Mike Richards explains how Treasury Career Corner LIVE roundtables work: treasurers gather under Chatham House rules to solve real problems in technology, people, and debt capital raising. Sessions in London and New York drew 24-36 people each, with one treasurer avoiding a costly system decision after the discussion. More cities are coming.
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I'm going to come back to that and explain how all this started. I'll take you back to last year. I was sitting with my business coach, Brian. I'll pop up a quick photo. There you go. He said, Mike, your Treasury Career Corner live events are great, but they're not that good. Hang on, Brian, you're meant to be my business coach. What are you saying? He said, they could be much better. Okay, why don't you do some round tables? Okay, get some treasurers in the room. Get them talking to each other. I was like, okay, that's pretty good. Talk about their challenges. I got asked by actually someone at one of the associations, said, what did the sponsors choose? I said, there were no sponsors. They said, what? I said, no, I just had, as it was, 24 treasurers sharing their challenges and they chose the topics. And you guys will choose the topics, so we'll come back to that as well. You were learning from each other. You came in, what we did was you asked the group, said, come in with your biggest challenge. And actually the sessions we ran were about technology, unsurprisingly, were about people, and they were about debt capital raising. So we went round the groups and each person said, this is my biggest challenge. And then the group decided, they voted for that person's biggest challenge and they, as a group, they then answered it. So it wasn't, it was Chatham House rules. Everyone got in there and everyone said it was amazing value. We did it in London. And then we repeated it in New York recently. We had 36 treasurers in the room and the feedback was incredible. Although one of the stories actually I keep regaling, telling people about was one of the treasurers said, how was it? He said, Mike, that was terrible. Okay. And he said at the same time, it was brilliant. Oh, why? He said, we were about to make a decision on a treasury system, but being in that room made me realize we need to go back a stage, not all the way back to the beginning. But we could have made a mistake, or I could have made a mistake. What I need to do is reassess. I've met all these other treasurers, I'm gonna talk to them a little bit more and actually find out exactly what we should be doing. And then we might still end up with the same system, but it might be different. And you've helped me not make that mistake. So thank you very much. I was like, okay, well, I'm pretty pleased with myself. So next stop, New York. We did it. 36 treasurers in the room around in the round tables. Then we had over 100 in the evening. Incredible energy, amazing conversations. We've had the roundtables before. So that happens. We did it 4 till 6 in London. This time we actually, and actually the other feedback was we want more time together. So we're just extending it a little bit. We did 3 till 6 PM, 3 roundtables over the course of 3 hours in New York. And everyone came out, that was amazing. Thank you very much. I said, oh, okay, great. So we're going to do a similar thing in London and we're going to carry it on for New York as well. So that was fantastic. Do you want to meet over 80 of your Treasury peers in one amazing environment? Well, come to one of our events, Treasury Career Corner Lives. We do them in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dublin, back in London. We're doing Chicago this year as well. Come to one of those and you are gonna get to sit with all of your peers. You then, you come to our round tables, you're more experienced Treasurer, come to one of our round tables, sit with your peer group and actually discuss your challenges face to face in the Chatham House rules environment. So you feel comfortable, safe, and also you get to network as well. We're not just recruiters, essentially we're part of your ecosystem. We support you every stage of your Treasury career, whether you've— you're now in your early stage of your career, 1 year, whether you're 10 years, whether you're 30 years. We do this and support you because we are recruiters but we're recruiters who actually help you in your Treasury career, not just one-dimensional, hello, got any jobs? So when I talk about those empty chairs, and this is for all of you that maybe have missed out, whatever stage in your career, you come to those events, invest in yourselves, you're going to get the value. All we ask for you is to give us your time. So don't think about it. If you're thinking there and watching this today, say, I should go to one of those events. The events link I'll put below. Sign up today, because otherwise something will creep into your diary. Think, actually, no, I'm gonna commit to this. I'm gonna invest in myself. So as I say, we've got events coming up in Texas, Dublin, Amsterdam, London, Chicago, New York. Why not come and join us? Put your name down, get yourself in the room, invest in your own treasury career. Thanks very much.
