Treasury professionals discuss how to break into the field. They emphasize broad experience across finance, soft skills like communication, and staying curious about industry trends. The role itself is evolving, and there's no single path to get there.
One of the things I talk about on the podcast and I ask treasurers is about the future of treasury and we, you know, we touched on their automation. We talk about all the other things. Now people in the audience are thinking, well, that's all very well. That's what's coming at treasurers. CFO sometimes are saying, look, you're my treasurer. Can you assess this for me? I've got all this other. You do that and they push you out in the forefront. Right, right in the forefront a lot of the time, even if you don't want to be out there. But there's a lot of people then asking me and, you know, perhaps wanting to ask you guys, what should they be doing for their. Themselves, for their resumes, for their CVs. I was asked a question just a couple of days ago from someone saying, look, I'm thinking about studying about cyber war, cyber warfare, cybersecurity. Everyone's going on about it. And, you know, in all the conferences with you as treasurer sitting there, you know, what advice would you give again to the people in the audience that are going, right, should I go off and study a qualification? You know, should I go and, you know, get more interpersonal skills, do some training on my softer skills as a manager or. Or what are the things that, when you're looking to bring people in and. Or looking at a team, thinking, I need more of this, or this is what we need more of as a team. Any of you. That's good. I've got them all thinking and they're all like, you didn't put this on the cards. I know that's the old question.
I would say it's getting out of your comfort zone. You can't really plan. Yes, there's a lot of technology going out there. Be aware what's going on around, especially with the customers. What I've learned is that I think your customer will trust you more, internal customer, if you know more than they do about their business, about their risk, about their challenges. So one of the closest business partner we have is payment folks. While instant payment, for example, it's not really big for treasury per se because we pay the vendors, et cetera, and yeah, with wires, aca, Train or sepa. But the AP side of things is, especially with different region. For example, in India, they do payment on delivery. Someone deliver an Amazon package, I want to pay the courier right there, right then by phone. We don't have a bank account, so you've got to be ahead of understanding where we think we're expending what the challenges they might have. You got to go ahead of that curve and on top of that you got to work with the banks. Sometimes the banks are not aware. What? Well maybe because it's where Amazon so they're more willing to work with us in product development. We oftentimes tell the bank to what we need to have from a bank structure. Virtual accounts. Virtual on virtual meaning I can have a single account and that can be virtual to different jurisdictions. Right. So they have challenges on their side. But I want to tell them now. This is what we see. We would need you go find a way to meet those qualifications to the requirements. We start brainstorming. So I think what we would be looking for and get ourselves ready is don't be afraid to think outside the box and really talk to people even not just within treasury, but your customers and their vendors completely outside. And how the other industry may be handling certain things that are different from your own industry because they might have something similar or they may doing something totally creative that you're not aware of.
Yeah.
Well, I would certainly not advise anyone to try to copy a career whatever. I would certainly recommend young people to try to gather as much experience as possible, a broad experience, diverse experience in different areas before making a choice to specialize in something or even to apply to a more global role. Yeah. And I think one of the let's say weak point between brackets which is often highlighted is skills, soft skills basically. This is clearly where I would recommend really young people to try to get very well trained and to be very confident in their soft skills. Because finally ultimately it's all about human relationship and this is super important for the success of a team.
Yeah. Let's say it's something I raised myself. Would it make sense to make or to study a Treasury qualification on top of my studies and basically I never did it. I think it can add value when you are young if you are very interested by this field of business, let's say of finance activity. It can be interesting and it gives you a better chance to enter the treasury world. But let's say I learned along the way and I think that's also very interesting and a good chance to get to learn on the spot. But again you need to show that your careers that you're curious and you need to have the chance to work into corporates which are in a, let's say changing mode basically. So it's one of the reason why I changed also my initial career plan, it was not meeting my expectations. So I think you need to know yourself as well and what you wish to achieve. Let's say don't target to be the CEO or the group treasurer on your first day after university, but let's say to know what is important for you in life and at work. What are your expectations more in terms of, let's say, responsibility or areas that you want to explore rather than being focused on. Okay, I want to study this. So for me, treasury qualifications are nice, but they are not. Must have to be frank.
So Benoit said. So, you know, the takeaway there is obviously get a breadth of experience before choosing to specialize. Be curious. I think we'll take that one and get out of your comfort zone.
Get out of your comfort zone.
Thank you very much. I know that I can hear the chinking of glasses out there. Hopefully someone's not drinking our wine, but they might be. We'll get out there in a moment. I just want to thank all of the panel for today. Now, this will be. We will be reposting this. If there's bits you want to hear about on the treasury career corner, that's our website and everything else, go there. You'll find a number of other interviews with other treasurers as well, and some of these ladies and gentlemen may actually be in there in the future as well. Thank you very much. Panel, put your hands together, please. Thank you. Thank you very much.
