Treasury Uncovered: 396 Stories So Far, Career-Changing Insights, and the Case for Bragging

We do these events and actually, you need your elevator pitch. And I actually coach some people in Houston about this as well. And that is, you need to go up to someone and before you do this, I said to the guys, I said, you can't just walk up and say, hey, I'm Seth Marlow, the Treasury Whisperer. That's it, great. Nice to meet you, thanks. No, you need to say, why would it be valuable for them to have you in their network? So it's, I'm the treasure and I have hosted this. I've, you know, I've got to know this one number of treasurers, so help them to get to know you. And also, another way we did it with Houston, I said to the guys, I said, you have to go and make at least five connections by this evening. And that is not just go click on LinkedIn, oh, we're friends now. That's it. Great. You're in power. And actually, you know, I thought at the time, this is a good way, trying to give them permission to actually speak to people. Everyone just dived in and actually everyone was given this permission to talk to other treasurers. And evening was. And, you know, I got really great Guy Haroun, who came up to me after Mike, I've got seven. Said what? He said, I've got seven. And in fact, I've got this other got eight. I've done eight. Because I said, you have to before you leave tonight, get at least five new connections. When treasurers work at it. You guys are incredible. Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast. A little bit one with the difference. So normally I talk to treasury professionals about their treasury careers, where they started, where they are now, where they see themselves and treasury profession go to next. But this one, it's a bit of a show with a difference. I am being interviewed by Seth Marlowe, more commonly known as the Treasury Whisperer. Seth was a guest of mine way back when, probably I think in the first year of the show, so about five, six years ago. Great guest back then. But Seth's moved onwards and he's actually recently started his own podcast, the Treasury Whisperer Podcast. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But he interviewed me, wanted to know about lots of different things happening in the treasury market as a whole. So we had a good conversation, talked about lots of stuff. We're going to get back to normal programming next week, but this is Seth interviewing me. Hope there's some good advice there. Lots of advice for treasury professionals about how to build their brands and everything else. I'm going to see a lot of events and we've also got episode 400 coming up very soon. Look out for that one. But yeah, and next week back to a normal episode as well. All right, enjoy the show. Thanks.

Hello whisperees, I'm Seth Marlowe and welcome to the Treasury Whisperers Talkcast podcast. Your go to source for insightful interviews and dynamic panel discussions in the worlds of treasury banking, payments and fintech. Today my guest is Mike Richards. For over 25 years, Mike Richards has been helping treasury professionals find roles where they can truly shine. As the CEO and founder of the treasury recruitment company, he doesn't just fill jobs, he helps build treasury careers and world class treasury teams. Mike loves talking to the world's leading treasurers about their career journeys, the challenges they faced and where they see the treasury profession heading. His Treasury Career Corner Podcast@www.treasurycareercorner.com is the outlet he uses to talk to the world's leading treasurers and gain their insights. You'll also find Mike on the treasury speaking circuit at events like the AFP National Conference, EuroFinance, Windy City in Chicago and T. Manny's New York cash Exchange or hosting a live Treasury Career Corner. Live that's kind of redundant, Department of Redundancy Department folks. But you, you will find him at the conferences doing some of these live. Mike, welcome to the Treasury Whisperers Talkcast podcast.

Thank you, Seth. Very grateful to be on here, but as I think I've said to you before the show as well, it's very weird being the other side of the microphone. Every time I get interviewed and I do a few of them, it's, you start to ask me a question, I'm like, no, no, no. I asked the questions around here. I got so used to it after, you know, I started the Treasury Career Corner just over seven years or just coming on seven years ago now and I thought we'd do 10 episodes. We've done, yeah, just approaching 400 episodes. 400 separate interviews, 430 treasurers on there about their treasury careers. But again, it's still very weird to be this side of the microphone and you asking me questions. I'm like, no, that's a question. That's the answer.

That's right. In this talkcast podcast, I think it is allowable for you to ask questions, but we'll try to limit that. All right. I think the work that you've done with the Treasure Career podcast has been absolutely remarkable. The stories that your audience gets to hear is just magnificent. We really do gain the insights from many, many years of the experiences that they've had. And I'm waiting for you to step into a Global treasury role at some point.

I love the work that treasurers do, but sometimes I think crumbs, what they go through, the pain, you know, the stories, I just think, yeah, they're heroes in my eye, you know, the things that they do and, you know, they manage with these small treasury teams and the impact that they make is astounding, really. Now when you talk to them about and how many are in your team, you know, someone in general finance? Oh, yeah, I've got 40 people, I've got 50. And you say to a treasurer, how many you got? Well, there's me and there's a couple of us, like a team of three. And you're like, hang on, you do this for your global Treasury? Yeah. I'm like, okay, then just. You just think they do so much. I mean, everyone talks about AI and things. I think this is an opportunity for them, for treasury professionals to be able to do more. Not with any less. They've already got less.

Right.

But actually, you know, to actually hopefully get themselves out of the day to day a little bit more. It's not going to replace people. We've talked about this and when people say, oh, he's replaced, it's not. It's a tool, you know, and so is a hammer. You know, a hammer can be dangerous weapon. It can also be. Can build a beautiful house and everything else. So it's a tool if you use in the right way.

Yeah. I think it's also going to separate the proverbial men from the boys and those that actually can do more with the analytical side. And to actually get behind the numbers and behind the transactions is really going to be the differentiating factor between those that are really the stars of the profession.

Yeah, exactly.

So how did you get started with treasury recruitment? Why Treasury? Were you doing other financial areas of recruitment or were you not even doing recruiting?

So I did a teaching degree and then fell into recruitment, as lots of people do. I did teaching recruitment for substitute teachers and things. A recruitment, a recruitment guy. They used to do our recruitment. He one day said, you should do finance recruitment. I was like, accountants? No, not really. It pays you twice as much money. And I was like, okay, where do I sit? Where's my desk? And then so I showed up at Robert Walters and they said, we need someone to run our treasury desk. I always said, what's Treasury? They said, we don't really know. Okay, then this is back in the night, the, they handed me this list of people and I started to get to know treasurers. I quite quickly found that treasurers are the first to the bar, often the last to leave it. Very sociable and very forward focused and the thinking. And I was like, I love you guys. And I thought, even then I thought, I really enjoy talking to treasurers and what they do, the impact they have. You know, unlike as we said earlier, some other areas of finance which are perhaps not as forward focused can make this great impact on the company. You know, say, yeah, I won't, I won't name and shame other areas of finance, but I just think treasury is the lead myself and I, I just love it. Then, so then what was it, 2002? Yeah. So we're just approaching actually our 23rd anniversary. I thought I'd work for Robert Walters, worked for a search firm, became Hydragon Struggles, they wanted me to do global search work, but in other areas and I went, guys, I love Treasury. And so in 2002 I started the treasury recruitment company. And since then we've recruited across the world and we recruit right the way across so right the way across the us, the UK and Europe, obviously, with my lovely accent, yes. Not quite as good as sets, but we're getting there slowly. And we recruit on at all levels from treasury analyst to global treasurer. We offer advice, we do our global salary survey. Then as I said, I started treasured career corner seven years ago as we approached 400 episodes. We're over 200,000 downloads. It also gets CTP credits as well. I was approached by AFP Pat Culkin, the new CEO and he said, oh, would you consider doing it? Doing a mini quiz at the end of each episode so that people can get CTP credits and helps them with their career. I'm like, yes. And it just took off. So it's wow. And I just love it.

Where do you see the demand for treasury professionals growing the most? Corporates, which I think is clearly your forte or you know, the banking world, the fintech world, because they too are part of this overall treasury world that we live in.

So in the early stages of my career I used to do some banking recruitment. In fact, on a retained basis. We still do and have done in recent years, but that really has diminished because there's so many new entrants. So the market, I think on the banking financial services side, I think it's quite a fragmented market. I think if you know, and I often get approached, I Get. Well, not often. I get approached daily by lots of banking guys who deal with treasurers and they often say to me, oh, I can do Treasury, I can make a move. I recently had Keith Gorb from Bristol Myers Squibb on the, on my podcast and he took a step across and down in his career from banking to be a Treasury corporate treasury professional. And he was fantastic. But he said you've got to be prepared to do that. Not a step backwards, but step downwards if you like. He took a cut in salary because he thought actually corporate treasury is going to be right for me. But a lot of banking professionals who possibly could get into corporate treasury. But then when I say well look, you need to take a pay cut when eventually gets done, I went no, I don't want to take a pay cut. I'm like, okay, well you need, but do you have, you know, so that maybe they do cash management, they do foreign exchange? Well, no, I don't touch that at all. Do you do treasury management systems? Well, no, I don't do that. I've never done that. And I'm like, guys, this is what. The range and the breadth of what a corporate treasurer does nowadays is just astounding. And I think that is the, the mini barrier to entry to banking professionals is not negative about them because they are great specialists of what they do and the utmost respect for them. But actually then when I say look, you can't make or you're going to struggle to make that step across, you know, if they, you know, once they get that through the, you know, once they get that, an understanding of that, they often agree with me and they're like, yeah, actually I can't do that or I don't have those or you know, it's just a gap, someone wants to retrain or do that stuff, then great, they can do it. Yeah, that answers that a little bit. But yeah, but I do corporate Treasury. So as I say, right, the way across Fortune 500, you FTSE 100s, top companies, private companies, as long as it's corporate treasury, that's us.

Right. I'm curious also differences with the US market in terms of what US companies and US treasurers are looking for qualifications versus I don't even want to say Europe, but just rest of world.

Yeah, we're pro education and we've said that a lot and we, we again we've partnered with the AFP because we had like if anyone wants to, we actually provide, we've got a partnership with those guys so that anyone who wants to study ctp, you can get a discount on study because we want to support treasury professionals. Some of them say, oh, do I need it? I was talking to a lovely young lady the other day and she said, should I get it? And was like, yes. She was like, well, you know, you didn't really think about that. I went, no, I didn't think about it. There's nothing to think about. Why would I think about it? It's like if you can be better and have a rubber stamp of your level of experience. I said, did you get a degree? She was like, well, yeah, I did. I went and got my mba. I said, so you believe in study, then? Well, yes, I do. And I said, and what was. What subject was it in? Well, actually, it was in economics and stuff. I said, well, why did you bother to study that? Well, because that was going to help me in my career and now I'm in Treasury and yes, I do lean back on that. Said, okay, so if you're going to continue within treasury, do you think that would help you? Well, yes, it would. It's like she. She was like, yeah, I've got to do, really, haven't I? I was like, yeah, I think it's just. It's a great rubber stamp of your experience. Again, within the uk, you have the act qualifications, the association of Corporate treasury uk. And then across Europe, there are a number of different ones. There's some good ones over in the Netherlands, they've got some others. And there's different programs across Europe. And we're pro. Any of it, as long as it, you know, does that. We put. We've got a partnership array. Well, we actually do. We've got a small program that we're just starting, an education program which will help people who are totally brand new to treasury at like a day in the life of a treasurer that we're just working on that being released that. Because what we do find is that a lot of the training providers out there are rather expensive and we think there's a more inexpensive way to do it, support the profession. And we're doing that. Someone said the other day, but you're going to do it? And said, no, we do it to support and the more that we pay it forward, that if I help someone who's a Treasury analyst now, there'll be a global treasury unit. It used to be on a website, actually. I might bring it back one day. Today's treasury analyst is tomorrow's group treasurer. And people said, oh, it's a bit corny.

It's not it's no, it's reality.

Some of the guys I'm talking to now, I've placed them, recruited for them, had Adam Richford on the podcast the other day. He used to be head of GE Capital Real Estate and I recruited for him and then I eventually moved him to Renew E. And he's recently become the global treasurer of Smith and Nephew, a large UK corporate. Been on the podcast three times and we're just talking about. Actually I've known him as a candidate in 20, 22 years ago he was one of my first. I'm like, yeah. And now he's a global treasurer and it's, you know, it's about helping and supporting the profession.

That's the key thing with some. What's the biggest shift you've seen in the industry over the last five to 10 years?

That's a good. Could you make that question a little bit wider and more with.

Within treasury professionals?

Yeah, okay, just.

Or maybe, maybe actually you know, call it treasury careers. The progressions, the entry, the exits.

I think there's a lot of answers to it. I think one of the key things now is treasury has become more recognized. One of the things I, when I was on with Jim Cates who's just been finished with the AFP and Pat, we were talking, they were talking about trying to push treasury out as a profession, you know, push it into universities, pushing out there so that people get, I think still most people get into treasury by accident that you know, it's, it's a non planned career choice. They go hey, on what's treasury about? And you know, when I first started 20 odd years ago, people say oh you treasury. So you, you recruit for the government, right? I'm like no, no, this is for corporates and this is this person who you know, looks after today's money in the future. And people said well describe it. And I said well finance director looks after today's, looks after all of the finances, financial control today and backwards tax guy, minimizing your tax bill Treasurer, today's money in the future. And I think that, and that's one of the. To answer your question, I think that's where it become more that the treasurer, the best treasurers out there have become in some ways slightly deputy cfo. Like not all the time but a lot of the time that actually the ones I've seen more successful are when they go to their cfo say right, what can I help you with? And they might be overworked and they might have lots of things on but they still go put their hand up, say, right, how can I help you? What can I do? How can I assist you? And it's like they become the right hand person. And by doing that, it not only elevates treasury within the company, also elevates their role. It's more interesting. I know in the past, and you may know Todd Yoda, great guy, Todd said to me at one stage he was in his role and I said, oh, you know, you're treasurer. He said, well, I am treasurer, but I don't really do treasury at the moment. I was like, why? He said, well, I've got two great deputies and we sit down, have a coffee once, once on a Monday morning and then off we go and they, they go on, you know, do their stuff. I'm then helping with this. I'm doing supply chain, I'm doing assurance, I'm doing risk management, enterprise. And then eventually he's gone on to be a cfo because that's where he wanted to go. I don't think every treasurer has to go and be a cfo, but some of them do and some of them love it. Some of them say, no, that's not my career path and they don't have to. I think, you know, treasury as a career is certainly evolved.

Yeah, I've, I've always thought that the dynamic between the CFO and treasurer was a vital piece of the finance function actually operating well. And if that partnership doesn't really exist or it's not solid, it can be, it can make for rather treacherous route. What kind of advice would you give to, I would say mid level treasury professionals that are trying to figure out how to make it up the ranks.

Listen to the Treasury Career Corner podcast, listen that, get some great tips and thanks very much. There you go. Sorry, I had to get that. Actually, seriously speaking, that's one of the things that I've realized from the show. I mean, Seth and I spoke before, I never thought we'd do so many shows, but each and every person I talked to, people said, how have you managed to do these so many shows? I said, well, you know, when I was at one of the Euro finance conferences and they said, well, you've done that. I said, look, within 10ft of me, we've got 10 different treasurers, right? They're like, oh yeah. I said, they all do the same job, they've all got the same job titles, do exactly the same way. And they're like, well, no, they don't. I said, no, because they work for a private company, they Work for a public. They were, they're debt laden, they're cash rich, they're centralized, decentralized. Each of these stories, for all these treasures, you know, you and I will meet AFP in Boston later this year. There'll be so many treasury folk and everyone. What title has so many different variety? Everyone. There are lots of common things like the tools they use and some of the common approaches, but the commonality is as common as the differences as well, you know, so how amazing and things like that. So going back to answer your question, long way of answering it is. I think by listening to the podcast, people can choose their career path. Treasury isn't just one straight, straight line, you know, you hear about squiggly careers, don't you? And things like that. You can move across different things. I was talking to a treasurer just today and he's been in real estate and now he's in heavy industrial. And he said, oh, do you think I'm, you know, in chemicals? And I said, well, you can do, but you could move into a fintech. You know, it's not a direct, easy move. But I said there are, but there's also commonalities, what you've done in FMCG and consumer goods. You could do that. And he was like, oh, actually, yeah, I could do that. I was like, you've got the skill set if you want to use them. I said it's more about the approach of the company, maybe the size. And actually when I talked to him, we talked about the fact he could go and be a treasurer at a smaller group or he could be maybe a deputy treasurer at a larger group and then develop his skill set from there. So I think, you know, talking about mid level as well. So you're a Treasury manager today and you're listening to this podcast. It's just think about where your career path is going to go. I did a recent post and we do a week, I do a weekly video. So anyone listening, feel free to connect to me on LinkedIn. But the reason I say that is I had a business coach. She said, right, you have to talk. And I was like, do I have to? But basically on a Tuesday we do a newsletter. On the Friday I do my reaction to it and I do a five minute video. And one I did the other day was about goal setting. I think too many treasury professionals get too much in the weeds. When was the last time they, you know, you celebrated your wins. And Emma Haywood, she's amazing. She said each week she sends herself an email, puts it in a little box, a little outlook box, and it says, right, what have I done well this week? What have the team done well this week? Actually, in the other way around. And she literally. And so when the CFO just swings past it as how you getting on, what's happened? So she'd go, right, so this month we've done this, this week we've done this. Like, she's got those things to hand. So she's selling upwards, if you like, selling her dream. But then I also think a lot of treasurers here listening don't take time to have a coffee with themselves. Sit down, where's your 30 day? You know, if you're going for a new job, you might say, right, what's your 30 day plan for Treasury? What's 60 day? You know, what's. What's the end of the first month going to look like? The end of the first quarter, end of six months, end of 12 months? You might ask that as a great, you know, set the frame and stuff like that. But then once you're in the company, do you actually go back to that? Do you ever do that yourself? And a lot of people go, well, no, I'm just getting on and doing the day job. Well, how, if you're not going to set your goals for you and the team, how are you going to measure yourself? How are you going to measure yourself as you progress?

And by having all of that, when it comes to the end of the year, you've got your performance appraisal written and we all know that we, most of the time, we end up writing our own performance reviews and giving them to our managers.

What did I do in January last year? You know, what were we doing? You know, you look and all you need to, and it doesn't take long. Just put in a reminder, even if it's not weekly. I know that a couple of guys have said, I just, I said, no, it's fine, do it monthly. Just celebrate your wins. Just say, look, just email yourself or make a note of them and then, then you can do it. Just a quick search. Say wins, wins of the year and you've got your progression of 12 months. But I think also some people will find is how many wins will there be and are they real? You know, thinking, hang on, what am I going to win? My wins going to be from month 13 to month 24? How are we going to upscale this? I think a lot of people, as I say treasury, there's a lot of pressure on people and I think they get pushed down into the weeds too easily. And I think that's unfair.

How do treasury people do in terms of networking?

They are either brilliant or terrible. It's no in between, not really in between. There's very little. I mean, people have said to me, oh, you're a natural networker. I'm not. I have to work at it. It's like it is work. And actually that's a good way of doing it. In networking, the word networking, there's the bit in the middle which is work. And actually it is work. When. When you and I see each other at New York Cash Exchange, which is a brilliant event, everyone listening should be going there and we'll meet there. And you. I met previous ones and we go to other conferences. You know, we. I did it with Summer Simmons and Nicole Meyer last year. We did a great session, afp. And one of the great things that Summer said. So it was her credit, I'll give her some credit a little bit, not too much. He talked about having a break, sometimes having a break because said, if you're doing it right, you will be quite exhausted, you'll be quite tired. So you've got to work that room, you've got to have an elevator pitch, you've got to go up to someone, talk to them. And I give this coaching sometimes. We do our treasure Career Corner lives. And just for people listening, so do the podcast. But also we do live events across the us. I'm doing one just before New York Cash exchange. So at 6 o', clock, we sit down with three treasurers, registration at 6, 6:30 us to talk to them for an hour and after one hour, and we always keep to the hour because then we've got networking drinks and treasuries. Treasurers love treasury folk. They love to network. A lot of the law firms, we usually do it at their venues. And they go, your treasurers, they love networking, don't they? And I was like, yeah, no one left. I said, what do you mean? They went? Nobody left. Normally, apparently lawyers, about 50% of them leave the room. But they said, no, we did one of our London events, we had like 136 people. And they went. Eight people walked out. I went, yeah, they went. And we had 128. We had no. I said, I know I had to work behind the bar for a bit, but we do these events and actually you need your elevator pitch. And I actually coach some people in Houston about this as well. And that is you need to go up to someone and before you do this, said to the Guys, I said, you can't just walk up and say, hey, I'm Seth Marlow, the Treasury whisperer. That's it, great, nice to meet you. Thanks. No, you need to say, why would it be valuable for them to have you in their network? So it's, I'm the treasure and I have hosted this. I've, you know, I've got to know this one number of treasurers, so help them to get to know you. And also another way we did it with Houston, I said to the guys, I said, you have to go and make at least five connections by this evening. And that is not just go click on LinkedIn. Oh, we're friends now. That's it, great, you're in power. And actually, you know, I thought at the time, this is a good way, trying to give them permission to actually speak to people. And Bridget Meyer Redbridge, she came up to me and she went, that was brilliant. And I was like, why? She would. Just went. Everyone started speaking, it was, it did go mad. So I think people like, because they were. I had to tell them they would give them permission to network because otherwise it's like small talk and you get a drink here and it's quite. Clink.

That's right.

Everyone just dived in and actually everyone was given this permission to talk to other treasurers and evening was. And you know, I got a really great guy Haroon, who came up to me afterwards. Mike, I've got seven. Said what? He said, I've got seven. In fact, I've got this other. Got eight. I've done eight. Because I said, you have to before you leave tonight, get at least five new connections. When treasurers work at it. You guys are incredible. When you don't, you can fade into the background and you know, I see it sometimes at AFP Euro Finance big conferences, they can be quite overawing, you know, or crumbs. Yeah, it is quite. And also, with the greatest respect to all the exhibitors, you can find them, they're flocking to you. Hang on, give me a badge. Let's have a quick look. You know, the fact is, you know, you need to take time for yourself and be much more. And again, Somerset talked about it, I've talked about it as well. You need to plan your time. Who, what, which sessions are you going to go to have? You know, this is a work conference. It's not just right, let's out the office, let's go to the cocktail party, we'll do that later. You know, again, one of the, I think One of the, the working title we had for our networking session, you know, which we gave on the first day of AFP in Nashville, was they had we have an official title. I said that official title is rubbish. I said my title was what not to do at AFP 2024. And it was like. And I said, right, hands up, who here has been, this is your first or second conference. About 50% of the hands went up. Okay, great, you got 50% newbies who's been coming here like at least five or six years plus. And it was the other 50%. I went, great. You guys who have been coming here, talk to them. Just tell them about the fact it's a marathon, not a sprint. When you, you know, when we do this thing, I do my event the night before in New York. I'm going to have to be careful that I'm not going to go crazy because I've got then another two days of the New York Cash Exchange. I can't do that with a hangover. Yeah, I can barely, you know, I can barely speak with a hangout. That's, yeah, I think that's one of the key things. So treasurers are great at networking or they need some work, they need some handheld.

So I, I, I often quote, I believe it's Jim Gilligan who treasurer of, I think at the time was a Midwest energy company. And he used to talk about internal networking. He would talk about, go and sit down in somebody's office and find out what do they do, what's their role in the organization. You know, especially in those, those other finance areas that are so closely aligned. Go talk to the controller, but talk to the head of the tax department, talk to the head of strategic planning. And there is, it seems to be so much more difficult to have those conversations within the four walls of your own organization. But it's, it's as essential, I think perhaps even more so to have, have success in, in role as a Treasury professional.

And just to add to that, and this is, we actually covered this in a, one of our first newsletters because it was an actual, what we do is each of the newsletters isn't just some PR BS or anything else. It's actual real because basically it's drawn from stories I have with candidates or with clients. One of the treasurers I was talking to was coaching a junior level treasury analyst and or treasury specialist actually at the time. So real really just starting out, he said, look, I really want to get my network going. How do I do this? He went, go and have A coffee. I thought, what? Just that he said no, you know, he was quite over. How do I talk to the head of FP&A. So. Well, you don't have to talk to the head of. Get to the deputy, you know, say, look, can I get a coffee with you so I could understand what you guys do.

Right?

And then he did, did a couple of weeks. He did about three weeks. He said, how many coffees? I've had two. He said, right, you need to drink more coffee. Okay. He said, no. He said, you're just by doing those. He said, you need to do a minimum of one, bare minimum, probably two a week. So he was like, Tuesday and Friday he'd do this every week and he suddenly he'd be meeting eight people and the next week eight people within six months. This guy was so he eventually got headhunted out of his role and went and worked for the CEO or is like their sort of go to Friday person. You know, boom, boom, boom. Was just doing this because this, this guy had got to know everything and was actually onto their graduate program. You know, like, wow, this guy really knows it. I think the flip side was I actually talked to the treasurer a bit later. He said, I started to drink more coffee. I was like, oh, right. He said, yeah, I didn't drink as much coffee as I should have done. I was like, oh, right, okay. He said, yeah. And I've, I've heard that from a few others that you know that you again. This week's newsletter is about the spotlight on Treasury. Will it drift away? Well, when it's on treasury and you know, you sometimes might pass your CEO in the corridor once, you know, hi. Hi. And the last time you met them was at your interview. When was the last time you then talked to them properly? Unless you're in a crisis, you know, the spotlight drifts away sort of thing. So actually you want the. If you want to keep treasury in the limelight, in the spotlight, you've got to work at it. And it is work. Our podcast is sponsored by icd. ICD are an independent platform trusted by thousands of treasury professionals worldwide to manage short term investments. One global treasurer recently told me it was one of the smartest technology decisions they've made. No license fees, rapid setup and tangible returns. If you're looking for a smarter, simpler way to manage your liquidity, then head to find out more at our partners page treasuryrecruitment.com forward/partners and find out much more. Let's get back to the episode and.

And that comes Back to the elevator pitch, which is not build it once and forget about it. That's. That's a continuously updated tool that you need to have a hundred percent.

Yeah.

So with, with all of the treasurers that, that you've spoken to and interviewed on the treasury career podcast, what. What's kind of, what's the most surprising theme or storyline that's emerged for you?

I think there's a few different things, and again, you and I talked about this earlier, that they're not very good at their own pr. I think they do a great job, but they don't tell people about it. And you've got to sell, you know, not. And it's not a case of telling everybody you need to sell your, you know, why you're making a difference. Does anyone know the difference you've made by implementing this rcf? We talk about recording your wins and everything else. I think treasurers are very good at, and a lot of the time they'll be very good at helping their team along and, you know, promoting from within sometimes and, you know, helping their, their team get to the next. But are they doing the same for themselves? I think they sometimes could be too, you know, what's the words for facing or whatever. They don't do enough for themselves, and I think that's a key thing as well. I also said to you before that, you know, what's so weird, I thought, I used to think I was a really good recruiter, and now, and I was at the J.P. morgan thing, when I talked to 30 treasurers, national treasurers, I said, now I'm a brilliant recruiter. Look at this confident person. And I wasn't. I said, no, I'm not. I said, I'm not doing that. I said, I used to understand, or used to think I understood Treasury. Now I really do understand treasury because I've had 400 of your stories and tales drilled into me, and I've learned from that, and I've really taken that on board. But then what that's also taught me is the fact that a lot of people didn't hear, have never heard this story. The fact that, you know, sometimes with podcasts, you have, you know, you've got your podcast going out there, what are your stats, you know, how many people listen to it. We've got 200,000 downloads. Each episode now gets like 5, 800 downloads. So I'm going, you know, and in the past, some, you know, you have all these popular podcasts that say, oh, we got a million downloads this week. And I'm like, wow, that's great for them. But the fact is, if I was to share an auditorium with 500 treasury professionals listening to the story of that one treasurer, like, my head would explode. But actually, that's what we do each and every week. And that's where. When I think that's what I've learned is that treasurers, you know, need to push themselves forward and they need to be their biggest advocates. And I don't think they are. I think they do. They do a pretty poor job of themselves. The ones that do actually embrace that or actually get, you know, train themselves to do that. They go, Dana Leithold. Dana Leithold, EX PELOTON asdaq. Now she's nasdaq. She was live on stage with me and Chris Cochan from Adeba in New York, our session a year or so ago, and she's talked about this publicly. She talked about the original episode. She has a number of coaches who coach her, and one is about her presentation skills, one is about her technical expertise, one is about, you know, she's got three or four personal coaches. She invests in herself. Now, I'm not saying everyone can do that, you know, but that's what she's done. As she's grown, throughout her career, she's invested in herself, and that's been a worthwhile investment, you know, because now she's the global treasure of nasdaq. Wow. This lady's, you know, and she is incredibly impressive, amazing lady, but she's had to work. She's work, you know, do the work, put in the work on yourself as well as for your, you know, your treasury team and for your company. Are they always looking after you yourself? No, that's one of the other bits. No, and I mean, again, one of the other points is, you know, and I, again, from one of the bits I've said this week is when's. When's the best time to look for a new job? Yesterday. And before. All right. And I said, well, fact is, I've just had a guy in Chicago, good friend, his company is suddenly shutting up shop. They're moving. They're not going to take anyone with them. And he was thinking, actually, this is a job not till retirement, but, you know, certainly for the ongoing future. Lee Bugs pulled out now it's great. He's going to get himself sorted somewhere else. That's fine. But he was like, wow, everything's changed for him. It's not fair. He's been treated like trash. But the fact is, luckily, he's got over that but I think you guys need, you know, anyone listening that you need to look after yourselves first. And it, because I'm not sure all companies then, you know, they're not always investing in you and your career. You need to do that for yourself and take responsibility for it.

That's great advice. I think we're gonna get towards the wrap up here. So if you had to name a few dream guests who have not been on the podcast yet, who would those people be?

One is going to be your keynote speaker with, with you, Seth. New York cast names Tony Massone. The funny thing for me is the global treasurer for Amazon, great guy and I've known him for many years. I used to recruit for him at GE when he ran the, the CP program, the commercial paper program over in Paris and I recruited for him over in his Paris office and things like that. So I've known him all those times and he's gone up, up. So that was, he was one of the people. There are a number of different people. It's actually what's, what's weird for me is I approach a lot of guests across UK and Europe and we get a very different response. People are saying, oh yeah, I've heard, they'll have heard the podcast. They really like it. I said great, so will you be on the show? They said send me the details, I'll think about it. And they're like, all right, okay, well that's so that's a maybe then. Whereas when I go to US corporate treasurers, it's a different thing and it's much better actually. I really like it that when actually I go to them, they say send me the details, we'll get, we'll get a day booked in. I'm like, okay. I think there's a different ethos there as well. So if anyone's listening, that is a corporate treasurer and wants to be on the show, I would love to have them on there. I think Tony's one. So yeah, in answer to your question. So Tony, anyone? Any other treasurers really that have a story to, you know, I had some incredible guests over the time. You know, just the list when I look down now I'm like, it's amazing. You know, I just was name dropping all those different people like Dana Laidhold, I've got Summer Simmons, I've got just Sherry Nicole speaks recently. She from jc, JPT and Morel and stuff. And each and every one of them is just amazing and there's just lots of great treasures out there. Yeah, again we're Always looking for guests. So, you know, I want people to keep on reaching out to me.

It's definitely a who's who of Treasury. It's for those of us that are listening to the early stages of my podcast. There's a lot for me to learn from you, Mike. Appreciate what you've been doing for us in the industry. One last question. I'll call the bonus round here. What's one treasury myth that you'd love to bust up once and for all?

We talked about this. I was interviewed on someone else's podcast and their content writer wrote, mike covers this boring niche. And I was like. I was. I was incendiary. I'm like going. I was like, take this down. You know, like, this is. I'm like, how? You know, firstly, I just thought it is a bit rude. Anyway, I think, you know, the way they've written it, treasury is not boring. Treasury is the antithesis. It's the opposite end of treasury is exciting. If you want to go and buy another company, if you want to do all this amazing stuff, who do you go to? You go to your treasurer. If you're faced with this incredible crisis, or tariffs come along, or there's geopolitical events and you're thinking, crumbs, how are we going to keep the company going? You go to your cfo, who's this? And the CFO turns to the treasurer and says, like, right, how are you? How are you going to help me get out of this? What are we going to do? Treasury is exciting. I remember I was at one of the Economist events and, you know, I said, treasury is cool. And they were like, yeah, treasury is a new cohabit. I was being, you know, a little bit jokey. I wasn't. Treasury is cool. I love it. And it's like, I don't think I could have done 400 conversations so far and ongoing with it. If it was boring, then I would have given up after 10. And I haven't. I just love doing it and I just love sharing the different, you know, journeys of treasures.

Thank you, Mike. I think that the bottom line is, I think the quote for the session, treasury is not boring.

That. Give me the headline. Thank you very much.

There you go. Mike, thank you so much for joining me today. It's always a pleasure. Look forward to seeing you in New York and then up in Boston at the AFP as well.

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.