The Power of Lifelong Learning in Treasury with Jim Kaitz

Foreign to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession Going to next, I'd like to say thank you to our sponsors, the lovely team at Flywire. For those of you who want to learn more about how Flywire simplifies cross border receivables, which then eliminates foreign exchange risk and in turn reduces also your day sales outstanding in your receivables which then gets rid of those reconciliation headaches. What could be better? If you want to know more, just follow the link in our show notes. You can find out who they are, what they do and how they make your lives as treasury professionals much, much easier. And as I say each and every week. Let's get on with this week's in this week's show, delighted to be joined by Jim Cates, the President CEO of the AFP. The AFP are an association that represent over 15,000 treasury and finance professionals globally. Association of Finance Professionals spoke at their conference recently this year. Loved it, been there a number of other years. It's amazing. Annual conference, largest networking event for finance professionals. Incredible. They also establish and administer the qualifications which Jim and I are going to talk a little bit further about CTP and financial, FPA and things like that. Again, I'm going to skip on. I'm going to shut up. I want Jim to talk. Jim, take us back if you would, sir. How did you first get started in finance, treasury and everything else? Over to you.

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I know that you were in San Diego at our annual conference and I know your session was a big success. So thank you for that. And it's been, it's been great talking to you prior to this. Boy, you're really hurting a guy when I have to go back a lot of years to where my career started, but I graduated from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. i, I am a Bostonian. I had every intention of going back to Boston, but when I was at Georgetown I worked as an intern for Senator Kennedy for a summer and I got bit by the political bug. It was a very different time. We could probably spend three podcasts on what politics was like back in the late 70s, but I worked for Congressman who was from Massachusetts where I was from. His name was James Michael Shannon. At the time the speaker of the House was Tip o' Neill. And Tip loved Jim. It was a great experience for me, really Being incredibly close to the seat of power at about 23 years old. Then moved on very after about three and a half, four years into working for another association in the government relations area. Spent about 10 years of my career doing that. Ran a Washington office for the Financial Executives Institute, and then was recruited to be CEO of AFP almost 26, 27 years ago. So I really considered the last 26 or 27 years as that's really my career being at AFP.

And what was AFP like when you joined? I know that I've been around doing treasury agreement 25 years, so near similar and that I started to see the association then, but we were still growing at that stage. What was it like when you joined?

Well, it was Treasury Management association at the time that I was recruited to be the CEO. And there's pretty good story there, the chairman of the board. It was my first conference. It was in Orlando. I was exhausted. I had no concept that there was about again, six, seven thousand people there. And I had just started. The conference was in October. I had just started September 1st. And he turned to me and said, jim, I want you to change the name of the association and the scope. Well, I didn't even know the names of all the staff. I had. No, you know, I was just. I was like, what? He goes, yeah, I want you to come up with a proposal in six months to change the name and to broaden the scope of the organization. And that's a whole podcast in and of itself. But that was then the genesis of changing the name. But it wasn't just a name change. It was really a change in focus for the organization. Treasury is the core, it's the roots of our organization. But I think he was pretty prescient in believing the finance profession was going to grow. And treasury is part of that finance profession. So changing the name was very intentional at the time. It was certainly controversial. And I think though that as I look back, that was a real key pivot point so that we could broaden the scope of treasury. And then we moved into financial planning and analysis as well in the last 10 years. And also it's given us ability to be global as well, so we could have a whole podcast on. That wasn't just a name change. It was really a strategic change in how we look at the world and the profession.

When you say there was that shift, was that something that, you know, the members were also looking at or was it just you guys had recognized or what was the situation without going into another podcast?

Well, it also within that period, we changed the name of the qualification from Cash Management. It was. It was a Certified Cash Management credential to the ctp, which is the Certified Treasury Professional, which isn't. Which was not without controversy as well. But I think it's. We were leading the profession into the future. I really believe that. I think that certainly if we had kept that cash management qualification, what is today a Treasury professional is well beyond cash management.

It's one element.

It's just one element. And I think that we, as the board and the leadership of the organization, it really. Sometimes you have to do things that are uncomfortable, but you're seeing the future. And we were looking at the organization and the profession and seeing it expanding, and we needed to make sure that both the qualification and the name of the organization was reflecting that. And again, I look back now and say we made some pretty good moves there, because I think it has allowed us to expand into broader areas, both geographically as well as from a substance standpoint. So compacting a lot of history. I think anyone would look back and say, if you are a Treasury professional, would you just want to be considered a cash manager or think about how broadly the treasury profession has changed and grown over the last 20, 25 years? And I could just demonstrate that if I showed you the body of knowledge for the certification back 25 years ago and what it is today, that would be a visual demonstration of how much treasury profession has changed over the 25.

Years and the breadth and depths and everything else.

Absolutely.

And as an association, I'm not actually asked this. What's the ethos, you know, for? You guys have asked other associations in the past, what was their ethos? You know, are they a conference company? Are they focused on their members and education or, you know, and, you know, and all the other things. And I was told, yeah, oh, we're everything to everyone. I was like, whoa, hang on, guys. You know, this is a bit weird. I know you've got some views on that, that your ethos is as. What is it?

We talk about it in terms of our why statement and why we exist as an organization. And it's a very straightforward statement in that we're here for the success of our members, and that means at every stage of their career to help them be successful as a Treasury professional. So that is coming out in your first job, as in treasury, all the way through your whole career path. And so we're very laser focused on the success of our members and helping them be successful. So that then includes the conferences and content and certification. And it kind of embodies all the things we're doing, but it's what drives us to come to work every day. We want to help you and every person who might be listening to this at every stage of their career. We want them to be successful in their career. So how do we design products and services and content and how do we think about. That's how we think about the world every day. How do we help you be as a Treasury or someone who's interested treasury and now financial planning and analysis. And then the components of that are yes, there's membership, yes, there's conference, yes, there's certification, but we start with the why State.

Just go back to the sort of, as you said there 23 years ago, it's an admirable career there and everything else. What. What was it like then? I know you had this idea of having to pivot, having to change, having to broaden everything else, but how have you seen maybe the organization, but also treasury change in that time? I know that I've got my views and in fact, I'll just jump in there. When I first started in particular, a couple of, you know, say, associations who had made treasury this specialist area. And it was great and really well for a while, but that ended up they put treasury in a corner and then said someone the other day, then spent 20 years trying to battle their way back out and be more associated with the business and being a business partner. And now I think it's finally got there. You know, recently I had a podcast with talking about FBA with Paul Barnhurst and we talked fpa, the intersection between that and that, I wouldn't have had that 10 years ago. That just literally what's the point? Whereas now it's much closer. Is that something you've maybe seen or you know, maybe just give us a quick overview of the evolution if you'd.

Like for you guys. Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up because I think that treasury is not the same in different parts of the world. I think in the United States, the Treasury role has and was been more expansive. I think when you look at other parts of the world and quite frankly, Europe, my understanding, and you probably have a much better understanding of this than I do, it was very much, you did your treasury job and you kind of were very isolated in the organization and you just focused on treasury where that the business partnership and the role of finance has changed substantially. And the role of finance, the role of the cfo, which is something we've been talking about for a long time what that role of the finance function is. Is it that back office or is it the strategic partnership with the business units? We could have a whole podcast on this because I believe there's a long way to go before finance is truly a partner of the business. There's a lot of impediments over the years in terms of doing that. I can go back 20 years and look at McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group reports that say CFOs are unhappy with their FP and A teams. And I keep saying, well, why every year if you're unhappy, you're not doing something about it. Those CFOs who see the role of their finance organization as strategic, as really enhancing shareholder value, as being true business partners, that shifts the whole finance organization to a very different mindset than we're just a back office operation that's going to make sure that the treasury function works well. So it's hard to. I don't think you can generalize, but I do think from our standpoint at afp, we believe that role for finance really needs to be certainly you have to do the regulatory piece. You have to make sure that your financial statements are all comporting with all the rules and laws and regulations. But today my concern has been if you think about technology, and this takes us into a whole different area, finance really needs to be the analytics hub of the organization. Because finance always talks about having that single version to the truth. But if you don't have the right systems today, you don't have the right skill sets today, you don't have the right technology today, can finance really be that analytics hub of the organization? And so that's a challenge I see for finance going forward. And I know that takes us into a whole different area. I think that's if you look future forward, that's going to be the big challenge for finance. So going back to your original question on Treasury, I think that it depends on where you are in the world. But I think that treasurers have realized certainly as you go through between Covid and the financial crisis, I mean when those periods hit, it's working capital, it's do we have enough cash to manage the operation? Do we have visibility into the day to day operations of the organization to sustain the company? That's where treasury can really play a real critical role. And it's something that we will continue to focus on. But it's also a mindset shift in terms of how you need to look at what your role is and how you're going to interact with the rest of the organization.

And the way that I, I was asked, we were just talking before and I was recently at a JP Morgan event, I was asked to comment and they, they were actually asking how about AI technology and is the treasurer getting more involved? And I say, look, they are see more treasurers having to be translators, not necessarily being the tech gurus of AI and everything else. And then they said, where do you see? I said, look, I said the answer is it depends. I said, it depends on the cfo. And one particular example I had one CFO who saw their treasurer very much as their visionary, taking it to the future. Go in this and can you be my scout? If you like. And looking at technology, but look at working capital. Look at supply chain. Brilliant. This guy was loving it. Change of cfo, new CFO comes in and the shift is. And we talked about cash management there. Really. He sees his previous treasurer, his previous company was more make sure the cash is looked after and de risk it. And that's it. Thanks very much. This guy's now, you know, talking to me because he's saying actually he was doing treasury plus. That's what I used to call it. And he was getting involved in one of the other areas. Now. No, go back to your treasury stuff. I do that. Treasury is all right, you know, and it's. He was building in the extra building blocks. So the answer I found is it depends. And actually the question I was going to then pitch to you is, do you see it evolving very much? We, you know, we were at the conference together and there were, you know, a number of sessions about trying to give that knowledge to treasurers about all those different things about technology and everything else. I know we're going to come on to education, which I want to. But, you know, do you see that with treasurers that they're coming to you guys help us with this or what are the demands that you're getting? You're at the coal face with that as well.

I think, as I said before, I think finance in particular is still struggling with the whole technology issue and investment in technology and finance. Always they're at that intersection of wanting to, or seeing themselves as being that strategic partner in the organization, but also they're the steward of cash. And so I think there's always that struggle. I know that a lot of the. And if you've seen my LinkedIn posts and things of that nature, I harp on this theme that if you don't have the right people and processes and Internal skill sets, you are never going to be effectively leveraged that technology. And what happens, I think too many times is they is organizations purchase the technology, think it's going to be the panacea, but then don't appropriately have the right people and processes to leverage that technology. And then what happens? Well, the technology stinks. Well, no, the technology will do what it says in many cases. In many cases, not all the cases. And if you talk to the technology providers, they will acknowledge, although they won't do it necessarily publicly, that the issue is the people internally didn't have the right skill sets, they didn't change processes. So if you don't change process, why do you, why would you possibly expect there to be a different outcome? You know, it's the old garbage in, garbage out. So that's what we have pushed as an organization. And I keep talking about you've got to have the right skill sets internally, you've got to have that internal mindset and it's got to be led by the CFO because he or she is the leader of the finance organization. And that is one of the initiatives that cannot bubble from the ground up. It's got to be the person who is running finance saying, we are going to look at this technology, develop a plan over a number of years and here's where we want to be as a finance organization. And there are very few finance organizations that have accomplished that. Very, very few. And then you and, and a lot of times that will be under the, the guise of, well, we want to be strategic business partners. Well, if the business units have better technology and better data, what do they need? And they've made the investment at the business units and the technology and understanding their business, then there isn't a role for finance. Which is why I go back to my original statement that finance has really got to embrace being the analytics hub of the organization. But that takes a commitment from the finance head to really embrace that role. And I think it's not been done in many cases in most organizations, particularly effectively.

And do you think that's down to you mentioned there about skill set and you know, that nice segue into education and that's a key part of what you guys, you know, help people with. And you know, we've said it in the past actually at some of our sessions we've done said, look, we're pro people said, oh, which organization, which qualification? I said, I don't care. What do you mean? I said, I'm pro education for all treasury professionals. You guys have a Great qualification. And that's a lot of the work you do. Why is that such a key thing? Does it just link into that skill set? Is that why?

Well, I think a couple of things. First and foremost, at the university level, nobody teaches. There isn't a finance department or undergraduate business school in the world by and large that teaches treasury or financial planning and analysis, which are the two areas that we focus on and have recognized that we could talk about that issue for forever. But many business schools and finance departments, they just don't teach the treasury, which is why the value of the treasury qualifications are so important around the world, because unfortunately, it's a learn on the job type of profession. I think you were at conference and there was a woman up on stage with me and we were talking and said, how did you kind of come into the treasury profession? She said, well, I stumbled on it. The boss said, hey, I think you've got a lot of potential, and slapped the essentials of cash management or treasury management on her desk and said, learn this and take the certification. And that's how most people kind of learn about Treasury. It's either on the job or here. Now you're in Treasury. And I think that's where the treasury qualifications, in our case the CTP certification fits in because we've taken that body of knowledge. We've, I think it's been in the market almost 40 years now. There's probably over 60,000 people that have taken the exam and passed that examination. So it is really the kind of rite of passage if you're going to be in treasury and want to stay in Treasury. It's having that treasury qualification because it gives the organization and the treasurer the comfort that you need. You understand the principles of treasury management.

And you touched on there about education at the undergrad level and things like that. You guys are, you know, you're partnering with different organizations and different universities and things. What's driving that? How come that's such a passion? Because I know that's something you and I talked about and that's something you really want to champion as well.

It is. And it kind of goes back to our why State? If you think if we look at the demographics of who goes into treasury, you might be coming out of accounting or finance and. Or the treasurer says, hey, we, you know, you've got a lot of ability. Come into my organization and come into Treasury. And as we thought about this, if we could introduce the concepts of both treasury and financial planning and analysis, which, as I said before, are not taught at the undergraduate level, quite frankly, aren't taught at the MBA or graduate level either. Then if you think about our why statement, which is helping people be successful at every stage of their career, why don't one of our areas for the future is to focus on that early career individual? Well, if you're not going to have an early career in treasury, if you don't have any recognition of the profession at the undergraduate level. So which is why we are working with universities. We're working with two credentialing organizations that are both global. So this is not a US initiative. We're talking to universities all over the world about embedding their curriculum and embedding we actually will provide our body of knowledge, our exam prep platform, which we have for both certifications. We'll provide those to the students. We'll work with universities to develop. In some cases, it's only a couple of additional courses because elements of both the professions are taught at the undergraduate level. It's really taking them and shaping them and saying this is the core knowledge and then supplementing it with a couple additional courses along with our exam prep platform. And then you have students who are electing to think about Treasury Management or FP&A as a career. Now think about that from the standpoint of afp. So if we're helping universities, students having knowledge of the certification and even, perhaps even taking the certification, then those are the students you're going to want to hire. So it works out beautifully where we're combining the universities with our employers. And those universities that have this program are going to be. Those students are going to be recognized by the employers as students who really understand the practical knowledge of both of those professions, not the theoretical. They'll have the mix of the theoretical along with the actual practical skills. And they're going to be the ones that are going to get hired. They're going to distinguish themselves.

And if someone's listening today and we get. The great thing is now this, this forum, this podcast, you know, goes. Gets downloaded 3, 4, 500 plus times. They've got an audience 400, just like I had at AFP, which is amazing. But again, I was giving them advice. If there are people listening today and they're saying, well, yeah, that's all very well, but I can't do anything about it, or that's, you know, it's great listening to Jim and Mike talk, that's great. But what, what practical steps should they do? I mean, I know that after. I think you mentioned that some of the alumni from various Places said, oh, I'll connect you with people or I'll do this. What practical steps? What's the one thing that people should be doing after this rather than just, oh, that's great, we'll skip onto another podcast. What do you think?

Yeah, I had a number of people after the conference session come up to me and say, you know, I graduated from the university. I still have a great relationship. I'm active in the alumni organization. I can connect you to the chairman of the finance department. I can connect you to the dean of the business school or vice dean of the business school. That would be amazing. Just give, you know, hopefully you provide my email address. We, we have designed the program that it makes it very easy for the universities to adopt this program. You try to make it almost a plug and play so that it doesn't. Because as I'm sure you know and most of your audience knows, if you look at the word bureaucracy in the dictionary, it probably says see universities, see university politics. I mean, it could take years to move the needle in some of the university settings. It just is what it is. But we have designed this so it makes it very easy. We have someone internally that will work with the faculty to say, you've got the core curriculum there. Just add these two courses. We'll provide you our exam prep platform for the students and bingo, you now can say that you have a program within your university that has a concentration, a minor at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana. They happen to call it a workshop where they actually, you have to apply to the workshop. We understand it's been oversold. And Kelly is a top 10 business school in the, in the United States at Indiana University. And these are students who are then admitted into that workshop. They go through the program and I can assure you if, if they, and they start in their sophomore, junior year, they will be qualified to take the certification. There is a requirement for having business experience, but we'll actually, they have a three to four year window to get that business experience. But if you think about it, those Kelley grads who have, they have gone through that program. What company isn't going to look at those Kelly grads and say, that's the student I want. They've got the practical knowledge along with the undergraduate business education. They've said this is something they're interested in as a profession. Well, that's. And then we'll promote that to all the AFP member companies, which are thousands of those companies. Universities have begun to recognize that their actual, their why statement should be the success of their students. Yeah, students are actually their customers. Yeah, you would be amazed how many times that. I'm not sure many universities have ever seen their students as actually their customers, but what other organization pays them $200,000 or pounds or euros? Here in the United States, education is ridiculously expensive. You want a return on that investment. And universities around the world, and let's be frank, the elite universities, the Oxfords, the Cambridge, the Harvards, this is not a program for them. Their students will do just fine. But there are plenty of universities out there that are very competitive and they want to give their customers there's a competitive edge. So they, the mindset internally at universities has changed dramatically. Realizing that they've got to provide their students with a product that's going to help them get a job.

And actually I'm going to use that as a practical point. And we don't usually talk on the podcast about recruitment. You know, we try and. Because that's not the for, it's not the forum, just a recruitment recruitment. But I'll give you a directly practical story. I'm recruiting a senior treasury manager role in Indiana now. And if, yeah and if someone would come to me and had that kind of, I'd know that I would. This is a spin off company. The CFO is looking for someone that can run their treasury. And I'm like, you know, I'm about to start the campaign but now, now I know where I'm starting. You know, I got to reach out because that's ideal when I've done a lot of work in Chicago, you know, I know Northern Illinois, they've done some work there as well. I literally, that's where I target first.

Well actually Indiana is so close to Chicago. Most of the, when I went out there, most many of the students, their first jobs right out of school are going to are in that Chicago area in the Midwest. And that's the beautiful thing too if you think about this. These. There are universities all over the world. Now let's. I want to emphasize this to your audience. This is not a U.S. program. We're talking to universities and colleges all over the world. We have two organizations, two credentialing organizations that have global reach and they are working with universities all over the world to look at their business education, undergraduate education and provide them with their seal of approval that they have a accreditation or whatever. That's the word I'm looking for.

I want to jump in because I thought be saying something else but no accreditation.

The accrediting organizations in many cases, 30, 40% of their schools are outside the United States. Yes. It's not a US centric program. And think about it again, these are schools that want to be competitive and they have to provide their students with the right skills to get a job.

Yeah. And Jim, you've obviously deep dove in into education and things coming back from that a little bit. We were both getting the conference fresh in our minds and everything else. But you're talking day in, day out to treasurers, CFOs and things like that. What would you say before we get that close to the end of the program? But what's top of mind for them? What are they asking from you guys or what are you seeing from them that are the pain points for them that, you know, what advice are you giving out there as well?

You know, it's a really good question because I think we went through a period looking at content and focusing more on or focusing on the impact of technology or the digital transformation, which is, you know, the big broad. And here's the reality. If you looked at our community board where people get to ask questions of each other, it is still about blocking and tackling. At the AFP conference, the most well attended sessions, payments. Payments is just there's always payment, payment related issues, cybersecurity issues. It's the blocking and tackling. Because at the end of the day, the treasury function has to make sure, you know, that there's enough working capital that the payment systems are working. And so there is this real unique balance of making sure that you've got the blocking and the tackling and the core issues of treasury and then thinking about more broadly the future of that organization. But again, it goes back to the leadership of the finance or the CFO in many cases in terms of the role. So I think that if you looked at our conference sessions and how we break those out, it still is the payment related issues, the core treasury related issues, working capital management issues, budgeting, forecasting. There's a role for technology in all of these areas. But in many cases, look at what are the questions people are being asked and it's still those core issues because at the end of the day, that's the role the treasury has to play.

And alongside those, I'm going to do a shout out for ourselves, for me and Joel and I couldn't believe how many people we had, you know, we were talking about talent, leadership, hybrid working. And that's what people are. Exactly as you say, the blocking and tackling alongside the actual people. And that's Right. It's. It's just fantastic. And it was. It was quite weird, you know, because I was just talking to people about what I talk about every day, you know, and it's not complex, as you say. It's the sort of. It's back to basics and that's where the pain points are. And you think it would have changed and evolved over 20 years. It's still.

It is. And those pain points still exist. I think technology has probably complicated those pain points more. I will say that as I looked at the career tracks, career services track, I think, which was the track that you were in.

Yeah, yeah.

Got the highest marks because people, you know, they want to know how they can be. Guess what, how they can be successful.

Oh, well, it was the presenter. Well, well, back it up there, Jim. It was that. It was a presenter, you know, try my hardest.

Right. Yeah, well, all the, all the, you know, we measure every single. I have to go back and look at your session and see how you did, but 7.

I got 4.7. I was very happy with out 5.

No, it's not a 5, actually. So that was great. And I will say that every one of our tracks, you know, we. We measure every single track and we measure. Every individual session gets ranked. And thank God you got a 4.7, because now we can invite you back, Mike. But, and the other thing about our sessions, maybe this is a little bit of a commercial, but if there's any. There's no selling allowed in any of our sessions. And in fact, if we get any complaints about selling that conversation, you just don't get involved, just.

But I just imagine myself being in the audience and I. I did it. You know, when I start off, I say, guys, this is me. This is what I do. This isn't a sales pitch. It's to explain why I've been allowed to come up on this stage. Because I move you guys around the room and that's what I get paid for. And that's it. Pitch over. And they were like, oh, okay, I'm an ex. This is all I do. I talk to treasurers all day long.

Right?

That's. That's the thing.

And it goes back to what you asked me about our, you know, our mission, our why statement. Well, that's why people. It's about helping people be successful at every stage of their career. And it's the recognition, is that the technical skills. In many cases, that's. That's just the starting point. It's really, you know, you think about now, you know, Their communication skills, their. Their ability to be creative. I mean, creativity. We can talk a whole podcast on how finance people typically, you know, you're not going to have courses in, well, maybe now at the undergraduate level, more about being that business partner, about communication skills, about creativity. You think about treasury creativity, Finance creativity. Yeah, I mean, you know, you've got to think differently in order to be effective and how well you work with other people, how can you communicate with other people? What's the right way to make. To present something, especially to people that aren't in a finance function, becomes critically important because using acronyms is not an effective way to be a communicator. So all of those skill sets that you talk about, those are the ones that are going to distinguish individuals in treasury finance to be the most successful. You look at those top CFOs and treasurers. There's a lot more to them than just their technical knowledge. It's their ability to communicate, it's their ability to work with others effectively. And that's many cases, the secret sauce to their success. And secret sauce in almost every profession.

Yeah, exactly. We will put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. I know there'll be a flood of people and things. We wrap up each week with some of the top takeaways for some of the audience or listeners. You know, if someone's listening today, they got hosts about education. Also, if you're alumni, you know, do connect and reach out to Jim as well. But in addition to that, as you reflect maybe on today and you know, your conversations, what are the takeaways you're going to give to people, you know, listening today that they should focus on, if you like.

I've always believed in lifelong learning. I kind of practice it myself. I don't think at any stage of your career you can simply say, I know it all. As you get a little bit older, I think if you're, if there's a little bit of wisdom, you realize you know less than you thought you did. So I think for me, it is being committed to lifelong learning, which is why we begun to focus at the undergraduate level and then throughout everyone's career, it is continue to be committed to be a lifelong learner. I think if you're in management, I think it's encouraging the people that work with you to be lifelong learners. And I think it's also for those people that are managers and those people that are more senior, give people in your organization the opportunity to learn, recognize that they need. One of the challenges sometimes is I don't have enough time to study for my qualification, my certification, because there's just not enough time in the day. Well, give them a half an hour a day. Give them an hour a week. If you've got two or three people in your organization that are going through the certification to say every Friday, you guys, I'm going to give you two hours, I'll provide lunch. You have a work session together. Do things to help people be successful and be lifelong learners. Because they will be your best employees. And the best employees are lifelong learners. There's a word of advice to anyone at any stage of their career. Lifelong learning and be committed to it. Talking about it is one thing. Demonstrate your commitment to it.

Amazing. Final words. I'm going to leave it there. Jim. Amazing to chat to yourself. Thank you very much, sir. Great.

Thank you, Mike. It's been great.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Hello treasury professionals. Before you dive into the next episode, could you please help me continue to grow the world's only global treasury salary survey? That's right, our one. We run the results quarterly so you know your compensation is constantly benchmarked against the market and your peer group each and every three months. It's amazing, isn't it? Just go to treasurysalary.com takes less than two minutes to complete, start to finish. You then gain exclusive, regular updated access to our salary survey. Keeping you ahead of the curve. The survey is an evolving breathing entity that constantly tracks the salaries of treasury professionals on a global basis. Currently, we have over 11100 participants taking part by the end of 2023. I want to hit 1500, but that's where I need your help. Please make it happen@treasury salary.com thank you for being such amazing, loyal listeners. Your support is incredible. Couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Go to treasurysalary.com make it 1500 for 2023. Love you, Sam.