Treasury Careers, Teams, and Excellence: Lessons From the Top

I've been in an individual that I can't sit still to go into a role where it's just a monotonous day today, the build or the change, and that hit at the end of it, where you see the results, even though there are bad days and good days throughout a journey, you see the end result. That's rewarding and that's a thrill.

They were solving a problem and yes, there were problems, but I suppose as a team we were able to look at all the different things and say, okay, well, if we can figure out how to automate that, I can take that 10 minutes a day, 2 hours a day, 8 hours a week and feed that back into something else. And I had actually managed to get my team to a really good place around continuous improvement, where it was actually baked in to make most of my teams.

Yeah, I think I've taken several risks in my career by leaving very stable and good jobs to try something that was going to be more interesting. And I've had moments where I went, I've tasted a terrible choice. What have I done? But like that, it's being persistent, it's putting your own shape in it. Like, similarly, when I left Pfizer and I did my first few weeks in Newell, I was like, what have I done? How can I put some shape on this? What can I do? You know, we didn't even have bank balances reporting. I tried to sit down and say to myself, this is an opportunity, it's not a challenge. If you can fix this, then you can succeed in this organization or you can go anywhere else. And it's just about, I suppose seeing a challenge is really an opportunity for you to step in and say, I can do this, I can fix this, I can solve your problems. And then more challenges or opportunities can come your way from them.

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. So who am I now? Again, I feel like I'm saying this because we did it not so long ago. I'm Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. I've done it for 25 years talking to treasury professionals. We recruit all levels, treasury analyst to global Treasurer. And then. That's enough about me. There you go, there's the team. How did this all happen? So, six and a half years ago, Pre Covid I thought I'd do this podcast, talk to us about 10 treasurers, see how it went. Unfortunately, the record got stuck. And now, with 385 episodes, 400 guests, 200, 000 downloads, what it means is that you guys love to hear the stories of other treasurers. So I said, I know what, let's make it into a live stage show. Let's have amazing guests like this. We record it for the podcast, but they also tell their stories and that's how it's going to go this evening. So in turn, I'll get each of my guests to introduce themselves, how they started their treasury careers, well, where they are now. And then they'll talk through how they started their treasury careers, how it developed and how it's grown. And then bit later, you'll get to ask some questions that you want to do. We want to leave room for that as well and make the most of it, because if you don't, when else are you going to get a chance to do it? You can't ask these questions. And also you can put people on the spot. We did it in London last week. There was a particularly quick, difficult question for one of our guests about how they had a route with the CFO. Now, I knew these had so many routes with CFOs and they've been five, five times. But we couldn't do that in a packed room. But don't ask that question. Or if you do, just ask Keith. Okay, so first of all, Kira, if you would. And yeah, the lovely car. Oh, look at this. She's great with a microphone. Go.

So my name's Kira Agnew and I'm the assistant treasurer for Kalanova. So I am an accountant by trade. I would. I have a bachelor in commerce, a master's in accounting, and I did my training contract with kpmg. My training contract with KPMG was very specifically in the financial services sector. And that is most likely how I fell in love with all of the different treasury components. So I did a lot of hedge fund work, I did pensions, aircraft leasing and quite a lot of the other kind of big buzzwords around Dublin, kind of business wise. I then actually started working as a Treasury accountant in Pfizer. So the Dublin Treasury Centre, which is pretty close to here, and then got an amazing opportunity to move as a Treasury accountant to Kellogg at the time. So they were going through a reorganization. They had just purchased quite a large brand for them. You guys might know it, it's Pringles. And we then went on to consolidate they consolidate that from P and G in and do other kind of small bolt on M and A. And I managed to go through from a Treasury accountant to a risk manager to then senior treasury manager in Europe, the assistant treasurer in Europe and then I got an amazing opportunity to do a global role. So again Covid made strange bedfellows I think of most and I actually got an amazing opportunity to start doing our debt capital markets from Dublin. So I did debt capital markets, I led, we did a spin about 18 months ago now and I would have led that project. I did strategic planning, global fx. I also recently took in our global risk policy. So I manage all of our global insurance policies and cash flow which is maybe slightly different. So not necessarily liquidity cash flow but FPA cash flow. So actually the cash flow that we would report in our K or Q I also have middle office and cash management for North America which is our largest region reporting up through me.

Amazing. So. And we will quiz each of our panelists as we go through. We'll move on to Keith, if you would.

Good evening everybody. My name is Keith Lynch, I am senior director at Viatris. We're pharmaceuticals company, global multinational, $15 billion revenue company. As a 24, I am working there three and a half years or so. I was assigned the task of setting up a Treasury center of Excellence. We have a global presence. I have a team in Hungary, I have a team in China, India and we have some presence in Dublin as well. I started on the treasury journey 26 years ago when I left school when I was 17, 18 again by accident. A lot of treasury professionals end up in this sphere. I suppose by accident I didn't know what treasury was. I don't think anybody in my class anyway knew what treasury was. And like how that accident came about was I was studying by night. I did an honours degree in computer science and I had to find a job for those four years and I found that job in National Irish bank which is I think Estanska bank now. And I studied at Trinity College so the bank was located close by and I fell into International and Treasury within the bank. Loved the office environment, doing bank recs, looking at checks, drafts, paper everywhere. Didn't know what a bank wreck was back then. Now I certainly do. So I moved on from there and went to YIB bank for a year and then onto Citi and we'll maybe talk a bit about Citi down the track. Citi had an outsourced treasury function and that was a good transition for me back then in the early 2000s to move into a pure corporate role. I moved from that point onwards into Medusa and a South Korean conglomerate. I was there for 11 years, dipped my toe into the water of consulting for a year, year and a half and moved to Viatris where I'm loving work. I'm running the, as I said, the Treasury Centre of Excellence globally and other coes as well. I'll go into that in a bit more detail later.

Julia, over to you.

I'm the Global Treasury Director for Newell Brands. Many of you probably don't know the name of our company, but you know our are very, very famous brands such as Sharpie, Yankee Candle, Graco, Rubbermaid. I started my role there about five years ago. I started off as a Treasury Manager for emea, tasked with setting up a Treasury Centre and migrating work from all around Europe into one single centre. From there progressed to Senior Manager, APAC was migrated to Dublin and last year I was made the Global Treasury Director which covers then the Americas as well. So I have a team in Dublin and a team in the US that manages all our treasury globally. Our primary focus is treasury operations and liquidity management and we have netting and also Back Office fx. Where I started my journey for treasury was again by accident. I think. Like most people, I decided to leave a very good and stable job too because I wanted to follow my dream of being an accountant. You know, it's a very exciting start. And ended up in the middle of a recession, going from contract role to contract roll and ended up in a bank called Post bank, which some of you may know but most of you probably don't because it didn't last very long. So when I was there it was winding down and I got the opportunity to work in every single area because there was nobody left. And the joke was that I was Head of Treasury because I was the only person there, even though I didn't even know what treasury was. So when I went to Recruiter, when that was winding down, they said, oh my God, you're an accountant with treasury experience. This is great. So that I've sent some faxes and done a bank wreck, but okay. And from there they recommended, you know, continue with Treasury. It's a great area to go into. And I ended up in Pfizer, which I was there for 10 years and really grew to love treasury and basically just wanted to stay there. From there I moved on to Newell because I wanted the challenge of something new and it definitely was a challenge. But seeing the team and the Treasury Centre grow within Newell has been fantastic and. And I've enjoyed all of it.

Cool. So we're going to start with your younger selves and that those accidental journeys into Treasury. But coming from study, first of all, if you like, we've got a range of treasury professionals. We'll move a bit more senior treasure career later. But for those that are in the early years of their careers, what role is education? Whether that's university or treasury education, played with it, we'll go across the panel, starting with yourself, Kieran, then go across this way and then we'll vary it a bit later. So what about you? Because you've done a lot of study as well.

Yeah. And I suppose I would really say accounting was very beneficial and being part of the Big four, again, being able to see a lot of different things, really, really did set me up for success as I moved into that next role. And it was why I got the role in Pfizer. I mean, one of the things that Pfizer were looking to do was really change. Well, not change, but refine how they were actually valuing their, their portfolio. And like this was through Bloomberg, it was through Quantum. We were basically testing cubic splicing and all the rest of it through the Quantum system. And like, I'd been involved in some of some very. And by the way, very like, not as detailed as Pfizer, were doing work on that in kpmg. And it was probably the one thing that kind of like snapped in the interview and I'd say that was why I got the role. But again, like, so the experience that I would have had when I was valuing the pension funds and the different hedge funds that I would have been auditing through Bloomberg was probably one of the things that I was able to use as part of my career. And again, obviously enough doing my degree and then during the milk round, getting offered the role with kpmg, I did also get other. Other opportunities, as in other Big four opportunities. But KPMG for me specifically was interesting because it was financial services. And I won't lie, I didn't know at that point what I wanted to be when I grow up. But for me, I had a little boy at the time, I didn't want to go do like audit where I was going, like driving around the country, like counting whatever. So for me, financial services, which was ifsc, located close enough to the office, located, located close enough to my house, was kind of like where I thought I was going. And I was lucky enough to have KPMG sponsor me for my Masters then As well.

Okay, Keith.

I suppose education, yeah, really has played a huge role in my career. As I said, I've studied by night. I did eight years in total by night. I said when we had our podcast or I had this love hate relationship with education when I was studying, I could never understand why I'm doing this. You know, falling asleep on the desk after a hard night's work or trying to balance, you know, personal life, it's a tough slog. So I did four years computer science. Now computer science, not really relevant to Treasury. There are a few business aspects to that. But when I was interviewing over the years, my line to the interviewer was, well, I've done an honours degree in computer science, I've worked during the day, I've shown that I've been able to work and put the hard slog in and I've done it. So that was my key line in an interview. I then went on to do the ACT or the AMCT with the association of Corporate Treasures. Why did I do it? I was in treasury for quite a long time at that stage, but I guess I wanted to kind of step back out and see how it was written by various authors and validate what I'd learned over the years. And what I'd learned was great. When I interview people, I'm really looking for the experience. But for me it was a challenge. I want to challenge myself again. And I feel it was value, it was a validator for me again to say, yes, what you've learned through 15 years at that point in time is what the writing.

So when you, whenever you, when you're recruiting, and we'll come back to yourself as well. Is that something when you're looking at someone's cv, are you thinking, what have you done? Because obviously you, you didn't do a finance degree, you know, you did the computer science and then you did the other things. So how do you balance that out? And then we'll go to Julia as well.

But I suppose it depends on what stage of the their career you're interviewing, you know, so if it's at the front end, you would say, okay, you're educating yourself on the treasury side, that shows the intention that you want to embark upon Treasury. Whereas for ourselves mostly we fell into it. So there are avenues there. But I suppose a more junior treasury professional, we'd look out for that. Or I'd look out for that anyway. But as you're going through your career mid level, then you're looking, you're shifting more towards experience and You've gone through it, you've go through the operations, you've gone through various aspects of treasury project rollouts. That's kind of where I would then focus at that stage.

Julia.

I think I'd agree with Kira on the accounting qualification is really beneficial. I did my degree in business, I specialized in finance, so I obviously preferred that area of business. And then I did my Master's in business and then qualified as an accountant. But I can still see daily how I use my degree even if I'm not an accountant. Even with dealing with other teams within the organization, when you're dealing with legal and tax and audit, it just gives you a grounding and understanding of often where they're coming from and their approach. So I see it as very beneficial. And I think my first real job at a college was for the Institute of Bankers, which is the education body for bankers. So obviously there was a big focus on being educated. And within that organization you knew to get anywhere you had to be well educated. Like most senior people were doctors. So that's why I started with the Masters and then I thought maybe I'll do a PhD, but I didn't like doing the Masters. So that's when I decided to go back and be an accountant. And, you know, it's not anything I've ever regretted. It's definitely a skill that I use still daily, even if I'm not an accountant. And when I look at CVs and I see maybe that's my bias, but I do put them to the top a little bit. But in general, I think everybody now needs, you know, if you're looking at a CV or even getting a CV through hr, you do need a minimum.

Of a degree.

In terms of what you're looking for. And again, one that's probably business finance. But I think more and more in treasury, actually computing or data analytics are becoming more and more relevant and then often some of the business degrees. So in terms of an area of expanding or studying, I definitely think it's not that I'm ever going to go back, but if you're wanting to, might.

Be one to look at KIRI to my iact. What's that initiative or, you know, is that something you, you're trying to help the younger guys coming into treasury and not be accidental treasurers. There's no, no judgment on you guys.

Yeah. So we launched a program where we have an IACT graduate coming out of a Trinity College course that our current president is giving right now. And we actually have the, our intern this year in the room. So she spent six months with me, she's moved on to ESB and she will then go on to a third placement in FTI Ireland. And that has actually been so popular and of such great benefit to the organization so far that we're actually doing two interns next year. And the idea is to start in college, communicating that, you know, treasury is also a career. And I mean, there's a lot of it in Dublin. So to start, you know, from as young an age as possible, to start thinking about this is something where you could end up career wise.

Keith, I'm going to ask you, Keith, about. So last night I was speaking at an event for JP Morgan in Paris and we talked lots about technical AI coming along. Everything's happening. And we got a bit later on in the session and I said, you've got technical expertise. This is undoubted with you guys, but now you've got the softer leadership skills coming up and a lot of you guys haven't been trained on it. You've sort of again, developed those over time. And the, the room was looking at me. I said, right, how many people in here have had any training on leadership and coaching? And it was like, yeah, I know, keep your hands down. They were like, oh, God, yeah. But you guys have done it successfully. Talking through your leadership style, if you like, and how you coach the teams and then we'll move across to Julia and then come back something.

You're absolutely right. It's something that you're, you're not taught, really. And for me, I felt like I jumped in at the deep end and, and this is not only leadership, this applies to various aspects of what I've done. But throughout my career I've looked at leadership or other aspects where I said, keith, do it. You know, go forth and do it. You know, even if it's something that you, you haven't embarked upon before. And it's, it's about self learning, I suppose, now mentoring and mentorship. And if you can find a good mentor, that's a bonus in a way. I've been really lucky. I've had good people along the way. There's an element of luck there, good leaders and good teammates. But though some of those leaders have given little snippets of, of education along the way, and it may have been something that you've done wrong, where the, there's a little correction there on leadership or whatever it may be, and when.

You'Ve talked about the mentors, what's in it for them then? Why, why would you know you're getting them and say I'll be my mentor. Yeah, but you know, how did, how does it work? What's key to it?

I suppose some of the mentors to me have been my managers. Some of them have been external as well. But managers in the past, so City, for example, Doosan has been great. I still have my ex manager or ex boss that I can pick up the phone to. I suppose I can see potential planning on their part as well to make sure when they leave it's in good hands. So there is an onus on them as well. I know. Keep on talking about the ICT and the education side of things. But you know, in the past the ICT have set up a mentoring program that is a good channel really to go to as well. And they're really, really great mentors and senior professionals out there. That wasn't there when I was going through the midsection of my career, but I was lucky along the way as well.

Yeah.

From my. A lot of my team are here, so they may disagree with me.

Oh, okay. Give us a microphone. We'll go out there and ask them. Yeah, with the team. Hang on. Where are we? Great. Okay, I'll be over there in a minute. Okay. Ariel?

Yeah, but I think, yeah, it's all skills is you focus a lot. And I definitely my career in the early stages of my technical skills. But then I realized actually these are not the only things that are going to get me far. And watching people that you work with, how do they get things done and the good and the bad? Because you learn not just from people who are very good, but you learn how. Okay, this is not how I would like to be treated. I don't work well under these circumstances. I'm going to take that with me as well in every interaction. And I think also one thing I've had to learn over time is that you have to adapt to each individual in your team, each person that you're working with, a project on. You have to adapt every time your manager changes as well. And it's just that constantly taking the moment to get a note, get to know a person and then how you deal, interact with them is really important. But that takes a lot of time and as much as time it does to grow your technical skills.

I think we'll stay with you for a moment. You've been obviously through, as you described earlier, some restructuring and lots of changes, you know, and that's one of the constants. But there how have you kept the momentum up or how have you, you know, kept the team on board sort of thing?

Yeah, I think just always having a clear picture of where you're going because I think when you're in an overwhelming time and in the detail of everything, you kind of forget where you're going. But always reminding this is where we're going, this is what we're trying to achieve and then have regular check and say we're I know it might seem like it, but we're actually getting there. And I think it's important that something that often you don't feel like you have time to do but do the look back and say, okay, look where we were two or three years ago, look at what we've achieved and, and I think it keeps the momentum going then to say, you know, if we can do this, we can keep going and going and also for this was a lot of change within our team happened and we've had a lot of growth and to see that as a positive thing as opposed to just work. It shows the more that we get into our, you know, our Dublin center is the more faith that the obviously the overall the organization has us has in us and how well they perceive us as doing. So the more work we're getting it means overall how positively we're viewed, even though some days it seems pretty hard.

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I suppose if I look at myself, I've been an individual that I can't sit still to go into a role where it's just a monotonous day to day, the build or the change and that hit at the end of it where you see the results, even though there are bad days and good days throughout a journey, you see the end results. That's rewarding and that's a thrill. And the team that I have or we have in the organization, we have that culture, continuous improvement mindset. Sometimes it doesn't come naturally. You know, it's a culture that maybe you have to instill in the team itself. I'm not going to say it's luck again because it's not all luck. It's education, it's guiding, mentoring, leading by example, good planning. I think they're kind of some of the ingredients around success and you've got.

You shown the success through what awards have you got along the way or you know what, why do you think the recognition is there?

There's a couple or a few of them. So in Doosan we had highly commended because we rolled out a virtual account solution. It's probably at the front end of virtual accounts when they became a thing at Beatrice with two awards actually there's one potentially upcoming again in two weeks time for team of the year. So fingers crossed there and IACT actually I think it was last year. It's not look as part of a build there were elements of low hanging fruit in some of those organizations that we pick up on and say okay, we'll roll up our sleeves and get this done. Best practices, they're the words that are at the top of our mind. We have a continuous improvement focus with a core team in my current treasury team, but I have another CEO we call inventory manufacturing as well. We have a continuous improvement improvement team embedded in that. The same people, but it's a, it's a core focus and when you have focus like that in a team, I think that's a help.

Kira, I wanted to go to you about the the UK what the island and the European teams and the US teams. You and I were just talking about it before. You know you've got this broad time zone challenge. Does it mean you never sleep? What happens? Like how does it work for you? How do you make it work.

Yeah, I mean, I suppose once I started the US role, I would. I have my debt capital markets guy, so he's fully remote and he's out of Vegas, which generally gets a few titters. And my global FX guy, who I actually think definitely worked with Julie, might have worked with you actually as well, Keith in Citi when in the outsourcing. He's fully remote as well in Spain and he runs our global FX from there. My director for Risk and middle office, Heather's in the US at our old headquarters and she is one person with her that does insurance claims. And then my middle office manager is fully remote in bigrest and he then has two team members that came out of our gbs and they're located in Mexico. So there's literally only like 2.2Macs on my team that are in like the same location.

And obviously over the past few years the world has changed in the hybrid working, but this is remote working fully. How do you keep it on task then?

Yeah, and I mean, look, I mean, we were talking about this earlier. I. I struggle a little bit with the idea of onboarding someone or somebody young or somebody new to treasury and allowing them to be something like that. Fully remote. Yes. There's ways of it, it can work. You know, you might do something all around that they have to be with you for three or six months or whatever it looks like. But those two individuals in particular, one was with the company over 20 years, one is over 10 years. And my biggest problem with him is to actually try and get him how to stop working, you know the way. So again, massive amounts of trust in both of them, you know the way. They've never been late with deadlines or anything like that. And so therefore it's a case of let them do what they do. And. But yeah, like I have nobody in Dublin right now. You know, the way that with my. Was on my team, I have the Europe team that'll allow me to tag along every so often. So I have somebody to talk to in the office. But again, I suppose because it is a global role, I am talking to everyone. And so from my point of view, it's a lot easier to talk to the Asia cfo, you know, in my time zone, as well as the Latam one and the US one, you know, it is, in all fairness, it's a reason there's a lot of treasury in Dublin. We're able to hit a lot of time zones. So, you know, I mean, the only one we have is Australia. That's Awkward. And I actually had an amazing manager on my team. So he was an intern with me that we took in as a Treasury analyst and then senior. And then I brought him over to the corporate team with me. He decided he wanted to abandon us and go to Australia traveling. But we. It was okay. We found a job for him in treasury just because it was like, you're not going. I can't talk to him, though. That's really awkward.

Yeah, that's difficult.

So that's hard.

Hybrid and you know, working with. We go to Keith and then Julia. You obviously pre Covid, it was five days a week in the office. What's the new sort of with yourself and your team and then with Julia. How do you work it?

I'm probably one of the very unusual ones. I hate work from home. Luckily enough, our office is close to where I live, so I'm in five days. That's my choice. I have a global team. So Treasury, Coe, as I said, China, India, Hungary, we had to build that team post Covid, right out the back of COVID You can't really do that successfully when you're entirely working from home. You have to have this gel as a standard right off the back of when everything relaxed from Covid team was built. Minimum two days a week in the office. And that's globally. I don't think people really realize. But structure is good. Whether getting. Getting in your car and getting into the office. You don't realize what you're picking up among people. Those little conversations, those phone calls, those teams calls that you hear beside you. You're picking up little bits without knowing it. But I think a collaboration, people being together. In fact, in our office in Budapest, they play foosball at lunchtime. They enjoy each other's company and that helps collaboration. It helps us move forward. I think it's excellent.

And I talked about this last night and the. I said, and we can. And we'll see it on the video as well, if people are watching. You know, if someone approaches me and said, I want to be 100 remote and work in Treasury, I say, well, Great, go on LinkedIn and get a job. Then I said, don't call us. Treasury is, as you say, collaborative. And actually the sum of all the parts brings out those better ideas sort of thing by working together. And as you say, I prefer working in office. My team don't. So I've had to get over that because otherwise I wouldn't have a team. Julia, with you guys, what's the working styles? And you've Got again, you've got teams right around the world as well.

Yeah. So we're hybrid as well. So we're two days a week. Our Dublin office is two days a week in the office. And the only rule being it has to be the same days. There's no point in coming in on a Monday, there's nobody else there. So that's what we're quite curious. My US team, they've decided they want to do it slightly different, so they do kind of a week on a week off, but again, all together, which I think it works really well. I do think it's important to have some time in the office. I think we're a very new team, so it's important that everybody forms those connections but also learns from each other. They're covering different areas, different regions. But I'm really trying to work to standardize how we do everything and we can't do that if everybody's just at home doing their own thing. And I will say, for me, I find the working hybrid really beneficial because I have to cover every time zone. So when I'm scheduling calls, it's so much easier for me to do my New Zealand call if I know I'm going to be working from home the next morning. So I find I love that balance and I can schedule my life appropriately. Like, I can actually take a couple of hours in the middle of the day to do my own things, and then now I'll be back on that night or maybe early the next morning. So it does give balance, it gives that flexibility. I think if we were permanently in the office, it would be harder to be. For people to be so flexible. But I do think for growth and learning and even just team the team working well together, the hybrid model works very well.

Oh, by the way, we will have Q and A and we will leave room for that in about 10 minutes. So you do get to quiz the guests. We all love a good highlights reel. Oh, we've done this. We talked about some of the awards and things like that. But were the challenges along the way where you go. We'll go with Kieran across any particular challenges that stay, you know, that stand out to you across your career that you've got over or, you know, things that you can share with these guys that, you know, that they should think about?

I mean, like, I suppose I am one of those people that. I mean, most of the. The challenges that I've had in my career have actually turned out to be decent enough, you know, kind of wins. Yeah, you know, I mean, everything is a challenge when you look at it first. You know, when I started in Kellogg in particular, I mean, I came from Pfizer, which again, a lot of people would know as having quite an advanced like treasury system, treasury it, all of that kind of good stuff. I went from that to, to Excel sheets in Kellogg's, you know, and that was quite a move and it was quite shocking. But like, so that would have been one of the first things I did was implementing a Treasury system, you know, and all then the different other things we did around, we implemented Fire apps and then we actually took it back down because we developed ourselves in house and SAP. All of those different things were solving a problem. And yes, there were problems, but I suppose as a team we were able to look at all the different things and say, okay, well if we can figure out how to automate that, I can take that 10 minutes a day, 2 hours a day, 8 hours a week and feed that back into something else. And I had actually managed to get my team to a really good place around continuous improvement where it was actually baked in to most of my teams. They had at least two to three days a month and again spread, not like fixed days and probably a week at a quarter end of like this is the time we use to either, you know, take that time back because again, sometimes big projects and you will be able to get that time back or you develop it into what can we fix this year we're very, very focused on how do we do something better, how do you step back your value chain, we call it the cradle to grave. So it's not just about knowing this part of it that affects treasury, but why does it come to me like that? How can I change that? How can I get at that source data, you know the way fix that so I can then automate it for myself. So I mean we do a lot of work around the company and I mean that then has kind of fed on itself. I mean that is how we've managed to convince everyone and give us that seat at the table. You know, as I was saying, we, we got cash flow into my team because of that, because we were the ones that were able to automate through all of our reports that we were pulling out a SAP, we were able to use that to say, okay, well this is where cash flow is going to be. And our number was within 2% of where we land and therefore that was a better number than the FP and A team were calling. So we eventually ended up getting that. But I Mean, it's, it is really about. I suppose. And again, sounds a little bit. Trace that. Exactly. Okay. That challenges are only challenges as long as you think of them like that.

That's really true.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. Okay. But there have been areas where I will say that I suppose I'm a very determined person and I get. Most people will know that, that know me, that I will come up against hurdles that I generally maybe might struggle to kind of get resolved the first time. But I'm persistent, so I'll get it eventually. Eventually, yeah.

Keith Kira said, you will have those natural challenges, whether to be operational or system related. It'll always be the case, you know, whether you're implementing or not. Specific to my organization or building a team, time constraints are a challenge in itself. You know, building a team, building processes, systems, getting visibility across the globe on cash, doing all that all in one go with specific time constraints and checkpoints along the way when a business is coming together. Because Beatrice itself is a relatively new organization. When I joined, I looked at and said, well, this is a, this is a big task, this is a massive challenge. But again, it goes back to the point I made. When you get to the end of it and you look back and overcome the challenge and you mentioned persistence. I think that is a great quality to have persistence and keep going at it and you'll overcome it. As long as you have good people around you that you have that support network, you can turn that challenge into a real success then.

Yeah. I think I've taken several risks in my career by leaving very stable and good jobs to try something that was going to be more interesting. And I've had moments where I went, I've tasted a terrible choice. What have I done? But like that it's being persistent, it's putting your own shape in it. Like, similarly, when I left Pfizer and I did my first few weeks in Newell, I was like, what have I done? How can I put some shape on this? What can I do? You know, we didn't even have bank balances reporting and, you know, it was just about. I tried to sit down and say to myself, this is an opportunity, it's not a challenge. If you can fix this, then you can succeed in this organization or you can go anywhere else. And it's just about, I suppose seeing a challenge is really an opportunity for you to step in and say, I can do this, I can fix this, I can solve your problems. And then more challenges or opportunities can come your way from them. And it's again, Just having a clear plan that you keep reminding yourself, this is where I want to go and I think I can do this. And we won an Adam Smith last year for the structure we ended up building for emea and it was great then to think, okay, this was something that we weren't sure we could do. And to look back and now be awarded for it is an amazing feeling and it keeps pushing you to go more and more forward.

So Keith, we'll go to you first and then Kieran and then back to you, Julia. We can't do anything without tech and AI and everything else taking over the world. Don't worry, that's what we're hearing. But that aside, what skills do you think is going to separate treasury great treasures over the next sometimes people say what's going to happen 10 years no one knows what's happening. We barely know what's happening. The end of you know, by Christmas. But what do you see as you as a treasurer, what are you planning for? Are you bringing in technology or do you, you know, you've got that background as well. I know you both, all three of you mentioned it a little bit. Is that the biggest change or what other areas you see?

We embrace technology quite a bit. You know, we've been researching forecasting tools and our more recent go get and it's really to be tech savvy and having that ability to understand data, slice and dice data in a way that tells the story in the correct way. I think that's a talent in itself to be able to bring it from that raw data right through to the storytelling. And in the middle of that it's having that tech mindset. My own opinion around AI, it will be a great thing ever is a great thing. But I think it's freely used the term AI. There are potential misunderstandings around. I've seen some instances of AI being used when it's reading logic and not AI. Yeah and we can build logic ourselves, you know, rules etc to read statements or to predict forecasts. I hope we'll never replace treasury professionals. There will always be that the of human intervention needed that narrative removed. And of course remove the non.

Interviewed Declan last week and mags from Duracell Declan said over two years they've gone from 15% automated, 90% automated but it didn't affect their staffing. They kept the staff they've got but actually use them more to do more interesting stuff rather than the cash position. Do you see that that is not going to necessarily reduce it because again I was talking to people last night, Mags she talked about they took over, when they took over the, the cash from PNG for Duracell, they were given an Excel spreadsheet. And she said, oh, thanks very much for that. But what they do is they now use bots who do 80% of the stuff. But as she said, but they go wrong 100% of the time for 20%, you know, she said, so the 20%, Paris, that's where they go fixing them. They said there's lots great, but you have to intervene and stuff. Is that what you see?

A couple of examples like technology, it obviously frees up capacity and that capacity can be utilized elsewhere. So we have rationalized our banking footprint. We reduced the might per had a thousand bank accounts two and a half years ago. We now 698 to be specific. But that's an example of us freeing up capacity to apply it to something that's hugely valuable and reducing costs, less infrastructure, etc. I've seen some AI technology or demos or applying at the KYC, for example, scraping all of that KYC information and putting it in a standard form, looking at org charts, looking at directors listings. That's non value add. You know, once you can bring that to common standards again, you can use that capacity to apply it elsewhere.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I mean when we implemented our Treasury System in 2015, we did it on a shoestring budget. It was the polite word. And we were also given very little IT resources by the company. And so because of that, we were the treasury it, you know, the way. And because we set it up like that, we ended up then being the ones that could implement that out. When we were doing the virtual accounts with Citi, we were the ones that were explaining our Citi setup to our consultants, you know, the way at Citi that were there to help us because we knew it better. And again, I think we've always said that if it's within our sphere of influence, we will definitely make sure that we know as much as possible about it so that we're able to amend it. I mean right now we're going through a very large acquisition being acquired, not acquiring. And we're doing a lot of different things around like how they're scraping that data, you know, and we're able to use a lot of our treasury system to say, okay, well just tell me what you need on this. Okay, next day reports built. Yeah, we're able to move on. So definitely I'd be a little bit same as Keith around some AI, not all but like some AI in particular it definitely is. It's scholastic rules based like this is about like you tell it enough things that are relevant and you will get an answer out. Yeah, I look at things like cash flow forecasting so I can get something to tell me what my, my receivable balance from DUNS is right. But I actually can't get AI to tell me what well how much trade and promo are they going to take this month? Right. Again I actually would need a bot to actually go out and tell me. Right, well somebody tell me where Walmart's landing this quarter. Where's their cash flow coming? Because that'll actually impact my cash flow, you know the way as an example. So there's things like that that a bot's never going to be able to tell you. You know the way it'll be able to tell you trends. Oh it'll be able to tell you high level analysis. And by the way those are also both valuable and they can actually give you a threshold, a range of where you think this is going to come in and then that's helpful and then that's what we use and how we've built our cash flow forecast to be. It's called roughly right?

Not exactly right.

Yeah exactly. It's the ish.

Yeah Julia.

Well we'll say our team early stages of a journey and we're still operating volume not in any way the be some AI but one skill set I think for those starting a career in charge is down in more and more of us more dynamics that forecasting is moving more and more to treasury level art. There's a lot of pressure developments for very long term affordance and which can be more accurate in other teams in organization. So it's definitely an area for us been big issues having our data in the right places because when you get anybody as good as the data you put in and have this conversation with it before saying oh you can use all this because that's you know called the aisle which is like the bike.

Doesn'T come from those entities.

Two entities that are identifying them and it's linking all those down to together is one something that we've been working on by continuously over the last year is having all our data in one place so that hopefully we get to a point where we have a huge amount of data that then we can work to analyze with the trends and all of that. I will say just from a day to day perspective where I find it great is you know I'm a numbers person so buy in my, in do my presentations. It's small but it helps and you know hitting the make my email friendlier bottom is very. So like I know it's only a very small thing but even now I sit down and say a couple of hours every week that I used to put into trying to ups the alarm presentations and reborns from that side as well. So aside from these huge, you know forecasts they can help with, there is day to day utilization that you can have that make your life easier.

Okay, so we're going to go to question and answer in just a moment. What we will then do, we'll have some questions then our panelists have got some lovely takeaways and then when before we finish up and go to the pub and that we've got the car behind the bar so we've got to use it because there's a minimum spend there and it's a lot. I know you, you'll do me proud guys. Yeah. So this will be good. But what I want after we've done our takeaways I'm going to ask the give you a few minutes to think about it so you don't do this. What's the best piece of career advice you've ever received and do you still think you follow it today? So you're going to have five minutes to think about that one. Just let that bubble away. So Jackie with the if you can with the microphone questions, that's it. So we'll, we'll go to James first actually if we could. There we go. And then we'll go to David as well. So what's the next big obstacle coming to you guys or what's the biggest big hairy goal that's coming? We'll start with you, Keith.

Yeah I mentioned briefly and we're embarking upon a cash forecasting technology rollout. It is a big, a big project. We're going with the south build ourselves. It's a massive challenge but we feel.

We can do with it.

It's going to be this kind of hopefully a win at the end of it and that's that hit that we get in January next year and when we go live we're, we're going well. We did our due diligence. We went through several exercises to figure out how we're going to design, design and implement and we're now in a comfortable state.

This is the direction we're going. Yeah. Julia, biggest, biggest challenge coming along.

So we have the Gordon I name a new system on the 1st of.

July.

Restructure from an organization of a distribution, how we distribute products for certain products, which is not a Treasury project. It's a strategic global project.

So kind of have to go on.

The continuum changes. So it's going to be very chill and July is not going to be holiday season for anything on our team.

So are you just telling them now? I mean, are you just doing this? So it's on. It's on. Sorry, guys. We got this on camera.

Like, well, then definitely we'll drink the bar.

Okay. Okay.

And then also we have. We are a town owner fee like last year. So we've just started income implementing that as well.

So.

As I said, I am about to be acquired. So it's a pretty large acquisition. $32 billion. So honestly, my future is pretty uncertain. So I'm not really sure what the biggest challenge will be. I think maybe I'll have to come back. Yeah, there you go.

That's all right. Right. David, you get. You had a question? Yeah, nice and loud.

How is the treasury function perceived within your organization and do you think it gets the recognition?

Oh, nice question. Who wants that one first? Well, I'll go to you, Keith, and then, then we'll go to Kieran.

We maybe set up slightly different. So I run the Treasure center of Excellence. So we're kind of a partner to corporate Treasury. We've been given this kind of stamp of approval because we now run involvement COEs mentions inventory manufacturing. We've advertised ourselves very well. We have good relationships in the organization and with the business, with cfo. We've always been given trust in the first. We're the experts. And I think that's. That's half the battle. When somebody puts trust in you, gives you the thumbs up.

Yeah.

It's been received very, very well in, in the organization. Cost of the works.

I would actually chip in as well. For me, I. I was just thinking I can't actually say the treasurer because it was. I signed a bit of paper which said it was all confidential last night. What I can say is there was a treasurer last night who said one of the big wins, he went to their board and everything else said we've. We've saved through hedging 60 million. And actually it was like, yeah, punching it. And they were all going, right, brilliant. But actually he realizes when I was saying about talk about your wins and everything else. Share it with the organization. He's got a nickname as he comes in the room. Oh, here's Mr. Cash. You know, he's the guy talks about the cash and he Realized afterwards it's a bit broken because he said he goes in the room and they but these people are saying well done, you've saved 60 million doesn't what do I get that as a bonus next year? You know is that my Christmas bonus? Is that actually. Yeah, I need to translate I said yeah you need to you know not dumb it down but actually how does that affect the people Right. I've secured everyone's jobs here at the company for another three years or what are we doing? That was actually translate that that was one of the key things that he realized and actually that's something he's going back tomorrow and then he's going to try and work on the plan to change it with yourself Kira, what's the perception?

I suppose as an organization we've been very lucky that we would have a seat at the table again mostly because we've a proven track record. I mean from our point of view the company does a three year forecast treasury is the only one that maintains a five year you know the way so an ours can flex out to 10 which we do for certain scenarios and we're the ones that would look at basically like what was and again previously to being acquired obviously what was our acquisition capacity if we were to going to go buy something what would that look like? How would we do it and all of that kind of good stuff. Again we then look at a lot around at a more kind of strategy level around different locations again because we manage the global insurance policies oh is this a good place to build? You know is it a good place to insure and we don't always win those fights. We'll be very open and transparent we can only highlight to the business what their risk is the different benefits might outweigh that risk and so we can only highlight and again sometimes the dollar saving is more than the cost that it will be for an insurance policy. We're very good at collaborating as I said the whole way downstream you know as far as GBS and around I suppose headcount savings, overhead savings through automation of certain processes tidy ups again we're the company's old, it's over 100 years old so there's a lot of stuff that ends up being that's how we always do it and so again we've looked at quite a few different processes so whether it be ar, AP distribution, logistics that we go the whole way back to where does it start at the plant, how does that happen? And because we touch insurance as well health and safety so I Suppose we've earned that right to sit at the table and yeah, I mean, we were very vocal, you know, a part of it. Again, as I said openly and transparently didn't always win, you know, but any risks that we saw, we were very good at highlighting, quantifying, and then the business would make that decision.

Julia, the perception of the business, of Treasury.

I think I've noticed a change over the last few years. Before we get emails to say something's happening and now we're able to BO the. Which took a while to get there again to build a lot of trust to show, you know, that we're a team that are. And they definitely very early. But not just that it was as from the technical side, we're pulling more and more to sit between other teams, project management, but also that kind of roadblock, collaborating between teams. And when there's a problem between. If it's not tending to treasury, we're calling more and more to say, can you work with that team on this? You did this project and it worked really well. Can you just show them how that works and give advice? So we're definitely seeing. Seeing more and more unchanged in that area.

Great. Got time for one more question or. We will. Well, we'll let Amy. God, we can't. I've got to let Amy because otherwise she will. Yeah. Nice and loud.

And just listening to all of you in the game, the team and your involvement and you're all obviously very driven, but would you be more inclined to use your projects and initiatives to bring your team along in terms of experience, versus maybe sending them on some of these, like the ICT education or the actual. Just the experience more than the.

You want to explain that question a bit louder just for the audience. Yeah. So the question is.

To paraphrase.

Yeah.

Some of the project work that we've discussed up here on stage, Amy wants to know, do we use our team to develop them on rather than the IACT and the ACT or education in general?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll go now then.

Go for it. Go for it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, for us it is a team effort. We would have quite a broad range, you know, the way across the globe, obviously enough working on our different projects. We don't do it in isolation. I. I would lead like, again, if I'm looking at some of the stuff we're doing right now, I'm leading about four different projects, but like, I'm talking to someone maybe every week or every two weeks. I'm not actually the person that might be Working with the consultant or working on with the other team members to implement it. I'm not doing that. I'm the sounding board for. I asked them or we laid out the project plan. You know, this is what it looks like. This is where we're trying to get to. They're doing it and then it's a case of we got stuck, okay, let's talk, we'll fix it, you know, so we're definitely. And that also allows my team to massively develop. And it's not just like tech, it can be a broad range of things, you know, so getting people involved in the forecasting, getting people involved in the insurance policies, you know, why, why is that so important like that then is a broad range of. They then have contacts with engineering or the plants that they didn't have before that. Then when there's inventory problems or something like that, they actually know who to go talk to because they'd already spoken to them. So really like making people's networks as wide as possible in the business. We have found really, really beneficial little plug for the iact. We do find the ICT also valuable just from the point of view of we have obviously been able to leverage off other people's experience around what people have done. So we're never ever starting from scratch. You know, you can find like at least a couple of people that have done something before and use that and say, okay, well how did you fix this issue? Or what are the pitfalls? And learn from that.

Heath.

Yeah, I think being involved in a project or initiative is a massive learning and it's to assign some degree of responsibility or maybe form responsibility to individuals that are coming up on their prayer or maybe junior level. I'll give you an example. We put. We had this initiative called the Cash Global Cash Task Force and which was ensuring that there was global efficiency on our cash in bank accounts. Next week we freed up $400 million on an average basis, on an ongoing basis. True that we signed individuals to that Sol Trevorianus level, assistant manager level and they were essentially the individuals to host forums every week to discuss and to present heat maps around our cash globally, where we were going, slipping, where we were doing better, taking actions and minutes and driving that initiative. That is a huge. Earning the good responsibility in the sense of ownership, I think is something part of your evolution of, of your careers.

And you will get to ask questions when we're in the bar as well. But this is good. But final question for your final answer from Julian, then we'll go to the Takeaways.

I hope the I team encouraged them.

To go to all the events.

It's good learning. It's also great to go. Yes, we are Jim Collins to rise on different projects. But even from a knowledge perspective, if I didn't start bringing the team up, I don't think I would have made it to here. It would have fallen out at some point though. Some both aspects, you know it's your. To benefit yourself and your team you need to continuously add projects. Starting smaller and then building your way up. And then also the monitoring within your team. You know what each person suitable for is going to be very different. What kind of projects are going to be determined very different. So taking the time to kind of learn that test out a few different ones before you go for, you know, quite a massive one. But it's a huge part and also keeps people interested. Like if you just think of people today, eventually they'll move on and they'll have a different challenge. So you have to find those challenges for them.

Okay. Takeaways. So the questions you'll carry your. But just bring out a couple or all three.

It's up to you, I suppose. Yeah. Like so curiosity for us for. For me is key. Like I would have been the kid in the class with the hand up. But why I've also been blessed with three children that did the same. So you know there is whatever. So definitely there's a whole thing around like because we're a business enabler, a business partner. If you're not understanding what they're trying to get and how they're trying to get there, you're not going to be as effective as you can be. This is probably I would feel the most important as I have gotten higher in the organization. I mean you cannot do that if you don't have a solid team underneath you. If you do not have people that can cover you the way while at the same time growing and developing, you can't. And I mean like if I think about when I first started and I obviously was spending 100% of my time on treasury, you're now at a position where I'm lucky If that's probably 50% because you are managing people and managing those projects and then networking again, I do feel that's essential. So it is also as I said internally. So whether that be through your projects and the different day to day work, we also would have quite active employee resource groups and things like that in work that you're able to kind of network along and again externally. So it is really, really important to educate yourself as to what's out there. Those are future possibilities of what you can do and whether that be something you can bring back to your organization. It's absolutely essential in a way to make sure that you're getting out, you know the way and that you, you're learning, you know, and you're asking as many questions as possible.

Okay, Keith. Mentor network and then challenging yourself.

Yeah, mentoring is something that I mentioned the IACT actually see Remin Ko here was one of the mentors on many an occasion in the iact and well, I think that is absolutely key and it's a great platform. It was something that I wish I had sooner rather than later. I didn't get it. But if you have the opportunity and you're at a junior going into mid management level, that is a great guide. It's. It's really worth something networking. When you look at Dublin, you know, dimension of performance, it's like a village or a town of treasures. I didn't do it in the earlier years and I had to be kind of. I had to push myself to do it and as with other things but being able to put the phone when we had phones or teams or do being able to do that and knock on the door of, you know, other treasures or treasury professionals, that helped sense check what I was doing, whether it was the right way of doing it or not. And, and there's no right or wrong either. You know, just to see what, what is the best of what I've heard.

Yeah. And the last one, challenge yourself continuously. Yeah, yeah.

It's continuous improvement development. Always kind of looking at things saying I know I've done something last year.

What, what next?

What next? And even in my team as well, even though I implemented something, look at it again and see if it's. It's the right fit at this point in time.

Julia. Well, you can see behind here so you've got to hear as well.

Curiosity is really important and not just in what we're doing in turf Room but what the whole organization because tertiary touches every part of the organization. The gisting whatever you, whatever anyone does touches match. So it's constantly learning what touches you and what are the effects that they can have on and vice versa. So it's learning your whole organization what I would say is key and flexibility because whatever you think today wait and tomorrow and your whole world can change and how cashless we run any gadgets like you said, an acquisition, anything you have to be constantly agile. I would think would Be a key. Recognize your strengths and your weaknesses. Ability based on that. When I hired, I hired them based on what I'm terrible at. And that's when I built a team. I was given, you know, a free reign to assign roles like pitch particular roles. And I like, I'm all this. I need somebody who's going to be great at it and be okay with your weaknesses, you know, be, you know, colorful in them, know that they're there, and try and build a team that like the. And then embrace your authentic self. I think that sometimes my early career, I kind of felt I had to fit into a certain way of doing things or a certain way of approaching things, which is this role. And I encourage job. And my role said to me, you know, you can be more straightforward, it's fine. And I thought, oh, my God, perfect for me. More straightforward. You have never said that to me. So it's just about finding the good fit for you within an organization. And I think that you can make the most of your own career and yourself while being very comfortable with who you are.

Okay, so actually, I'm going to do this in reverse order. First of all, I'm going to go with owning your value at the bottom. So, because it's come up quite a lot on a few of the sessions about. As I said to the guys yesterday, and I say to you lot, you lot are terrible at representing yourselves and sharing your wins. It's something that I've got better at over the years. But when I did a session with the New York association recently, I said, how many of you, you know, the. How many of the guys that attended it were sharing any wins? Were they updating their LinkedIn not just to look for a job, but actually just to show what they were doing, because what if a job came looking for them? As one of the points I made, I said, it's not bragging about it, it's actually sharing it. Like you might then be on a panel, you might attract other members of staff and everything. It's not bragging. I said, how many people have done it? Done it? 9 out of 10 hadn't touched it or hadn't done, you know, an update and you'd have to give away confidential information that then leads to visibility. As I said, you know, people said to me, well, I'm not really looking for a job. I said, yeah, but what if a job came looking for you? Or what if an opportunity. So put your hand up to agree on a panel. It's going to help you. As we talked about which then leads into funnel networking. So we did this challenge actually in Houston. There was a guy, lovely guy, quite slightly introverted and he was like, I'm quite new to the region, I've just really got here. And I said, right, your challenge this evening is to make five connections. Not just go up to people, get them on LinkedIn, add them quick, quick add on links in the. I've done one. Great. So look, you have to. And this is what you guys have got to do as well. When we go there for drinks and when you're around, I need you to actually connect with people and get to at least 5. Why? Because you're going to 5x for some of you, your actual opportunities and that's to grow your career, not just, again, other roles. And this was the thing. And he came up to me at the end of the evening. I've got eight, Mike, I've got eight. But for him it was a real achievement. Now you guys, I think are much better. In fact, I know my panel are brilliant at networking, but it's going to help you guys and help the profession. So you know, you're investing in yourselves. So without much further ado, the bar is open just down the road. We're all going to the Ferryman. I know it's chucking down cats and dogs, but we can run there for a very quick. Give these guys an amazing round of applause. Thank you very much. Today's episode of the Treasury Career Corner was brought to you with the support of our partners, icd. If you're looking for a smarter way to manage your short term investments, ICD's independent portal gives you access to a full range of investment products, integrated analytics and a simple centralized platform built specifically for Treasury. If you head over to treasuryrecruitment. Com Partners, you can learn more and we'll be able to connect you with the right person ICD for both you and your business. Many thanks for listening to the show and thanks for your continued support.