How to Become a Strategic Treasurer with Stephanie O’Leary

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Featuring

Mike Richards

CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company

About this episode

Getting to the top of your field isn’t just about a bit of elbow grease. You need a good strategy. A strategy can help you harness your strongest capabilities and channel them into achieving both long and short-term treasury career goals.

Stephanie O’Leary, the former Vice President of Treasury & Risk Management at Indigo Ag., joins this episode of the Treasury Career Corner to share snippets from her successful treasury journey. She also delves into the strategic nature of treasury and why it’s important to embrace that wholly as you build your career.

Stephanie is a trusted advisor to senior leaders and has been successful at providing vision and leadership for high-performance finance organisations. She combines over 25 years of in-depth technical expertise across the financial services industry with the recognised ability to think strategically, drive results, and reduce risks.

Most recently, Stephanie was the first Treasurer for a unicorn “ag-tech” start-up, Indigo Ag, where she built the global Treasury and Risk Management infrastructure and secured a first-in-market IP insurance-backed credit facility in excess of $100M. Prior to Indigo, Stephanie spent 13 years at Wellington

Management in the finance function, with promotions to Managing Director & Treasurer. She led their debt raising and capital structuring efforts, secured and maintained their S&P rating, developed and implemented a corporate investment portfolio, and oversaw insurance risk management.

Her background also includes roles as a divisional CFO for AIG, a management consultant in the financial institutions group at A.T. Kearney, and a bank examiner for the FDIC.

Stephanie holds an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in English cum laude from the College of the Holy Cross.

On the podcast Stephanie O’Leary and I discussed…

  • How Stephanie discovered the world of finance and treasury
  • What Stephanie found appealing about treasury
  • Stephanie’s treasury ethos
  • Why treasury is more strategic than other business functions
  • Why execution and delivery are important in a treasury career
  • Stephanie’s advice to aspiring treasurers

You can connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn.

Are you interested in pursuing a career within Treasury?

Whether you’ve recently graduated, or you want to search for new job opportunities to help develop your treasury career, The Treasury Recruitment Company can help you in your search for the perfect job. Find out more here. Or, send us your CV and let us help you in your next career move!

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🎧 Earn CTP & FPAC Credits by Listening to the Podcast

Whether you’re at the gym, on your commute, or walking the dog – you can now make your podcast time count toward your professional development.

We’re thrilled to share that Treasury Career Corner podcast episodes now qualify for CTP and FPAC recertification credits through the AFP’s Independent Study category.

How It Works:

  • Each episode comes with a short multiple-choice quiz
  • Score 80% or higher and you’ll receive your credit confirmation
  • You track and submit your credits to AFP directly – nice and simple

➡️ The longer the episode, the more credits you can earn:

  • 30-minute episode = 0.6 credits
  • 45-minute episode = 0.9 credits
  • 60-minute episode = 1.2 credits

No filler. No fluff. Just real conversations with top treasury leaders on strategy, leadership, risk, tech, and team building - everything AFP expects at an intermediate to advanced level.

🧠 Quick Facts:

  • 📝 Quizzes are 8–10 multiple choice questions
  • 🎯 You need to get at least 80% to pass
  • 📨 We’ll send confirmation - you log the credit with AFP
  • 💼 You can include this as part of your recertification record