Real Treasury Career Lessons Nobody Tells You | Treasury Career Corner LIVE in Dublin 2026

I've got an amazing panel to join you tonight. So good evening, Dublin. These guys have made this effort to come and give you some of their Treasury career journeys, some of their learning lessons, some of the different things they've been through and share it with you guys. And you get to ask some questions in about 40 minutes. We'll do Q&A, we'll then do a wrap-up, and then we will be heading out to the ferry. Remember, we're in the private bar upstairs, so it means you can get to the bar. So don't worry. But first of all, I put on these sessions. These are some of the things that we do. As some of you, a lot of you I'm connected to on LinkedIn, I'm a recruiter, but that's then led to me doing things like these events where we give you career advice. It's not just like, "Hello, got any jobs?" It's about, "Do you know what? Let's help you guys with your Treasury career journeys." We do our salary survey, we do webinars, the lot.

Yeah.

This is the team, do all the hard work behind the scenes and some front of house. Now, these events would not happen without State Street, Chatter, Coalition Greenwich. If you can all put your hands up, please.

That's good, let's see.

Now make yourself right. Now look around at these guys. We wouldn't have this venue without their support. So when you go at the end, if you want to get a free beer, you have to say hello to these guys. Hello. This is the running order. We're going to get each of the panelists to explain from the beginning of their career journeys where they've got to now. And we're then going to go into a bit more about education qualifications, what it's played in their career journeys, what's been key to their success, and where do we see it going to next. Yes, we will do some technology, AI, but not all evening. James would love that, I know, but we're not going to do that. Then we'll do some Q&A with about 10-15 minutes to go. We do have to finish at 9:30. Because the security— 7:30. Oh, sorry, Jackie. Did I say that? Oh, sorry. Sorry, 7:30.

Sorry.

I wanted to give Jackie a bit— she is awake. It's great.

There you go.

So yeah, no, we will be leaving at 7:30, but you will get to meet the panelists in the pub, ask them some one-to-one questions. So first of all, I'll let each of you introduce yourselves. Grab your microphone and no karaoke.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you, Mike, for the opportunity to speak here today. So for those who don't know me, my name is John James Dunn. I'm a former Group Treasurer and former President of the ICT. I started my Treasury career in IBM on a graduate programme rotating around various departments before moving into the dealing room. I then moved on to Grafton Group PLC where I established a Treasury function, implemented a TMS and won an Adam Smith Award. I took a brief stop in DCC with James who's in the audience here today. Most recently I was Group Treasurer of Glen Dimplex where I introduced a brand new team, improved our processes, implemented a TMS, and I finished that role actually a few weeks ago, and I've just founded my own Treasury Advisory business. So looking forward to the new adventure.

Donna? Not really sure how to follow that one. Okay, I suppose my Treasury career didn't start as a wanting to go into Treasury or even finance. I wanted to go into sports science, and that was my trajectory. I came over to Ireland, I was travelling, And then ended up in the bank. And then I stayed in the bank for 10 years, got a bit of a taste then for something different. I went and did the BTU, Master's in Investment Treasury and Banking, and then moved into Treasury. I just, I grew up in Xerox. That was where I really went through all of the Treasury Analyst all the way through to Treasury Director role. And then very recently decided to move away from what I knew into a new role in SanDisk where I'm currently the Global Treasury Director.

I just want to point out since she's joined Sandex, your stock has jumped 4,000%. I don't know if that's serendipitous or—

Timing.

She also didn't mention, but I'm the only non-IACT former president or president. I'm among the greats of Treasury in Ireland. So I'm Ronan, I suppose, in Treasury probably about 20+ years. Similarly, didn't really know Treasury. My background was maths and politics in college, kind of accidentally stumbled on it in a back office role. Then moved away from back office, middle office, front office. Then I'm showing my age then because the financial crash happened and then my front office role got made redundant. So I kind of then did a pivot then into the corporate treasury world where I've been kind of working since. Various different roles and kind of achievements from setting up a treasury in Belgium to moving a treasury over to Ireland. Similarly, we also won the Adam Smith Award for top treasury team for some of the separations and spin-out activities we did.

They're giving them out now though. They're starting to give them out now.

Yeah, yeah, but when I won it though, you really had to work for it. Yeah, I agree now. The ones that win it today, because I think our friends from Solstice won one, and I was going to have a bit of a jibe because we did that spin-off with them. But anyway, we're all friends now though. But as I said, various different treasury roles. And then once I moved and pivoted into corporate treasury, my kind of career and focus kind of took off. And now I lead the EMEA treasury team at Honeywell.

So, Amy fell into it, the rest of them pretty much fell into Treasury as well. I started off after I graduated from Trinity thinking I was joining Amy Dunrow, ex-Treasurer, just to pay for a trip to Australia, like most of my peers were doing, moving over for a year, a year and a half. But that gave me a taste for Treasury, I enjoyed what I was doing. I stayed there for 8 years, I got business, that was the first human I think I in the Navajo Y, City Y, Bank of America, where a lot of us worked when I started. It was when I went down and I then joined a bank and worked in the main office there and escaped the fence to corporate treasury. It was a role I didn't think I'd get with Johnson Johnson because it was very tech-focused and I was interviewed by a very strict IT director, but still managed to do that and stayed there for about 11 years in various roles and then came back to Ireland because I had been abroad with J&J. And now I'm working with Carrier, so privileged to join there 2 years ago. I started at the Treasury in Dublin and working there, I'm responsible for global international transactions.

Okay, so as it says up there, we've got a whole mix of treasury professionals here, some with less experience, some with more. But so what we're going to explore is a little bit more of the earlier stages of your career. Now, each of these amazing treasurers has come up through, and I wanted to ask about the part of the education and qualifications, because I know you guys all with the IACT are very much pushing that forward. I know John James, our podcast now, which we do every week, should have mentioned that. So we do a podcast every single week, 7 and a half years, 420 episodes. Couple of guests have been, Amy's been on, Ronan's been on, these guys will be on, Donna will be on one day. She doesn't know it yet, but she will be. But joking aside, that is to help educate you guys and give you knowledge about Treasury. What would you say to someone, you know, you've talked about the Dublin University, you'd contribute to there, can you explain to the audience what you think they should be trying to focus on? Is it getting Treasury qualifications, general finance, or what do you think they should be doing at each stage? And we'll go along the panel and then we'll flip around different steps. So to you.

Yeah, well, I'll have to start with a selfish plug with the IECT and the Institute of Bankers. We have a professional diploma in corporate Treasury, which has just started this year. There's actually several students in the class or in the room here today. And the feedback from the podcasts that are on the reading list has been absolutely fantastic. The course is grounded obviously in theory, but both myself and Jason, who is also a past president, both of us who are lecturing on it, we really want to take that theory but come at it from an application point of view. So how do you apply the theory? How do you think like a treasurer, taking the commercial and operational impact of the wider organisation into your treasury strategy, into how you shape your operating model? So if there's one thing you do is to have a look at that course and please sign up.

Big plug.

Yeah.

Start with yourself, education, study.

Again, I'd say that we're, the IACT also offer a number of academies. Again, that's more from the, I'd say the kind of the junior new start within a Treasury environment. There's also the M2, which again is the next step. So I'd definitely say where possible, get the time, join the academies. I think as well, There's an awful lot to be said to making sure that in your own workplace you're kind of making your own opportunities to learn. So there's going to be different things happening and just ask for a seat at the table. You don't need to be a part of any decision or necessarily part of a project team, but you can still be part of the discussions.

Okay, Vernon. First of all, education is never a waste of time regardless treasury related or not. So if you have the opportunity and the time 100%. What I would say is it depends on the more formal side of training. It really depends on what stage you're at and what experience you are. So sometimes if you're, let's say, like me, I came from a maths and politics background. I didn't have finance in my degree. So as I was in my early stages, doing a Treasury qualification made sense. I had the privilege of being over in London last week and I met a lady who's a data scientist and she was saying that she's now looking to do Treasury to move into our world. So it depends on where you are. If you're transitioning to a different role, the education can help. It can kind of just differentiate you or get you that foot in the door. But similarly to what Donna said, when you have the opportunity within your role or within your peer group, ask smart questions. You don't necessarily need to be part of the project, but ask smart questions, kind of show an interest. I kind of jokingly say to people that report into me, I want people to give me a good headache.

Mm-hmm.

I want them to show enthusiasm. I want them to basically come with me with not just problems, but solutions and ideas. And that's probably the best form of education.

I would agree with Edward, but also say, I think Treasury's— some of the best interns I had came from engineering. So you don't necessarily, from Z, have to have that financial background. But I'd say if you did root in ACCA, accounting, exams, you're your biggest internal customer and your biggest partner. Partner, so being able to speak their language can also help you move further.

We go to Donna first on this. This is the Treasury Career Corner, like, so this is about your Treasury careers as well. As you just touched on there, you did 15 years with Xerox in a different range of roles with different challenges. I wanted to ask about that, how you kept challenging yourself through that with one company, if you like, in a series of different roles. And then I was going to go across the rest of the panel with Rowan and with Amy. You made international moves, and what do you think that these guys should be thinking about you have to make that, or what value they gave to your careers. And then we come back to you, JJ, and your opinion on it. But for you first, for yourself, you know, 15 years.

Wow. I know. Oh, it went past quickly but slowly at the same time. It was actually 17 nearly, so—

Oh, sorry.

17 and a half.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think part of what I always looked for was anything new that someone else didn't know how to do, or there was a problem— to your point, we're problem solvers. Whenever there was an issue within the business that needed a solution, I would always want to be at least looking at it and coming up with suggestions. What I also found is that I nearly almost tried to automate my way out of roles because by doing that, you're also then becoming a little bit more value-add to new roles. Right. So the more that you can build a scenario where you're no longer required in a certain role, it makes you one of the key picks for the next jump-off.

When you're in a big company like Xerox though, how do you make your voice heard? And you guys all have worked for smaller corporates and large corporates, but how did you actually prove your value and get your seat at the table?

There's an element of luck as well. I was lucky in that certain opportunities presented at certain points. There were times when I may have felt I wasn't quite ready, but I still just went for it and just jumped straight in. You're not always going to feel like you're fully prepared. So a combination of taking a bit of a risk sometimes and going into an area that you feel uncomfortable with, but also you have to have a bit of lady luck on your side also.

Okay. Ronan, over to yourself. You know, I followed you, you were on one of my earlier podcasts as well and we were talking a lot about your journey then. Maybe for the audience, what, maybe just re-explain where you've been. You went internationally as well, didn't you?

I suppose I just want to pick up on something that Donna said. Absolutely, there's an element of luck and getting stuck in certain projects, but what I always emphasize to my whole team, not everybody can work on everything. The ones that are, let's say, not working on the glamour projects, the ones that are doing the BAU, they're still contributing. So it's not necessarily focusing on what you aren't doing or what big projects you are. Get the reputation of getting stuff done. That's how you get the seat at the table. That's how you get your bosses noting, getting the reliability that if I give person this and they say it's going to be done by that day, that reputation is vital. And that's how you get— sorry, that's how I kind of view you get the seat at the table. Then in terms of, I suppose, my career, as I mentioned, I was an FX trader and it was probably one of my kind of— I worked from back office to middle office to front office. So once I got to the front office role, I kind of thought I'd made it in my career. And then the financial crash hit and I suddenly realized, oh, what do you do now? And I wasn't really prepared for that ego-wise, and I wasn't really prepared for that just kind of skill-wise. So I kind of had to take a step back and kind of figure out where I wanted to go. And I kind of reasonably realized that execution is the easy part. So to kind of move away from the the glamorised version of anybody who watched Industry. It's not really like that, but for those that haven't watched Industry, but anyway, moving to on the more corporate side. So I just got involved, as I said, in various different projects. There was absolutely an element of luck. I was working at Pfizer at the time. Pfizer were doing some spin-offs and I was getting involved in a lot of continuous improvement projects and an opportunity came to move across to Belgium and I went, why not? I like beer, I like chocolate. So moved across to Belgium. The role was brilliant because again, working for Pfizer, massive company, then moving across to what became Zoetis, super interesting setting up the front office for that company. But I could feel the career not progressing, if you will. And so I went, okay, why not? This opportunity happened with Honeywell, and from there it kind of just took off. Similar to Donna in the sense that I started off a treasury manager and now 11 years later I'm leading the team. So yeah, just look at your different opportunities, position yourself. You may not get every opportunity you want, but having your manager know that you're there, you're reliable, and that when those times come you will deliver, then that's kind of how you get the progression. And in my case, as I said, I, for me, it took me to Belgium. And so I had the privilege of setting up that team in Brussels. And then also the privilege then of setting up something similar in Dublin.

And Amy, with yourself, you obviously made a number of different moves, I think.

So over to you. So for me, I mentioned that I didn't think I'd get the role with Stange because it was very technically focused, building up a system on data infrastructures, which I'd never done before, especially in the Court of the Treasury. But again, the elements of the team were really nice. They were very open. They let me more or less shadow them and ask questions. So I got to do a lot more with them. I was back and forth to Belgium as well a lot. And got to meet the wider group. I then wanted to progress. I really enjoyed the corporate treasury space, and if I wanted to progress to manager, the next available role was going to be in Brazil. And so when my manager at the time gave me that option, he was laughing.

Oh.

But I didn't mind that. It was a challenge. I could deal with the team there in Brazil, and I knew also I could just come back, right? So if I didn't really like it or it was very stressful,— Portuguese at the time. But that worked out well. And then again, you know, I always put my hands up for international projects, you know, strategic enterprise-wide projects. And that meant I kept growing my network internally within J&J. And I had an opportunity then to go to the US, to the corporate headquarters. America was somewhere I never really wanted to go to work. It was never on my bucket list, unlike a lot of people. But I just wanted that opportunity to be at the corporate headquarters. So— I'm sorry. I went to course there, but for like 9 of the 11 years that I was with ChangeAid, I just couldn't say yes to every opportunity and then wanted to come back. So I think, you know, the experience being in and embedding yourself in a new culture, a new community, you know, the preconceptions that you might have of what Brazil is like, what Belgium is like, you know, it's completely different when you're there. I've been supporting the team on Brazil, you know, and gives you then the insight to actually challenge particularly then having, you know, the opportunity at the corporate level to say this makes no sense, you know, for them. This is great in the US economy, you know, single banks, whatever. This won't work practically. So you just have those insights and then just build your own mindset.

So we'll stay with you for a moment. You as an entire panel, you've all built your teams and developed talent. What's been key to you when you're looking at a CV lands on your desk, and what goes on the A-list, what goes on the not so A-list? You know, what are you seeking when recruiting, but also when you're also developing your team members? So talent development, you know, people here are thinking what should they be doing next? We'll come on to tech and all that stuff in a bit, but you know, with yourself, and then we'll come back across the panel, back through Rhona and things. So what do you look for?

First, I think I learned over my career to judge. So you know, you can have like, you know, top performer, qualification after qualification, and sometimes the book knowledge, it's just theory maybe that you can learn, not necessarily that you can really see something and step in. So I think it's really important to have those face-to-face interviews, try and not, you know, try to eliminate that unconscious bias. So where you might dismiss somebody, give them the opportunity to have the conversation. And interviewing then, I'm really just looking for growth, problem-solving, opportunity. When were you asking for more opportunities to learn? So just that openness. And within the team, I really like to knock people down on the deep end, but I certainly challenge them and try and see how they cope with increasing responsibility. And just from a coaching standpoint, it is trying to encourage them to come up with the solutions as well, but quickly trying to identify where people are floundering because I don't think it's fair. Like, everybody has their strong suit and, you know, some people work better than others, like individual performers. Yeah. You know, you said, Ronan, once you're delivering and you're performing, that's fantastic. Others might be great at the theory end, but they may be able to corral people. So trying to identify quickly where people's strengths are and getting them into the right role. You know, and building their confidence, I think, is huge. Because sometimes if people are failing in a particular role, it may not be their role, they'll thrive somewhere else. So just trying to be emotionally intelligent.

And Ronan, you've been building your team in recent years, You know, you've obviously seen some people that really stand out, and again, what is it about that? You've talked a lot about the team element, but anything else as well?

We've technically had to build 3 teams because we've done some spin-offs, and then that has helped me in reshaping an existing team. So there's been a lot of looking at that. I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, but I will anyway. Don't hire an asshole, number 1. Get good people, because you don't necessarily have to like who the person you're dealing with, but you have to trust them and they have to trust you. If you don't have that trust or confidence relationship, it's very, very difficult to be able to do what Amy says in terms of either put them into the deep end or help them kind of grow or develop, because what they're saying and what they're doing or how they're interacting with other people, How do you assess that at the beginning though?

Are you talking to their colleague, you know, or referencing people have said, you know, you can reference people, or what other ways do you do it?

Well, hopefully you send good people, Mike. But anyway, no, there's a mix. As Amy is saying, the first thing obviously we're getting a CV, and so it's impossible to tell from the CV. Right now, thankfully, I've built a good management team below me, so they're essentially screening everybody before it gets, the person gets to me, but it really boils down to that interaction. Now, again, how much can you judge within a 30-minute interview? Dublin is a small place, so there are a lot of people you can reach out to to check, and we do to manage that. Sometimes it's, and we mentioned earlier, it's a lot about, look, we've hired somebody based on recommendations from our peer group. And a good recommendation from a trusted colleague or a trusted peer That's invaluable because I know I would only give a recommendation if I truly believed it because that's ultimately back on my word, which kind of brings down to some of the things and why maybe a lot of people are here today is about the networking, knowing people, because that's how you get to know, that's how your word of mouth, sorry, by word of mouth, your reputation kind of evolves and kind of gets known within the community. In terms then of once someone kind of is identified and starts and how to kind of develop them. I'd say it's a similar kind of approach with Amy. The way I view my role is I'm a safety net. I'm not their first point of contact. I'm not their first point, especially at my level, sorry. No, I, because I have managers that report into me, so my management team are fantastic, none of which are here this evening. They've all had surprisingly more interesting things to do, but anyway. But they, It's their role to help develop them. I'm there for their managers. However, I'm the safety net. So when something kind of goes wrong, the worst thing you can do is ignore it. You raise it, you bring it up, and that again, it brings you down to that kind of trust element. They know that they can come to me if and when needed. And sometimes if it's just to vent, that's perfect. Like then, you know, you let it out, we figured it out, and it's like, I don't need you for this. Just to let loose, this is what happened and this is what we're going to do to solve it, off you go, I support this, this makes sense.

Yeah, Donna.

One of the things I would say, we have like an, or had an internal like recruitment team. So there would always be certain criteria for roles and obviously depends on what level the role is being paid at. But typically there would be a level of education required, some formal education and it would need to be finance related, wouldn't always need to be Treasury related, but where there were any sort of Treasury qualifications, for us that would be a move it on to the we're going to speak to this person pile. If there were no formal qualifications, that wouldn't even pass for our, whether it be internal or external recruitment.

Can I ask, do you do that now still? Because we decided after research with some of our recruiters to remove the So, it's not to discriminate about anybody who has the qualification. We've just removed it from the— to have a qualification from the applications because we found we get a broader amount of people applying. But you still look at that as an entry one.

Interesting. It's still there for us, which again, whether it's right or wrong, you know, I do always think you're kind of— you're narrowing your potential recruitment. Pool, which is never a good thing. And we get it again, maybe it's because it's that bigger, older sort of institution. Now in a different world, and it is a little different, but again, there's always these, you know, you want to see some sort of involvement in Treasury, you want to see something within their CV that, I suppose, kind of leads you to believe that they do have a genuine interest there. And so whatever that involvement might be, whether it's with an association or whether it's you're doing some sort of independent learning, they're the kind of things that I think just get you onto the, the desk so that you then get the opportunity to speak to somebody, and that's really when you can make the difference.

Yeah, so when I bring someone in for the interview stage, I'm really looking for potential. Obviously to get in the door they've had a certain amount of experience and the skill set is there. I'm looking for potential because I adopt a mentoring and coaching leadership style. Where I'm more than happy to roll up my sleeves, bring the individual from point A to point B to understand the process, but more importantly, understand why they're doing it. So if, let's say, a treasury analyst comes to me and they want to execute a hedge out 12 months and it's 25% bigger than the previous month, I say, "Well, why?" And generally you get a bit of a blank stare of, "Well, just that's what the system said." Mm-hmm. I want them to understand that there's seasonality in the business, or whatever the commercial rationale is, so that they're not just following the process from A to B, that they understand it. And that's why I look for potential, that they can absorb the learning from me, that eventually I can pass responsibility over to them. Of course they can come back to me with questions, just like Ronan has said, or vent, but ultimately they get responsibility, and that gives them the sense of satisfaction that they own the process from A to B, and they don't have a manager over their shoulder, that they're standing up independently.

I'll stay with you for a moment on, if I may, that we're going to go on to technology and AI because I know you guys want to ask and can ask some questions about it later as well. But so I did a panel last week, UK Treasurers Conference, really great, and one of the panelists, Victoria Underwood from Imperial, she was saying about how they were using AI to look at some of their FX hedges. And she was looking at this and stuff. As she put it, and I said to her, there's AI and there's RI— artificial intelligence, real intelligence. Now what she actually did, she put in some of their FX swaps. It was the thing— it got the wrong answers, and it actually went through the wrong methodology. And she then accused it, said, look, you've got this wrong. And they went, oh yeah, you're right, I have. Now she wouldn't have understood that if she didn't have a basic Treasury education and she did everything else. Now, with this rise of AI, do you think that's a danger? What do you guys think? You know, we'll pass back. What are you seeing? Comment on it from your own perspectives and maybe from your companies and what you guys—

Yeah, that links back to my previous comment about why, like, so if an AI model throws out a certain answer, you have to be able to stand back and challenge it, justify it. What are the assumptions? Does it make sense? Does it pass the reason test or does the answer look funny? Because if you're just relying on a model, you don't have the understanding, you don't understand the cash flows of the business, the operating model, the seasonality, etc., you're just going to press execute. And that's where you have the problems at 12 months down the line when the hedge matures or whatever investment you've placed. You're suddenly having a deposit on the books and you're also overdrawn. It's not a good place to be. You need to obviously embrace technology. It is the future. We've all come through the process as an industry from paper to Excel to to treasury management systems. AI is the next step. We do need to embrace it, but you do have to be very, very careful with how you execute it and how we use it and be able to stand back, see the bigger picture, and ask why.

So how do you do that? How are you, you know, when you're, you know, you're going into this independent business and things, when you're going to these clients, how, you know, they're going, oh yeah, this is great, and there's all this stuff that's coming through. There was a comment, you know, just today, someone saying that AI capital gets rid of human capital and stuff. It was all in the press. You know, where do you see it going?

Yeah, I think it comes back to one of the comments earlier about being problem solvers between, I suppose, strategic value business partners. Yes, AI can remove a certain amount of workload, but that should just see us as treasurers go up the ladder into value creation that we can deliver. We just can't be seen as processors. I think as Ronan said, moving from just doing the execution to the wider group treasury function and being a, I suppose, a partner to the C-suite, a partner to the wider business to help them achieve their business goals.

Donna, you're in, you know, SanDisk technology, you know, I know it's manufacturing and things, but—

Very behind, very behind.

Oh, okay. This is recorded, but okay.

No, I mean, the way that they embrace AI is something I've never seen before. So I'm trying to get comfortable with their level. Of comfort with AI. But John James's point is exactly right. It's great at putting the numbers together. It can throw out analysis, but it's being able to understand what assumptions have been built into any AI tool so that you can make sense of what it actually spits out at the other end. And but it's here to stay and you need to just embrace it. And I think as well as an element of AI, it needs to learn as well. So it needs a lot of investment so that you are actually teaching it what's right, what's wrong, so that the AI itself is sort of learning itself.

Yeah. AI is making my emails more human. That is for sure. Sometimes when I have Copilot write some of my emails, I'm like, "Yeah, that's not me." They'll know that's way too polite and too nice and too friendly. But we, they've hit the nail on the head. Like you have to embrace the technology. It's here to stay for sure. Having that natural curiosity definitely helps. At Honeywell, we were using Copilot quite a lot, and at the start, Jenny Wiley wasn't too enamored with it, and I use it every day now. It's still very basic in the sense that it's helping me doing a lot of legal documentation review, and this is where the treasury skill comes in because there's something you can do, let's say legally, but would you want to do it from a treasury perspective? And so it kind of gets rid of, you know, something that I'd be reading a document that could be taking me an hour to do, that's now kind of summarizing, getting to the points where I need to be more mindful of, and that work is getting a lot— it's more focused in terms of my analytical skills. And I'm able to be more productive in terms of in terms of that. But yeah, like a lot of companies are rolling out it very differently, you know, agentic AI, I think we're still a good bit away from, and especially full end-to-end because we don't have it in the human world where one person does everything. There's controls, there's SOX controls, and there's breaks and there's pauses. So it won't replace the human element of it. It just replaces the time to get the data, the time to get the analysis, make it a lot quicker, coming with recommendations, but not necessarily, you know, full agentic straight through. But for companies that do have Copilot or whatever version you may have, play around with it. I've had a few members of my team who were a little bit standoffish at the start. Once I showed them a kind of a live case, and this is specifically for trade finance because it's quite document heavy, And they were literally, 'No, no, this could never replace us. This, no, we couldn't do this. This has been around for 100 years, this type of treasury.' And now they're like, 'Every single thing we know is being pushed through, through, uh, for that.' But it took that kind of nudging them to kind of see the, the real test scenario for it. And now it's paying, uh, paying dividends.

A lot of the time it's removing the process. That's from other panels I've been doing, that it's, you know, the more you can embrace it, the more you can get rid of the process, then you get onto the interesting stuff, which is the value add as well.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Sorry, I have to agree with all that. I think certainly, I think that stock inventory makes sense, but I think you still gonna have fundamental issue with data. So if data isn't clean and isn't complete, it's very difficult to lay around any sort of productive AI. I know even back in my day-to-day days, we were talking about data lakes, and I think that's still where we are. Practically, again, we're obviously a big carrier using Copilot, looking at agents and building those out, but no active use at the moment. But I also feel that, you know, Carrier, Spot AI Technologies, a very acquisitive company. We had 180 European sites when I joined, we're down to 40-odd, you know, so it's quite difficult to layer something on there as well in a multinational. So that may, that might—

We'll stay with yourself and then come back through the panel if we could. One of the things, again, that I've been doing all these panels, I've done 3 conferences over the past 6 weeks, and previously a lot of you guys were sent out by your CFOs to be like the route master, you know, go out, find, discover, look at this new technology. But, you know, a few years ago it was blockchain. Everyone was, ah, blockchain, this blockchain, and now you're going, block what? You know, it's like, now obviously it's different with technology, but there's also other things where They're now saying, look, we want you as a treasurer to connect with the business much more, go out. Before you were specialists, now you're back out of the corner. What do you see as the biggest opportunities for treasury to get involved, or where do you see it going to next? We'll start with yourself and come back across.

Yeah, I think treasurers are already nosy by nature, right? You know, we want the context for everything. So even if you're given a model and the numbers are there, you still want to understand the context of them. And Don James mentioned on that as well. Like, what is the business? What are you here for? What is the mission statement of the company? And understanding that, then just the logic has to come through, right, and the rationale for what you're trying to achieve. But I think you can't beat relationships, you know, putting yourself in front of CFOs, speaking to the CBS teams, like, understanding what are they doing on a day-to-day basis, what are they trying to achieve. Like, I have had many fights with IT people because they want to power ahead and you know, build out an e-commerce model and you're trying to explain to them why you can't just layer on anything, you know, price-wise, but who's got my cash, you know, think of the other questions, but you just have to get out there and I know it's tough because a lot of companies have travel bans and things like that, but there's going to be an opportunity even virtually to put yourself in front of people, even asking as Donna said, can I sit, can I join this meeting, silent observer, just to learn more, but then also reading, there's so much out there in terms of your industry. Yeah. Different things that you see in both CEOs, the kind of—

Ronan, to you.

The only thing I'd add to what Amy says, it's super important within your own organization to build those allies, those connections. So we talked about the controllership, the legal, the tax, and the various different stakeholders. Knowing those people, partnering with them, learning from them. Yeah, and treasury, you are quite nosy, absolutely. But I think we're very people, people, people in the sense that we as a function, I think it's almost unique in finance in the sense that we pretty much have stakeholders in almost every area of the business because cash touches every area of the business. So you don't necessarily have to be an expert in all the various different aspects. But the amount of times I've had calls where I'd be like, I'm not the tax person, but I'm not the controllership person, person, but I'm not the but because you are actually brought into conversations and discussions with the various different business stakeholders and you learn. One of the things that our treasurer is very much focused on outside of the technology side is, and Amy was alluding to it, is on the people management and stakeholder management of the business, getting closer to them because we are or will get more processes operationalize or automate, which then should hopefully in theory free you up to kind of get more closer to the various stakeholders and your business units. And we gave some examples of why understanding the seasonality of your flows or just the type of area you're in are important for treasurers. But that people element is very much prevalent for us.

I think what I've found is everything that you've said, absolutely. But I think as well Treasury is almost the glue that brings it all together because of the fact that we have the finger in so many pies around the organizations. I think Treasury is kind of the glue. Very rare do you find a tax team trying to pull in all of the various elements of the business that really need to be party to any discussions or decisions. And so, and I think because of our curiosity and because we are always thinking, big picture. We're always trying to look at, you know, who else is this going to impact? We typically are the sort of— I don't— the center of the universe, but we are— everything we've got. I know, but it is that whole all roads lead to Treasury. No matter what it is, it leads to Treasury.

But yeah, I think it all boils down— you have to be a business partner, you have to build a tangible relationship. As Amy said, there's no replacement for face-to-face. And you have to bring the businesses on a journey, sell them the success story. You have to explain to them what you're doing, why you're doing it, whether it's an implementation, a transformation, a centralization, whatever it is, you need to explain to them because they can be quite tunnel-focused. So a lot of them are typically accountants by nature, so month-end, quarter-end, year-end, month-end, quarter-end, year-end. You need to show them the bigger picture, explain to them the journey, how we're going to get there, what are the benefits, because a lot of them don't understand, I suppose, corporate treasury, ERP systems, TMSs. They need to be brought through that kind of decision process so that you can bring them along. And if you're able to connect with people, you'll have a far greater probability of success.

I'm going to go to questions shortly, but I'm going to ask one more question of the panel, starting with you, Jade, and going back across. You talked earlier, Dublin University, you're obviously face-to-face time with some of these more junior guys who are earlier in their Treasury careers and finance careers. As you look back to your Treasury career, any advice that you would have given to an earlier version of yourself about dos and don'ts that these guys can learn from? And then we'll pass it along the panel, then I'll steal your microphone and get out to the audience to give these guys. But yeah, so I mean, you've got it firsthand, so you've done some rehearsal and saying, right, this is what I did, but don't do this.

But yeah, I suppose looking back at my career, My biggest regret is while I worked in international and global organisations, is not taking the opportunity to maybe travel both from a professional and personal perspective. I've done secondments, I've always had done secondments in different countries, but nothing really on a more permanent basis. I've always had that cross-cultural element to my roles, but getting out, and Amy and Rowan can testify, getting out and actually living and breathing a different country is a different story. So that's something that I would recommend to any of the next generation. Then one thing to add, and I see this when I'm doing my interviews, when I do my lecturing, is the soft skills, the people management. A lot of people are unaware or don't maybe fully appreciate the value that you must place on your soft skills, whether it's public speaking, presenting, managing people, selling your success story to stakeholders, to the C-suite. Mm-hmm. As Rowan said, building that reputation that, you know, come to me, I will deliver. That's something that I suppose the next generation need to be cognizant of.

I also missed out on an opportunity to travel, but I'm not sure if it's something even if I went back I'd actually do it again. But I do, I am a big advocate of taking those opportunities. Don't do— I do think that sometimes when you are on that whole trajectory, you need to also keep a little bit of yourself, keep a little bit of time for you as well. I think there's times when you can just be all in, and I don't necessarily think that's always, always been something that I would do again in the future. For things that I would definitely say, do be curious, stay curious, put your hand up as many times as you can to take advantage of opportunities that you're really excited about.

Um, Yeah, thinking back, I'd say when I had the— when the financial crash happened and my position did get mainly trundled, I was a trader at that stage. And I kind of went, I'm now a trader. This is where I want to be. I kind of, looking back, rested on my laurels a little bit. I stopped pushing myself. I stopped kind of getting those stretch assignments. I've kind of— I thought I was where I'm supposed to be. I didn't kind of continue to— Yeah, to push. So wherever you are in your career, just, you know, look outside your— work outside your comfort zone. Believe it or not, some people who may know me, they think I'm a natural extrovert, but I'm not. But I insert— but I make sure I try and put myself in those scenarios where I'm forced to push myself a little bit. And so, yeah, that's the advice that I would give to my younger self, is that no matter what stage you are in your career, keep pushing.

Similar to that, I think a little bit more confident to take on the projects that I wanted to take on. You know, I got lucky with some of the people I worked with who were quite open and, you know, want to give you that start. But when you feel you can do it, just go for it and see where you can help people.

I'll come out for the questions. I know I was just going to contribute to this. So I've got these guys up on stage and they said yes. And that's one of the key things. Just say yes. The default reaction when I do the podcast, a lot of the time I go out to people in the UK and Europe— no, I know so much like you do, you usually say yes, which is great. But I'll say, will you come on the podcast? And they say, oh, send me the details, I'll think about it. When I go to the US, one of the things a lot of the time they said, I'll do it, send me the details. Just get out of your own way. And I said this a number of years ago in Chicago, and I was halfway through a speech there And everyone see, you guys see, you see the LinkedIn profile, I see this, and I created these events and stuff. But I chose to do that to develop the business, to get out, to give you guys the education. I don't, didn't enjoy it then. I enjoy a lot more now. But the fact is, I just thought, if I'm going to develop this business, I've got to get out of my own way. So when your approach to speak at the IACT— sorry, Ergo, I know that, that I had to say that because otherwise, you know, they made me buy all the drinks. But joking aside, put your hand up, get on a panel, you know, help out. You know, by getting involved in those situations, that's how you're gonna— what's the worst that could happen? You know, you get a new opportunity, you get promotion, you get something else. That's one of the things to lean into it. So we're going to come to the questions, and you've got— come on, when did you last get a chance to ask these guys some of this? Thank you very much, Adam.

Straight to you.

Folks, I don't know if you'll want to answer this, or I want to answer it, but from a From a career perspective, have you preferred being the big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond when it comes to the smaller businesses where you're at top of it or where you're a treasury front office trader within K&J or somewhere else?

Who's going to take that first in? And you, Donna, you're going to have to share your microphone with JJ as well. But who's going to go first?

I can.

Go, Amy.

I can.

Go, Amy.

I came back to Ireland It was to an Irish company, Carrefour, that actually makes their acquisitions this week. But I decided to go back there because they were going to IPO and I thought it might be interesting. COVID happened and travel tech didn't go so well. But I was the head of treasury there, having come from a senior manager role with JJ. And it was interesting. COVID brought its challenges, but for me the scope wasn't broad enough. I really loved the multinational the national piece and the international, so probably the smaller version of your—

Yeah, I think if you're looking at kind of big versus small, one thing you have to consider is generalist versus specialist. So if you go into a big organisation, obviously the numbers are a lot bigger, but you might be focused on a more siloed role, whereas if you go into a smaller organisation, you're more likely to have a wider list of responsibilities. And in a lot of cases, the only difference is there might be one or two less zeros on the transactions you're doing, but you're getting a far greater depth and breadth of experience as a result.

How long do you stay in that role then, or what's a sweet spot?

In the generalist, or?

No, if you go into the specialist.

So in the specialist, just thinking, I'm kind of linking back to Ronan a little bit, when I became a dealer in IBM, I did roughly kind of 2 years there, and I felt at the time like I was the Wolf of Wall Street. I thought my career had peaked at the grand age of of 23, and I suddenly realized that actually, you know, there's more to Treasury than executing transactions. And that's where I moved to Grafton Group, where I had a full suite of kind of Treasury responsibility. And that's where I am a firm believer of trying to go for the more generalist role, because I was covering a little bit of everything. I may not have had the, you know, the billions or trillions worth of transactions, but I got a little bit of everything across a range of responsibilities and that helped develop my career to grow. And of course, if you do that, you can then specialise because you might decide, well, I like A, B, and C, I don't really like E, G, and F, and you can tailor your career in one way or another. But I would definitely recommend at one point in time just to try a generalist role.

I'm like Wolf of Wall Street, you got enough of selling that pen so many times, it was like that. Right, who's next? Come on, someone with a question? Sorry, there was someone there. No? Come on. Any other questions? Yeah, there you go. Rachel.

Hi. Has there been anything unique, like geographically or industry-wise, that shocked you a little bit in the kind of Treasury spaces, maybe different to what you were used to?

I don't know how we got on shocked. What has shocked me in Treasury? What I suppose, and I'm not bigging up Ireland, but I suppose the work ethic that I've seen in Ireland versus in other geographies, people here naturally want to help and naturally want to get involved. I found when I've dealt with some other geographies specifically, it's been more challenging. And I've also learned from the power from my French-speaking friends. They take lunch and they don't mess around with it. But it's, they're right. But they're dead right. That walking away from your desk, cutting off, having your own time, doing what you're doing, you come back more recharged. When I, previous to that, I was like, you take lunch at your desk. That's just what you did. You run down, you got a sandwich, you brought it back up with you. That was just the norm. But when I moved over, and again, it was very, very evident with the French speakers, in Brussels, just like, no, no, it's lunchtime. And it was only after that I realized, no, no. So I have a colleague, I'm a team member in the audience here, but they all know my morning, my lunchtime is completely blocked out. And I emphasize this to them, block time in your calendar, because otherwise other people will try and make their priorities your priority. But I've— I'm Mike Richards. I've really made a conscious effort of blocking lunchtime. I also do morning time, but that's at 6:30, so nobody contacts me from the Middle East, and I use it for the gym. But yeah, for lunchtime, that's probably the biggest shock, that kind of cultural nuance.

I'm the treasurer's mate, and you think you've got all these controls around dollars, and you and your office, you can take that, but that's not always the case, and so many different markets, You'll never get a no, but you will get a yes. And again, go back to the relationship piece because you have to get to know who to work with in certain markets to get your yes or to have somebody navigate for you. So like finding the right banker that has the in to the Central Bank of Argentina that will make sure that you can have the allotment of dollars that they have. Like simple things like that because, you know, and it goes back to the point that I made earlier, right?

An area that I have just been a little bit surprised in Japan And the way that the business works, particularly where I'm working at the moment, it's almost like it's off limits to Treasury. The relationship is all managed by the business in Japan. Very proud of their relationships with their banks. And it's quite a— it's something that just feels very much we're not in there yet. It's something obviously I want to break through. But that was a little bit of a surprise to me.

One thing that shocked me just generally throughout my career is the speed or lack thereof of our banking partners, and particularly the French-speaking ones, not to pick on any particular culture, but—

No.

And I suppose that kind of comes back to stakeholder management. So if you are going through a transformation and implementation, you have to get them on board very, very early, because if you're going to build up your reputation, you're going to build up your success story, if they're not going to deliver on time, overall your project is not going to be delivered on time, and then it's your reputation, your success story that's that's at risk. So it's imperative that you kind of, you manage your stakeholders, you get your banks, you get your vendors, your software suppliers on board and get everyone internally and externally lined up.

So one of my podcast guests, Mike Larsen, a while ago from Computershare, he actually talked directly to this and actually, and he didn't want to make too much light of it because, you know, he said, look, if you want to get on with your English partners, you go to the pub. But he said, but it wasn't just about going to the pub, it was actually meeting them, having a drink, you know, but getting to know them in a relaxed setting. Whereas where he went then out to Asia, you met over lunch and you would go out and he would sponsor the team. He would take them out, say, no, we've all got to go out to lunch, but not you have to come, but they wanted to. And actually that was one of the key things. It was for them, it was a, you know, that's how they got to know you and that was the culture. So I think it's been culturally sensitive. and things like that. So that's one of the key things. We've got some great takeaways for you guys, and I've got a little challenge for you towards the end. So we're going to go to those as well. So we've done the questions. JJ, you've got some time for this as well, so that's good. You got it at the back, you see if you can—

Yeah, my glasses aren't on. I suppose I've kind of probably touched on that already to a certain extent, to broaden your treasury knowledge. Obviously, shameless plug once again, look at the IAB course. And as I say, understand the bigger picture, ask why. I think someone has a phrase, as it asks why 3 or 5 times to eventually understand exactly why you're doing something. So that's something that you can kind of take away and think about. And throughout my career, I've always combined education and practice. During my 20s, and this is going to sound a little bit boring, and potentially why I didn't travel as much as some of the others here, is I was pretty much studying part-time throughout my whole 20s. I did the graduate certificate, the MSc, and then CIMA all back to back. So that's roughly about 7 years of study back to back. And maybe you don't have to— I'm not saying everyone has to do that. But my point is, if you combine strong industry experience with academic knowledge, it's a very powerful CV that you've put together. And obviously, the likes of Steve Jobs, et cetera, have done quite well for themselves without any education. But for, I suppose, the mere mortals among us, it's a proven success factor.

Right, Donna, your takeaways.

Oh yeah, make brave moves and seize opportunities. Look, we already spoke about that anyway, but look, you need to step forward, put the hand up, take on projects, and just take yourself out of the comfortable. And then again, stay curious and stay open-minded about where Treasury can take you. It's dynamic, there's no fixed path, and just, yep, the more you curious about the business, the markets that you're working with, and technologies that are available to you, I think the more value you bring to your treasurer, the more value—

I can just about make out mine without looking that way. Not, not, uh, yes, uh, the same screen, but building those relationships and those partnerships, those, those allies, um, be it with your own internal network, uh, ex— your own internal network within the company, or, you know, I've, I've texted Amy, asked for, for opinion on certain things, how you do things, but to learn and be willing to kind of hear what other people go about doing different things. So having those allies, people that you can trust, are, you know, it's invaluable, but not just your career, but your personal life obviously as well. It kind of goes without saying that embrace technology because we know we were talking this, I think it started with paper to Excel and various different automations and now we're at AI. Technology, you know, it comes, it changes, it evolves. You kind of have to stay up with it to stay relevant. And that kind of brings you onto that natural curiosity, understand what's coming from a technology perspective. And then also to what John James is saying, kind of being naturally curious, does it pass the smell test? The computer says this, but does it make sense? You know, why? But having that natural curiosity to challenge the outcome is invaluable. Yeah. Can you see your screen now, Amy, or do you need to look? Do you want me to call it out for you?

I think for me, one of my first ones is the fail fast. So I say the skill set that you develop from being treasury is that you probably quickly do the SWOT analysis in your own head so you can go for it. Figure out if it doesn't work, draw a line under it, pivot and move to the next thing. So I think that would be important. But then also I just appear the treasury world is so small, which it really is. And I, you know, when I know Mike worked for Bendy Universal, South of Royston, you know, and then you see him there at every conference and you're speaking in a different capacity. So it's not just in Ireland where I think almost everybody knows everybody, but globally treasury is small. Like I've seen, like last year in Ferryman, one of the bankers in Dublin was with J&J walked in the door. So, you know, make those relationships, sustain them, take the time to invest. Like the Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers is fundamental for me. Yeah. Coming back into Ireland, building out that career again. But then as Rhoda mentioned, it's the learning. You know, what do you really think of this bank? Have you done this? What are you getting? The challenges from CFOs and things. You get your, you know, with your peers, you can really just keep the tyres on it, you know, and hope yourself, you know, that you're right.

So when I go through this episode in the editing later, I might even just run a test of how many times these guys have mentioned the word network. And actually—

Can you remove my curse from earlier on?

I think that wasn't too bad, I don't think. But you've got here where Amy's saying about maintaining your network. This is the key bit. When you're talking to people this evening, and don't, you know, actually engage with them. You know, don't just, you know, it happens. I think you guys are very good at it. I've got to say, some of you, some of you do need to work at it, to actually engage with them and things. Then when you've met them this evening, reach out to them as well. You know, stay in touch, but then don't just like, 'Oh, we met. Yeah, let's connect.' actually adds value to them as well. Now that comes into the networking challenge that we do. There you go. So we do this as a live challenge, and we do this obviously at the pub, because the fact is you guys have made the effort. Now it's a bit further down, you know, you've all made this effort. Thanks for getting through. But the key thing is, if you're going to make the best of this situation, it's a 5-minute walk down there. But why? It's not just for, you know, a joke about, you know, we're gonna have a drink and everything else. If you can go there, and I did this in Houston in Texas, there was a guy there, lovely chap, and he said, "I've come here to network." I said, "Okay, I want you to go away." This is before we did this. Before you walk away this evening, you need to make 5 new connections. They're not just 5 people, you talk to them about who they are, about their treasury, find out something about them, not just the panelists as well. And he came up to me at the end, he was like, "Mike, I've done 8." I was like— He was super excited. He said, "Yeah, but—" That's 8 more than I've done in the past 3 to 6 months. I've met 8 people that I can help them, they can help me. And the fact was it was going to help him in his Treasury career. So invest in yourself, do come and join us. We're literally, because we're staying to time, Jackie, see, I've stuck to the top clock, but we're literally going to gather in here and then we're going to walk out. So yeah, so we're going to the upstairs of the Ferryman. It's not the downstairs bit, we're upstairs there, got a private bar, have some lovely time, meet the panelists, ask them some more questions. And thanks very much.

Thank you.