Why Corporate Treasury Needs to Be a Career Choice, Not Just a Happy Accident

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. They've given us the post lunchtime session, so you guys have to wake up. That's to all of you. Now, I know you're busy treasurers, so I would encourage you to switch off your phones, maybe put your laptops closed for a little while, because this is an hour for you. This is for you and your treasury careers. I've got three amazing guests and we're going to talk about their treasury careers with you guys. But be present in the room, don't be looking at your phone. You can do that later. Just switch it off for an hour. So who am I? Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. A couple of people have said, do you cover Texas? I said yes, because I'm here and actually I've been doing it 25 years. Started obviously in the UK, supported by my team, amazing team there, much better looking team. And also do a podcast each and every week. Started thinking I'd do 10. Now done 375, speaking to amazing treasures like the panel here. Had Martin on the panel before on my podcast. Rather, Jeremy's going to be coming on and we get Denisio and we'll also have a podcast coming from this. Now, the unique thing about it as well, I know you're going to get credits for coming here. You can now actually get CTP credits by listening to my podcast. Yeah, now you've got the attention, walking the dog, commuting, you can get CTP credits. So without further ado, I'm going to get. This is going to be the order. I guess they're going to introduce themselves, then they're going to talk about how they built their treasury careers. Now that's the key thing for you guys. As Tony Robbins success says, or as he said, success leaves clues. Listen to these guys do what they've done. You'll get their job one day. But Denise is not leaving a job yet. But maybe one day, right? And then we'll do some Q and A. So you're going to get to ask some really good questions because again, when did you last get a chance to do this? Then we'll do some takeaways, some great tips from these guys. Without further ado, Jeremy, over to you.

Thank you. First of all, I got to say, I actually have made it in my. And when you know in your career when you've made it, I am sitting with Mike Richards, so I made it. Exactly. Hey, look here. There are certain people used to say, oh, I make it to Johnny Carson. But then again I look around the room. I don't know if too many people are going to catch that analogy. Anyway, these gray hairs are functional. But anyway, I want to say that I'm excited to be here and sharing with you about my interesting career. It has been a heck of a ride in treasury for me quite frankly. No one grows up saying I want to be a treasurer. No one really says that. But I will say that as we were just talking about it, I started my career thinking about treasury when I was a kid. What was your first job? Was your first job in fast food any hand? Yeah, there you go. So yeah, first clothing stores, whatever. Back in the day my dad wanted me to work at a grocery store. And so the funny part about the grocery store is that back then boys pushed the carts, girls were the cashiers and I wanted to be the cashier because I didn't want to sweat and I wanted to be in charge of money. And then I told my dad I want a job where I can work and then go hang out with my friends without being sweaty and have to take a shower. And you fast forward all these years later I had that type of job and I'm in charge of money. So it's worked its way full circle. But I will say that just like the majority of you who've been in Treasury, I fell into it, quite frankly. I did my first grown up job was an accounts payable and then I did some accounts receivable collections and then I did credit management and risk and then I did another student accounts payable but this time I'm actually transferring money via wire to other bank accounts. Then someone said, you know what you can do, you should be in Treasury. What's that? Is it accounting? No. And to this day I still answer that question. Is it accounting? No, it's not. It's much more fun. But I started once upon a time and about two decades ago, yeah, I was going to say a long time ago, but about two decades ago it was my first job at Natco and now I'm from Houston, Texas, therefore that means oil and gas till you die basically. And I've grown up in industry and each one of my companies was bigger and bigger. So Natco was swallowed up by Cameron Cameron. I realized that I needed something in my career And I left there and went to Direct Energy and Energy Retail. And then after that I took this chance and listened to one of my mentors and he said, if you ever get an opportunity to become an expatriate, do so. And so I worked for Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, so Dahran, Saudi Arabia. Yeah, I had to Google that. I did not know where it was at, but it was an interesting experience. Was there for five years from 2015 until Covid changed things, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. But afterwards worked for, after working for the largest technical revenue generating company in the world, then moved over to Erin Lakeed as director of Corporate finance and treasury for the Western Hemisphere. And then eventually I now hold the position of Vice President Global Treasurer at Veril Energy Solutions. And so I've got an opportunity to live from hand to mouth in terms of revenue generating companies all the way down to living off the fat of the land. And if we sneeze, someone else catches a cold. But it's been a heck of a ride and I certainly would never change it for anything else. And I'm just excited to share with you this journey which started with just a kid not wanting to push a cart.

Denisia, over to you.

Yes. Hi. Denisia Stewart. I too am in Houston. So I am a product of oil and gas, similar to Jeremy. Treasury for me started when I was a child, grew up in Michigan, moved to Houston. We didn't have family in Houston. My mom worked at a bank. So spring, spring break, summers, anytime I wasn't in school, I would be at the bank in the vault watching Oprah or something, whatever was on TV back then. But at that point, back then they used to allow kids to sit in the vault. So I was around money and things very early on, worked my way through college. My first real job, I worked for a bank. The bank that I was working at, I had a mentor that she realized that I didn't want to just do retail banking. And so she put me in a rotational program. The department that I finally rotated into was bought out by another bank. It was in the trust and security department. And so I liked what I did, but I wanted to see it from the other side, like from the other seat. So that landed me in a corporate practitioner role. So I started off as a Treasury analyst like most of us did and just worked my way up. Then I hit a wall. Like I was in that weird gray middle space where I wasn't ready to take the next step. But I was too advanced for the previous step. So I just didn't know what to do. So I moved over to consulting. I actually worked for a vendor and got into technology, learned AI, learned all of the treasury, and it was something that was very transferable for me because I went to consulting after that and worked again with technology and worked with different companies helping them implement technology and best practices. And what I realized is I'm a doer. I don't want to just tell you what to do. I want to actually do it. Like, I would be at home thinking, I wonder if their project ended well. Like, I wonder if what I told them works. So I am now back on the corporate practitioner side. I landed a role at a company called Next Decade lng, again based in Houston, a greenfield company in the construction phase. So my role actually encompasses pretty much all of my jobs because I'm creating a department from the ground up. I'm implementing best practices, I'm implementing technology, I'm leading a department. That's where I am currently. Over to you, Martin.

Thank you. Yeah. When I turned 4 years old and my dad asked me what I wanted to be, I didn't tell him that I was going to be the treasurer. But, no, actually, it went way different. When I went to college and actually did my fourth year internship, I ended up at a very small local auditing firm. And it was a good thing for me to get a little bit of feel of what real working life was like because I had a pretty intense social life and it was time for me to grow up. So I worked there for a number of months and basically my mentor, he was the managing partner of the firm, asked if I wanted to stay. So, yeah, I want to stay. I like to work to have some routine in my life here, so I'll stay. He said, yeah, we have a little consulting arm within the firm that does. Treasury said, yeah, that sounds like fun. I didn't have a clue of what he was talking about, but they needed probably a cheap person to do some work for them. So I became. My first job was a junior treasury consultant and they were actually charging customers for me while I still didn't have a clue of what I was going to do. But anyway, I did that for three years and did learn and understand more about treasury, which was actually coincidental, I think a very good way to get to know the treasury role a little bit because I saw different types of organizations. You continuously work on projects, and even though you're not, in my view, that useful at that age, you definitely get to Learn a lot different companies, nonprofit institutions, systems implementations, processes. And by understanding processes, I think you understand also you get to learn the reason behind it better. I did it for three years, but then I think similar to what they said is Danisha said I was more interested in hey, how would it be if I could operate myself? And instead of I come in, I have to do something and then I leave again. I was fascinated by the money flows and the numbers and got excited about the treasury function. And a friend of mine was in recruitment. It was not Mike at the time, but it was a local friend. He said, hey, I have this job. You're in treasury, right? So yeah, I have this job at a corporate. It's a privately owned company and they produce the Mentos Gandhi. And would you be interested? So yeah, I would be interested. I was young and I wanted to explore some other stuff and it was not too far from where I lived. And so I got there and with totally different world, it was not from visiting different companies, but one company get to know the company better. They had FX Risk Management, which fascinated me and I had that. I had not worked on that before. So it was a completely different experience. Learned a lot. It was a relatively small company. I was basically the right hand of the treasurer. So it was him and me. And so I got to see a lot. So it was not like, hey, you do only cash management now. I could see the broader spectrum of treasury, so to speak. So did that for a number of years. And yep, same friend asked me, hey, there's another job there. And it's a company called Amgen, a US based company. They had their kind of international treasury hub in the Netherlands where I, where I'm from. And yeah, new element to me was okay, this is a public company. I've worked as a consultant, I've privately owned company, now a public company. And I got the opportunity to manage people which I didn't have experience with. So I thought that's, that fits. That's a nice next step. That was actually the one job where I basically after a very. Well, after a year was a great company. They did the things really well. But what I figured out there is I want to be more impactful, I want to be more valuable. And I feel that I'm too far away from where the decisions are taken. So came into contact with another company also in the Netherlands at headquarters. And they had acquired a lot of different businesses. And what I found interesting there is that the treasury function needed to be built. I accepted a role there. And if I look back my career, that's where probably the role that has had the most impact because I started, we had to grow the treasury team. We did that. I was not the treasurer at that time, I was the assistant treasurer. And then the company after all those acquisitions came into financial distress, I got to be part of that kind of financial restructuring process. Worked with workout bankers instead of commercial bankers, which is a different type, I can tell you. And then ultimately I landed at the company I work for today, Darling ingredients, who acquired, let's say the good performing part of that business and got a next chapter in my kind of treasury journey. Building up a new treasury function for this company because it was a US based company with domestic business and they didn't have any international experience and they just doubled in size by acquiring the company that I was working for. Now I have to say, and don't want to offend anyone here, but it's a US based company. So here we go again. I didn't like to be that hub far away and being told what I need to do and that top down approach. But everything turned out differently ultimately. After four years there, I was asked basically to step into the group treasurer role as my boss became the CFO of the company. So that's a little bit the path that I walked.

And each of you has touched on the fact you're accidental treasurers. You've not planned this, you're not thought you're a cashier, you're like thinking actually treasury, what do you think treasurers or the treasury profession should do to maybe not be accidental treasurers? To make it to elevate the profile.

Of treasury, if you like that. One thing we don't do, we as treasurers, we as treasury professionals in general, we don't advertise very well. Our marketing budget is pretty low for some strange reason. Accountants live and breathe. You can get, they're more than ramen noodles, you can get 10 for 8 cents. But from a Treasury perspective, it's actually talking about what we do. I promise you I have family who will ask me, oh, so you're an accountant and I don't care about your month end, I care about quarter end. But there's a difference. So I think that's the problem. We're trying to raise the profile and being more visible, being opportunities to speak on podcasts and being more transparent on LinkedIn and talking about our successes and possibly even our failures. But there's so much more personality. I'll say that in this particular aspect of finance in general, Denisia Yeah.

What I did at my current company, the analysts that I had, they didn't really choose to be treasury analysts. They're, I think, by title, they're financial analysts. So they just thought, oh, I'm just gonna come in here and geek out on spreadsheets, and that's it. Once they realized that they were gonna work with me in the Treasury Department, I realized that there was a knowledge gap. So I started conducting what I call treasury boot camp. And every morning we had just basic treasury things like, what is cash management, what is liquidity, what's a wire. So whenever I did pull them into meetings with banks or meetings with other departments, they could speak from a Treasury perspective, not just from a Vlookup or something in Excel. So I made sure that I, because I'm so knowledgeable and so passionate about treasury, that I paid it forward with my analysts as well.

More time.

Yeah, I echo what you say, I think about it. And obviously, I have a European background and treasury is an English word. But if you go back to, you know what, everybody knows what accounting is. And when you get to college, it's a particular subject you can choose. And with Treasury, I feel that's not the case. So it's really, before you start working life where it's unknown. So what can you do about it? Maybe promote it more as a Treasury profession, with colleges as a regular subject during college. And obviously, I agree with all of you, and I'm probably guilty of it myself, we should promote the treasury group within the company more and more. I think it's an important profession. It has gained, I think, more importance. And what I definitely see here in the US probably even more than in Europe, that Treasury is something that's standalone, recognized and gaining importance.

I'll stay with you to ask this question. As you said, treasury teams are great at getting projects done. But at the same time, I think treasury is guilty of not shouting about the wins, the successes. Jeremy, you talked on that, but how do you do it with your cfo, or how would you suggest also for the audience they should do it?

I'll give you an example about it. And this is where, when Darling acquired Veon, I moved with Veon, and I had to build kind of a Treasury group for the international organization outside of the US and there was. With the local management team, there was a little bit. There was resistance or reluctance. Again, corporate, and we can convince the management team of the international organization about what treasury was going to do. I had to educate them. I had to explain and make it Quantitative and in euro terms, not dollar terms, because they were thinking euro still, what it would mean, what kind of centralizing cash management would mean without. And I have to say that it was a very decentralized organization from a business management perspective. So how can you centralize things? Because that's where we pick up the economies of scale as a treasurer and be valuable for the company. I literally got the question, listen, what are you going to make for us? And that's the first time it's relatively easy to sell yourself because you're well, I'm going to consolidate all this cash and instead of having it at 100 different bank accounts, now I have it in one bank account. I'm going to save you so much interest and I'm going to save so much points on the FX volume that we transact and so forth. But that forced me to really educate people, not only finance people at that point in time and make them part of the world. The CFO generally understands, at least in my experience, what treasury is doing. And yeah, like I said, I think keep them in your world, introduce them also not to yourself. Don't filter out all the information that you have yourself, but introduce them to your team and let your team members also talk to the CFO and give them exposure. Typically, treasury professionals are pretty passionate about treasury and it makes them feel good.

Denisea yeah, one of the things that we did or that I do is I use the little notepad on my desktop and so whenever I do something like daily, weekly, monthly, whatever, I make sure to put it in the notes so that we're not looking at the end of the year trying to figure out like, what did we do? How much money did we get an interest income. And one of the biggest wins that we had for 2024 again, since everything was brand new when I came the bank accounts, the ones that are not covered by any credit agreements, the operational bank accounts were opened by accounting people. So they had no interest. They didn't ZBA like they were just there, they just existed. So we had a one account that was just sitting with $125 million just every day earning zero interest. So I know it's very painful. I'm glad you guys felt it. Everyone, no one else in the company knew what I was talking about. So I opened up a money market account and over for the 2024 year I got 1.6 million in interest income and I explained for to the cfo. I started doing a monthly treasury report and I did the key takeaways like These were our wins. Like we went from a cost center to a profit center. We saved this amount on bank fees, we made this amount on interest income. We diversified this and whatever it was that we did, I put it in a monthly report so that they could see what we're actually working and doing things, not just sitting there being pretty.

No pressure, Jeremy, no pressure. Over to you.

No pressure whatsoever. I echo the sentiments of my colleagues here. The reality is that, yeah, you do have to educate the entire enterprise about what you do. And sometimes it does feel like you are tooting your own horn and it's uncomfortable feeling. But as I've gotten a little longer in the tooth, I recognize you do have to start speaking up and let them know about these particular successes. And I think one thing that I'll say that they did not say because I agree totally, I've done those things as well. But you have to be able to work with your colleagues and let them know, hey, let me help save you in the business perspective. Do you know that when you ask for a letter of credit, this is basically if I charge it back to the cost of it, that goes against your margin. So if you don't ask me for LC or we're able to work off a parent guarantee or something that doesn't cost the money, I'm actually helping you. And so as you start to put your financial literacy inside the operations group, they start to value you more and it's a trickle effect. It starts trickling down. And I would say it's always best in this profession to find a great CFO to partner with because there is nothing worse than having a CFO that has absolutely no respect for what treasury does. Now, I thankfully I've been fortunate to work some great ones, but I know friends who've had the alternative. So that's exactly it.

Some of the audience here, they stepping into management positions. They started coach teams and manage and you guys have managed and coached teams successfully and maybe had some challenges. And you talked there about the Treasury 101 deleted before we were talking about what tips would you give to the audience about how to managed successfully or maybe from mistakes you've made and stuff. If you can tell them, don't worry, it's on camera.

Yeah. What I do with my analysts at any company is I like to start with what drew them to the company or what drew them to the department. There are so many different areas of treasury, so many different wings of the office of the cfo. So do you really want to be in treasury or did you just land into this role? Like once I know what you like, I can help you develop. And if it's not within treasury, that's fine too and you can be valuable somewhere else. But at least just beginning to understand maybe they're very passionate about FX and we may not have FX at the company, we're a domestic company, so this may not be the role for you. But just having that conversation with them and just keeping that line of communication open, I think that's the biggest start and the biggest foundation.

Yes, Martin?

Yeah, I fully agree with that. And especially since we're typically treasury groups are very small teams. So I think you have to stay close to your people and understand what's driving them, what the motivation is and just be open and transparent. And I'll give you an example. I currently have a conversation with one of my team members who, you know, who's interested in commodities and we're a commodity sensitive company. We did some hedging and she wants to know the business better and she speaks up and I think that's great because she's a great asset for my team. But if I don't give her any opportunities or if I don't listen to her, then she probably is going to work for Jeremy or for somebody else. But not for me through Mike, obviously. But you, you lose talent potentially. While she can, in this case, she can still be valuable for the company and the company can benefit from it. It is sometimes challenging, especially for the junior roles and kind of the demands that I think nowadays people have to keep somebody challenged. If you're in a company, in a fast moving company, that's changing a lot, you can throw projects at people and that I think makes it interesting. If it's a job that's every day the same, which I obviously tried to avoid. Yeah, it's a little harder to manage. But I think to Denisha's point, I think you have to listen, you have to. It's almost like a tailor made approach for each individual.

Jeremy?

Yeah, you definitely, it is a tailor made approach. You definitely have to be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team members, what their passions are and play up to them. Because quite frankly, treasury has evolved over the years. And I will say also one thing is, as I've gotten older, now I'm one of the older guys in the room, which is just doesn't seem quite right. But with that said, I do remember myself being at the young stage and you cannot lose touch with the textures and tensions of the time. Once When I went to Aramco, someone asked me, hey, you were at this company for five years, you were at this company for three years. Why were you job hopping? I was like, why was I job hopping? That was pretty darn good. But that's the context is that now it's people. If you. It's instant society. So therefore what you want to do is what Martin says. You want to actually pay attention to your staff. Because from a financial cost, it is, and also from a legacy knowledge aspect of it, it is painful to replace. And there's so many treasury analyst jobs out there because no one knows what it is. So you want to. So you want to make sure you keep good talent and you're able to recycle them. If nothing else, keep them in the building, in other areas and they will always. They'll be your proponent and then they very well may come back.

The world of work has changed radically over the past five years. Pre covered hybrid was just a car. Then suddenly came along and shutters came down. That was it. Everyone closed, everyone working. Then we've come out of it and different companies are handling the return to work. And it's brought this. I know that Martin, you and I've been through this. When I've recruited for him and the team, that was a challenge. Actually. I'll start with you on that as well. Talk us through Covid and the evolution of the company. Obviously, I know it, but these guys.

Yeah. So our company starting with COVID was deemed to be an essential service. We were collecting food waste, so we had to continue to do that. And our company has always been a traditional industry that we're in. But there's always been this work from the office culture mentality and basically also expectation from the top. Obviously with COVID that changed a little bit or that changed a lot. But once kind of doors were open again, our company pretty quickly wanted to go back to be fully working from the office. I wouldn't say that was challenging for the people who were working and were part of that, part of that culture, but for attracting new people, which I had to do. What was it, three years, two. Three years ago. It became a challenge. And so I guess I have created a formal policy and an informal policy and that's accepted within the company. Now, from my personal beliefs, I do think that I don't like the work from home all the time. The fully work from home concept. I think in order to build something as a team and in order to have culture and I learned a little bit during lunch as well. You have to connect with your direct colleagues if you want to get things done. If you want to build something together, I believe you have to do something together. But having said that, I also believe in flexibility and I also believe in if you give your team flexibility, responsibility, you'll get it back. And what that means is that if you work a day or maybe two from home because your husband also works and you have to bring your kid to school and then you avoid a 45 minute commute once or twice per week, if that helps and that makes you happy and that saves you time. Yeah, I believe in that. That can be a good thing. I personally have commuted for 10 years a single commute, an hour and a half. And I never thought about it, that it took so much time, my personal time for me while my kids were growing up. Now I don't have it anymore and I realized this is saving me like two hours a day, just travel time. And that's just one reason, so to speak. But yeah, it's there and it's probably not going away. It's changed a little bit. After Covid, everybody wanted to work from home. Then some companies said everybody be back. And I think there is a middle ground that works.

Denisa?

Yeah, I mean I came from the old school treasury where you walk around sounding like a janitor because you have so many like key folks. So back then we had to be in the office at our desk with our desktop computers. That was the environment that I started with when Covid came around and we realized, and we realized all you need really is RSA token on your phone. And then you had a lot more flexibility and then you come back into the office. The company that I'm working for today, since it's a new company, they're trying to create culture. So we're in the office five days a week, which when I was recruiting for my positions, it was the hard one. No one knew what a Treasury analyst was, so we had to change it to financial analyst. And then we're five days in the office and had to have that conversation during the interviewing process. And I have flexibility because I came in K I, I was five days fully remote before I started here. That's just going to be too much of a mind blown situation for me to be five days in the office. So I need some sort of flexibility from time to time. So I get it. But from our executive management standpoint, it's very much we have to create culture, we have to be in the office, but then you're in the office, in a teams call with someone that's two doors down. So I just feel like we have. The approach may be there, but the flexibility needs to be there as well. I think you can create a culture in a hybrid environment successfully.

Tony, My Covid story is actually a little interesting. As a matter of fact, I was home for spring break still at the time working in Saudi Arabia. And so I came home for spring break on March 3, 2020 and two days before I got ready to fly out, the world stopped and such, in essence, Saudi Arabia. I was part of the COVID casualty, if you will. But when I was in the market looking for jobs and I was talking to Mike, we started understanding about all these remote jobs and so it took a little bit longer and there were a couple of. When things started to clear up, I was fortunate enough to land at Air Lockheed where it was a three days in the office and the commute wasn't that bad anyway. It was like a 15, 20 minute commute. So it didn't bother me whatsoever. But then as other jobs approached and they were like, we're going back, we're going back five days a week. It's like, ew, you can keep that. Because I think studies showed that people value their freedom over their money. And so hey, I'll work from home or I'll work from that. I'll work a short abbreviated hybrid. Currently I do work a hybrid schedule, but there is some flexibility built into that because of life. Life does not stop. And so if for example, I have early phone calls with Dubai and with India, so 4, 30, 5, 30 in the morning sometimes and not done until 11 and now my commute is an hour and so there's like hour one way at that point becomes it doesn't work. So there's planning on that. But yes, you do have to be around other people to actually harvest a team environment.

And we do a salary survey. So go to treasurysalary.combenchmark salary. It's really good. But what to Jeremy's point, it's not about the salary though. And this is one of the things we actually ask people why are they happy or unhappy in their roles? And actually I was just, I've got the results. And the fact is salary is six on the list. Yeah. Versus work life balance, good boss, varied work, friendly team, enjoyable workplace, then salary. And I presented actually to the nact some of the senior treasurers one time and they were like, what should we do to keep our staff? Like guys, it's easy, go and sit down, have a coffee and ask your team, how's your work life balance? Am I being a good boss? Very. To work. And I said, and 80% of the time you won't need to call me. Oh, yeah, I said, yeah. I shouldn't be telling them this. I know that we can do some question and answer and some good answers, apparently from Jeremy. He's promised me. But before we get there, I'm going to ask the panel about technology. It's on everyone's lips, isn't it? How do you guys see treasury changing, evolving? How are you bringing in technology? AI's all that's probably going around the exhibition hall now from you, Jeremy. And then we'll go across that way.

True it is. Once upon a time when I was young analyst, it was the CCM is what it was called the Corporate Cash Management Certification, and now it's the ctp. So what happens is it used to be just strictly cash management and now it's grown. And so as I said earlier, you cannot lose touch with the textures and tensions of the time. And so treasury has grown. It used to be, as Denisia said, you used to sound like Bojangles with all this key fobs. There's an analyst I worked with who had literally a purse full of key fobs and they've been replaced by digital certificates in your mobile phone and so forth. And so you always have to keep your phone with you no matter what. So this is nothing more than that. This is exactly the same thing. So AI is the biggest thing, of course, the AI rooms are packed, whatnot. But you have to embrace technology. And I'll go ahead and say it, I'll be very transparent. Since treasury still doesn't have that same ability or the marketplace, you have to work more with less, you have to do more with less, and you probably get six or seven more people in finance in general before you get one treasury person. So for that you have to become lean, you have to become knowledgeable, what's out there, looking at APIs and the technology you have to have on the IT hat it used to be strictly for it. Now you have to know both how to deal with effectively external components of cash and internally, how things move around and the electronic portions of IT as well. So always stay abreast of that and keep coming to conferences like Expo Advocate and other things across the US and.

I'll just jump in as well. And I keep being asked on podcasts, they're saying, oh, are you seeing it as a big thing, AI? I Said not really. I said what I am seeing is that treasurers who have already been great translators and that's what you have to do, you have to translate that to the tech guys and say this is what we need, these are the outputs, these are the inputs of things. With you, Denisia?

Yes. Having worked in technology, this is my jam.

Yeah.

So I think technology is here to stay. I think it's not the future, it's the present. The main thing with technology is you need to first understand your own treasury landscape to know what it is that you need. Don't just go down to the exhibition floor and listen to all of the sales guys because then you're overwhelmed and don't know what you need for your specific organization. So I think that the implementation of technology is something that we need in Treasury. It will allow us to be able to do more strategic things and less of the mundane day to day type of things. I know a lot of people are scared of AI or scared of technology thinking it'll take their job away, but it'll actually enhance what it is that you're doing and you can be more of a value add in the office versus just a someone that's just pushing paper or doing keystrokes. I think that technology and treasury has to be embraced because it's here no matter what.

I fully agree and I think I was lucky when we were acquired by Darling and basically we had to cut the treasury team into two pieces, so to speak, in my former company that we had to build it from scratch and that allowed actually me to design and develop everything the way we wanted, generally speaking. So that was about selecting our treasury management system, that was about selecting different banks across the globe. And also one of the things that I wanted to do and we actually did was harmonizing kind of processes around treasury and payments across the globe. And again I was lucky to be in the position to start it from scratch because it takes a long time and we've been working on that for the last 10 years and we've adopted automation technology. We even have some robotics in some of our processes. And besides the fact that you have to do it as a Treasury to be efficient and to not have a battery of people working for you with just spreadsheets and with documents and so forth, it's also fun for your people. So your team is going to like to work on projects and the right people want to drive the change. They don't want to do every day the same, they want to make a difference. And I think that's the fun part of doing these type of projects, not only thinking about it more strategically, automate processes, use AI. We don't do a lot of AI at this point in time. But also make your team members valuable in running those projects because AI can still not run those projects and make those changes by itself.

I want to give you as an audience a chance to quiz these guys and do make the opportunity because you don't normally get this chance. But just before we do, we'll start with you, Martin. If you were to give an earlier version of yourself as you were developing, any advice, what would it be that helps the audience out here today? What advice would you give?

So I'll say this. In my experience, a couple of things actually. So one is be practical. We sometimes as treasurers try to overly perfection a solution, so to speak. But be practical. That's one thing. Second thing is be a business partner. Because at the end of the day, as a Treasury Department, you're the service center of the company. You're there to help people and to make things better for the company and not for yourself. I've made the mistake myself thinking that everything that I thought out was the best. But there's people that you have to work with and that have concerns and sometimes even valid concerns. Work with people and you get things done. If you don't work with people or if you push things through, you don't get things done. I think the last thing I wanted to mention also, and this is about people, again, be very diligent in who you select to be in your team. Because yes, you can have IDs, but you cannot execute your IDs without having the right people. So I'll leave it with that.

Yeah. For me, like most of us in Treasury, I am very risk averse. So I would tell myself to be more risky, take more chances, don't just sit in a comfortable role. Go after the job that I may not have. I only know 80% of the job description. The other 20%, oh, what if I can't do this? Just do it, learn it, figure it out. Trust yourself, believe in yourself and take chances and take risks. Bet on yourself younger self.

That kind of goes along with the key takeaways as well, which is in essence you should really be inquisitive. Keep asking questions. As kids we ask questions. Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? And so forth. But somewhere along the line as adults, as you start growing up, it's frowned upon when you ask questions and so keep asking questions. Why? Because Someone else didn't know and now you know the real reason and they're just probably as clueless as you are. So don't be afraid to stand up to do that. The treasury is a, is a people portion of finance. So you have to know, you have to be able to get along people and you have to be political, you have to be a little bit, you can't get involved in the corporate politics, but you should be neutral, you should be Switzerland. And everyone loves Switzerland.

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 partners and find out much more.

Let's get back to the episode questions. Ernie. We know that Ernie's going to ask the question.

Yeah.

So one of the things that I've often found and I never got over it was we seem to hit a plateau, some of us in treasury where we get stuck. So part A and part B. Part A is how are you able to incentivize the mentor, right. To engage you and then what do you look for on your team? Who is, who do you want to pull up with you? Because everybody had that person. So are there any tips you can share and what you look for and how were you able to do it?

Well, I am a party of one, so I'll pull up anybody. But no, I think from a perspective as you identify things in people and like I said, you really have to pay attention to people. You can't hide behind a spreadsheet or electronic platform or whatnot. I think my biggest challenge, I would say, is it's a darn good question, Ernie. But the reality of actually getting involved with everyone in their personal lives and learning, not personal lives, but learning their personal ideas, what they want to do for a profession and help encourage that and foster that. And so at the end of the day, like I said, you become more popular by just ultimately, people don't care how much until they know how much you care. So I think I try to carry that throughout my entire, entire company, every company I've worked for and quite frankly work with. Network.

Yeah, Mike and I were talking about that earlier about hitting a plateau and I think that's very big in the treasury space because the treasury is just so niche that when you have. When you get from like a middle manager to senior manager to executive manager role, there's one every blue moon. So it's very. And everyone is after that same role. So I hit a plateau and fell into that gray space and I couldn't crawl out of the rock. And I went to consulting and I just did a big pivot, which ultimately helped my career to. For me to learn a whole new skill set. But I mean, that, that's really a real thing in Treasury. So I don't know if there's a right thing to do in terms of getting out of it. You just have to be willing to pivot or get a mentor or career coach. Call Mike, I don't know told me.

No, I think most of it has been said. One of my previous bosses, he basically, he didn't ask the question, but hinted to it, like, think what you want early in your career because you know you're gonna get at a point where you're. When you're there. Plateau is how you guys call it here. And if something happens within the company, there's a kind of a round of layoffs or whatsoever, it's hard to get back to the job. So do you really want to go all the way in treasury or do you want to at some point in time and maybe not when you've reached your plateau, take a sidestep and take. Do something else, whether it's in finance or outside of finance.

Any other questions? Yes, please.

Have you seen the talent requirements of treasury change over the years due to the evolution? That's part one of the questions. And the second question is, what's the one characteristic you can find in a treasure to be successful? Yeah, it's evolved. It is becoming more technology based. And so I look for that person who can't understand both sides of it because again, you have to wear so many different hats and you're constantly evolving. So someone who's. It's the intangibles of being able to adjust and you look for that in person because not every day. There's no every day the same thing. It's not. And I definitely appreciate that part of it and hence why I'm still in treasury.

And I'll just add in there as well. I got. I'm increasingly being asked, I want someone with data. I want this. I went, so does everyone. Good luck. Oh, I said, but again, as to Denise's point, it's not about the data, it's about how you use it. How do you Translate it. How do you talk to your tech guys and. But I think you, as treasurers, have always done this anyway. But it's when I'm then coaching clients, they're like, this is what we need this. I said, that's your perfect. We're in an imperfect world. You're not getting that. What are your nice to haves and what are your must haves? And that's quite a different thing.

Yeah. I think it's the soft skills. Right. I think, to Jeremy's point, Treasury is a people type of a role in finance. So when I'm looking at who I'm going to bring on my team, I want to bring someone who's trustworthy, someone who can multitask and wear the hats like the actual work. Or I can teach that it's trainable. If you seem to be trainable and I can train you, that's great. But it's more of the soft skills that I think is the core foundation for a Treasury person to be successful.

Yeah. I would add to that thinking in solutions, not in problems. Have the right attitude. That's the soft part of it. And yes, of course, you want to have somebody who is the Excel wizard or whatever the system is. We all want that. To Mike's point, and what we actually have within our team in the Netherlands in this particular case is because we did so many projects where treasury and it came together, is that we actually have a person now that is semi. It, semi Treasury. So that role is really for the business to approach this person and not either it or treasury, but the person that can cover both sides of it.

So we've got some good takeaways. So, Jeremy, if we go to yours, first of all.

Be inquisitive. Like I said, we touched on that earlier. Ask questions, ask. Even at the high levels, ask, why do we do this? Why are we attached to this? So why do we hold to some of these things that may have been truths back in the day, but things have changed. So always be inquisitive. I said be popular. Be popular and political. You do have to. You have to play both sides of the aisle and quite frankly, understand everyone's constraints. I'll put it that way. So it's not political, but understand the constraints. The business can't give me this report till Tuesday. I really need it by Monday. How do I fix their problem? And if you fix people's problems, then you become an ally and people come to you easier because they know that you're there to help and you're not there to make their life difficult. I put down, I think, be the painter. And so what happens is, I've said this before, that numbers don't lie, but they don't tell the whole truth. And so you have to paint the picture for what you want treasury to look like at your company, and you have to paint the picture of what you're doing, because, quite frankly, I think in a company, people have a tendency to focus only on their little box. But if you're able to put together the whole picture and paint the whole picture and see where they play that part, then it's, aha. Since you helped me earlier with my problem, how can I help you? I know you have a cash forecast and you're depending on my information. How can I help you? Ooh, can you give me feedback on how I'm helping you? That's how you become a great partner. Now, this very last one is near and dear to me. That's part of my personal thing, which is be your own person, because quite frankly, are there any identical twins in here?

No.

No. So you're telling me that you're the only one of you. Right. So you are the beginning and the ending of the phenomenon. Called you be you, because the first part of our careers, we're too busy trying to emulate other people, and they don't have it all together either. And so you can do it. There are principles, but still be able to operate in your own style, your own fashion, your own sense of be who you really are and still get the job done. Stand out while blending in at the same time.

Denisea.

Yeah, I know we've hit on some of these earlier, but one of the main things for me is having a good mentor in every role that I've had. I've consulted with my mentor. I know my first treasury role at CGG Veritas, I had a mentor who I still talk to today for career advice and help, and she's mentored me. I have new mentors. Just as I grow, my mentorship grows as well. So just making sure you have that solid person that could help you and mentor you into what you inspire to be. The other one I have is to be brave and embrace the unknown, which we talked about, just going out, leaping into the unknown and taking on roles that you may think that you're not qualified for. You just never know what they're actually looking for in the position, in terms of rejection, looking at positions that you don't get any doors that are closed. It's not necessarily that you weren't good enough. It just wasn't your job that wasn't for you. There's something that's better aligned for you and you're better aligned for them. And so you just have to look at that in a way of redirection instead of rejection, because that's with us not having that many positions that come across. It's hard to constantly get rejected or get so close and then you are the final two, and then you didn't get it, and that kind of plays on you. But you have to just look at it in a different way and also just invest in yourself and continue your education and learning, whether it's ctp, cfa, mba, whatever it is. But you have to find a way to make yourself more marketable than the person to your left and to your right, because we all have the same skills, essentially. So what makes you stand out versus the other candidates that are in the same position?

Yeah, I think I probably half of your previous. One of your previous question already gave half of the answers. But I think you know what is good, especially in your early years of your career. I would say try something else. Try different things. Find out what you like in terms of job content, in terms of organization, find out what fits you, where you're happy to do your job, so to speak. I think as you come out of school, we all have our own ideologic view of how it's going to be, and sometimes it's just not that way. And so try something else and figure it out. I think in the beginning of your career, you can afford yourself to do that. Don't become a job hopper, though, because I don't think that I would like to see in your first five years, five different jobs. But I think that's important. And don't Try to be 100% perfect is what I wrote there. I see. But I think what's really important, once you are within a company, work on relationships, work within your team, work outside of your team. That's really the key for me to be successful in the beginning. You may not see it that way, but it is about the example that Jeremy gave. I give you something or I solve your problem, now I get something back. That's just how it works. And the longer and the more you do that, the more reliable you become. And you actually don't have to give something anymore. You get it. So I'll leave it with that Mike.

My ones. So build these connections. When you did this, I did our session in Houston the other day. Really good. Jeremy Came along. We had and I gave a challenge to one of the guys in the room there. You've made an effort to come here. It's easy for you to just go out there, get down on your phone. Why don't you introduce yourself to one of the people that you walk out of here and meet, make one connection. The challenge I gave them that evening was to make three connections. He came up to me afterwards, he went, I've got six. I was like, what did he say? He said, yeah, no, I've got six. I was like, great, fantastic. And then he got seven. And he actually, he, that was the benefit to him. He'd actually doubled his network, it seemed in Houston that night. Own your value. We talked a little bit with this in the panel. We've got Emma Haywood coming up on the podcast in a couple of weeks time. She sends herself an email each week with what she achieves and just keeps it. So when the CFO just drops by a desk. What have you guys done this week? Oh, hang on. This is what we've done this week, this quarter, this month. She's got it there to hand track your achievements and pay it forward. Now paying it forward. It's about you putting your hand up. I put my hand up, came all the way here from London to meet you guys and that's what you can do. So volunteer these guys, HTMA and all the text bow guys, put your hand up, get on a panel for next year. Yep. Now put your hands together for this amazing panel.

Cool.

Ran's time. There you go. That's it. And now you go to your next session. Thank you very much.

Go.

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.