Why Networking is the Winning Treasury Formula with Dana Laidhold

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast. This is another catch up with another amazing guest. When I originally spoke to Dana Laidhold, she was the treasurer at Peloton based New York and I spoke to her way back in 2018. That's right, nearly four years ago. It was, it was November 2018. We're recording this in the middle of 2022. She has then since moved on roles, which is great. She talks us through that, talks about what her experiences were like at Peloton. Again, I'll shut up. Let's get on with the show. This month, as you know, is all about women in treasury and as such, I'm delighted to be joined by Dana Laidhold, the treasurer at Peloton Interactive, based in New York. Until recently, Dana was the treasurer at Carlisle, the private equity firm, before making a recent career move to join peloton. Founded in 2012, peloton is a global technology company that is reinventing fitness, if you like, by bringing studio style workouts with their Peloton bike, Peloton Tread and Peloton Digital to the convenience and comfort of your home. As always, I'll be talking to Dana about how her career has developed, how she's built her career, where she is now and where she sees herself and the treasury profession going next. As an experienced treasury finance professional, Dana's worked for both private and public companies. So we'll explore that a little bit about the differences. And also she's been awarded things such as the Treasury Today's highly commended winner of the Woman of the Year award recognition there. And also Dana, I know he's very much involved in the AFP through the association of Finance Professionals, the US treasury association if you like. And I recently on their podcast, so really doing a lot of stuff was there at the Chicago show recently. And in addition to this, if she's not busy enough, she's also on the board of directors for Doorways for Women and Families. So who are an organization that help out with pathways out of domestic violence, homelessness and lots of other things. So where she gets the time, I don't know. But let's go back to the beginning of Dana's career if we could, and then bring us up to date and we'll jump around with some treasury issues and things like that. Dana, you. You started your career many years ago. You qualified, I think you graduated from Penn State, is that right? Or back in the beginning?

I did. I went to Penn State for my undergrad and then Mike got my master's in business administration. From the University of Pittsburgh.

Right, cool.

So then, and then you did you go, did you think, right, that's it, Treasury's there for me, I want to go into it or how did it come about or what do you think?

No, it was sort of an accidental fall into Treasury. I actually when I left business school I worked for US Airways which has now sort of folded into AS American Airlines. I was in the finance department with them and actually part of a management rotation program which was a phenomenal experience, particularly being younger in my rear coming out of business school and wanting to broaden my skill sets. I did six months stints and I was with the purchasing group, the financial planning group, I was with the pension and investments group which was a phenomenal, phenomenal experience. And then also involved with the accounting team before settling into a role as a controller for them and then sort of happenstance ended up falling upon the position at the Carlyle Group. It actually found me, I wasn't really looking for it, but it found me and made the move over to Carlisle and was involved really not with treasury at all, but with our internal co investment programs which are our programs that allow our employees to invest in our funds. Very involved on the bookkeeping side doing tax work, financial statements and also which was more important to me, was involved with a lot of the programs around that. We were implementing an investment accounting system at the time and I was involved with that then launching our first portal for investor reporting, looking at the loan programs we were putting in and how we were structuring, interacting with the employees through my work in that area. Carlow at that time was actually relatively speaking, a pretty small company. It was global, it did have numerous funds but it wasn't to the scale that it certainly is today.

So I'll just take you on that. So how was that when you made a move? And that was an interesting thing for me. US Airways huge, massive to Carlisle and you told me this before we had a chat the other day and you said quite a small group. Was that quite a shift for you?

It was a shift in terms of going from a mature organization where the structure was very well established to moving to an organization where there was development work. There was a lot of departments and functions that were in more of a build mode at that time, which was a shift for me from really running a department and running the budgeting process and looking at, I mean certainly there were implementations when I was at US Airways we were looking at speech recognition for the. Was very new to the market at that time. Use of credit cards and portable wi fi enabled equipment to allow credit cards onto the airplanes was new and fancy at the time, but the structure in and of itself was mature. We're coming into Carlisle. We were really looking at putting in back office systems. We were putting in our investment accounting system. We went through the journey of putting in our erp. So that was a nice shift for me to be able to kind of step backwards in the business and build things up a little more from the beginning.

And you got to know that. And then you said you started in co investments as it were, so looking after the money for the actual employees. How did then treasury come about?

So at the time we really only had. There was no finance function, we had the office of the controller. And it was a very GL focused, accounting focused group. But as the company itself just had grown in size and in scale and in complexity, it had reached an inflection point where they needed to break pieces off and put more concentrated effort around them, treasury being one of them. So our CFO at the time had kind of said, I think we need a treasurer, had noticed some things about the organization and came to me and said, okay, Danny, you're now going to be our treasurer. And my first response was, okay, sounds great. What do I do? What does the treasurer do? And so began the journey where we worked together and really looking across each of the functions and building them from scratch, Starting with cash management, looking across all of our bank accounts, looking across our bank relationships, the services we were employing, the infrastructure we had in place, putting in automated payment technologies and rationalizing that infrastructure, then kind of sidestepping into foreign exchange and looking at how we were trading, how we were tracking our trades, the technology we were using to build efficiency around our trades, the rates we were taking on the trades, how we were thinking strategically about foreign exchange in the organization and what our risks were. We put that in place. We put a term loan in place, a revolver in place. We then went out and sought a public rating. Then the company went public and then we issued debt in the public markets. We issued 10 year bonds and 30 year bonds. And that was a capital structure. And capital markets was a piece of the business and really sort of walking around the patch, building each of the functions. And it was a wonderful and exciting journey.

And when you first you say, you know, they said, here's treasury, off you go. What roadmap did you put together? Or what was your first bullet points? Did you say, right, where's the cash? Or for some of the guys listening in the early stages of their careers, or they're walking in the door and someone saying, right, you're in charge of treasury yourself. How did you come about it? What did you think? Right, this is the.

Yeah, well, I mean, I do think there was a matter of looking at where there was greatest need, where was greatest risk, where was greatest need. And for us, we had numerous bank accounts at the time, we had numerous bank partners. We were all across the globe. So that was, for us, the first piece of greatest need was getting visibility into all the cash, automating that so it was efficient and it wasn't a manual process to collect and see the balances, putting in the right technology to enable that. And then also for us, one of our greatest needs is we had such a high volume of payments. We had outgrown scale of using bank proprietary portals. We have to key in all your payments. So we needed a transition into something more automated. And then also looking. This was all back pre crisis. There were very high returns to be made on holding cash balances. So being able to collect our arms around that in an efficient manner and then be able to invest the cash really generated a return for the business at the time, which was very important. Foreign exchange was another piece of that puzzle. And the volume of trades, looking at our exposures we had, so that we were taking the right risk management approach. But then also looking at the trading, just spot trades that we were doing and building infrastructure around that piece were some of our greatest things. And then we started walking into how we thought about debt and capital structure.

And then you said, as you said, the financial crisis happened, how did that, you know, how were you guys set for that? You know, was it all. Most of the stuff was in place by then or. Because you started as treasurer.

We did. We had a lot of our. A lot of our infrastructure was in place. And I think for us, really the greatest sort of source of time and energy during that period from Treasury's perspective, was around where do we have cash balances, which financial institutions are they in what paper are we holding and which organizations are we holding paper in? And we were very, very fortunate. We didn't take a loss on anything that we had. We weren't, you know, holding Lehman paper or, you know, and. But cutting across that infrastructure very, very quickly. We did have cash in banks that we were concerned with their financial and how to very quickly move a lot of that money and consolidate cash across the platform to try to de risk. And so that was a very, very busy period of time. But fortunately I think we were very close and tight with our relationships. I think we had a pretty strong risk management framework and I think we had our eyes open and we were seeing things as they were evolving, which allowed us to move quickly.

And when the group moved from private to public ownership, when was that? When did that happen?

We went public in May of 2012. And so that was sort of, I would say, another piece of evolution to take. And for me personally, I really like the public company experience. I like the rigor and the discipline that it instills in an organization. I think as a company we were always of course, very focused on doing everything right, having the right infrastructure, thinking about risk, trying to put the right controls in place. But when you are going to be a public company, you're now going to be subject to SOCs. It puts a hammer in place that cuts through. Well, this is how we've always done things or sort of cultural resistance to maybe bureaucracy that certainly does come with internal controls. And so I actually felt that that was a really comfortable place because we could use that rationalization to put in place things in a much stricter way. And you know, I found the internal control structure after that journey was just so tight. And it was always a top of mind item for everybody across the company, not just certain departments or certain issues at, you know, at specific times, you.

Know, it was different obviously the private to public. Was there any effect from external pressures that you suddenly more account to shareholders externally rather than, you know, before, you were just responsible to yourselves and to the management of things?

Well, I don't know if you would necessarily call that different. I think we always held ourselves to a very high standard. But I do think once you have to, I would say it's not the standard that the outside investors are holding you to as much as the articulation of that. And having to you put pen to paper on how you're going to craft and share your story is probably more of where outsiders become important.

What, what do you mean by that sort of just what, explaining what you guys are doing within treasury or within exactly that.

I think there's a lot that you take for granted in your day to day operations and you don't always appreciate the things you're doing right or maybe the things that could be tweaked along the way. And then when I think you have to explain that to an outside audience, even if it's, you know, whether it's investors or just to your own, you know, internal audit department, where you have to explain how your Processes work, explain how your controls are, it makes you think about them in a different way and it does help to make some tweaks and adjustment along the way. And it also helps you to appreciate all the things that you are doing a really great job on.

And you, you and I have talked about part of that journey as being the treasurer. You then became quite heavily involved in the af, the afp. Just for again, some of the European listener, they know the organization a little bit maybe, but you know, it's obviously in the us it's very well known as the association for Treasurers and for, you know, finance professionals across there. But can you just explain a bit more about your involvement with, you know, because you're on the board and you've led that as well.

Sure. And actually I've, unfortunately I'm not on the board any longer. I was on the board, but for me, because I was coming into being a treasurer really without experience. I didn't grow up in a Treasury Department, so I didn't have the benefit of really seeing how Treasury Department functions and all the, you know, and all the nuts and bolts about that. So I kind of came into this cold, which in some ways was great because I didn't bring any baggage with me along the way. But at the same time, I didn't exactly know what I was doing all the time in the beginning. And so building a network of peers was invaluable to me as a resource. And I had a woman who was a consultant that we worked with as we were standing up a lot of our infrastructure, who I was very fortunate was involved in the AFP and told me about it right at the very beginning of my taking over this position. So I started by going to some of the local roundtables and doing some of the virtual roundtables and listening to some of the training programs that were out there on specific topics. And through that I was able to ask a lot of questions, I was able to listen a lot, and I was able to develop a network of peers that I could call and ask things to on a more one, on one basis. And so that benchmarking was really valuable to me and helped me hear things that I could take an issue foreign exchange and talk to 20 or 30 people about what they're doing in their companies and I could pick all the pieces that I thought would be the best practices and best fit for our organization and then implement those. And so it really was almost like an MBA of Treasury.

Yeah, it sounds like a real world version of LinkedIn. When I spoke at the Chicago, the AFP, and I was saying to people, it's a great way using LinkedIn, if you've got a new treasury management system, or as you say, if you've got FX issue, you think you go out to your network, say, guys, who can help me on this, who's got some advice? But you actually got involved with that, with the afp. So it's actually a real world way of doing was.

And different from LinkedIn. You know, I would go to roundtables and actually meet people and I could develop a more personal relationship with them and I could call them and talk to them about specific issues offline. And that personal connection was really important for me. And like I said, it was really invaluable. It was the key to my success. And I would not have been able to do everything that I did in treasury without being able to have those people there. And so for me, as then I got more involved in the afp and then I found that over, you know, a couple of years, I switched from being, you know, going to these roundtables and being the listener and coming with a list of questions that I wanted to ask the group community to. I was a talker and I was giving back and I was sharing my experiences, which was wonderful. And then that grew to. I started speaking on some of the panels and then got to know the leadership over there more. And then ultimately I was called by someone that there were some open board seats and would I submit an application. And for me, that was just the ultimate way to be able to give back to an organization that I had taken so much from was being able to sit on the board. And it was something that I really enjoyed.

That's amazing. And you would. Well, you unfortunately weren't on the panel that we hosted recently because you recently made a career move and everything else. We'll come onto that in a moment. But one of the things that we were talking about, one of the stepping stones for career success, we talked about mentoring and coaching and. And you've had benefit of both. And you know, one of the things, you know, I spoke to Karen Van der Drisha on last week's show and she was very much talking about the benefits it gave her. But we discussed this and you said it was tremendous for you because you've had both. Is that right?

I have. I have been very lucky in my career to have very special people that I've been able to build a personal connection with. And some of that comes in the form of people that have worked on my team that I learned from. Some of that has come in the form of my peer group and people that I can share ideas with at my own level. And a lot of that has come from people that I've reported to who have really taken an interest in me and my personal career development and given me opportunities to grow and succeed. I also was fortunate that I did go through a coaching program. I had a formal coach for about a year, and that to me, was a tremendous conversion because I do find, I think people have numerous points along their career when they can use a coach. Hands down, for me, that point was really when I was shifting from being what I would call sort of the doer to being the leader of what there is to do. And that shift to really being a department head, not just a member of the department. And as you go through that shift, it was very easy for me to have a mission, sit down, run the numbers, come up with a model, push a process through, develop policies or procedures. I could steamroll through things that way. But then you reach a point where you're more senior, and now you have to say, not just what am I going to do, but what should be we working on? How should the department look? What should the next thing we do? Where is that risk? And what should the answer be to how we will solve that? And you start to focus on managing people. So you're not just managing your work, but you're managing people and their career path and what motivates them and what feedback do they need, what training do they need, what coaching do they need from you? And you're also interacting with your peer set differently, and that now you're all trying to steer the ship. And that's a more difficult landscape to work within when you have, you know, a lot of different cooks in the kitchen all trying to steer things. And how do you work with your set of, you know, senior peers? And for me, that was a.

Sorry, go.

No, sorry. For me, that was a really valuable point in my career where I had a coach to help me make that transition.

Yeah, that move.

That.

And again, when I was talking to Karen and talking to a couple of other people as well, and I'm speaking at the Vienna Treasurer's Conference just last week, and we got talking about this and we talked about in the speech, and one of the things that we talked about was the shift from the I and doing, you know, being still being a leader, but, you know, I will do this. I do. And actually then interacting and bringing people on board with that journey and being the we, you know, understanding and coaching others and bringing them along with you, sort of hand holding, rather than just be the leader out there with the flag, but actually being the leader at the back, you know, sort of coaching people.

I agree. And one of the things that I've really learned now through doing numerous large scale projects and implementations is the importance of culture and bringing culture along with you. It's something I definitely didn't appreciate much earlier on in my career. And now as I think about infrastructure and change or technology or systems, I realize it's not just about what it's enabling and what it's going to do for you, but how are you going to bring the rest of the group along and that that's actually more important as a key to success.

And when you're looking at that team ethos and you bring those people on board, you know, so say when you're, you know, we're on a recruitment podcast, at the end of the day, when you're recruiting, what are you looking for in terms of that personality, attitude or is it, you know, paper first and qualifications you must have CTP and things or what? Where's your mind at?

Well, I do think there's a little of everything I don't and I do think it's very role dependent as well. I really love to bring senior analysts into my group. I love to bring people in where I can just look for someone who just has raw smarts, raw talent, very energetic, very enthusiastic and an eagerness to learn and then to work with those people to give them more of the treasury specific information and bring them through the organization. That to me is the most exciting area to hire into. But I do think also as you move up and you need to bring people in at a more senior level, you know, not every person on the team comes in as a, you know, staff or senior person and, you know, moves up the ranks. Sometimes you have to airdrop someone in at a higher level. And as you get to those higher levels, that's when I do think specific treasury experience, specific skill sets, you know, involvement through the afp, you know, knowledge of treasury systems becomes a more important piece of the overall resume because they.

Also have to hit the ground running. And you've got pressures on you as a treasurer and as an organization as well.

Right.

So you've got that, you've got, you know, your involvement with the afp. We talked about mentoring there, you know, a Woman of the Year award as well. How was that recognized?

They must not have had a lot of candidates that year.

I'm sure they did.

I mean I was so honored. It was through the treasury work. Obviously we align very, very closely to our banks. I don't think of our banks as service providers as much as partners and keys to our success as an organization. And I was very fortunate to have a number of very close banking partners that I was working with and one did nominate me for the award. And then I was so humbled to actually have been selected. And it's still I keep my award at my desk and it's something that's very important and near and dear to my heart.

So Dana, also one of the things that we talked about recently was about having and Craig, my colleague, he really talks about having a legacy and giving back and not just being focused as you talked about the I and the we and the team and just focus just on treasury, but it can lead to other things as well. And you've. I think you've done other things and contributed in other areas, is that right?

Yeah. So I was on the board of Doorways for Women and Families, which is an Arlington based organization that creates pathways out of domestic violence and homelessness for women and their families. For me, that was an important inflection in my career was to be able to reach a point where I had reached a level where I could balance work and life a little better. I have two children and getting them to a point where I could make some space for other things that were important to me and really focusing on my community was important. And I got to know doorways through a friend and the amazing work that they were doing around Virginia. And I just felt compelled to have to jump in and help there. And so I do think it's really important for people to try to find their passion that I look for life as sort of a three way stole between your profession, your family and then also your community and how you're participating in the community.

And then more recently you've made quite a big career shift as people might be able to see to peloton. But more than that, as you say, location wise, it's quite a shift for you and you're balancing that. And we talked about this in pre brief call that you know, you've thrown everything up, you know, and then seeing where the pieces fall, I mean, you know, fantastic for everyone but interesting as well. So perhaps explain to the listeners where that is because I think it was, you know, when I came off the initial call it was like, wow, this lady doesn't just feet Up. That's it. Relax. You go for it. So explain a bit more, if you would.

Well, I mean, I do think life is about finding your happiness, and I think that means very different things at very different points for everybody. And, you know, I had a lot of tremendous energy and enthusiasm in all the years that I was in Carlisle, and building that department was just an incredible experience for me and something that just. I had a continuous sense of pride about. But then I had been there for 16 years and that was a really long time to be in one place, and I had reached a point of stability and complacency. And for me, that's not where I find my happiness, that I like that I like the chaos. Someone had said to me. Someone had said to me, it's really important to be able to play in traffic. And those words sort of echo through my head constantly as I think about what I'm doing now. And so I did. I sort of took the puzzle of my life and I threw up, threw it up in the air. And all the pieces have kind of rained down in different spots because I'm now commuting and coming up to New York. So I've had to find a different arrangement in terms of work, life balance and the time I'm spending with my family. I am back to scratch again at a younger organization where we're building out the treasury funct, which is tremendously exciting for me. I am meeting all new people who are just amazing and bright, and I have so much that I can learn from them. I think that sort of shaking it up and changing your circles of who you're interconnecting with is tremendously educational. Different people always bring a different perspective, and that's just been one of the most exciting parts of this change for me is getting a whole new sphere that I'm surrounding myself with of thought, leadership and ideas.

And as you say, this came at you sort of out of the blue, something you knew someone or were connected and. But then Peloton, as a group and as a brand and a company, it's relatively new. You know, some people might see it and might see the adverts, but tell the listeners, it's a stationary bike. So what? You know, I could do this in my living room. You know, what's the big dream with the company?

Well, Peloton is a brand. It sits at the nexus of fitness, technology and media. Through our Bike Tread and Peloton Digital, we're really changing the way people get fit through a comprehensive and socially connected experience. Our Platform makes every workout efficient, addictive, and it's accessible anytime and anywhere. For our content, we have 10,000 live and on demand classes. The classes are taught by a roster of elite instructors who deliver real time motivation curated playlists from all the world's best artists. We're actually headquartered here in New York City, but recently we've expanded internationally and we have showrooms in the UK and in Canada.

But when you walked in again, as you said, blank sheet of paper for treasury. Or was there some treasury there?

Or it was similar to Carlyle where there were treasury functions but they weren't centralized under a single treasurer. So now I'm coming in and carving out those pieces and then growing them.

And where do you see the future for treasury with the group as it grows? Because obviously it's rapid growth, international. It's a fitness business or an Internet business or it's both.

It's both. It's really connected. Fitness is what it is and it really is a technology company focused on the fitness space. And the growth potential is really, you know, we've been growing it over 100% year over year and really even touch just a small portion of the total available market that's out there for this equipment. We're now launching, we've launched in the uk, we've launched in Canada. There'll be other countries that come online over time. So as we look at treasury, how do we think about banking? How do we think about now we have foreign exchange components to the business as the capital structure develops. And how are we thinking about the balance sheet? How do we look at payables, receivables? We're really dissecting in treasury all the different elements of the balance sheet and then building out the more solid infrastructure around them.

And you've obviously been through this journey once before with Carlisle and everything else. You know, not saying made mistakes, but what things this time round, when you're looking at this iteration, if you like, what things are you doing differently or what tools are there available to you now that you're thinking this is so much easier than it was when I started it in at 2010 or, you know, what are you seeing? You know, a question about the future of Treasury.

I think one of the things that's really different about my doing this now versus when I was doing it then is I'm so much more educated on the space now. Back then I really had to learn, develop a view and then implement that view. And, you know, I didn't quite have as much confidence, frankly, because I Didn't want to make mistakes along the way. So every, you know, it took a lot longer to research and learn each piece. Now I do have a lot more experience. I have a lot more education about the technology landscape, what's available. I have lessons learned that I've made along the way. I've seen a lot more from my peer group and what other companies have done. And so I can. I'm much more nimble in being able to jump in and know exactly how I want each function to look. And then it's just executing.

So when, you know, I was talking to, as I say, when I was doing one of the speaking sessions the other day, I suggested to people that they look at goal roles. And what I mean by that is if people wanted to check out the LinkedIn profiles of people in similar roles that perhaps, you know, five, 10 years. So if someone else wants to follow that your career path, they might look at your LinkedIn or they might, you know, and then look at the career choices you made. And they could say, actually, I would make that choice and how long you've remained in roles and how you developed as a person. Person. I mean, just to sort of summarize with you, you know, what would you give us? What if someone wants a career as successful as yours? What advice would you offer or give them? They walk and say, dana, I want to, you know, follow in your footsteps. What would you say?

Well, I do think, I honestly think people, you, you need to let your career happen to you. I think there's a management element to your career career, but also there's, you know, I was very, very fortunate that I was in an organization at the time that they were breaking out treasury, and I was offered that opportunity. I was very fortunate that, you know, a friend knew the CFO here at Peloton and they were having a conversation and she was saying they need a treasurer. And my friend said, well, you need to call Dana Laithold. Those things you can't create, but what you can do is focus on, on being the best possible you in every situation. And I know that probably sounds trite or like a cliche, but I was offered the treasury opportunity at Carlyle because I had done a really good job on the things that I was doing prior. The CFO had confidence in me and knew that I could navigate a nonlinear organization, knew that I was hardworking, and I could put my head down and do what it took to figure things out. You know, demonstrating those qualities about yourself are what make you eligible, make you top of Mind when the opportunity set comes up and you know, I look at, you know, working your network and I've always rolled my eyes when people say that, frankly. And I don't know exactly what that means. But you know, 20 years later into my career, I can see where the people that I've met and people that I've cultivated relationships with and considered friends, I didn't really think of myself as I'm building my network. I just looked at me as having friends. But how those friends are actually then the ones who are sponsoring you and advocating for you along the way. So to take your head up and focus on the people who are around you, that's something that I haven't always appreciated.

I couldn't summarize it better. I think that was a fantastic end to today's show. What I would say or check with Dana, Obviously Dana's on LinkedIn and we spoke about this before LinkedIn the best way you would say yes. So we'll put Dana's details into the show notes, obviously look at Peloton. Really interesting company growing rapidly and everything else. Dana, thanks for your time today. Unless there are any final words, I just think it's a fantastic interview.

Wonderful. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate your spending time with me today. This has been a pleasure.

Thanks very much. Wow. So I hope you enjoyed that.

That was well from a while ago actually. We recorded that episode way back in.

I think October 2018.

So that was talking to lovely day in the LA. Then we're now going to bring you.

Up to date with her.

So Danny, you joined, you joined the group Peloton and bring us up to.

Date with your story if you like.

Because you've made a move. The group was developing. Amazing journey. So talk us through now. Up to now. Back to you.

Sure. Thanks, Mike. Really exciting to be back here talking with you. I went back and re listened and it really is amazing. Where I was at that time was we did the podcast. I had only been in Peloton for two months and it really is amazing to kind of think of all that that's happened over the past few years since that time. Really at that point in time I just started kind of really figured out, you know, what my plan was and where the needs were for treasury and had begun the process of putting functions and systems in place and over about an 18 month period of time after that was really, really focused on infrastructure. At the time I was the only person in treasury at Peloton. We hired a team, we brought in people from around the company and really put together what treasury became and grew to around 40 people. We kind of went through each area and dug in on policies, procedures, processes, really putting in best of breed technology to try to ensure the infrastructure was really highly scalable and then putting the people in place to be able to run the day to day. So at the time we looked at AP, AR cash management, foreign exchange, insurance, consumer financing, merchant processing, capital markets and I can kind of go on and on because the company was so young at the time, each function had sort of seeds that were existing but really needed to be built out in their entirety.

Yes, touch on that because you alluded to, and you and I spoke before, that you'd taken your experiences from Carlisle, you then had your little black book if you like, and you just said about how you accelerated, did the process when you got there to Peloton.

When a bit of people are listening.

Today, do you think, you know, they're in that role before they go to join a Peloton type program? How should they be taking their notes or what were you doing in the background?

I do think having gone through this process once before was tremendously helpful in order to move fast. So when I went through this journey of building out treasury, you know, at Carlisle, there was a lot of research, a lot of education that, that needed to come into play. Every decision we made made needed to really dig in and understand all the pros and cons and what every alternative alternative was. This time I knew the answers to all the questions and it was really what inspired me to want to go to Peloton in the first place, is to be able to redo that journey again with all of my lessons learned along the way. And so would it taken me, you know, around 10 years to, to build out at Carla. We, we put in place in an 18 month period of time at Peloton and it's because we could go right to decision making. We put in a Treasury workstation and obviously did an RFP and looked and we were thoughtful about, but I already knew what features I wanted, what functionality. I knew all the technology players that were in the market and I kind of knew what I wanted. And so the RFP we were able to do in about four weeks because it was more of a validation exercise and in each area was like that. I had worked very closely with Chatham for 15 years and you know, when it came time for us to start to put our plan together for fx, I knew who to call. They came in, they helped us, we could move very quickly through the process. And so, you know, there is something to be said for, you know, that learning and development, development, but then there's also something from, you know, experience and having done things before that really enables you to move quickly. And that was key to success in, in this journey with Peloton.

When you got to Peloton, it was as you said, you. And then you had to build a team. As you built out that team, what was in the back of your mind? Were you thinking, right, which areas to be focused on first or because you'd had that past experience again of this was your second time round, if you like, in some way. Right. I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to focus on this area or how did you sort of build it out?

I spent my first six to eight weeks at the company figuring out my plan. I dug in on where are the greatest needs, where are the greatest risks. Was able to then prioritize what we needed to do first, second, third and fourth. And so then was able to put also in place working on multiple areas at the same time and then being able to partly using the resources that were at Peloton and leveraging some of the people who were there and bringing them into the treasury team, which was wonderful, but then also hiring based on very specific skill sets that each area needed. So brought in someone who was the director of operations, who had a lot of cash management experience, brought in someone to oversee credit and capital markets, who had a lot of experience in her background through two different companies that she had worked for and focused on those areas and then filling in the teams underneath them.

Then you moved on in a we. This is great to catch up. You've. You went through that journey with the group and then it was time for a change or bring us up to date sort of thing as we went through that. You're in your own words, if you like, rather meet quiz you all the time.

Sure. So, like I said, we put the foundation in place, which I think is critically important. Your processes, procedures, SOCs, controls, all enable the business to work really smoothly and really efficiently. And then that frees up capacity and time to be able to focus on really highly strategic areas. So things like, you know, at Peloton, we took the company public. The treasury team was involved in several acquisitions and looking at the acquisitions, but then also the integrations. We issued a convertible note and additional equity and really being able to think very crisply around liquidity and capacity and the markets in places that we could add value because we had the infrastructure shored up and really running smoothly. Obviously, there's continuous optimization. Well, I don't think any. I would be curious if any treasurer out there thinks that their department is fully optimized and perfect. I think we're all work in progress all the time. So that was a really great place to get to. And then, as you know, Mike, I'm currently now at Nasdaq and sort of made another shift in my career journey, which I think is an interesting story as people think about their network. The CEO of Nasdaq had. Was the CFO at Carlisle for several years, and I had the pleasure of working directly for her on several really intense projects. And we had really gotten to know each other professionally, but then also personally. And so had stayed in very close touch for, you know, 10 or so years after she had left Carlisle. And so when the opportunity came up at Nasdaq that they were looking for a treasurer, the opportunity to come back and work with her again was just so wonderful for me. And so was able to make this shift and now pretty much at the same place in my journey at Nasdaq as I was when we last talked and where I was at Peloton, I'm, you know, I've only been here about four months and just kind of in the beginning phases.

Yeah, it's like a repeat history is repeating itself in a good way.

Yes. Although this is a very different journey too, because at Peloton, everything was very building focused. And NASDAQ's a much more mature organization, has really great systems, controls, processes in place. I think so much of the technology, I think, is, you know, aspirational from a Treasury standpoint, having come, you know, from organizations where we had to put in the technology from scratch. And so this is a different place in terms of really thinking about optimizing, enhancing. And also, you know, as businesses are constantly changing, platforms have to be constantly changing. And so taking it through that evolution.

And with yourself and that new. So if you like, in one back pocket, you've got the karma experience and you've got pellets on on the other side. And now, as you say, you're coming to a more mature organization, different kind of environment, you know, going to get into anything that's confidential, that's not the intention, but it's more. How are you then approaching it? Maybe differently. Are you then going out to the business differently or how are you approaching it now? You sort of sat back and as you said, your boss said right in the, you know, get stuck in, you know, how are you approaching it, if you like.

Yeah. So I do think where, you know, in the past I've had to be much more involved with day to day operation because things were constantly being built and in here we have so many other structures in place and such a tremendous, wonderful team that I've been so honored to be able to work with since coming here. And so I really had to think about myself and my leadership style differently in delegating and the team, you know, really taking ownership of all of the areas that they're focused on. And that allows me to focus more on capital markets and capital structure and overall liquidity management. You know, NASDAQ's an investment grade company. It's rated it issues frequently and the capital markets. And so that's been kind of a shift for me to be able to focus more on those areas.

Danny, you've been very kind to sort of come back on the show, so I'm not going to take up too much more of your time. But as we did before, we're going to put in your updated LinkedIn profile, as it were in the show notes. But again, you and I spoke before. We've evolved the show a little bit, moved on. I'm going to let you have the closing words you had amazing advice for for everyone earlier on listen to but now bring us up today if you like, what words would you what final say would you have and give to those treasury folks listening today?

My favorite quote recently is a Glennon Doyle quote that says we, she says we can do hard things. And I when I heard that, it just meant so much to me and it really set a spark. I actually had stickers made that say we can do hard things. And I've stuck them on my children's computers and on my computer and I have them around my eyes office. And I found that to be so inspirational because at first it said a lot to me in terms of like going through hard things and kind of said you can do it kind of attitude. But it also on the flip side, I find it inspires me to try to do hard things and to seek out hard things and to always be living on a path of continuous learning and continuous development so we can do hard things. And you know, I hope everyone can can find a little inspiration in that.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from it's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there, you could even leave a quick review. Review and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And as you can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce every week. It'd be amazing. Just take, say, 20 seconds. Leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait to see you soon.

Sam.