John Cloherty argues that trying new things across different treasury roles and regions is how you actually learn the job. He draws on his own experience working in treasury functions at various company sizes to show why diverse exposure beats staying in one lane.
I think just say yes to opportunities, that variety is key, I think in treasury because you can work in one treasury function and it can be very slanted towards debt management, say, or cash management. If you do get opportunities to do different things, you will see and experience different ways of doing the same thing and different, different subjects completely. Throw back to my time in Pittsburgh. I think that's good advice. If there's a chance, why not give it a try? I don't really think you've got anything to lose and I don't think any experience is wasted. I'd say exams are great, but I don't think they're necessarily critical. It's horses for courses. What best suits you and what other experiences have you got that can substitute for that? That might mean it's not as important for you, but again, they're never a bad thing to be able to put on your cv, that's for sure. The act's hugely respected. What I've enjoyed the most, I would say about treasury is a variety I've been exposed to. And I think that's partly because the organizations I've worked for haven't been enormous. They've all been large multinationals, but they weren't so large that each element of treasury was segmented or siloed. So you weren't just going to be a dealer or you weren't just going to be a middle office reconciler. I got to see large parts of the business from the corporate center that spanned all aspects of treasury, which is great. It works in different ways. It's a continent, it's not a country. So they have the things like lockboxes to get or minimize the float of money in the system, which is always a science over there. And I think their approach back in those days, because this of course was pre the 2008 crisis, the US banks were, were very bullish, very aggressive and looking to sort of take over the world. The bank of America's, the cities of the world. It was an interesting time. The guy I went to account there for was again, very different guy at BFL was very traditional, whereas the guy in America was actually a Chilean fighter pilot. And it just brought a completely different approach to work and life in treasury and much more proactive, almost aggressive in terms of taking the function forward. And so you just been exposed to that. You learn a lot by osmosis, if nothing else, so that was great.
