Transitioning from Banking to Corporate Treasury with Vidhi Jain

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 treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. And a special thanks to Flywire, our fantastic sponsors. If you've ever wondered whether there was a way to ease your international transaction hassles, they're the guys to talk to. If you follow the link in our show notes you can see me talking to my mate Greg Levin, their Senior VP of Sales. I get to ask Greg about who are Flywire and how they can help you and your treasury team with your cross border payment headaches. Just follow the link to the interview in today's show Notes. And now let's get on with the show. 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, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next in this week's show. Delighted to be joined by Vidhi Jain, the Global treasurer. Qualtrics Founded in 2002, Qualtrics is an American experience management company with co headquarters in Seattle, Washington and Utah in the United States. Now one of the things that Qualtrics offers is a cloud based subscription software platform for experience management. Now I'm not going to get into that. I'm going to get Vidhi to explain that a little bit later on in the show because she'll do a much better job of it than me. What I want to do is cover how she's developed her treasury career, how she first started. It's a great story with you guys. So Vid, if you would take us back to the beginning of your career, how you ever discovered finance and then Treasury. Over to you.

Thank you, thank you Mike and thank you for the opportunity to be on the podcast. Yeah, I'll go back to early in my career. I started my career in India. I was born and brought up in India. I did my education, my MBA and then right after MBA I decided that hey, finance is the career I want to choose for myself. One, I was very number driven and secondly I used to like economics and you know, personal finance as well. So I was very enthusiastic about banking, knowing about what happens there, what is going on with the numbers, what do people do with finance. So I started my career in banking. I was on the FX desk for seven years and towards the end of it I was leading the FX for North India in ICICI Bank. And that's when, you know, after seven years I moved to the US and it was for a personal reason. My husband was working here, so we had to move together as a family. My kids were super small at that time. And when I moved to the US and that's when I joined Microsoft, it was in the corporate treasury. And that was my first corporate treasury experience. I had learned it from the other side. I was on the other side of the table in India where I was working as a banker, working with companies and corporates in advising them how to hedge, when to hedge, what to do with their debt exposure and FX exposure. And now I was on the other side at Microsoft where I was on the corporate treasury side and I was talking to the bankers and trying to understand, hey, what works for the company. It was pretty interesting there. And right after, and after Microsoft, staying in Microsoft for almost one and a half years, I joined Nordstrom.

Let's just go back. That transition, as you say, you, you transition company rather. And then you'd also transition from the banking to the corporate side with Microsoft. How was that transition? Again, for the listeners, there might be some. In fact, I just got an email from a guy earlier who was wanting to make that transition from banking to corporate. But I understand, you know, what the, the pain of the treasurer, but I'm really struggling how to sort of explain that, if you like. And I think for him, he's a bit more experienced. I think he's probably got to step back a little bit, to be honest, in his career. Whereas for you, you got some experience, but you're making that first step. What was it like for you? Did you understand what the corporate treasury pain was or.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So as I said, I was on the other side, I was on the banking side, so I could see the pain of the treasurers, I could see the pain of the CFOs when they were trying to manage cash, they were trying to manage investments, they were trying to manage debt. And I used to think when I was at bank, when I was in the bank that hey, there is something, there is value add that I can do here. I can literally step into their shoes and guide them, hey, why don't you do this? Or help them navigate through the challenges that they have in the corporate world. So that really provoked me, that really encouraged me to try a corporate treasury career where I step into the treasurer's shoes or I step into the corporate treasury team's Shoes and see what can be done to make things more efficient, to probably save some money on investments, get better interest rates, get a better interest rate on the debt, how to manage risk across in all the cash that we have as a company. So that was a time when I had to transition, when I thought that I can probably add more value now as a corporate treasurer and I have learned a lot in the bank. I know how companies think, I know the challenges exactly. And I know how to solve them. Though I have not been in really their shoes. That was a trigger for me where I thought, hey, let me get into the corporate treasury career and see how it goes. And it was, I'll be honest, Mike, it was not like forever. I thought, let me give it a try and if it doesn't work, I'll get back to banking.

Yeah. And you joined Microsoft, you know, even at that time was one of the mega majors, you know, so. And yes, you were banking in India, but how was that to sort of walk into Microsoft? We were just talking about some of the people we know there and George Zinn and TK and some of the other. Was it like walking in the door there?

Oh yeah, exactly. That's a great question, Mike. So Microsoft was like an amazing experience for me. I started, I entered the doors and I understood, hey, it is all about digital transformation. It is all about getting things in place, getting technology or using technology to transform things to make it more efficient. So that was all about Microsoft where emphasis was on make it better, make it efficient, make it fast. We don't have to put more heads in the system, we have to optimize the number of heads. But at the same time we have to use technology to make things better. That was about Microsoft. And of course I got an opportunity to work with George Zin TK at Microsoft. And it was an amazing experience. I learned a lot. And at the same time it was an eye opener for me. I understood that, hey, banking is different, corporate treasury is different. And at the same time in corporate treasury you get to see a lot of facets where you understand that, hey, technology is important. You can do one thing in different ways. You have to find out the most efficient way. That was about corporate treasury. When I entered, it might be, you know, just unique to me was that because I was coming from India, it was like a multifaceted ramp up for me. One, I was ramping up, culturally, I was ramping up. It was a different, it was a different life in the U.S. third, it was corporate life was different because I was in the banking side and now I was on the corporate treasury side. It was a personal ramp up too. I had two young kids, so it was a lot of ramp up when I was at Microsoft. But I do feel I got a safe zone to do that ramp up in all aspects. And it was a successful, I would say, stint for me there.

And then you mentioned that you went to Nordstrom from different size of company, different kind of maybe different ethos. What was it like to us listeners know Nordstrom? Everyone does and everyone knows Microsoft. But maybe our European listeners, listeners, you know, maybe they don't quite know Nordstrom quite as well as you and I do. Can you explain who they were and what was treasury like when you joined them as well?

Nordstrom is a US retail company and has presence in Canada and when I joined it had presence in Puerto Rico too. So Nordstrom business, given it's a retail company, the business is very different than what I experienced in Microsoft. The cyclical nature of a retail company is very different than a normal tech company. So the cash management, debt management, it was super different. In Nordstrom you have to make sure, you know, there are, say holiday sales, there are anniversary sales, there are events. So all the cash, all treasury events are tied to those sales events at a retail company. So it was a different experience for me where I learned about the retail industry a lot. Hey, what do we do as a retail company? And you know, what are the times in the years when the treasury gets important or where the cash management gets challenging, where we have to focus on how to make sure the cash is invested properly, how to make sure we have enough cash in the bank to run operations. It was a very different experience. I got to know about the retail industry, I got to know about, hey, how the competitors do it, how the investments go. In a retail company it was a different experience, but again, the focus was slightly different. In Nordstrom, you can imagine in Microsoft or in tech companies, we are not really worried about what the cash flows could be. In Microsoft, we were doing M and as very quickly or in tech companies, usually M&As are very strong. You do M and A very quickly and you won't imagine Microsoft does like I would say one acquisition probably every two weeks. That's on an average. So it was different in retail. The challenges were different, the focus was different, emphasis was different. But it was really, really good learning for me. Where towards the end of my experience in Nordstrom, I also saw Covid coming in and you can imagine how Covid was. It was a Very different experience for me at Nordstrom and very, very encouraging. A lot to learn there. Very motivating for me as well. So I really learned a lot at Nordst.

And your role. So you were the senior manager within treasury with Nordstrom. We'll come in and I want to talk about how you moved into Covid and got through that. But just before we do, how was treasury structured? Because obviously Microsoft haven't even treasury there a huge amount or. Well, I know some of these answers but can you describe again what it was like moving from Microsoft with this huge treasury teams to then Nordstrom?

Yeah, that's true. So Microsoft of course it was a huge treasury team. I can't remember the number of people, but I guess it should be more than 50 if not less. But yeah, more than 50. Definitely. It was a super organized team where we had a separate team for cash operations, a separate team for treasury mid office operations, FX capital markets, cash management, M and A Treasury integration. So there were a lot of teams dedicated for different things within treasury function at Nordstrom. Of course it was a smaller team. We were a small team of I would say I think less than 10 people at the time I joined and it was like all hands on the deck at times. Everybody was trained on everything else. So we were managing capital markets fx. FX was limited within treasury at Nordstrom and cash management and with retail companies, yes, you already know it works. We also have to take care of the hard cash we collect in the stores. So we had to manage the cash being transferred to the banks as well. And it was a different experience. Smaller team, intimate team, all hands on deck. I got experience in literally everything, every single thing in treasury there.

And with that touched on their retail business, looking after the cash. And then along came the pandemic. What was that like for you in treasury terms and how did you. Sometimes we touch on it because sometimes companies, it was very relevant less obviously the retail business. What was that like for you guys?

Absolutely. I mean Literally in 2020, before March, we were literally thinking that hey, is Covid a real thing? And I remember I was talking to somebody else in treasury at Nordstrom right before the COVID became such a big thing. And we were discussing a presentation that we had to prepare for some materials and we were thinking should we write like Covid risk there on the treasury slide? And then we were like literally debating is it really a risk on Treasury? So then we thought, okay, let's just keep it there. Let's just keep it as an asterisk. Hey, Covid could be a risk for Treasury. But then literally after 15 days, everything was shut down. I mean, all the stores in the US were shut down. And we were like, wow, it is a real thing. It is a real risk on Treasury. It is a real risk on cash. So, I mean, as other retail companies as well, we had real hard time managing cash at that time because online sales were reduced and even our stores were closed across the US So we had a real hard time managing cash at that time. And we had excess inventory to manage. We had some supply chain issues because of COVID There was nobody who was showing up in the warehouses and to manage the whole inventory. It was a different kind of issue in the retail sector and especially at Nordstrom. But then I got to witness again, absolutely, very challenging and motivating environment at Nordstrom where we managed to get a debt literally less than 10 days. So it was an awesome experience. We had the revolver, we took on additional debt with the company and we managed to survive and we managed to thrive through that whole Covid era. And we knew that we will come out of it stronger. We had to take some hard decisions, the company had to do some hard things. But again, we came out stronger out of that. And we knew that from day one that, hey, this is just a challenge for us. This is a difficult situation for us, but we will manage it through. With of course, the help from the bankers, with help from executives, leaders, with a strong planning that, hey, this is how we need to navigate the situation. This is where we want to get in four years. So how to backtrack that and how to start, where to start from? This is how we did. And we came out of it really well. We were really strong after this whole event and we learned a lot. We learned that, hey, probably we need to move more sales to online channels, we need to expand probably in online channels more than stores. So we learned a lot. So then we came out stronger. And as a Treasury team as well, we. We became closer as well because again, all the people were helping, trying to make sure the cash is good, make sure you remember that era that interest rates had gone down to zero just to make sure where our money is, what are we getting as returns on that money. So all those things were figured out in very short period of time and it was a real good experience for us.

And that's an interesting one. You mentioned that as well. I think treasury really proves its worth. We started the podcast before COVID We went through it and then came out the other side and we were talking about it. Discussion was an ongoing thing obviously. But then as you say back in those days, at the time cash was free, you know, interest rates were an all time low and everything else then you move roles and I want to explore that a little bit now because I was talking to someone again, another podcast guest the other day and we're talking about this new age of treasury is return to treasury, if you like that. You know, treasurers are now proving their worth again in interest, you know, environment with lots of other things happening, geopolitical and everything else. So lots of people are going crumbs, you know, treasury, treasury is proving its worth once again. But so you were then Nordstrom and Qualtrics, you'll give a better explanation who the group are and, and how treasury is there. So, and then we'll explore that a bit more, if you would. So back to you, what who are Quantrix? What do they do?

So Qualtrics is an experience management company. We provide experience management tools to our customers. We are primarily based on four pillars, the product, the customer, and two more pillars for experience management. And we have subscription based business. We are focused on voice, voice of the customer. We are focused on employee experience. So we get employee research and employee database or employee feedback and give the right suggestions, give the right recommendations to the companies and our clients.

And when you say experience manager, what does that mean? Just so that if someone's saying I work for an experienced management company, they're like, does that mean. Exactly. I know, because we talked about this. But again, for someone else who doesn't.

Yeah. In terms of managing experience is, for example, you are our customer. So you want to manage the experience of your customers, you want to manage experience of your employees, you want to manage experience of your product, your brand. So that's where Qualtrics is there to help you. So we will analyze all the data behind all the metrics that your employees are doing, your customers are doing your product, your brand and other things as well. And we will analyze that random data or that unorganized data and give you organized results saying, hey, this is what your employees want, this is what your customers want, this is what you need to do with your product, this is what you need to do with your brand if you want to reach there. So all these things provided or analyzed by our company, we give give you results in an organized manner. So I do feel this experience management business where Qualtrics is, it's like a mission critical business for companies where really we saw a bump as in, we saw increase in customer Base after Covid because companies wanted to see what employees want, what customers want, what changes do they need to make in their product to make it more meaningful for their customers. So this is what, you know, our company as an experience management company does for our customers, for our clients.

And what's that like for you in treasury terms? If you like. Because when you joined, you were the, the first treasury hire, as you said before. And what was that like going in to this fresh, new, established company, but you were the first treasury person. What was that like?

Again, this was a very interesting experience. I had, of course, never witnessed this kind of a thing before. So I joined Qualtrics in 2021 after the company went IPO. And there was no treasury function, There was no formal treasury function. Of course, there were people who were managing cash a little bit, but there was no formal treasury function. And when this opportunity came to me, I remember I was talking to people in the company, some finance folks in the company, and they were telling me that, hey, it's a blank slate. You are going to write your own legacy. We are present in so and so countries. It's a global role and we have a lot of cash. Somebody needs to come in and manage this whole thing. I was kind of nervous in the beginning. I was like, okay, I have experience in treasury, but it's a brand new thing where I need to build things on my own. There are no policies, no processes, no procedures in place. And I thought, okay, that's the right challenge for me. That's where I want to get in. I want to see how things are and I want to make them break them, but have a full fledged treasury function in this company. I was 100% bought in on day one on the mission and vision of the company. I was like, I know this company is here to be successful. I joined this company and was the first treasury hire. I started building my team from scratch and at the same time thinking about the processes, policies, thinking about compliance, thinking about audit, that, hey, what do we need to do to make this team successful to support the vision of the company? What should treasury do? With that in mind, we started and now I would say we have a nice little treasury team here and we have a lot of processes, lots of procedures and we are able to manage global cash really well. We have debt on books now and all the things that a good treasury team should have. We have all those things at this point. Of course, we are learning, we are in a constant digital transformation journey here as well. But I would say we are At a place where we are a stable.

Team right now with treasury yourself. And we'll start to transition into that, thinking about the future of treasury and some of the, you know, you and I were just talking about for this, some of the conferences you go to and where you get invited on the stage. What are the things that you're, you know, sitting there on a panel and you're saying, actually I want to be in this panel. Not bothered about that one. What are the things that you're thinking about? I know everyone's, you know, we got interviewed by a couple of, well, two or three treasury today, TMI, a number of the. What's happening in 2024 now? A lot of my knowledge from that was actually from the podcast, from talking to treasurers like yourself. And there's talk about AI and there's talk about all these other tools, but they were simply tools, you know, to help do your jobs and everything else. But a lot of it was in the nicest way back to basics for treasury, it's about, you know, making sure the risk is managed, the cash is in the right place and everything else. What are you thinking? What are the things that you're thinking about as a treasurer?

Yeah, at this time, I would say in the last couple of years, of course treasury has been evolving, the things have been changing, needs have been changing, but the constant topics or the constant things of interest are number one is investments. Hey, where do we do our investments globally as a corporate to make sure we are getting good returns. At the same time, we are managing risk and reward as well that hey, we are not taking too risky products for ourselves. And again with Silicon Valley bank incident, investments have become even key, even a bigger thing in these conferences that hey, where do you want to invest your cash? Do you want to invest with banks? Do you want to invest with Treasuries? Do you want to invest with money market funds, government funds? Where so investments is. I would say it's a constant topic.

I have seen so many years without confidential company information. What's the answer to that? I'm not expecting a, you know, a full answer. But when you're there, what are you saying? Is it a balanced approach across all or how are you making that decision making, if you like?

Yeah, definitely. So for my approach, like a balanced approach that, hey, you have to take, of course the risk is there in every single thing. You know, there's nothing which is risk free. So there has to be a balance between how much risk you are taking on the company books versus how much you are getting, how much reward you, what reward you are getting from that, as in what interest you are getting from that. So my approach is a balanced approach and more lean towards being a little bit conservative because we are a small treasury team here and to manage the cash, to manage risky instruments, you need a bigger team, you need more people focused on that balance has to be there. But I'm a little more lean towards conservatism where, hey, just make sure we are taking the risk per our appetite.

What we can take and other topics and what other areas are you keeping an eye over your shoulder on? What are you thinking about again? If treasurers are listening today and they're going right, what are you thinking about as Nvidia and what's on your mind, if you like.

The other thing you know, on my mind is forecasting, as in again, short term and long term. These are two big things that every company maintains and I'm sure even small companies maintain. You need to know what your cash will look like two months from now, six months from now, two years from now. At least have an estimate, at least have an idea because that is really important for you in all the things, if you want to raise additional capital, if you want to invest your cash. For long term, forecasts have to be tight, they have to be really good. They have to be updated frequently on a regular cadence. So this is one thing that I learned from my experience of so many years that hey, no matter what, no matter how much information you have from other teams, but you should start putting the forecast, you should start getting into a habit or the company should start getting into a habit of getting things together at one place and see what your expected collections are, your collected disbursements are, your one off payments are. So you definitely need to have the forecast figured out not just for short term, but for long term. That's one. And the other thing that I have learned in so many years is of course AI tech. It's so relevant. It's so relevant. I'm sure it's relevant for all teams, but it is so relevant for treasury as well. So keep the focus on that. Try to make things more efficient, try to make sure that you know all the processes that you are following, they are the best processes or at least get into the journey of making them more efficient or making them better, making them more accurate. These are the things, you know, that from my so many years of experience I feel are important for our Treasury.

And just on that, just an inquiry really, but one of my clients I was talking to the other day is looking at the application of AI and how that might help them. But also then I talked to another client and they've created their own AI. It's ring fenced within their own company, so it's not giving out because obviously there's privacy concerns. And about giving away their own data, they don't do that. But actually it's really already helped him as a treasurer do his job. You know, recently he was thinking about doing some different things within the company. I have to be careful what I say. And he went, oh, hang on, I'll use the, the AI bot to try and actually really helped him by knowing who to speak to within what is a very complex business and where he should go and getting the information and everything else. But again, then I've talked to other treasurers and they're going, do you know what? I could help us with some of our predictive for the future and actually looking at some of the numbers. Is that something you've seen coming through? Because again, you're at the forefront of a lot. This is you seeing that with systems and things.

Yes, absolutely. So I think again, as, as you, as you rightly said, things are evolving. There are now there are tools that can really project what your AR, could be ap, could be payroll, could be as in, you know, based on historicals, based on the machine learning and AI tools that are available today. We are able to project things better. So why not use, why not explore them? Why not see if they work for your company, if they work for your forecasting or your tools that you need at your company. So definitely that has helped us in a lot of ways and all treasury teams as well, at Qualtrics as well. I do feel that we are constantly exploring these products, whether to build them yourselves or buy from outside. It's a separate conversation. But again, we are constantly exploring these things and looking at that, hey, there are some things already there in the market. Why not use them to see what are the results that we are getting? And again, it's not a surprise for anyone, but all the results that we are getting, all the information that we are getting by using these tools, it's fabulous, it's interesting, it's amazing. That's saving a lot of hours on the team.

Okay. Any other areas? We seem to have covered it all, actually. It's a fantastic conversation. Anything else I've missed out on?

No, that's great. It was interesting talking to you. I think one thing that I always tell other treasury folks who talk to me is just keep trying, keep exploring. Just don't put a stop to your career. Keep learning and get mentors. Find mentors on the way. They are people who are ready to help. Just explore those things and keep learning so you'll shine.

And as you say, we're going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes but just as you say to keep on learning. And that's maybe for the more junior treasurers and or treasury professionals coming into the profession, but for the more senior guys as well. You know, any advice that you're sharing with those guys before we finish today.

Believe in yourself, challenge yourself. For treasurers, I would. Again, the learning never stops, the challenges never stop. Just keep challenging yourself. There are so many new things in treasury to explore. There are so many things which can be done better, which can be done more efficiently. Just keep challenging the status quo and you'll get to something which we never thought we can.

So fantastic. Thank you for your time today and look forward to seeing you at a conference very soon.

Thank you. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for inviting me.

Pleasure. Thank you very much for listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Wanted to catch up with you at the end of today's podcast to invite you to Join us in 2024 at one of our Treasury Career Corner Live events throughout the us, throughout Europe, throughout the uk. So we're going to be right the way across and we start the world tour for Treasury Career Corner Live in New York on Wednesday the 6th and Thursday 7th of March. You don't want to miss them, you're going to be there. If you're in New York, please look it up, register you've listened to the podcast, you can actually get to meet some of the guests live. You get to meet me live. I've kind of everything. But anyway, no, I hope you'll come and join us. Talking treasury careers. Each event starts at 6:00 clock with registration 6:30 to 7:30. I meet with the guests, I talk to them on a live panel. It's live version of the podcast, after all. And then we do networking drinks. So the first one, say in New York and Times Square, then we actually move on. We've only got 65 people per night that so we're booking up. We're as I record this, we're over 60% full on one of the nights, 55% full on the second and then we're hitting the road. We're doing Treasure Career Corner Live in cities across the us, UK and Europe. We'll be at Kariba live in Las Vegas. We'll be at Texpo in Houston. We're also stopping off in Dallas and then we've got other of our own events in Chicago, London, Athens, Luxembourg, Frankfurt. What could be better? So if you keep an eye on the website, we'd love to see you there. Keep an eye out for dates and venues. We're coming to a city near you. If you want to connect with us, just reach out to me. Can't wait to see you in 2024. Treasury Career Corner Live, the World Tour. See you soon.