven't paid it but it's going to be harder to get that second payment back if I pay it twice.

Yeah, we skipped over something there and we talked about it just before the show that you'd also award winner honors award Treasury Woman of the Year honeycommended for with treasury today. Big supporters of those ladies over there. What, what was that about? And you know, how can we got that?

Yeah, that was. I worked closely with some of the, the banks that were you know, part of that and it was a really great recommendation and nomination that I got from our banking group after working with them on the integration side at ICU Medical for some of these spinoffs that we had. So I was honored for, for that. It was the Adam Smith Awards and treasures treasury today. Great organization. They, they look at, you know, everyone is overall and so I met a lot of great people. They look at what you do on your, the personal side of your life. Are you volunteering? Do any of that? And then the corporate side and how do you, what have you done to. To manage that piece? And they a lot of it was just how you work with different departments, strengthen relationships with across the company. And then on the my personal side if I am volunteering or do any of that then it's kind of a well rounded thing that they like to.

Look at that sort of brings us up to date as it were. You know, looking at. We both go to conferences. You do various groups and you and I talked about this. But where do you see if you're giving advice to treasury folks now? What is, what are the things you're talking to them at a conference. What are the different things you're thinking that people need to be thinking about what's the, you know, you were just talking there about where's the cash and making sure that it's in the right place and not duplicating stuff. But you know, are there other things that you think that, you know, treasury folks out there should be thinking about?

A lot of it is talking to different groups and even a little bit of mentor side of things to. There's a lot of analysts or accountants that they want to learn about what you do or just they're interested because it to them it's mysterious. No one goes to school for Treasury. That's kind of a hard part of recruiting, right? So that there's no treasury degree. When you get outta school you're like, what is Treasury? I hear, you know, accounting, finance, investments, all of that. It's not all Treasury. And so just to have an open door and if they have questions. I think for me, when I had questions with different departments, it was always great to listen especially to listen to someone that really is passionate and enjoys what they do. And so, you know, like the tax department, I would talk to them all of the time just because they love what they do, they're good at it and they could tell you, explain, you know, what they look at and how you can help. And so if I can learn a little bit about that did I could help with, know the way I'm doing my job and make, make it better. But it also is important to have, you know, analysts come in that say even from the accounting side or any side of the business or even new to teach them about treasury and the different relationships within the company that to manage and to work with. I think that it's important to have that open door just to get more people in because now when I'm seeing it, it's hard to find entry level treasury people and then it's mostly higher level that they're looking for. But it's hard if you're doing the job without some help on that side. And it's, I think it's important to have people coming up and learning about it and getting excited and other areas.

Other areas you think that people should be thinking about. I mean we're doing conferences and said it'll be over at San Diego later this year talking about hybrid working and things. Just that maybe is a question to you, how's it working with you guys and things like that.

Yeah, I think it's, it's great. It's always a flight away. If I need to go into the office. I'm remote now, and I'll go up occasionally. And it's great to meet people. I guess with the years of COVID I got used to it. And so I have my setup and everything that I need, multiple monitors and all that, that it's comfortable for me. But it's also important to meet people in person and see and at conferences too. I think some of the hybrid working, some companies have a, you know, very strict rule that it needs to be. You're in the office this many times and you're here from these hours to these hours. And even before COVID I always would say, if you're, you know, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, and I see right out the door at 5 o' clock, it's either you were twiddling your thumbs for a little bit of time waiting for five o' clock, or you were in the middle of something and it's five o' clock and you dropped it and didn't finish your thought on it, and you'll, you know, shut down your computer, ran out the door and you'll finish it tomorrow, which isn't very efficient. You're probably lost track of what you were, you know, on a roll with. And the other one is a waste of time for. For the person that if they're sitting around waiting for 5 o' clock, it's always, I guess, my side, especially with global companies, you, you're working sometimes odd hours, you work, you know, the trust that you're doing your work and you're getting it done. I think that that's more of the hybrid that I think of is that if you go in the office for the relationship side and see people in person and meet them, it's important. But at the same time, on the remote side, when even if it is hybrid, the couple days, they're remote, you just have to trust that they're getting their work done and that, you know, not micromanaging them. And if they want, you know, clock out at 4 some days, that's great. They got their work done. That's perfect.

Yeah, it's an interesting one. We, you know, we as a team, both Craig and myself and Katie, we recently did a webinar just about this. We've got some worksheets if people want them. We'll put maybe a link to it in the show Notes, where we talked about the return to the office Hybrid working, which is what I'm going to be talking about in San Diego when I'm over later this year. But then also we were, you know, trying to give some encouragement, trying to give some advice to people how to get the most out of your teams, you know, that are either 100% in person or that are 100% remote or the blended team if you like, in between, how to make it work efficiently because you know, it is, it is a challenge, isn't it? Ten years ago it'd be like really flexible working, go away. Now it's here, full stop. Get used to it and work with it.

Especially with cell phones and the way things move quickly and everyone's connected all the time, it's important to be flexible. And if I could answer an email at 5am and help someone get an answer quickly and not have them wait until 9 o' clock, then I'll do that. Or you know, a little flexibility to, to get things going, especially in an international company. I think that's, that's important on that side. But you saw it with, I guess some of the bank runs that things happen so quickly. People are on their phones doing things quickly. You could even, I mean most of the banking apps have something on the phone. You could process wires remotely or from, you know, vacation if you need to, if there's no coverage. And so I think there's a lot of flexibility today and some level, you know, you have to just trust that people are responsible, getting things done. I think on the other side too, it's if your team is fairly new or the junior, a junior team that it's important to be in person and make sure that they ask questions and they have some guidance there. I think that's the flip side of things, of if you were hybrid, it's, it's also letting them know that the door's open even if you're remote and it's just a zoom call or a slack away that you could ask questions and feel like you're in person. But that open door policy and to let them know that it's okay to ask these questions, you'd rather have them ask it than to not. And then maybe there's a mess to clean up later because there was a mistake.

Yeah, yeah. And any, any ways that you've encouraged that yourself, you know, the open door policy type thing, particularly if you are remote and things.

Yeah, So I usually, if someone has questions, I'd say book it and then we'll go on zoom and even, I mean yesterday I was on, I think about two, two and a half hour long zoom just looking through reports with people on, trying to help build reports on the bank sites if they needed and if they have questions while I'm doing that and looking through the bank portal then can ask and it's a less formal thing to, and just helping see what, what I could help with on the accounting side for them especially around month end just to make things more efficient. And so it's, it's always I'll have my camera on if anyone needs they, they know to, to call and just ask and they'll zoom with me for a while and if I'm up in the office then it's usually I try to block off my calendar just to leap time for in person meeting. Cool.

And we're going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. I know that's going to, you know, take off and things like that but if we look at giving some takeaway advice for people today, you know, if, if you're the junior stages of your career and you know, maybe reflecting back for yourself, what would you say to those guys? And, and we're listened to by a range of people right the way across or globally but also particularly across the US you're more at the mid level stages of treasury manager or later stages as a treasurer. What advice are you going to give to those people?

Yeah, I think it's really building relationships the most important and keeping some flexibility and just understanding that you hold this knowledge of the treasury people are probably interested in it and if you're communicating and let them know they can ask questions, it could help make things easier on your side, make the job more efficient and then maybe later down the line too with the junior side, if you're looking for an analyst, there might be someone interested after talking to you and thinking I want to learn more from that person. It always, it helps on that side I think too for, for me it's always important just to talk to different departments too and just ask people, you know, what they do, what it is I could help with what they like. And people are always willing to talk about their jobs and what they do and I think they don't get asked enough and so when they are asked they'll talk for a while which I could talk about semiconductors for a lot of longer than I ever thought I could just because I talked to the engineers and it was, it was very interesting to, to hear what they were doing and how long chip cycles are and, and different pieces like that that it helps you describe the business too and it just builds relationships that you wouldn't ever cross into different functions like engineering and at the same time, you know, if you're talking to them, they might know someone at a different company or you know, similar industry that could help with some questions you have. Like if there's someone in treasury at a similar company that they know a friend that works in, you know, that finance department or any of that. Because a lot of times it's a very small world in an industry. It's a very small world in treasury which is important to network at a lot of these conferences and events because you see the same people over and over every year. You know Ampi, you'll see people and it's, it's nice to see them again in person and at all of these events. But it's very small world. And so I think creating those relationships is important and that opens up that network that if you have questions, I mean there's, even with the SVB piece of things when that happened no one knew what to do and it was just open up your network, ask people what are you doing to manage this? What are you doing? Like it's a trickle effect too. It wasn't just seb, it's other banks and you're now looking at your county counterparty risk, you're looking at different relationships, you have deposits, your concentration. What is everyone doing? And FDIC popped up more than I wanted to hear about FDIC limits, you know and it asking what structures there are out there to manage that. And Google is one piece, it's not really tailored to treasury questions. You know, you try to Google a banking question and it's usually on the consumer side, not on the corporate side. But if you have that network it's a lot better than any Google search you can do and it's more efficient and effective.

And as you say that's very time bound as well that you know when you get such prices like Silicon Valley bank happening and it's, it's not stopping, it's there. Boom. Straight away. I remember again, funny enough, everywhere in the UK had closed. It was sort of 6, 6:30 at night. I had a US client who suddenly needed a set of terms and we were going to lose the deal unless we had them on their desk delivered. And I was, what do I do? What do I do? You know, it's, it's after I know I can't go to our. So there's associations, they were firmly closed. I reached out to actually a recruitment connection I've got on the west coast in LA or just south of la. I said look, I need help. What can you do, mate. And he, and he said, mike, give me, Give me two seconds. Boom. Ping. Into my inbox arrive their set of terms and conditions. And he said, oh, these help. And these. I'm like, this is incredible. And it, you know, we, we become even better friends than them. But we were mates before, but it was just like, oh, thanks. He said, well, no, you know, and we've now started to do some more stuff together because access to this free network, you know, again, when I was talking to Chicago a couple of weeks ago that people were saying, oh, what about this? And I'm not looking for a job. No, I don't care whether you're looking for a job. It's a great thing, particularly in Treasury. This network is as. As the lovely Leanne Perkins says, your. Your network is your net worth. I love to steal that one. It's great. But it's, it's true. And you. You've made. You said that before as well, haven't you?

Yeah, it's great, too, because, like, in that instance, you'll always remember with this, you know, SVB going under, what you, what problem you had and who, who you asked and who helped you and made that impact or who you were with. Like, it's something that you remember from there on. And that person made an impact on, on you, helped you out, it was positive and that strengthened your relationship. I think that's important. And it's. If you didn't have that network, it would be different, but it really does strengthen a lot about you. And even, yeah, if you're not looking for a job, it doesn't matter. It. You don't go to AFP to look for a job. You're. You're looking for ideas, different communication, you're talking about what other people are doing. And you might not know that you have not a problem, but some kind of. There's more efficient ways to do something or there's some solution to something that you didn't think was a problem. It's just you've managed and dealt with something that's not efficient or there's a system maybe, or a process or different ways to do it. But if you talk to people and they say, oh, I have this great new tool that I use and it's cut down my work on this, and I could look at other more important value add areas, that's great. It's not about getting another job. It's, hey, I think I just cut down a couple hours on my week.

Amazing, Amanda, amazing to chat to you. Thank you for your time today. As I say, look forward to seeing you later this year at AFP and being over there and it just been great to catch up and thank you very much for your time today. You're a superstar.

Yeah, thank you, Mike. Thanks for, for inviting me on. Looking forward to San Diego too. It should be a, a great, great place to have the, the conference. Looking forward to the in person meet finally.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

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