The Power of Relationships in Treasury with Tim Muindi

Foreign.

To this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next, let's get on with the show. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Tim Muwindi, the VP Treasurer at ServiceNow. ServiceNow makes the world work better for everyone. Their cloud based platform and solutions help digitize and unify organizations so they can find smarter, faster, better ways to make workflow. I don't really know what that means, but Tim does and he's going to explain it later on the show. But basically it makes employees and customers more connected, more innovative, more agile. But we're going to get onto that later on in the show a bit more about ServiceNow. Before we do that, we're going to go back into the dim, distant past. Tim, if you would take us back, if you would, to how you discovered finance treasury, your origin story. Over to you, sir.

Well, Mike, good morning. Well, he's actually sounded pretty good there describing what we do, so I don't even think I need to explain anymore. I think you did a pretty good job.

We'll come to it later in the show.

Okay. Yeah, no, it's good to be with you and probably start from, you know, just when I graduated college and and decided to get into finance, I actually always knew that I wanted to be in business. I didn't know exactly what in business but you know, when I went to grad school, that's when I kind of developed this affinity for finance. And when I graduated I actually had a difficult time finding a job. I had had much experience and so all I did was internships and I had a couple of jobs but nothing at a corporate level. And so it was difficult actually seeing some of my friends and classmates, you know, get roles at Microsoft, at Deloitte, at Ernst and Young, intel, all these companies and I just couldn't find anything. And this was right at the height of the dot com boom. So it was a little disheartening. But I actually ended up finding a job working at night at a hotel in Portland, Oregon. So I actually started doing night audit. I needed a job to survive and so I decided like, hey, I gotta do something to make some money while I look for a job. So essentially I'd work at night and then during the day I'd look for a job. Didn't have much luck. There's just not that many jobs around the Portland area at the time. But one day I saw an ad in the paper that says looking for an accountant. And so it was in the classifieds. Yeah, back in the day when they actually used to advertise jobs in the classifieds. So I decided like, well, let me just apply and see what happens. And so it was a transportation company in Portland, so one of the larger transportation companies. And I applied and I got the job. And I had never done accounting in my life, an accounting job, but hey, I was like, I'm willing to learn and start from wherever I need to start. And it was an hourly job, so it paid an, you know, hourly wage. I think it was like $10 and 25 cents if I recall. But years down the road, when I look back, it was actually a great opportunity because then I got to learn a lot about cash because essentially I was doing cash accounting. So I'd do a lot of reconciliations. And then an opportunity came up because they're on a mainframe system. They said, hey, we're going to upgrade Oracle, you know, financials. And they said, it's like, hey, anybody on the GL team want to volunteer to be on the project team? I said, sure. You know, I didn't know anything about systems, I didn't know anything about implementation, but I was like, well, I got nothing but time and I'm willing to learn. And so I dived into that project and spent hours, you know, we worked weekends trying to roll that out. But what that did for me is kind of give me a better understanding of how do systems work, you know, in the background. How do you go about implementing a system? Project management. So I got to learn a lot and work with a lot of cross functional teams to bring that project live. Once that project was over, we actually then they asked me like, hey, do you want to be the Oracle system administrator? I said, I don't know anything about system administration, but I know enough from building the tables and working through that whole process. I was like, sure, I'm willing to learn. So I got in there, I learned and I was still part of an accounting, but on the business system side, that was not exactly what I wanted to do from a career perspective. And so I went back, you know, to accounting, you know, doing something a little bit different. And that's when the opportunity came up because, you know, as a cash accountant, I used to work a lot with the treasury teams. And so the treasury manager at the time said, he's like, hey, I'm going on vacation, can I train you on how to do a cash position and do investments or redemptions. And I said, yeah, sounds great. So I started working on, you know, some treasury stuff when she'd go on vacation. You know, I do the cash positioning. It scared the heck out of me because I was dealing with a lot of money at the time and, you know, having to get up early and, you know, work through that whole process. And that was back in the day when we actually had to make phone calls to buy CP or sell CP and all that. But during that whole process, I actually learned a lot because now I was interacting with a whole different group of folks either in finance or even outside of finance that, you know, as a cash accountant, I didn't have that opportunity before. And then a couple years into it, she decided she was going to retire. And then her boss, who was actually in the headquarters downing in Palo Alto, he says, hey, by the way, it's like, would you be interested in the role? I was like, yeah, of course. You know, I really enjoyed what I was doing. And then he just said, he's like, okay, join the team and never look back from there.

And you said you did it originally as like a holiday cover, but you then stayed in treasury after that, did you, or what?

Yes, I did. So I stayed in treasury after that. Yeah. So when she decided to leave the company, then I was able to just kind of step in since I already knew a lot of the mechanics and everything else that was going on. So. So I was able to step into that role.

And then the. I think the group got acquired or what happened then to make the next move, because you got some really good, interesting moves at that stage.

Right. So then it was about probably two years after they came back and said, hey, by the way, there's a new role in the headquarters in corporate finance. Part of, you know, corporate finance was also in treasury and said, would you like the role? And I was like, no, I'm not interested in moving kind of like I surroundings and being up in Portland. And I had no interest in being in the Bay Area. And I recall a conversation with my dad, I said, hey, you know, they offered me this role. Don't. I don't want to take it. And he asked me why, and I really did not have a good reason and says, you should go, you should go take it. And I said, okay. All right. So came back after visiting my dad, and I packed my stuff, moved down to Palo Alto and completely got a new experience in a whole different area of Treasury. But that actually opened a Lot of doors for me when I came down here because now I was able to work more with the senior executive team, not only from finance perspective, but also from a business development perspective too. But the great thing was the treasurer and the assistant treasurer actually were in Palo Alto. So a lot of meetings, you know, because we did a lot of things around the credit, around leasing, and also we also had the pension piece as well. And so they pulled me into meetings and I didn't know what they were talking about, but it was just kind of being in the room and just listening and getting a better understanding of what are they working on, what are some of the discussions being had. And down the road those conversations proved to be really helpful because now I had that context, especially when they met with like asset managers, for example. It's like, hey, you know, what type of questions are they asking? What type of discussions are being had? Same thing with credit, you know, what discussions are being had, what things are we working on? And those were pretty good foundation for me down the road, even though I didn't realize it at the time.

Yeah, well, talk us through your next moves because you, you move through two or three different roles quite quickly and then bring us up to date through those positions.

Right. So I believe I was about five years in and obviously being the Bay Area tech heavy. And when I moved here, it was right after the dot com bust. And so a lot of the companies that, you know, we had seen at the time, they all went away. But the one thing that was pretty constant is like, hey, it's very tech heavy here in Silicon Valley.

Yeah.

And the company I was with, transportation company, was largely domestic. And for me it's like, well, if I'm going to get an opportunity to expand my career or to grow in my career, I needed to get some international experience, but I didn't have any. And so where was I going to get that experience? And that's where I decided like, you know, there's a good opportunity to Ernst and Young and this is a place I could go, learn from the global treasury advisory services and work on a lot of different projects, get some exposure to FX that I didn't have before. So I joined EY and I was literally on the road 95 plus percent of the time, just working on projects. And within the year plus that I was there, I probably feel like I got maybe like four or five years of experience just because it was just back to back and got to travel a lot, got to see a lot of different scenarios, got to work with A lot of different tech companies as they worked through, especially FX issues, also technology issues as well, in terms of finding new systems, working on implementations. Right. And so that gave me a really good exposure, but that was a lot of traveling, and that's not something I was willing to continue doing for, you know, an extended period of time. And then that's where I decided, hey, it's kind of time to go back to corporate, so to speak. And that's when I got an opportunity with a software, small software company here in Palo Alto and kind of work my way through that.

And technology's obviously played a big part in some of the roles and things like that. So as you say with tibco and things like that, talk us through the next moves. Because again, if you're a listener today, you're going, okay, so he worked in corporate and they might be in corporate. Oh, I made a move into consulting. Talk us through the next moves. And what that gave you as a treasurer, right.

So at tibco, when I was hired, they had never had anybody in treasury before. They'd never had a Treasury hire. So I was the first treasury hire. Oh, wow. Right. As you can imagine, in a lot of companies that don't have treasury, it's like it's all disaggregated. So you have accounting team is doing some stuff, legal, sometimes is doing things on insurance. So it owns the entire treasury sphere, so to speak. And so for me, was like trying to get in and figure out. I was like, hey, okay, well, what does good look like and how do I get to good and then eventually get to great? And so for me, with really working with a lot of internal teams, trying to figure out like, hey, what's the business, business model, what drives the business? And then understanding is like, where are we trying to go as a business too? And trying to build just a Treasury infrastructure that can help support that. And that's what I was really focused on at Tipco. And it was great being the first treasury person because you get to be in everything. So whether it was on the cash sides, on investments or FX or insurance, got to do everything. And which was great. I learned a ton that role.

And then a couple of moves and obviously technology literally is. Does run through your resume, your background. Talk us through the next couple of moves.

Got to a point where I was like, hey, I need to get to a company that's larger, right? Says, hey, I think I need to expand my scope a little bit more. It's like, it's great being in a smaller company, but to be able to get more experience and even, you know, have the sort of like the next, the next phase of my career, decided to go to a much larger company. So I went from almost a half a billion revenue company to almost a 10 billion revenue company. And that was quite the change, as you can imagine. Obviously now it's like I'm not the only treasury person. It's already an established group. There's specialties within the company itself. And so I ended up doing several things, investments, fx. And then also we had a debt as well that was, you know, we issued debt and did some share repurchases. So I was part of that entire team. But it was quite different. It felt different. I found that I actually enjoyed being able to do more rather than just be more a specialty person. So if you want to call it that, to be honest, I didn't really enjoy that piece of it. And I was like, I need to find an opportunity where I could get to do more and be more involved in the business, at least being able to be connected with the broader business. And that essentially was possible through a smaller company, you know. Right. Didn't, didn't have to be a 10 billion revenue company at the time. So I decided to make the move after that. And one of the mistakes I made, I remember is when I made that move, part of the reason I made that move was like, hey, they're paying more. And so I was drawn by the money and so I chased the money. Right. And what I realized is that that trade off was not worth it. The experience was worth it, but. And the lessons I learned from it were worth it, but the trade off was not worth it. Right. And that's something that you think I'd have learned from that experience, but I actually made that mistake later on in my career. But you know, that's.

But the thing is, it does come to that point sometimes. You know, we have this with candidates, you know, they're saying also creeps in a frustration. Then the dollar pound size euros creep in with the next roll up. Well, we've got this next one. We're sometimes having a coach. We're going, is this the right move for you? And it might sound weird as a recruiter, we get paid on results. But the fact is you want people to go in there and enjoy their roles because they'll come back to us. But as you said, I know, I know you'll bring it up later on, that you need that patience, but I'll let you, you say it better Tim, So you move from that role. Who did you join next?

So I went from there and then I went to Verisign.

Yeah.

And that was introduction through my former boss at my first job. And so he made the introduction and say, hey, by the way, they're going through a restructuring. They're also restructuring the team. And they had also just gone through restatement. Financial restatement.

Yeah.

So like, hey, we're starting fresh, you know, get a new team in place. And so this is our opportunity for me to go to a company and just like, hey, this is something I've never done before. It's like, hey, going through a restructuring, trying to figure out a divest some of the businesses, but then they were also going to figure out is like, hey, let's issue debt, let's buy back our shares. There's a lot of things around capital structure. And so to me, it was like, this is a really good opportunity to go and learn. And it was a tough time. And because it was right before the financial crisis and so I got a chance to just have a front seat to the financial crisis. I could tell you that was probably the most difficult time in my career, not knowing exactly what's coming next. Nobody that was around had been through anything like this before. And I remember part of my role was managing investments, right? And managing, you know, at least having. I had some people managing cash and investments and also fx. So there's a lot of different moving parts. And just trying to figure out is like, hey, what is going on from day to day? And then I think the worst days were probably Sundays, because that's when a lot of announcements got made on Sundays. And so, to be honest, I think I probably lost like £15 during that time. It was quite stressful, as you can imagine. But I think what that taught me was a lot of resilience and then also leaning on relationships, right? Is like, who am I? Pick up the phone and call and who's going to take the call and who's going to give me some insights. You know, here's what you should be thinking about, here's what you should be doing, here's things you should be communicating, right? And so it was just that having those relationships were really important, especially at a time like that. So I got to grow a lot as a person and professionally that obviously, you know, especially with the SVB collapse, ptsd, but actually came in really handy, that experience in terms of just knowing, like, hey, how do you deal with difficult situations? How do you see those coming? Who do you need to talk to. Right? And also how do you work with your team to really figure out is like, hey, by the way, here's what's happening. Here's how you stay level headed. Here's what you need to do, here's how you need to make sure you don't end up in a silo. You've got to keep being out there and talking to your peers, your colleagues, and then also within the people in the company that they know, like, hey, what exactly is going on?

So keep going. Because sometimes when I talk to, you know, some of my guests, they've been at one company for 20 years, 20, 30 years, you've got this great career path where you improved, changed, you know, gone different companies. Yes. Technology, as I said, has been a backbone of a lot of it. What happened next?

So from there at Verisign, so they ended up splitting the company into two and then eventually they decided to move the Remain company essentially to the east Coast. The opportunity came up and just says like, hey, by the way, there's a, there's an opportunity with a clean technology company, Silver Spring Networks. And I was like, I don't know anything about clean technology or that field, but I'm, you know, I always enjoy learning. So I decided to take the chance and was like, hey, you know, come build. A Treasury organization didn't have anything, right? And so it's building it from scratch. It's not a company that had a large balance sheet. So it was for me to figure out, like, well, let's build the infrastructure first, right? Make sure that we keep the lights on and then also work on part of their international strategy just to make sure, continue to scale. But then the challenge was, okay, we have a thin balance sheet. You know, companies not making money, right. And the deals take sometimes a year plus to close. But in the meantime, we have to make sure we have enough working capital just to make it through those periods. And so that's where I got lean on. Hey, some of the relationships I've built over the years and reach out to different bankers and talk to them as like, hey, here's what we're trying to do, you know. And so I had to really describe as like, here's what the company does and here's where we think there's some opportunities for us to work together. And so my job was really like, hey, let's make sure that we can at least get working capital to get us through these long deal cycles. And so I got to learn just a lot from leasing, doing Those types of transactions, working with high yield debt investors, that was something that I hadn't had the experience of doing before. And I really enjoyed my role there. One of the things I've found in my career is like, I enjoy building stuff. What I don't enjoy is just being in somewhere, like the process is already set. You're just making minor refinements to it or improvements. But I like being able to build things, especially when it's coming from scratch. And so I was there when they also went ipo. So this was also my first time going through an ipo. So working through that process, especially on, on the insurance side on dno, going on the roadshow and spending time with the CFO and the general counsel and just listening and learning at the same time, but also educate them a little bit more on dno. They were also seasoned executives, but this was experience for a couple of them. And just being able to be on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, that was awesome. Right? And you know, being able to do that because that's where we held our DNO roadshow. And so I got great experience through that, but it was a very difficult environment still, although cleantech was the thing at the time, like I said, it's like you're dealing with regulated entities and regulated entities are challenging to deal with. Right. But they also teach you about resilience and again, building relationships over time. That was one of the great lessons learned at that time. I think we. There's a year where we didn't close a deal, not a single deal closed. And you could just see how difficult that is. Right. But then we had to get creative. So for me it was like, hey, we gotta get creative. So I'm getting in, talking to the different finance operations team, trying to figure out like, okay, what's going on with the business? How can we stretch, stretch pretty much every dollar that we have. And then a great opportunity opened up when we had one of our finance operations leaders, he left. And so my boss at the time said he's like, well, I don't think we're going to fill that role. Do you want to take it? And I said, I'm not sure if I want to take on credit, collections, T and E, all these other things. But I thought to myself, like, well, if I'm going to have the influence, especially on working capital, there's no better role for me to take. Right. It was a very different role from Treasury. It was in addition to Treasury, I should say. And so taking on that role, I Got to learn a lot about, hey, first of all, people working with a different group of people on the finance operations side. But then they're also connected to other multiple teams. And so the level of influence grows because now you start bringing data to life and you bring it to the executive team, for example, and say, here's what I'm seeing right? At the end of the day it's going to be a dollar in, a dollar out. But here's what I'm seeing as the driver years, right? And here's how I think we could influence that change. So I actually enjoyed that experience. It was challenging, but I really enjoyed it because it's like just learning something new and being able to see what happens. Especially treasury, we kind of, sometimes we end up on front end depending on where in the company is like, hey, you see stuff as it happens. But this one, you actually get to influence things when you see them. Right.

And you mentioned there that about. And this is a theme as well as tech, you've also got about deep relationships. And I know that for your next move that you'd already, you and I talked about this, that you were starting to establish relationships beyond the group, beyond everything else, because that helped you as then you progress what happened next and how did relationships play a key to that?

Yeah, so I think it was in year six at Silver Spray Networks and at that time company had, you know, I'd say had stalled in some ways and I was looking for the next opportunity. I really wasn't growing in my career anymore though. I'd taken on additional roles on the finance operations side. Was kind of looking around but hadn't seen anything. And then one day I get a ping on LinkedIn and it's. It came from somebody I'd worked with at verisign. He led the workplace services team and he and I had worked together on insurance. So especially when we're thinking about data centers and some of the insurance around our data centers. And it was a really good working relationship. But I hadn't talked to him in at least five plus years, right. And then he says, hey, by the way, I was in a staff meeting. The treasurer said, he's like, hey, I'm looking for a senior leader to come in and kind of help me grow the team and help us scale. And he's like, well, let me connect you two. And I was like, okay, great. And then that's where the conversation started. Would you know it, you know, several months down the road I ended up with that great opportunity at LinkedIn. You know, at the time there were a company growing so fast, treasury team was still really small and they're like, hey, we just need to not only just keep up with the business, but we actually need to be ahead of where they are and be really well connected with, you know, a lot of different teams. Whether it's on the business development side, you know, with acquisitions that they were doing and the investments that they were making, but also with payments, right. We had a lot of expansion outside of the US and thinking about fx, you know, some of those structures, although I didn't spend a lot of time on the fx. But it's being in embedded in the business to know like, hey, what are they thinking about? What new products are they launching? What impact will it have on the business and specifically what impact will it have on Treasury? So that became my role to really spend time the business and then start building a lot of the infrastructure in terms of like, hey, let's make sure that we have the good treasury infrastructure that, you know, do well whether we're, you know, 2 billion business or whether we're a 10 billion business. So spending time with that and then we grew internationally thinking about like, hey, what new markets are we going into? What are the considerations that our legal teams or business development teams should have before we go into those markets? Usually we'd be on the back end of it, right on the back end of it, a little late in the game. And so this going to get us on that path to make sure we're staying ahead of head of the business.

And I know that you, the way that you did this was got plugged into very much the corporate development side of the business. You got to work with those guys. Because I remember you telling me before that it was growing so fast that treasury was constantly trying to catch up. What was that like? You know, you're trying to do all this stuff whilst you're in a speeding car. You're like, whoa. Sometimes you get in somewhere and you're treasury, you know, catches up with the business, you go out, they tell them what they're going to do, they come to you. But as you said, this was a bit like everything was not on fire, but it was like a bit crazy, right?

It was more setting up one on ones, right? Even if there was nothing going on, it's more kind of you build those where it's like, hey, I'll set up one on one with you. Kind of let you know like, hey, what are we doing as a team? What's our role? Because most of the times people are like, what do treasury do? They don't think about treasury when, you know, they're thinking about just the day to day business part of it. Right. Even from a strategic aspect, in most places, if they've never worked with a Treasury team before, they don't understand what the team does. And so part of my role is like, hey, let's go out, let's have these meetings. And so if something came up, then they'd be like, hey, by the way, we need to let treasury know that we're doing this strategic investment or we're thinking about going to this new market. What sort of things should we be thinking about? Right. We're thinking about this new payment process, you know, this currency. We want to start billing. Right. And so we'd have that information up front. So that was really helpful. So at least we could help shape the direction of some of these initiatives or being driven and then also even working with like HR teams. That's something I didn't mention. Right. The thing is like, hey, by the way, we want to offer these employee benefits and stock in these different countries are like, well, okay, yeah, but this consideration, how do you transact in those countries? So providing that input, you know, was another part of it in addition to like corporate development.

And so from there bring us up to date with your move sort of thing because again, I don't want to run out of time today's show because you've got so much value to give. But yeah, what happened next?

So Microsoft kept calling.

Yeah.

So that was in 2016. So there's, you know, session Microsoft and you know, ASOS announced the acquisition of LinkedIn. And so this was my first time being on the other side. Right. I don't know if shock was the right word for it in terms of like, you know, hadn't anticipated that happening. And obviously you can imagine it's like, okay, well let's see what's the reality here? What's going to happen here? But I had a boss, she had been through this a couple times at different companies and she did a great job of just getting the team together and just saying like, hey, by the way, let's just talk about this right openly and have a discussion and say, hey, you know, based on my experience, what she's been through before, the reality is treasury teams are usually among the first to go. But how do you continue to thrive in an environment when you know that your role eventually will.

There's an end date.

Yeah, there's an end date. We don't know when that end date will be, but there will be one. And so how do you continue to just be productive in this type of environment? From that perspective, it was fantastic because then you start off like that. Acceptance kicks in early, but at the same time, she says, but use this opportunity to learn from a team that's been around for almost 40 years. They've been through a lot, they've done a lot from a Treasury perspective. They have a lot of best practices. And so kind of just going through that is like just have that mindset, you know, what are the things that they may be doing that may be valuable down the road for me. Right. Or for each of us that we can use. And so it was interesting. I wouldn't say it was easy, it was challenging. It had its good days, you know, kind of bad days. But at the same time, what I realized, like, we were doing a lot of the right things.

Yeah.

As a Treasury team versus like, hey, here's what, you know, Microsoft treasury team is doing. Here's some of the things that they've been working on. Like they're doing it on a much larger scale, but we're very much heading in the same direction. It's just that we're not going to be able to get there right. As a, as a team, just given the acquisition. And so that essentially, eventually that role ended in May of 2017. I decided to essentially just take a break.

Yep.

Take a break. At that time it was actually a great time because I had never taken a break in career and I thought it was like, hey, if there's going to be a transition time, this was a great time to do it. And unfortunately I lost my dad that summer. And so I was like, well, you know, this was just meant to be how it was meant to be. And you know, I took seven months off, spent a lot of time with my, with my mom in Kenya, you know. And then later on in the year, December, I decided like, well, I think it might be time to get back to work. Didn't want to be out for too long, but it was about, it was good, I'd say a good seven months, but it was a very well deserved a break. And so my boss at the time, you know, she was at LinkedIn, she had moved on to it in another smaller company just in the Bay Area hardware company. And she said, like, hey, by the way, I have this role trying to build this treasury team out. Are you interested? I said, sure. Need to kind of get back in the game. So it took the Opportunity. I think I just realized, like, hey, it was just not the right role for me. Fortunately, about a year in, less than a year in, that's when I got the call from ServiceNow. And I actually used to drive by ServiceNow pretty much every day on my commute to LinkedIn. I used to pass it almost every single day.

Well, a ServiceNow, I mean, you and I have joked, I mean, we know some of the companies, a lot of the companies you've Talked through, but ServiceNow.

Right.

I covered it at the beginning of the show. But for someone that's never heard of them, what are they? Who are they?

Yeah. So in short, I'd say to keep it simple, like, hey, we're a workflow automation company, so we try to take all the boring stuff out of your day to day job and automate it.

Yeah.

And so we're trying to become more efficient. So if you think about just for example, onboarding, I'll give you a perfect example. Like when I onboarded at ServiceNow, you got an email that said like, hey, here's this is onboarding. What type of computer do you want? And then for your benefits, so just went to a portal, put all that in and literally within, you know, just a few hours, like, hey, you, you've been assigned a computer start date and give kind of gives you pretty much everything that you need as a new employee. But what's happening in the background, it's going to your IT department to essentially say, it's like, hey, you know, they need a laptop, right? And it goes, workplace services, they need a workspace, goes to, you know, the benefits team, hey, signing up for a 401k. And you know, here are the payroll details, right. It kind of does all that in the background, but to me as the user, it's very, I can't tell what's happening in the background. So I'm just engaged. The engagement is just great from that perspective. So that's one thing I think most people could relate to when you start a new job and everything, that kind of enables you to get started and become more productive as soon as get started. We're really an enabler of that and that's why I see a lot of opportunity for not only just broader company, but even within treasury itself to help drive some of that workflow automation. There's so many manual processes in our day to day jobs. And so the question is, hey, how do we automate a lot of these? And they're all workflows, right. And so, and that's One of the reasons why I really wanted to come to ServiceNow is having that opportunity again to build something that did not exist. Right. And so that's the journey we've been on.

And Tim, and for the listeners, we had an amazing conversation before this and actually sometimes, as I said to Tim, you know, I have a couple of questions then on the podcast, but we go through. But whereas with Tim's, I had two or three pages and notes because it's so amazing. One of the good ones here was how does ServiceNow's treasury team and department differ from LinkedIn and what are the challenge? You know, how do the challenges compare, if you like, and contrast?

So different from LinkedIn. It's a different business. Right. It's just. It's a different business. But from a Treasury team perspective, the similarities are both high, really high growth companies.

Yep.

Expansion wise. Not only just in the US but international. The international expansion for both companies. Right. So the teams are themselves like the mindset of the teams is growth mindset for everybody. We're getting to do a lot of firsts. It's the same thing at LinkedIn. There's a lot of firsts that we did, but here we've gotten to do a lot more. Right. Just because of the scale of the company. Imagine when I started, it was a 2 billion revenue company and now projected to be about 9 billion, you know, this year. The growth that we've seen in just short amount of time, things that teams have been able to do. For example, we issued our first investment grade debt in 2020. Right. So that's a first for the company. Then going through the ratings process, the debt issuance process. So. So that was new. Right. And then we had different racial equity fund, that's $100 million fund that was initiated by the treasury team. Right. And so that was new to the company. Right. It's all about that growth mindset in terms of like, hey, what is it that we should be doing from a Treasury perspective to really help drive the company's priorities? And so we're very, very plugged in, just like we're on LinkedIn. Very, very plugged in with what's happening in the business? The team size is probably about the same. I'd say it's about the same, maybe a little bit larger, but it's about the same. And so it's always about doing more around the business and being able to help the business scale.

And anyone that looks up your details and sees you on LinkedIn, we're not at the end of the show, don't worry. But I know that you've got involved with diversity. You've got an advisory council and recruiting a diverse workforce. What tips have you got for people listening today? Or what are the things that you guys have implemented and seen with other companies as well?

Just kind of touching that diversity piece of it. I think one of the great opportunities I've had as a Treasury leader and as a finance leader at ServiceNow is thinking about, hey, let's look at our broader finance team, right? Let's look at representation within the team and as part of our initiatives that started last year was like, hey, there's going to be a diversity advisory council. And you know, my boss came and says, like, hey, do you want to be part of this advisory council? Like, yeah, sure I do. It's like I enjoy what I do on treasury side, but this is a chance to have influence on who we recruit, where we recruit, how we develop and how we retain employees. And so for me to be able to have to seat at the table, to have that voice and help drive this particular initiative was really important. As you can imagine, in a lot of cases throughout my career, sometimes I'd walk into a company, I'd probably be the only black employee in finance, and sometimes mostly in the company, you wouldn't see that many black employees or even other represented groups. So I said, like, well, if I'm going to have any kind of influence, this is the type of initiative I want to be involved with. So I found a lot of satisfaction, you know, helping at least get my voice heard. Still have a long way to go, but I think it's important to just step out and look at different areas where we could help just drive these opportunities.

You mentioned earlier that at LinkedIn, part of the way that you got your role was through your network and you're a great networker. I know you're speaking at conferences recently, spoken at the San Francisco One and various other ones. But what are the networking, you know, tips or relationship building tips and tricks that you would give to people? What are you, what are you going to sort of give to people they should be thinking about?

From a networking perspective? Part of it is like getting out of your sight. And it's interesting because I just wrote a post on just our internal finance group and one of the things that says like, hey, we have to get out of our silos, right? It's so easy to get trapped in your own echo chamber. And sometimes like, hey, you might actually be doing great, but sometimes you can get carried away just thinking like, hey, I don't need to hear any other voices. This is where it's good to get out at different conferences or different events, peer group meetings, because then you can hear what other people are talking about. You can talk about the things we're doing. Right. And they could say it's like, well, you know, that sounds great. Like I'd like to learn more about that. But I think the more you have these conversations, the better. Helps refine your own ideas, your own perspectives. And sometimes it might change your mind in terms of an approach, but it kind of helps you just get more diversity. You otherwise you just end up in silo. And then potentially you could get blindsided just because you thought you were doing the right thing. And you might have been, but there's something you might have overlooked. So I'd say it's spending time with others in the space.

But it's also not easy sometimes for people, treasury professionals, because you are specialist within your area. But I think you've proved and proven by your success. Get out of your comfort zone. You talked about it earlier where you were talking about, you know, getting involved in credit doing wider than just treasury plus plus to describe it.

Yes, exactly. So you just have to get a part of it is like if people are to know what treasury does.

Yeah.

And again, treasury also relies on a lot of other teams like either the flow of information or potential deals or other things that help you do your job better. You have to be connected. Right. Because like I can't be building an infrastructure as a Treasury team that does not really support the business. The only way we do that is by knowing what's the business doing, where's the business going? What are the areas of focus? Then it's like, okay, well how do we now build something that will support that? We can't do that by ourselves.

Yeah. Now I'll share something you and I touched upon and it wasn't something we've normally covered. Certainly in my pre conversations about patience and having patience in a both you as an individual, but also in a hiring process. And again, can you maybe share your experiences about how you've been patient or not so patient in your hiring process, how you felt it relates to career success. Because you shared this with me about going, right, I made a mistake there. I should have been more patient, shouldn't have done this. And actually other times you've gone actually take a step back, just take a breath and you and I discuss. And again, I've normally talked to many clients and about that in the treasury field. And it's something that I've learned because I'm quite an impatient person. But actually you have to practice it. It's a learned skill. What about for you?

Yeah, you're right. It is a learned skill. Right. And you'll fail every once in a while. Right. You think it's like, hey, it's like you get impatient. But I think one of the things that I remember is graduating undergrad. I wanted to go to get a job so bad, right. I wanted to be out there, I wanted to go make my. And then I couldn't find a job, but I was still out there. And you know, I almost took a job just that was probably closer to minimum wage. And I remember having a conversation with my, one of my family members and said, it's like, you know what? You're already broke. Go to grad school, then at least get your mba and then probably you'll get better opportunities.

Yeah.

And this is like, it's just you'd be broke for two more years or maybe a little bit longer than that, but at least it'll set you on a better path. That was a difficult one, but I decided to do it anyway. I couldn't find a job in the first place, so I decided to do it anyway. But again, looking back now, it's like, I'm glad I did that. Just efficiency to go do that, because also helped me build new relationships, learn more. Right. Make other, you know, connections that I probably would have missed out on if I taken on that opportunity. But I think one of the things that people sometimes confuse for patience, like, hey, having patience doesn't mean not having ambition. It doesn't. That's not what it means. Sometimes it's just not the right opportunity. I think I talked about taking a job because I wanted the money. It was a higher paying job. I shouldn't have done that. Right. To be honest, that set me back. Right. If I had been patient and waited for the right opportunity, would it have changed the trajectory of my career? I don't know. I couldn't tell you that. But it probably would have put me on a better path. And there's times I find myself like, hey, I want to be a senior manager, I want to be the director, I want to be treasurer. What I found after a while of trying this and not doing very well at it, being patient that is, is like sometimes sitting in the role that you have and if you're learning, taking that opportunity to say, hey, okay, let me learn as much as I Can in my current role, but also thinking about in this role, how is this going to help me get my next job or the job after that. Right. And it's like, am I building those skills? And that's kind of where the patience comes in. Right. Sometimes in treasury, there's some things that don't come every year. Right. It's not like close where you're closing every quarter. Sometimes you don't experience a deal, you know, might be a deal once every two or three years. Right. If. If that. Or once every five years. Right. And so how do you stay patient through cycles is the other thing. Right. And being able to be through certain cycles. And so that's part of the patience. Otherwise we're always rushing to the next things. Like, hey, what's the next thing? I've done that sometimes it's worked and, you know, sometimes it hasn't. But it doesn't mean that being patient, you're not being ambitious as well.

And you've been. I've been a prime example and you've given me a prime example. I, I know because I had this great conversation with you before. These amazing value bombs that any listener today is getting. And it's been really difficult because it, like, because you're inspirational about it. I'm like, yeah, I want, I want to get involved. I want to interrupt him. I want to ask this. And I'm just sitting here going, literally nearly blood coming out my bottom lip going, shut up and listen. This guy's got some great stuff for us. And thank you. You've been amazing so far.

No, I was just gonna say I also talked to my team about it too. And also the opportunity, when I get an opportunity with some of the early in career folks that, that join finance and I get a chance to have a conversation with them, whether one on one or in a group, you know, this is something that I talk about. You can be hungry. They're so hungry. I want the next thing. I want the next thing. But it's like, no, but take the time, learn, digest what you have. This point, it all comes.

It'll come as we roll up towards the end of the show. We almost finished. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people know that it's going to, Boom, be on LinkedIn, that's it from there. But what are the takeaways you're going to give to people? Because I know they'll see you at conferences and be great, great. There'll be more and more, but we try and you know, keep this under the hour. What are the tips and tricks? You know, maybe if you're earlier on in your career, you touched on there about patience, maybe for the early stages. But what are the things you were going to give the listeners today?

I'd say it's three things and I. I like to call them the R and B's.

Oh, love it.

I love R and B music, so kind of made a play on it. One, I know we've talked about it throughout the session is relationships matter in terms of just establishing relationships with not only people on your team, broader than your team outside of work and with your partner. Those relationships, just cultivating those relationships, right, is really important. It's not only about kind of when you need them, but it's just things that people help you become a better person. And these are the relationships. That's where you lean on these relationships. So that's. I'd say that's one. The second thing is just what we just talked about, being patient. And so it's not always about the next thing you know, it's kind of being in the moment, spending time in the moment. Don't lose the drive just because sometimes it just doesn't. Seems like things are taking longer than they should it. Right. Just be patient in that moment and just have the questions that you ask yourself in terms of what am I learning? Am I learning new things? Or is this something that's going to help me become a better. How do I work on my craft? And those are the moments that you use that time when you're patient to develop that skill. Then I'd say the third thing is be kind, right? You just don't know what people are going through. I'm not speaking specifically just about just work, but just around your community. One of the areas I've spent a lot of time on is just volunteering with the homeless. And those are people. Sometimes you don't even see them, right? You just look through them, but you just don't know what their stories are. You don't know what, you know, where they've been, what's happened to them. And so just being kind sometimes is just a smile. Just smile at them, acknowledge them, you know, tell them to have a good day, right? It doesn't cost you anything. But what it does for. For them, it just kind of helps build them up, give them confidence, like, hey, somebody cares, right? So it's just something simple as that. And so I think those are probably the three things I leave with people. And these are not just about tr. Just about life in general.

Relationships, both internal and external, they both matter. Being patient, you can be driven, but pace yourself. Love that one. That's great. And then, as you say, be kind. You know, you don't know what someone else is going through. What's their story? You're never quite sure. Tim. Amazing. Tim is actually, you know, squeezed us in before a trip to Kenya, so thank you very much for your time, sir, today. Amazing. We'll put your LinkedIn details and show notes and I know that everyone would love to connect to you from this. You have a slew of people when you get back as well.

It's been fantastic chatting with you, Mike. Really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, no, looking forward to seeing it out there and engaging with different folks.

Yeah. Building a relationship soon at another conference. It'll be great to see you.

Sounds good. All right. Thanks, Mike.

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