Michael Fox explains how treasurers can create value beyond managing cash and debt. He argues they need to understand their company's business drivers, take ownership of their career growth, and recognize the range of roles available to them in the organization.
Each treasury function within that company had a, had a slightly different focus on what it needed to do. And this is certainly one of the things that I would come on to in terms of the tips for people that are thinking, thinking about career and treasury or already in that career and would like to progress. One of the things that is vitally important is really understanding the value drivers of that business and how the treasury function can support the business to realize as much value as possible and how the areas in which it should focus. In most corporate functions and finance functions these days, there's lots of historical issues that keep resurfacing that I think the treasurer has the skill set to start to unpick some of the complexities of these, these problems and sort them out, you know, on the legal side around legal entity structures, on the accounting side, on the tax side. And I think the treasurer is unique in his ability to be able to pull all of those different disciplines together to come up with the right answer and to explain it in terms the CFO can understand. Definitely, definitely take ownership for your treasury career. It certainly isn't. Some people get lucky and they can run their entire career through a single employer. But in most cases I would say you really do need to take ownership for it and plot your way through the evolution to group treasurer if that's ultimately what your target is. It isn't easy to do. You really need to be proactive. You need to make sure that within in the team you're in at the moment, you do ask for exposure to various different things. I've been in corporate treasury for over 20 years now and there are still things that I'm learning. There's so many things that the treasurer can get involved in within the organization and it's just the limit is self imposed really. As I said before, being outward looking is definitely a benefit to being a successful treasurer and getting involved as many different things as you can. There are so many things that you can add value to as a treasurer and ultimately that's what your function is going to be judged on these days.
