Treasury Career Corner LIVE in New York with Ben Miga and Sumit Advani

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. Let's get on with the show. Good afternoon, New York. Oh, you are awake. Thank goodness. Thank you. Thank you for coming along today. We know as we're on the home straight, there's us one more session and then the pub. So welcome to this afternoon's Treasure Career Corner Live. Some of the audience listen that I run a weekly podcast and I interview amazing treasurers just like this. These two guys, they're going to introduce themselves. I'll. I'll let them do that because they'll do a better job than me. Who am I? I'm Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. I've been talking to treasurers just like this and all the people at the conference for the past 25 years. Six years ago, I thought to myself, I enjoy it so much, talking to treasurers. Why don't I bring it to life on a podcast? Thought we'd do 10 episodes. We've actually done 330, so Treasurycareercorner.com to see some more details. I'll tell you a little bit more. This is the team. They're great. Thank you very much. Joe will be with us tomorrow. This is the Treasury Career Corner. So I've interviewed treasurers right the way across the world from who have I spoken to Porsche. I've spoken to Dow Chemicals. Just upcoming, we've got the global treasurer, PayPal. I talk to them about their treasury careers, how they started, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Go to next and we record it and it goes on the podcast. What I'm going to do in a moment, talk to these lovely gents about the. Their careers, how they built them, some of the steps they took. We'll also explore about education, we'll talk about some of the keys to their success, some of the moves that they've made as well. But before we do that, I'm going to set a couple of ground rules. You've made the effort. The hardest thing with Hybrid is you're in a corner office, you're in your home office, you're in your bedroom and you're working and everything else, the hardest thing to do. And I've seen a few people here. I'm not going to name names, but I will do in a minute, your phones, put them away. Just for an hour. Because the fact is, when are you going to get a chance to sit with two amazing treasurers and a recruiter with a weird accent? Sorry. So, without further ado, we'll firstly get Ben to kick off. Can you explain, Ben, from the beginning of your career, who you are, what you do and everything else over to you, sir?

Sure. So I'm Ben Mega, currently, right now I work for a publicly traded mortgage and private equity company called Brightspire Capital. I started my career in consulting, of all things, at IBM. I worked in consulting for probably about a year and a half and then immediately I said, I don't want to travel that much anymore and I want to go and enjoy how a company is actually constructed and how it funds itself. So I worked on working internally and speaking with folks, meeting people at events, and I transitioned into the treasury. So I spent about three years there. And then after that I said, oh, the hedge fund sector is really hot. So I went to go work for a company called Tudor Investment Group, which has about 12 billion under management. It's a large global macro fund out of Greenwich. And then after that, my career, I wanted to change again because I was like, all right, I built the tech sector, now I built the financial services. And I was. I got a call from Lazard to be there, to be an assistant treasurer. So after that my career progressed and I became the global treasurer there and still further, building that toolbox. And then after that I took another. I got a call from a private equity company called New Mountain Capital, spent about a year there and then I went to Power to do my. I call it my community service to work in the public sector for a public utility. And after that I ended up at Brightspire. So it's just been a consistent evolution.

And who at Brightspire and what's the role there? And you can tell them, sure.

So at Brightspire, I am the senior vice president and global treasurer of the organization. We focus on all sorts of real estate lending and private equity situations. We have about 4 billion under management and it's on a global basis. So we do stuff. In Europe, we do stuff. We had some Asia Pacific, which we divested, but a lot in North America as well.

And sumit over to you, sir.

Hi, everybody. Summit Advani. I am the treasurer for Low Income Investment Fund. When I started my career, actually, I was in a rotation program at a large bank. I got a chance to do three different rotations and I found I really liked treasury because it was both internal and external. Got to do some liquidity risk management for them. And then slowly progressed my career at banks and investment banks doing more of the traditional silo type of risk work. And then I got an opportunity to work for an organization that was a smaller bank with a small treasury function which allowed me to do a lot more there. And I got a chance to do more strategic work, more tactical work. I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately that was. I'm one of the few people that have worked for two of the large, two of the world's largest bankruptcies. So I take a lot away from that. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't my fault. I had nothing to do with that. But I take a lot away from that. It gave me the opportunity to learn and understand really how important infrastructure is, how important communication is, just really good risk management tools. Post that I got a chance to work with one of my mentors at Canter Fitzgerald. As the assistant treasurer I helped run the Canter Fitzgerald CMBS desk where we originated and securitized CMBS loans. I ran the repo desk for them. That was amazing because it gave me a lot more of the ability to build things that I never got a chance to do, which I really like. Post that I was recruited at Jackson Hewitt to be the treasurer. I was not only the treasurer, I was also the Treasury Department. So I did everything under the sun and over there I helped them bring in their treasury services and the way they did things like cash management, collected receipts in a way that was much more sophisticated. I'm going to use that word. Then I was recruited to join the current place I'm at Low income investment fund. We're a not for profit mortgage lender. We're based out of California but I work in the New York office. Under my purview today is rating agencies, debt raising, debt management, investment portfolio, liquidity risk, investor relations. Again I'm the treasurer as well as the Treasury Department so.

So when you both started out we'll start with Ben as well and we talked about this in our pre call Education, qualifications. You've got a lot of people here getting their credits, CTP and everything else for you study. Is that something that you think people should have when you're perhaps recruiting or what's what part does that pay for you? Education, qualifications.

I think education is important. It obviously gives you a launch pad and under understanding for the topic. But to me even more important is experience because you've actually lived it, you've gone through it, you've contributed to it, you've learned from it whether it went positively or negatively. So to me, experience is really important, especially a diverse experience, because you will bring a broader perspective to a potential problem. So one of the things I've done with my career is I've worked across many different verticals, everywhere from tech to finance to hedge funds and whatnot. And you can glean information and also ideas from every piece of that experience, where education might just be a broader, more conceptual opinion of something, the way a scenario should happen.

And do you think everyone should do a Treasury qualification? Is that something that you feel?

I think. I think it's important if, especially if you want to get into the field, but I think taking prudent risk internally and working across different stakeholders to understand the value of what treasury is. Because the interesting thing about treasury, like we've mentioned up here, is not all jobs within treasury are exactly the same. Like a Treasury manager at one company could be totally different than a Treasury manager at another one, depending on the sector and depending on what the need of the business is.

So. Okay, submit your thoughts.

I don't have a ctp. I guess I got to leave. I get no credit today. But I think it's important to have education. I think to have that broad spectrum that Ben spoke about is really important. I think it's really important also to do to as you focus your career, is to really look and see how what you're doing, what Ben was saying, connects with other parts of the organization. I think that helps because treasury plays a very important role in most organizations. It is a problem solver. It sees the outside and the inside of the organization. And I think having experience in that and being able to then start to see the bigger picture really helps a lot. I think one of the great things is that you can rely on other treasury professionals in the industry to pick them up, pick up a phone and call them and speak to them. And like the mentors that I work with, if I have an issue or a problem, I can easily pick up the phone and speak to them and say how I'm looking to do this. I also do that with BICs. I think that's also helpful as well. Does a CTP help? I think it does. I think if you're focused on cash management or very specific niche, it's very important for that because that's a very complex or regulated field and it could potentially put you over the top versus another candidate. But I also prefer experience because I would like to get somebody on my team that can hit the ground running and there's Less uptick in understanding what treasury does and more focus on really the, you know, what our company does specifically. It's different from what their experience was.

And as you listen to these guys talking about their treasury careers, we will do Q and a bit later. And then we've got some takeaways for you. What? Make a note or think about what questions you want because when was the last time you got to sit down and actually pick the brains of a treasurer? You're very busy a lot of the time with your day roles, your this, but what steps should you take? And again, that's where I'm going to start, actually. I'll put it to summit. First of all, as you look back over your career and we've got it up on here as well, what have been the keys to your success or what are the things you talk there? I know we talked about before you getting to know the business a little bit more. And I think a number of years ago, treasury and treasurers got themselves off in this ivory tower. They were like, oh yeah, pay rise for being the specialist treasurer. But then they spent the past 20 years trying to get back out of the corner office. What with you, how do you do it?

Because I have both tactical and strategic type of responsibilities. I get a chance to interact with all parts of the organization, both internally and externally. I really like that. I learned from that. Some of the things that really helped me was that when something came up, a problem, I put my hand up. And what that helped me understand was, you know, parts, how does the firm work, how do you solve that problem? And that make me invaluable because when the guys in Europe called and said, I have a question, you'd help with this, or the guys in Asia called me, said something like that. And even today when somebody calls and asks a question or we have an issue we need to solve, putting your hand up because you can connect the dots, right? And you can get to the resolution that you need to get to. That's the, that makes you invaluable to an organization. Problem solving is a invaluable skill set. It's really hard to teach. And if the more you do it, the better you get at it. And I think as a treasurer, important skill set, probably the most important skill.

Set you need, I think, to further expand on that. It's also taking prudent risk and not necessarily with the assets of the company, but in your career. It's like going to a meeting where you may get asked a question and you might feel a little uncomfortable or having to reflect on something that went wrong and to really say with the problem solving, really develop that skill to take the next step in your career. But by looking at all your experiences and that diverse tool basket that you've built to really make you a well rounded candidate to be the trusted advisor of either the board, the CEO, the cfo, whoever it is that you may need to support and also getting the respect and the recognition within the organization by what you're able to deliver.

And you and I were talking yesterday and it's funny because we'll have here also some treasury analysts, managers and they're going, that's all very well, you're too treasurers, you've got there, you've got to the top, but they're only starting up the ladder. But you came to me with a really great example of getting one of your colleagues to think of someone else's shoes. Can you perhaps explain that to the audience where. Because I thought that reflects really well on treasury and a good way to communicate and I thought it was a great takeaway for these guys.

Yeah. So we had a problem not at this job but a prior role and somebody came to me and said, hey, we really need to restructure this company. And I'm like, all right, it's the middle of COVID Is now really the time to do this? And they were like, yeah, we need to go to the debt market. We think we can capture a big. So we go through the whole process and everybody looks to you and says, all right, like how do we do this? And I said, you shouldn't be asking me how to do it. I said put yourself in the CFO shoes right now with everything that's happening. How would you approach that situation if you were to deliver a message, not to me, but to the CFO or the board on why we should or shouldn't do something? Think bigger than you. Because if you can deliver that solution and you can think forward, it will pay dividends down the line and summit.

For you with your treasury again. You've got analyst managers here. What advice are you going to give to them sitting in that chair and right when they get back the rest of this week and they're wanting to develop their careers, what advice would you give?

One of the interesting things I think is put your hand up when there's an opportunity that comes along that is an interest to you. Right. Figure out how you can do more of that. Get in front of your treasurer and say, hey, look, I'm really interested in Helping the organization do this or this, and what can I do to help myself? Or help the organization get to where it needs to be and people will start to recognize you because you put your hand up. Not a lot of people volunteer these days to do, to help. So to put yourself out there, to push yourself really helps you within an organization and in your career because it shows that you're willing to step outside of not just your roles and responsibilities, but really put the organization first and you'll find that other opportunities and other advancements in your career come quicker.

One of the pieces of advice we got from one of our podcast guests recently was they were in a very similar situation a few years ago. They were like trying to develop their career, but they didn't really understand what the other parts of the organization did. Went to their treasurer, he said, coffee? Yeah, okay, thanks for that. No, go for a try and meet as many people as you can for a coffee. And what this guy did was every week for the next quarter he met. In fact, it just carried on for about the most year. He said he got pretty bored of coffee. But the fact was every Friday he would try and go and meet someone from one of the other teams and he'd buy the coffee. The best investment in his ever, in his treasury career ever made. Now we're going to go on, we're going to talk a bit about the new world of Work Hybrid. Yeah, firstly, you guys have actually made an effort, so well done. Do give yourselves a, you know, pat on the back for that because it's hard. It's hard to be here, but you've made the effort. But you guys, what's this new world of work hybrid? 5 years ago was just a car. Now it's our lives. How do you guys run as treasury teams? If we go to you summit, then first of all, how does it work?

Sure, my organization asks for people to be in two times a week. However, they don't enforce that. I live 10 minutes from the office, so I'm in there almost five days a week. It just makes a lot of sense for me to come in. The commute's very quick and if I need to get home, it's 10 minutes away. It's not bad. What's nice as well is I sit in an office with the CFO and the CEO next to me. So I and the president actually on the same gives me an opportunity to really talk to them and get exposure to them and, and understand what we're doing as an organization. And it gets me a Chance to also speak to the people outside of that level as well, who are in the office too. I think it's very rare these days in my organization anyway to have people in as much as I am. I keep telling my cfo, I'm, you know, fulfilling the whole finance department's obligation to show up once a month.

And we'll have it on record that you're asking for a bonus for that as well. Of course, yes, that's being recorded. There you go.

So for us, we gradually went back to four days a week. So we're hybrid. Usually Friday, we're work at home. We started out one day, then it went to two, then it went to three. So what I've seen especially of our senior management is a lot of the executive suite are, quote, old school. And I would say in the way that they, they want you in the office. They believe the office and the facetime and the collaboration happens within the time that you're at home, which goes a long way, especially with the senior management, by putting a name and a face together, but also listening to conversations, being pulled into meetings, spending additional time on projects, but also really making more of a personal connection with your colleagues as opposed to, I see this person on Zoom once a month. Oh, my God, I really don't want to go to this meeting because I wasn't prepared or whatever. This way you can't hide behind that either. You have to be there, you have to be present. Like the cell phone rule that Mike instituted in the beginning of the meeting. You have to be there and you have to be focused. So it makes a lot of sense.

And it was this time last year on stage with Steve Rosenthal from Broadridge. Great guest. And one of the key things he said about his work style was similar. He lives quite a way out, but he loves to come to the office. Just that's his working style. But what he discovered, they were doing a sort of 360 with his management team and everything else. They said, it's really lovely you're in here, but we never see you. What? And basically because he was doing some in depth work, he was closing his door. And what he was finding was he wasn't actually collaborating with the team. And they started to come in with purpose and intentionality because what they did, he was saying to people, because he noticed a lot of people then just coming into the office. Why? He said, look, if you're going to come in, have a meeting, but if, you know, if you're not going to see your colleagues and you're just going to close the door. Don't bother, save your time. It's about using that intelligence and everything else. Obviously a lot of the sessions the past few days have been about AI, the future treasury and that's the big key word and everything else I know. We've again spoken. We'll go to Ben first. Where do you see the sort of future of Treasury? What are the things that are top of mind for yourself as a treasurer?

So I think with treasury especially we have high rates right now so it's really helpful especially for the bottom line. But as rates obviously tick down believe you're going to have to do more with less. And I've seen that throughout a lot of organizations, a lot of people I speak with but it's embracing technology and don't be afraid to innovate and think about new processes and work with your internal stakeholders to get the best solution because the reason of this is the way we've always done it and this is a good process may not always be the right answer. So embrace technology.

I agree with Ben and the reason why is similar but when I think of treasury professionals I think the value add in your career and you as a professional in your growth really comes from the type of analytics, the type of analysis, type of findings that we turn out. If we spend all our time doing data entry and doing repetitive type of work, I think that diminishes the ability for us to do other stuff that's really that value add. In organizations I've been a part of, we implemented this was 10 years ago. We went from reporting 12 hours a day to two hours a day by bringing a specialist who knew how to do SQL. And so we spent the rest of our day working with the secured financing desk and telling them where there's opportunities and misses and we became invaluable to them. I've tried to implement RPA in different organizations. I think that's really helpful. AI is great. The more metrics we can get at our fingertips in our hands to make decisions to help us make the right decisions makes us more and more valuable to any part of the organization. And Ben's absolutely right with rates being as high as they they are, it's hard to like ADD people, it's hard to add systems. But the payoff period for an RPA or for AI is tremendous. You have to go through that to see that payoff and you just got to get buy in from the organization. That why it's so important foreign.

To give a special thanks to Flywire Our fantastic sponsors. If ever you've wondered whether there's 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 Greg to explain who Flywire are, how they can help you and your treasury team with your cross border payment headaches. Follow the link in today's show notes. Let's get back on with the show. So in about five minutes we're going to go to questions because we've got some really good takeaways from these guys today. But just going back to you as treasury professionals, how have you kept yourselves motivated throughout? Been challenging times? When you look back and we'll go to Ben first of all on this when you've there as you say, there's been challenging times. We've had Covid, we've had everything else. But I know we talked about this as well. How do you keep yourself going?

I think it's just, it's always having that thirst for knowledge and thinking about what are my goals five years down the line, three years, six months and having the skill set and developing the mindset to get there. Yes, Covid was a very challenging period. I'm sure for everyone in this room. Doing a debt deal in the middle of COVID was extremely challenging. And having a small team, like a Treasury team of one or three or four, it's a lot. But you just got to persevere and know that the skills you're getting, even in those intense bursts of time are going to shape you and really prepare you to be the leader of tomorrow.

Me personally, I like building things. I like being entrepreneurial, I like building relationships. I think that is something that kind of drives the type of work that I do and motivates me. I like doing stuff and saying that's cool, I did something different, I did something new or that system changing. I've done stuff that I find that when I talk to people that they're like, you did that? I'm like, yeah. And to me that makes, that's just something that drives me to do more. And you know, when I see that in an opportunity as a Treasury professional, that's really what drives me. When I look and I talk to people and they're like, we've been doing the same thing for the last 13 or 15 years. I'm like, how do you survive? Like how can you do that? How can you just continue to do the same exact thing? Because I need that dynamic. It's just a really cool. For me it's just. It's a thing that drives me on a daily basis and what.

There are lots of things coming down. The past couple of days again there were some sessions about fraud and cybersecurity and I saw that was one of the early sessions today as well. The guys were talking about it. Is that something that worries you or what steps have you taken without getting into too much about the company? But we'll go with you Summit as well. How are you dealing with stuff like that?

Sure. Obviously we have the right checks and balances in that. Most organizations do that. A you have a checker and a maker. Right. You have a. You're always on the phone with your RM who does cash, where you do most of your cash management. So you have an idea of who is the check signers, who's authorized to do things. As you have people leave and enter your organization, you're on top of that and you're giving them the data they need to do that or to update their records. Right. If we see something strange or different communicating. I think things like teams or slacker have really helped organizations because you can reach out to many different people like in a organization at the same time and you can get information and you can make sure that you're protecting yourself from things. I think that's been a real for me anyway in my organization it's been really helpful to do that Ben.

So for us it's more of the same of that. The other thing is we've been looking at new tools. So we just saw the whole shark tank or treasury tank. But NS Knox is a product that we were actively looking at. It's been recommended to us by other folks. So we decided to do a deep dive on it. We have another. We're working with our banks constantly to see what the newest and latest innovations that they have are to either verify vendors bank account instructions. Just any way we can stay one step ahead of the fraudsters is what we're trying to do.

So questions from you guys. Who wants to wait? This is a great chance this great opportunity. Talk some of these treasurers. What do you want to know is there's the mic there. So there you go. Please go to the mic. Yeah, I'll repeat it if you're not loud. Okay.

So can you give us an idea.

Of what your day to day functions.

Are in your positions or current ones and is your treasury team structure?

Yeah, that was great. Ben, do you want to.

Yeah, the Entire brightspire Treasury team is here. Me and Ramona, we're very small and very lean. We rely a lot on other departments. Us collaborating and communicating efficiently and effectively is very important. We touch everything from bank recs on the cash side to make sure all the payments went out, make sure everything reconciled, got to the ledger answering accounting's questions, moving cash, looking at liquidity investments, looking at debt strategy, how should we issue debt, what should our capital structure look like, how do we finance assets, what how do we work with the capital markets team to go out and raise asset backed securities, stuff like that. So it's a little mix of everything and then sometimes you get the one off request where it's like, hey, we're restructuring this property, can you guys help out on that? We, we may not know what to do but they rely on our expertise because they're like, you guys control our money, so why can't you help fix this? So it's sometimes it's varied, sometimes it's very specific but you got a mix of everything.

Yeah, so.

So not only do you have Bright Spires, Treasury Department here, you also have Lyft's, Treasury Department here. My daily work, I talked about it a little earlier but it's debt management. I'm on the phone with banks constantly. We have a significant amount of credit facilities with banks. So talking to them about how do I get more. Working with accredited rating agencies who were rated by S and P as well as a industry specific rating agency called eris. So that takes up about six months of the year. That's another project that I work on, daily liquidity cash management. I have a bunch of other stuff that because of the structure and it's just me that is on the back burner. But I will eventually have to get to like our investment portfolio. We have an outside investment source or manager. Eventually I'll have to circle back and see how they're performing and look at that. It's really about, I think trying to balance. I work with other parts of the organization. Ben said, when you start to solve problems, people continuously come to you with trying to help them do that. And that kind of pretty much takes up all my day as well.

And I was actually going to answer it as well because on Monday I got a phone call from an HR director saying we're looking to recruit a treasurer. How do we structure our treasury team? What's the definitive answer? I said simply speaking, it depends what I said, who are you? What is your company? And the best description I give it is we were at Euro Finance a couple of years ago. Someone said you've done all these podcasts. That's one good way to find out how a lot of treasury teams are structured. Listen to the podcast TreasuryCareerCorner.com is great, but as well as they're not. And I said no, exactly. So one is debt laden, one is cash rich, one is centralized, one is decentralized, one has 80 people doing treasury, one has three but they push out to the business. I said that's the, and that's the joy of Treasury. That's why it's, I don't see any sight of it stopping actually with talking to people and talking to treasurers about it as well. So yeah. And I can give you more advice if ever you need it as well. So yeah. Other questions. Daniel, quick question because we talked about.

Small teams and a lot to do with small team. Here again, what strategies have you used.

Maybe after some of your roles now.

Than prior roles, how to motivate those.

Strong, talented individuals and try to.

Because obviously it's, it's constant moving environment.

And it's not easy finding that good talent. What are some strategies you've used to.

Keep on motivating and is in the appropriate way?

So the question there just for those in the back was how do you keep motivating treasury team members in these smaller teams and everything else? Would that be a good. Yeah, Ben, good for it.

So I think what you do is you give them opportunity and what you work with them on is, you know, developing their presence and developing the way they interact within the organization. You're reliant on all these different stakeholders throughout the organization for various things you work with them to develop. Are you interested in accounting? Are you interested in the treasury part of accounting? You have them cross, cross pollinate and collaborate on those various tasks. Right. So what we try and do is diversify the skill set so in a way that keeps them engaged, interested and then also developing broader skills to help the organization move forward.

I think one of the interesting things about treasury is that you really have a bottom line impact to most organizations. So I think really when it comes to motivating someone, it's really talking to them about how their function really impacts the bottom line and where they can push or pull and how they can change the metrics of the organization. Something simple like reducing fees, something significant like investing cash in a higher yielding account. Like how can that simple act have so much impact? I think that's something that I found gives them the idea of where they fit in the organization. And then leveraging a lot of what Ben said as well, I think is important too. But that's one thing that I've always found then you can say, oh, that's what I do.

So as we were at the end of COVID I got approached by the national association of Corporate Treasurers. They wanted me to talk to all these top treasurers and they were all talking about staff retention. They were saying, how do we keep our staff? I was like, no, don't just get them to move around and come to me. But other than that, I didn't actually say that because I didn't want to get in trouble. But one things we do is we run a global salary survey. And as part of that, so go to treasurysalary.com is a great way to benchmark your salary and everything else. But as well as that, it's given us greater insights into why people do exactly that question. And I was saying to this group of some of the top treasurers and they were saying, how do we keep our staff? What do we do? And I said to them, it's really easy because. And I've just got actually some of the notes here. What are the top reason people, staff stay in treasury and they're happy is good work, life balance. Then it's having a good boss, varied work, friendly team, enjoyable workplace. Then salary was actually six everyone's, oh, it's about the money.

It's not.

It's actually all the other things and you then get paid later sort of thing. And then it was the same with. And then unhappiness. So it was lack of progression. Actually salary came up. Then there was having a poor boss, lack of challenge. Then the commute, location at the time, time. And I think that's gone a bit further up as well. But what I was going and I said to the group, they said, so what do we do? I said, have a coffee with some of the team members and just ask them these questions, say, look, are we giving you progression enough? How's your salary? Am I being a good boss? I think some of them were going to struggle with that because they were like so used to the it. It was turning around. A lot of the guys came to me afterwards that really enjoyed that because this is management. A lot of treasurers are very good at the finances. But if you're in the army and you're like looking after a team of five, 10, 20 people, you do hours of training. I say to a number of treasurers on the podcast, I said, you run a team of 20 now or 60 globally. They're like, yeah, how much management training have you got? And they're like, nothing. Yeah, you're accidental managers sort of thing. So that's one of the key things. So we've got time for maybe one other question. Yes. Now, carry on.

But I can do the comfort and maybe the green client to try something new, go to a new industry.

What gave you that comfort to get. Yeah, sure. So I had grown up in the financial service industry. I worked for investment banks, work for dealers. I got an opportunity to move into the retail space and I was like, do I really want to leave Manke? Do I really want to give up what I know? But it was the opportunity. It was the opportunity to build something. It was the opportunity to do something different, to get that treasure title and to see things differently. And the one thing that I think that has benefited me from doing that is there's a lot of value add. From taking stuff from the industry that you worked at to a new industry, there's a lot of value add because there are people currently in my industry that have. Don't have the same experience as I can. I do. And I can add a lot of different impact because I bring in things like that. And that's not really easy to do unless you move within different industries.

Ben, I think it's also so everything he said 100%. And I think the other thing is it gives you an opportunity to see different companies and how they operate and why. Right. So the power and utility is going to be a heavy debt load. Lot of capex, a lot of project type finance where a financial services company is going to be like people, promises and paper. But it gives you a different perspective on best practices. And it also gives you opportunities to work with different folks across either banking relationships or products or different strategies. And it really helps you fill up that toolbox to be able to say, all right, I feel comfortable saying, hey, this is the best product for us. Why aren't we looking at this? So it gives you that diversification as well to say, I didn't like hedge funds five years ago, but now I'm going into alternative investments. Is that the right area for me? So you can think about how you want to progress your career as well, but don't hesitate to take the risk if that's, if it's something you're interested in, you feel passionate about, think about it, like really go for it.

Do you have time for one more question? There was someone over here. I saw no, go on. Yeah. Thank God.

Actually, my question piggybacks off of that one. What did you do to say yourself up for success when you did transition industries?

How do you set yourself up for success?

I looked at low hanging fruit in the new organization that I joined and I saw where I can add value right away and establish that. A reputation for someone who can actually hit the ground running. So one of the things the organization I joined didn't do was negotiate rates on their savings account because they just didn't know how to do it or they didn't even ask for it. I put cash away for four or five months and they're like, how did you earn so much at the bottom line? And I was like, I'm just doing prudent cash management. They're like, we never thought of doing this before. Thank you. So it was taking things that I took for granted or part of my daily skill set and bring it to an organization that just didn't have that sophistication. And I think those really help you and set you up for success because it proves that you can. There's a lot of value add to you and you being a part of the organization.

Agreed. Again, I would also say something that could be really helpful too is having mentors across multiple sectors. So if you're really interested in maybe doing something in technology or banking or public finance, working with various folks within your network or your, your past life or you know, some friends that can give you an honest perspective of what it is so you have a lens into it ahead of time that basically says, okay, all right, it's going to be heavy cash management or it's going to be heavy liquidity management or borrowing or whatever. So am I really. Is that something one, I'm interested in? But two, do I feel comfortable doing that or will it be a stretch for me? And then you can make the, you can think it through ahead of time.

Okay, so we're hitting our last. Yep, don't worry, I'm there, I'm on time. Don't worry. Again, the five minute sign. Thank you very much. So we're going to give you takeaways. So, Ben, you've got your first ones. I don't know if you can still see them. There you go.

Yeah. So I think two I'm really going to focus on is seek challenges. Right. So like I'd been saying, diversified your skills and seek challenges. One of the interesting opportunities that came up to me when I was at New York Power was I was able to get trained by the rating agencies. Something I would have never thought. So I got credit trained on project finance, but also on corporate structure and debt markets. Something I would never as a treasurer been like, oh, that's something I really have to do. But to me it was a great opportunity not only to learn, but you learn about the different assets, you learn about the different industries and how they manage debt and debt load and stuff like that. But. And then also building those relationships and building that network and. But building like a true network, right? Not somebody you reach out to every three years when you need something or want something, but having a strong dialogue and working with people that just need expertise or need help. Because someday that may be you.

So summit yours?

Sure. It goes in line with what Ben said. I think it's really important to connect the dots. I think that's one of the things I want to focus on. The other thing one of my mentors taught me and I think it's really helped me. On a daily basis he used to come in and on his notebook he'd write the date and the left side of the page. He had all his tactical things he needed to do for the day. The right side, it was all the long term strategic projects he had. And then he continued this on a daily basis, crossing things out and adding things. And at the end of the year he was like, this is the value add that I bring to the organization not only on a daily basis, but on a long term basis as well. These are things I've accomplished. This gives you a lot of value and kind of shows how important you are to the organization. On connecting the dots, I think it's extremely important. Treasury serves a invaluable asset to any organization. You get to see the inside, the outside. You control the balance sheet. You really are a integral player of how the organization grows. To be able to connect the dots within all parts and all facets is really important. It will help you tremendously. When somebody says something about something out of left field and you go, I know what that is, I can help there. Not many parts of the organization could probably do that. So just try to do that as much as possible and then, yeah, embrace change and champion technology. I think that's really important as well. I think growth, it helps you grow, it helps your organization grow, it helps your department grow as well.

And my takeaways, well done. First of all to yourselves. You've actually came here and invested in yourselves. You've educated yourselves, you've got amazing guests, obviously, but also you've made the Effort. It was easier to maybe just listen to a podcast or maybe not come to a conference and get all the way here to the Javits center and everything. But it. When you reflect, when you're on your way home tonight, just think back over the past couple of days and what knowledge you've gained and actually use it. You make connections, you know, you've not just worked remotely sitting in your home office and everything else. Now this is another one. Taking notes or connecting afterwards. This actually came from Chris Fulton. Who Prior Cashmen. We're going to do an event at their offices tomorrow night. Chris is. He said, I'm a terrible networker, but I'm not that good at it. He's a brilliant network and one of his networking tips. I'd love to steal it myself, but I'd stand out. Do it. He would go meet somebody, get their business card. That's great. And then he would be mingling and then everyone would. Someone else would come along. He said, sorry, can you give me a second? And he just write a couple of notes. Someone's daughter was heading off to such and such university or he knew someone or again, building that network and actually all the jobs for him. I've already had a word with him. He won't be doing this in future. They came to him direct each of the moves he's made. He went from treasurer to cfo, now C. Oo, Prior, Cashman, he got all those and they, they approached him, they said, oh, we want you to come and join us. I'm not looking for a job. No, but we know, we've heard about you and actually that really helps. And then once he's got those notes, that's one of the key things. I've been getting a number of LinkedIn invites. Don't just click connect. I'm like, who are you? When do we speak? Just take a few seconds, personalize the invite. Follow up with everyone you've met these past couple of days, because if you don't invest in yourself, you're just going to be going backwards with your careers. So if you want to chat further, you can connect with me and things, but put your hands together. The amazing treasurers, please. 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. So you know your compensation is constantly benchmarked against the market. 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 the salaries of treasury professionals on a global basis. Currently, we have over 1, 100 participants taking part at treasurysalary. 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.