Steps to Treasury Success with Gary McGuire

Foreign.

So welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they've built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. In this week's show. I'm delighted to be joined for what is a milestone episode. Actually, we were at this, our 100th podcast when I first started. I sort of started to interview treasures about their, their amazing career stories and it's got to this 100 podcasts later and I'm absolutely thrilled. I've got a superstar treasurer today. Got Gary McGuire. Gary is the Vice President and treasurer for Dow Chemicals globally. Now Dow are massive. If you don't know them, he will describe them better than I. They've been going for many, many years. He's actually joined the group way back when as an analyst from his Bachelor of Commerce degree. We're just talking about that. I'll let Gary tell his story. I'll let Gary describe Dow because he's been there for many years. But it's not just at Dow. That's it. He's grown and grown and grown. We had a call the other day and it was really fascinating about his treasury careers taken off from different areas of the Dow group. But Gary, you're Canadian by background. You know you originally started with a Bachelor of Commerce. That was your first introduction really to commerce and industry, but it wasn't actually in finance and Treasury. Talk us through how you first ever started, sir.

Yeah, sure Mike. Happy to be here and glad we had this opportunity to connect. I'm honored to be your guest for your 100 podcast. So I always knew I wanted to do business from an early, early age. I think I had finagled a way to get to the school I wanted to get to without having to study French, which was mandatory in Canada. And I was no good at French, could hardly spell English, let alone French. So I did actually my first year at the University of Victoria and then transferred over to the University of British Columbia to get a Bachelor of Commerce. As you indicated, I actually took Transportation and logistics when I was the specialty within the Bachelor of Commerce and that was really just because a fascination with the professors and the hands on nature of those classes. We were out in industry visiting airlines, trucking companies and railways and going on ships and finding out really the nuts and bolts of how things ran. And I quickly discovered while doing that that it's all financial. It doesn't matter what business you're in or what you're doing. It all comes down to trying to get a future set of cash flows and discount them back and spend an amount of money that's less than that discounted future cash flow. So that's how it all for me in beautiful British Columbia and everything from there was an adventure.

And then with that you say you started there but you then were materials management. And then back in 1990 you discovered treasury itself. How did your sort of early career sort of follow itself through again? We'll have people listening today that might have just be starting treasury or thinking about it.

Sure. So like a lot of people, I started as an intern at dow. I did a summer out in Sarnia, Ontario which was their Canadian headquarters. Doesn't even exist exist anymore. But that's how much things have changed. But at the time it was where they ran GAO Chemical Canada from. And then I went back, finished up my last year, my degree and then came back full time. I spent about six months in Sarnia just doing your typical entry level analyst things. And then I was transferred out to Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta where we have a major manufacturing site. And for the most of that time I was there, I was a production planner. So I ran the production planning side of some chlor alkali plants that make copper soda and chlorine vinyl edc. I ran a power plant and then interesting. I had our west coast distribution center out in Vancouver where we would rail product out there and then load it onto ships. So really great job. Gave me good exposure to, you know, actually making and shipping product. But it never really floated my boat, so to speak. I always had this burn it drawing to get back into the financial area. And so DOW had ran an ad in the Globe and Mail newspaper which is the Canadian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, looking for a financial operations analyst. And I saw it and I said hey, I can do that. And I made a few calls within Dow and before you know it, I was back in Sarnia working in the treasury group.

Tell us just again for you know, I know about the group because, you know, I know some of the competitors. We've done some recruitment in the sector and things. For the guys listening today, how would you describe. Just give us the official overview of Dow if you like, you know, over many, many years because we did this on a couple of weeks ago. But you des be much better.

Sure. DOW is, you know, is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. It's very well known for probably, you know, the flagship product plastics. I mean about Half of our revenue comes from plastics. But chemicals are in almost everything we use these days. You know, whether it's automotive or cleaning products around your house, consumer products from face creams to shampoo. So we're in all of those markets. We're about 40 to 50 billion in sales depending on where the price of oil is. That tends to drive our revenue. We're 36,000 employees globally and treasury is about was about 220. We just made a change, we can talk about that later. And we're now down to about 140 people in Treasury. That was in selling in over 100 countries and we manufacture in I think it's around 35 countries.

And you got into Treasuries, you said you applied and got that sort of starter role if you like, talk us through then how you sort of grew through the function.

Sure. I got lucky I suppose as the way compared to today because in those days treasury in Canada did a little bit of everything. So I got to manage a little bit of pension activity, I did cash management, I did financial planning, I did a little bit of credit work and I did some tiny M and A deals that we had to do. And then I got to run financial risk management which really meant trading currencies. And there it was primarily the Canadian dollar. And that's really what floated my boat. I fascinated with that. Dow has always had a risk taking mindset. So I was actually allowed to trade, not just hedge our exposures but actually trade for profit. And that's really what started to turn me on. And that's how I ended up going to Royal bank of Canada after two or three years. Because I wanted an opportunity to really play with the big boys and get a job on the trading floor and see what that was all about.

Did you think that you had to leave the corporate function in order to, to do that to go to a bank?

I mean, certainly didn't have to leave. My career was going well at Dow, but it definitely accelerated things for me. I know where I left Dao and where I came back. I wouldn't have achieved that in a couple years had I stayed within the company. And I really went, you know, deep in a specialized area where I was doing, you know, foreign exchange at the bank. And I obviously didn't have the breadth that you may get in a corporate area. But I got the DAP times in spades. Going to the bank and really spending all day, every day deeply immersed in fx.

Getting to know it from, well from different customers I suppose as well and their different approaches. Were they quite different to DAO, or was it just a set approach to the bank, or what was the situation?

Well, and that's really what drew me back to Dow is, you know, soon after I arrived at the bank, you know, a couple things. One is I learned what a special place I left because I kept Dow as a customer of mine. I left on very good terms. And, you know, I started to cover other large major corporations in the US and in Canada, you know, and I quickly realized the way we approached risk and treasury in general at DOW was very different than the way a lot of other corporations were doing it. You know, we kind of treated it as a profit center per se, but, you know, more of a place to create value and really make an impact on the company, rather than just sort of a necessary activity to produce and sell chemicals. So that became pretty evident to me that I, you know, I left something pretty special. But, you know, I was having a great time doing the currency work for World bank, and I really wasn't planning on leaving. It's just, you know, was sort of serendipitous. I was at a conference. The treasurer was at the conference. The head foreign exchange trader for DOW had quit. And he told me about it. And I thought maybe I should go to the US Get a green card and, you know, see what happens. If it works, I'll stay. If it doesn't, I'll go to Wall Street. Lo and behold, it worked out and been there a lot of years since.

And then you made that move across, as you said, and you made the move to the US From Canada, and then later on you moved to Europe. So talk us through the sort of the career from there.

Yeah, so I got the opportunity to move to Switzerland. Dow had established in 1995 Risk management centers around the world. So we had one in Oregon, Switzerland, which is very close to Zurich, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Midland. So I got the privilege to go and run the one in Europe, which is probably the most active one for foreign exchange, because that's where most of the exposures were. And also was fantastic because it was right when I moved, was right at the launch of the euro. So I got to steward the company through all the changes from the lira and the deutsche mark to the common currency. So that was super exciting. I got to lead people and run my own show over there. Actually, it was during that time that I worked for one of your previous guests on the show, Michelle Beckers, who was the global head of risk management at Dow at the time. And I was his lieutenant running Europe and Asia. That was just a great personal experience for me because prior to starting that role I had never even been to Europe. So when I landed in Switzerland to check out the office, it was not only new for work, but it was a new experience for me and my family as well.

What was that like? How would you contrast the again, treasury in Switzerland, Europe and the Focus again? We spoke about this before sometimes because the flows, not because of the nature of the company, but the flows are so massive at the center of a global multinational. Whereas when you're at, as you say, financial risk management is a different kind of focus of Treasury. Did you find that within the center or was it exactly the same? No, that's it. This is the way we run Treasury. Boom. Do it like that or how was it?

Probably for Dow it was more the same because we had a very strong emphasis globally on strong processes. So, you know, financial risk management, which was basically FX interest rates, a little bit of soft commodities for our ag business, that was set up the same way globally, same systems. We all reported back to the, you know, the global director in Midland. So there wasn't too much change there. Definitely the biggest change was more on the personal side and you know, sort of the social interactions at work. But you know, Switzerland, fantastic place to live, beautiful, safe, pretty heavy on the rules. But all in all was a great experience because, you know, every weekend was an adventure to a new country in Switzerland, which was a real treat. And I have at the time I had two children and a third one born in Switzerland. So we lived the full adventure over there.

I really enjoyed it. And as you say, it's quite a different cultural shift because Switzerland is very. You're not allowed to have to your bath after 9 o' clock because they have set rules and it's just the way of things. That's the right way to put it. And the treasury, as you say, just sort of. It just ran and you got that progression. After three years. Was it time to head back to us or what was the sort of. Was other stuff coming along? What was the situation?

Yeah, this was a typical expat assignment at Dow which we say they're three to five years and really depends on the opportunity. So a great job came up for me back in the U.S. in Midland. Our world headquarters are in Midland, Michigan. And that was really my first sort of left turn in what I had considered very much a markets career for me. It was stay at Dow or go to a hedge fund or some other sort of trading shop could have been a prop shop at a bank. And I got this opportunity to come back and I jumped at it to really broaden myself beyond just financial markets. I'd been very deep in that space but you know, I hadn't been learning a lot about, you know, corporate finance. So I took on the role of global planning and operations for Dow. And you know, the operations is really our name for cash management and systems and all the intercompany loans and in house bank. So that was a fantastic way to see how business really gets done in all the different countries because as I mentioned before, you know, we're in over 100 countries, many of those have heavy regulations and currencies just don't free flow. So it was a great experience on that side. But then on the planning side is really what set me up for my role that I have now. I got deep into capital structure and all the different thoughts that go into shareholder remuneration between dividends and share buyback and a lot of work on leverage as well. You know, when I started that job I was writing a white paper for the board on the impacts of cutting the dividend. And when I was leaving the job I was writing the same white paper on increasing the dividend. So I got to see sort of bailment to feast if you will. And that was just a great experience that really, really gave me my first sort of flavor of what it's like to run a global finance or treasury organization in terms of the work and the decisions that need to happen.

And then I know you made this sort of move or was it by then that you made the move to chief investment role, is that right?

Yes, I did a very quick stint in something we called enterprise wide Risk management which I did for six months and then I carried that with me over into the pension role. So yeah, we at Dow we have a very large defined benefit pension plan. It's common with, with hundred year old companies that are in the industrial space to have these big legacy plans. And so today, just to put it in numbers, it's about 25 billion of assets, 32 billion of liabilities. And that was just a fantastic job. Like many things in our careers, I wasn't expecting to go there. Phone rang, the gentleman who had the role before me had quit and he was off to Lockheed Martin to run their pension. And I, unbeknownst to me was the heir apparent. And so over I went. And at that time it's interesting because pension had always been kind of a sideshow, you know over in a different building for us. And it wasn't really integrated into the, you know, the treasury for sure or into the finances of Dow. But if you Remember around that time, 06,07 pensions were brought onto the balance sheet of corporations. So they really became an integral part of the capital structure. So when I took the role, it was hung under treasury which made perfect sense. And then we were able to not only run the assets, all the great things to do with asset management, but also how the pension fit into the overall capital structure of the company. And as you know, rating agencies now look at the deficit in pensions as synthetic debt. So it's become an important piece of how corporations look about their leverage and their financial liquidity because those plans have to be funded as well. Yeah, that job was fantastic. I have to say it was one of the best jobs in my career. I mean it's wonderful to be the customer and to have $25 billion. It gives you a calling card for anybody. You get visited by the smartest brains on Wall street. And we were, you know, an innovative shop willing to look at anything and everything. And as long as it made risk adjusted sense, we would consider it. And you know that you have so much autonomy on that job within your fiduciary responsibilities to really push the envelope and invest in things that are of interest to you and where you think there's good returns. And I also started that job mid 07 and the crisis was upon us, you know, within my first year I was gonna say.

And with that, and you say exciting times you've gone into pensions, that's like the quieter area. Keep a lid on it, just keep it ticking over. But it wasn't like that. And again, this is, I'm going to say for the people listening, hang on. You know this is from our conversation the other day, but explain to the guys how, how is different to that and how it was a far more active role was.

I mean imagine the case of GM before PP used to call it a pension plan that happened to own a car company. The pension is big and in our pension the daily change in the value of the assets is in these markets, hundreds of millions of dollars. But in a normal market it's probably plus or minus $150 million on any given day. And you have carte blanche, so to speak, within some strategic asset allocation guidelines to position that portfolio to maximize returns for the company. And when your plan is, you know, every dollar you make in that pension plan is a dollar less, the corporation is going to have to Put in. So it's impactful, has a big impact on earnings, on leverage, on cash flow for the company. And as I said, it's fun because I used to look in the Wall Street Journal and flip through pages and realize, man, I have to read all of this. Every single article in here. Some way, shape or form is impacting my portfolio. Whether it's, you know, a housing project in India or you know, aircraft jet aircraft engine leasing that we were doing or pharmaceutical investing, it didn't matter what it was, it was all part of the portfolio. So you really felt like you were connected to the world because you knew the people, you knew the players and you know, you had ability to make decisions and really help the company with those decisions.

And it was interesting again the guys listening today that when Gary and I spoke the other day, we had a really good pre brief call that that role, it seemed to really encompass 360 of everything and you were completely outward facing. And then you made the move to become the sort of global. To become the global treasurer, not sort of dude, to become the treasurer. And then taking responsibility. Talk about the step from, you know, CIO to that role. Were you assistant treasurer, then treasurer. But talk us through that and then taking responsibility for massive team and a shift in focus. What was that like?

Yeah, I mean it was a big challenge, you know, a challenge I was up for and excited to do. Just mentioned my co CIO that other companies, the chief investment officers are a tight knit group because it's very generic what we do. So there's a lot of benefit to sharing. And there's a couple really good industry groups there. So you get to know them very well and they tend to do their jobs forever. I mean it's hard to pry a CIO out of their job because it's such a fascinating and great job. But they thought I was crazy. They're like, what are you doing? Like you're going back to the puzzle palace where you're not in charge anymore. And that was the biggest adjustment. I mean when you're cio, you're in charge. Yes, you have an investment committee that you report to four times a year. But like being CEO for a corporation, going to a board, right? You call this shot. People judge you on your result when you go to committee, but it's your schedule, it's how you want to run things. So I quickly realized although I got a promotion, I was, you know, I was back in the trenches again, so to speak, working day to day for the CFO and the CEO and you know, the rest of the finance organization. So it was a big change there. Just on the personal autonomy kind of evaporated for a lot of things and you're back in the trenches.

What tempted you back to Treasury? I mean, I know why, because it's perfect and we love treasury.

But I mean it was a natural move. My boss when I ran the pension was the treasurer. So you know that the natural move up in the organization, which is for all the normal reasons is attractive. But also I wasn't giving up on pensions. I still have that under me and I get to expand into other areas. We divide it into processes globally. So I have risk management funding, big captive insurance companies we have. That's why I run the insurance group. I have corporate real estate operations, compliance planning and then customer financial services. So you know, I got to keep the pension, expand my horizon, you know, big people leadership role. As I said, we had over 200 and you know, now that's around 140. So that's a whole new challenge on its own. And you know, we're very global. So you know, I have people working from Thailand to Buenos Aires and Argentina. So we got people everywhere and it's just fascinating opportunities and I love just, I just get into whatever I'm doing. So at the start it was a little bit hard to leave the day to day of the pension world but you know, new challenges pop up and before you know it, we had done a merger with dupont and we were deep into this merge and spin because Dow and Dupont merged together to one company and split into three. So I became assistant treasurer basically January 2016 and our merger was announced December 15th. So right before I even got the job. So it kind of had a whole new flavor to it before I even got to sit in the seat.

And when you, when you did get in the seat, what's been the best bit about it? You've been out of treasury, you've been back into Treasury. What do you enjoy? What's the get up in the morning? I love this treasurer job. What is it that for you encompasses the job?

I mean, first and foremost for me it's the markets and the risk aspect of the job and the ability to make decisions and make an impact. I mean, some people don't like it, but there's nothing, you know, that charges me up more than doing the homework, doing the analysis now more so, you know, having my team do it, coaching them through it, you know, and then making decisions and living with those decisions and knowing sometimes seconds later was It a good or bad decision. You know, I love the thrill of that. I, I tend to trade my own account a lot, maybe too much, but it's just something I've always enjoyed and the ability to impact the company. Dow is the company full of risks because of what we, you know, we basically sell. Although we try and differentiate our products, we're still a commodity chemical company in a lot of sense. You know, we have a lot of specialty products, but, you know, we still have a big component, commodity chemicals. And we buy a lot of highly volatile feedstocks being, you know, basically tied to oil and gas. And that puts a lot of volatility into our margin. And that manifests itself in, you know, volatile cash flows. A lot of cyclicality in our business. So the leverage goes up and down. Working capital can swing around by a billion dollars in a quarter. So that makes the role of the treasurer important and gives it some profile within the company because we're not just like Apple minting money. Where the treasurer role really is a money management role because you're trying to optimize hundreds of billions in the bank. For us, it's a survival. We're a levered company on purpose and we're in a cycle. So at the bottom of the cycle, leverage critical to manage and then at the top of the cycle, obviously we have cash flow coming out to reward shareholders and look at M and A. But right now is one of these situations where we were just downgraded by Standard and Poor's triple B minus. We definitely want to stay investment grade. So there's a lot of focus on treasury and how to maintain the liquidity during these tough times and how to stay investment grade. We'll see good times again and we will get back to a solid triple B. But in the meantime, it just keeps the spotlight on treasury and what we're up to.

And looking at that spotlight on treasury and looking at it sort of, that's the today's treasury and looking towards the future of treasury before we go on to sort of, you know, people throughout the stage of the career and things like that. But what do you see as the future of Treasury? Where are you seeing it going? There's technology coming at you guys. There's perhaps a CFO saying, oh, can you investigate blockchain? Can you look at this? I say this to a lot of treasurers and some of them are like, well, we try and some grasp it. Someone say, we'll just wait, we'll be late adopters. Well, what's key to you Is I know there's the back to basics approach which we definitely talked about but what are you seeing coming at you? That thinking is right, that's important. That's coming down the line. We've got to be aware of that as it were.

Yeah, I think, I mean I would just have to mention at its core I think treasury stays the same and that's just liquidity keeping the company solvent and providing liquidity and financial capacity to pursue its objectives. But I think we will see changes in the payment regimes. Are they going to be materially impactful to the corporation? Probably not. They're going to mean a lot to a few specialists within treasury who are setting up in house banks and all of these payment mechanisms of receive robo and pobo for receiving and paying virtual bank accounts. I think we're going to see a lot of innovation in that space but you know it's not going to be really visible to the rest of the organization. It's just going to be efficiency enhancing for Treasury. We're always going to have to be on the toes for the risk management side of the company. You know, be it peg currencies that could either peg break. We are a big player in Saudi Arabia. The currency has been pegged forever. But with oil at these kind of prices starts to come into the conversation of will that peg hold. Much like in the past during the Asian crisis with the Hong Kong currency we have all the financial regulation I think is another key one that we have to stay on top of and the accounting regulations. I mean we try to drive everything through economics for our decision making but in the end how it's accounted for in the books has a big impact and we're seeing that change every year for what's off balance sheet, what's coming on balance sheet, what has to disclosed in certain footnotes. So I really think the regulatory side is probably going to have the biggest material impact on how we, how we conduct ourselves. That combined with how the world evolved just in terms of growth and GDP and currency. Does the Euro stick to get hang together or do we have currencies spinning off? All those things will get sort of top door focus for us and we probably won't be the leading edge on payments because it's just not a huge part of what we do as it, as it could be let's say for a more of a retail person where they have massive transaction volume.

Yeah. Which is you know a key part of their business as you say accepting point of sale and everything else and things like that. Gary, you've been in treasury this many years, you know, so many years, and you've grown your career in that time. Now when we spoke before, we sort of, you know, outlined, you know, someone's thinking about, you know, a career in Treasury. So a lot of our European listeners tend to be earlier in their stages of career. They're analyst managers, managers wanting to work their right way up and get some advice there some in middle part of their career. Sort of assistant treasurer, deputy, sort of going, hang on, I want, I want that job. When Gary maybe moves on. Not yet. I know he's enjoying it too much. But then also, you know, at the top table, moving on and some of the bigger roles and things like that with those sort of three stages. If we just. Starting with, if you're at the start of your career and you're a Treasury analyst, what sort of a advice do you give? You know, you've got all of those guys in your team, you've got the different groups, maybe the advice you give to your teams or just in general, what advice are you giving to the junior guys, mid level and senior guys? And I don't, we didn't actually discuss this before, maybe have discussed it with your teams at Dow, but over to you. So what, what do you do?

Yeah, I think the early level, the key is to be hungry, read everything, talk about everything and to really something I see that I encourage our guys to do more of is to leverage the bank relationships. We hire a lot of young MBAs and they want to teach themselves everything. They're embarrassed to ask questions. And I found a lot of what I learned has come from some of the smartest people at different banks. And when you're a client, you have the beauty of I can pose a question or a situation to three of the brightest minds out there on the subject matter at three different banks, get back the answers and then triangulate it into my own answer, which really becomes a best of. So it's, it's a very powerful way to really vet a topic and not miss out on anything. But too many people, I find they don't use that. It's all gratis. When you sit at a bank, they love nothing more than to field questions from customers and build that sticky relationship. And I just think people are used to all, you know, like, you know, sort of a consultant assign a weakness or I need to pay to have this consultant and not at all. I think it's the fastest way to build your knowledge and really build it from people who are the of the creme on that subject, middle career, you know, I think key in that part of the career is to just not put any constraints on yourself. The more constraints you put on, you know, the more doors are going to close. And I always kind of ran my career of is this move or opportunity good for the Gary McGuire resume, be it internal endow or external. And if, you know, I could answer yes to that question, that I typically would just jump at it. I wouldn't worry about the next role. How is this going to, you know, what am I going to come back to? What if I'm, you know, over in this country when the role becomes available that I want? I just was hungry and said, is this good for my career? Is this something I want to do? Boom, I do it. And that worked out very well for me. I find a lot of mid level career people are just so worried about this move and the next one and how it's all going to fit together and the world just changes too fast. What you thought you were going to do two moves down the road, you know, the company's merged, it's split off, the role doesn't even exist. So you have to be agile and just keep worrying about is the current job going add value to your resume. Yeah. And the more senior part, I think the biggest piece of advice I would give there is to really, you have to decide if you really want it. I don't know many senior executives that don't pay a high personal price to have the privilege of those executive roles. And it's not for everybody. I mean you are going to not be able to, you know, in most cases coach your kids, little league sports or you know, whatever you want to do because you're constantly involved in work related things, whether it's travel or after hour meetings. At least that's the way it is at Dallas. So you get to a certain level where you have to decide, okay, I love this, it's for me and I'm willing to make that personal sacrifice for this period of time because your family's gonna have to play second fiddle as well, just in terms of your time that you can allocate to them. And I think if you go to the treasurer role for sure you go to the CFO role, well then it's just that much more demanding again in terms of time because as you get higher, your presence is required at things just to give them profile. So you might not be because they need to hear from you or that you add some particular value, but it's a retirement dinner and you need to go because of your profile or it's a training or it's an. Can you give some opening comments for this meeting? So the demands just keep growing. Not necessarily the job is becoming harder, but it's just the profile of the role brings a whole nother dimension to it.

Usually we wrap up a show each week with what are the key three pieces of advice you give any treasury professional, but it sounds like you've actually given those. Would that be right? You sort of junior level, be hungry, ask the banks and ask them for their knowledge, mid level to have the constraints, internal, external, don't want to be hungry and go for that next role if it's there, and release yourself to go for it if you like. And then they say there's a certain level of personal sacrifice or are there other things that you should. You would also add, you know, the piece of advice again, that you would give to a Treasury professional who's wanting to follow in your footsteps, if you like. They look at your background and go, do you know what? I want that job. You know, without repeating it. But are there other things that you think or just. Just the final closing sort of words that you say, look, guys, this is, this is me. Brilliant career, brilliant role. You're the global treasurer for dao, you're there. What would you say?

Yeah, the one other thing I would add, thank you for the question is just that, you know, I tell my team is I don't really care where you went to school, what your pedigree is, but you need to fill your quiver with enough arrows to compete. And, you know, I tell people you can learn through podcasts, like listening to something like this, maybe more, you know, of a technical. Ben, you can read books. You know, this subject is probably the most researched subject there is now with Google, you can go to school anytime you want on the web. And then, you know, as I mentioned talking to the banks, it's not all about that you got an MBA from this school or that school. That's definitely a very powerful head start and it's one way to do it. But I have a lot of people that they're engineers, they're doing a cfa. That's where they're getting the training. There's no right answer, but I just tell them, you need to be able to compete, you know, with a guy from Harvard or Wharton or Chicago. And how you do that's up to you. There's no glass ceiling at Dow anyway. If you don't have a certain degree. But you just need to, you know, be passionate enough to figure out the subject so you're able to compete and hold your own. And there's many ways to do that. So. So, you know, it's constant learning really, is probably what I'm trying to say. And if you're willing to simply keep upgrading your skills just through reading and in your own research, then, you know, you'll probably put yourself in good stead versus everyone else.

And what brilliant way to finish 100 podcasts. So don't worry, there will be 101. We're not finishing it. That's it. But. And that's why we did it. That's why I did it. They sort of wanted people to listen. Listen to. To Gary's story. To listen to your story about the fact you can constantly learn, you can upgrade, you can listen to this podcast or other podcasts. Obviously not as good podcasts, but joking aside, Gary, that's been brilliant. It's been an honor. Thank you, sir. To have you as my 100th podcast guest. I couldn't ask much more. I'm absolutely thrilled Mr. Becker's recommended you. I will have to get him a beer one day, but been an absolute honor to have you on the heat, guys. If you want to become global treasurer, listen to today's podcast. Gary will tell you. Just follow and do what he said. There you go, Gary, you've been a superstar. Thank you for your time today, sir.

Yeah, thank you very much, Mike. It's been an honor to be your 100th podcast guest, and I wish you all the best in the future on the show.

Thank you, sir.