How AFP and Its New CEO Pat Culkin Are Equipping Treasury Professionals for the Future

Pat Culkin, Executive Vice President and incoming President and CEO of the Association for Finance Professionals (AFP): There was a point in time where professional development was a way to accelerate your career success, and I don’t believe that to be the case anymore. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, that’s a baseline requirement today. I don’t know how you don’t fall behind if you’re not doing that. The talk about upskilling and professional development and growth, I think all of that is true.

Pat Culkin: But I think it’s accelerated to the point where this is baseline requirement today. If anybody that is listening to us talk over time, if they think about their own career paths, it is that Jack Welsh quote that I love. If the rate of change in the outside exceed this, the rate of change in the inside, the end is near.

Pat Culkin: And I feel like that is where people need to be thinking about their career trajectories and how they’re going to remain successful. It’s a new world as far as I’m concerned.

Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: Welcome to this week’s Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I’ll talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next, let’s get on with the show.

Mike Richards: In this week’s show, I’m joined by Pat Kin, the current executive Vice President of the Association for Finance Professionals, and soon to be President and CEO. Replacing the lovely Jim Cates. Pat will take over from Jim, who retires as the president and CEO on June 30th after more than 25 years of amazing service.

Mike Richards: Jim was on the podcast previously a couple of times, great guy and everything else, but Pat is taking over. So big shoes to fill there. Pat. No pressure or anything, but as executive vice president, pat leads AFP’s global strategy and partner development for international markets at the moment with o over 20 years experience at a FP.

Mike Richards: He oversees the membership data analytics, technology, business development, uh, marketing events, HR folks only. Got a little, a couple of things to do there as well, but obviously we had a, a chat earlier on in the year and gotta say a big thank you to Pat. As we begin the show, it was Pat’s suggestion that maybe the podcast counts for a FP credits CTP credits, which it does.

Mike Richards: So thank you for that, sir. It’s been a journey we’ve got there, but I want to explore your career journey, if you would, or re-explore it. Take us back. How did you first start in, well, how did you encounter finance then Treasury, a FP, over to you.

Pat Culkin: Sure. Well, first off, I wanna thank you for having me. Thank you.

Pat Culkin: It’s a pleasure to be here, and I’m excited for our conversation today. My journey with a FP is a bit of an interesting one. Way back when, earlier in my career, I actually started off in more of a recruiting role and I was working for an external recruiting firm. And at the time, that was right around the timeframe where Jim Cates came on board to a FP.

Pat Culkin: So at the time there was shift in strategy for the organization. There was a bit of turnover. They had some new positions that they were adding. Long story short, a FP became a client of mine. So I was placing people at a FP before I was an a staff member at a FP. And over time, what I realized is that the, you start to identify the profile, you and your business, I’m sure you understand this too.

Pat Culkin: You understand the profile of person that really fits within an organization, the organizational culture. Well, and the more I got into it, the more I realized that a FP sounded like the type of place that I wanted to be. That really is what drew me into the organization. Fast forward a little bit, I ended up working for the organization.

Pat Culkin: I came in in an HR function. My primary responsibilities were again, on that recruiting side. But what happened over the years was it turned into, I started to realize, I. I always have had this curiosity. I’m the type of person that tends to, I tend to get bored easily. I like to keep learning new things.

Pat Culkin: Like I’ve always had this push for, what else can I do? So come in, you learn a function. You tend to excel at a function, and then you want to figure out what’s next, like, what else can I do? And a FP has been an, it was an outstanding place for me to help get those opportunities. I started to. Dive into different parts of the organization every time I raised my hand and asked if I could maybe help or be part of something or be a contributor somewhere along the way that I always had the green light there.

Pat Culkin: And what it did was I. It sparked a, a passion of mine that I probably didn’t know that I had when I started with the organization. I’m just, I, I have this passion towards, I realized what was rewarding to me. Yeah. What I get the most satisfaction out of is being able to have a positive impact in some way on others.

Pat Culkin: Like I find it incredibly rewarding if something that I had done or had been part of had an impact on. Someone you can look across and say. I played, even if it was the tiniest little fraction of a percentage of the Im of the impact on someone’s success, it was a charge for me. And when you start thinking about organizations like a FP Professional Societies, that’s what we do.

Pat Culkin: Like, that’s our mission as an organization. And it just. Clicked and I, to this day, I still get that charge.

Mike Richards: And when you first started Pat, we, I mean, we zoomed through it a FP, you and I understand it. We’ve got UK associations, we’ve got international associations. Yep. When you started at the organization, association of Financial Professionals, what was it then, and what is it now?

Mike Richards: Maybe just give us a snapshot of that just for. Maybe some of the UK listeners or we hear of it. We know of it. Oh, that’s their association. But you are wider than that, and I know that you also now do fp and a as well, so it’s a wider remit. So can you explain that for the listeners? So over the span of my time with a FP?

Mike Richards: Well just, or the snapshot of what it was then and what it is now sort of thing, and how it’s changed.

Pat Culkin: So I’ll tell you this. When my offer letter, my first offer letter from a FP, it was on Treasury Management Association letterhead, right? It was back when we were TMA. AFP’s official first day as a FP was my first day of employment at a FP.

Pat Culkin: When, way back when, in the beginning, like from the, when I started to where we are now, I mean it was a treasury focused organization. I. Over the period of the 20 some odd years that I’ve been with the organization, we’ve started to really focus much more on, on really our mission. I mean, our mission as an organization is to serve the finance professional, and that’s broader than treasury.

Pat Culkin: So we started to drive further into the fp and a space. We develop the FPAC certification that we offer. Then it started to become a little bit more. We started to really focus on how global of an organization we could be and how more, how we could serve our mission more effectively in areas outside of the United States, outside of that North American market.

Pat Culkin: And that’s turned us into over the course of time, we’re international organization. We have presence in the Asia Pacific region, presence in the ME region. We have global partners across the world that such as yourself, Mike, that we work with that. It gives us the ability to be able to kind of broaden the broader ecosystem of community, of information, of content, of services that we can provide to help people, again, go back to that mission, to serve their success, to help them to be successful and how they grow as individuals and as professionals within treasury and finance.

Pat Culkin: So it’s been a wild ride to see what a FP was. To where we are today, which only makes me more excited about where we’re going to be.

Mike Richards: And going again, seeing that evolution, how have you seen the priorities and challenges evolve? Might touch on COVID, but the fact is that that aside more their challenges of treasury professionals and finance professionals more generally.

Mike Richards: How has it changed, would you say, or how, from your perspective, you, the great thing is you’ve seen it, I’ve seen it 25 years, similarly, and the treasurers, those recruiting 25 years ago, we were just talking before the show and the treasurers I recruit now, there’s a lot of different challenges, but also they are different people.

Mike Richards: What about from your side?

Pat Culkin: When I think about what. Treasury looked like, and this is all through my lens, but what treasury looked like back in the day versus kind of where it is now and where it’s going. Treasury’s been, we see this heavy drift and, and I know we, we chatted a little bit about this before this show towards like implement how technology and ai, which is the buzzword, we keep talking about it over and over again, but it’s relevance to that and how it’s accelerated.

Pat Culkin: What Treasury can be doing, how treasury can create efficiencies and effectiveness in order in the processes that they have to be able to work through in order to be more strategic and really be that business partner. We see treasury right now being much more of a, how do I say this effectively at one point in time, my perspective with that was that treasury was a little bit more of a siloed part of the finance organization.

Pat Culkin: And I think that what we’ve seen over the last 20, 25 years is that treasury has become a much more integrated part of the overall finance organization as well as a more integrated part of the broader business organizations need. Strategic treasury is critical to the success of an organization, like especially in times of crisis when you’re issu coming into time, periods of time where.

Pat Culkin: There may be some economic headwinds that we’re facing. Understanding, like effective, even the basics of effective cash management is critical to an organization and organization success. I think that what we’re, what we’ve seen is this realization of from businesses and business leaders around the world that treasury is a critical part of their organizational performance and can be a massive contributor to the organizational strategy moving forward, which I’m not sure was necessarily as.

Pat Culkin: Accepted or as prevalent as it was as 20 years ago versus where we are today.

Mike Richards: And I agree. And that one of the things I’ve said, I think it was also related to salary. Sure. Not treasurers if you like. They didn’t mind treasury becoming this specialist area and look at us, but by doing that, they allowed themselves to be put into a corner office and Yeah.

Mike Richards: Well the treasurer will look after your cash, give it to them, they’ll look after the cash, and then they’re like, hang on. Now I don’t just wanna look after the cash. I can be part of the business. And I’ve seen treasury battle its way back out. And now it’s certainly in the past four, five to five to 10 years, five years in particular.

Mike Richards: It’s really part of the business. And I’ve talked on a few podcasts recently and are saying, yeah, it’s a real part of the business and the difference you can make. And it’s back, back to where it was or where it should be if you like.

Pat Culkin: So I suspect that you hear about this, you probably see these trends also when you talk to clients about what they’re requiring of treasury, like the people that they’re recruiting, what are the requirements or what do they prefer to see in those roles?

Pat Culkin: And I suspect it’s a very different role definition than what it was as you’re, when you kinda working through a, a job spec with a client, like what the definition of that role is very different today than what it was. Even 10 years ago, I suspect

Mike Richards: it’s not just that. It’s, again, I, we were talked, I, I recently spoke in Texas just last week and I said, look, you guys have a wishlist.

Mike Richards: And they’re like, oh no. I said, no. I’m telling you it’s a wishlist. It’s a like to have. I said, we, I would spend a lot of time working with you. What’s your must have and like to have? Yes, we all want to have people that have loads of really good data and data skills and like, yeah. I said, have you guys got them?

Mike Richards: And they’re like, yeah, maybe not. So I said, no, I know you wanna hire them. Have you, do you know anyone that’s training them? Do you know anyone that’s training these skills? Yeah, these guys are coming up. But you can’t have someone that’s got, you see the jokey ads, don’t you? Sometimes we want someone that’s got five years AI experience.

Mike Richards: Well, they don’t. ’cause it wasn’t around five years ago. Or they do. They’re probably the ones that invented ai. Yeah, no. It’s like, no, we’re not having that.

Pat Culkin: But I think that some of that is based on the fact that sometimes organizations don’t know what they don’t know. Yeah. And if you don’t know what you don’t know, you shoot for the moon.

Pat Culkin: And think that some of those wishlists, I actually think that a lot of those wishlists are very relevant to where, what we should be looking for and what we should be focusing on. And I think that really boils down to that education of, we will talk specifically about treasury for a second, but that development of the treasury profession and the future of the treasury professionals.

Pat Culkin: Like how do we get those? Potential candidates for future treasury roles, how do we prepare them for what it is that’s coming down the pipe? Because for those of us that have been in the world, in the, in their career paths for 20, 30 years, we’re still learning too. I mean, all of this like, like when you go think about technology and data and AI and you know what data is available and how you can mine that data for information to help develop your strategies and your forecasts.

Pat Culkin: Until we can see and kind of see, touch, and feel what that looks like and what it can do. It’s somewhat hard to articulate and I think that we’re seeing some of that with organizations and what they’re looking for. They don’t quite know exactly how to define it.

Mike Richards: You were saying just before that you want to invite people, and I’m very happy to do that.

Mike Richards: You wanna invite people that have started to get a handle on this to sort of engage with you guys so you can find out the best use. Isn’t that right?

Pat Culkin: I’d love to. Yeah. I think that when you think about technology implement AI in particular, yeah. It’s a topic that we’re all talking about and we don’t need to go into, we don’t need to do a deep dive into ai.

Pat Culkin: I think that there’s, it’s very clear that it is a going to be a prevalent part of our future and that we need to. Figure out how to effectively utilize it in a way that can be strategically beneficial for the profession, which means that individuals are gonna have to learn how to, how they can apply it into their roles.

Pat Culkin: For us, a lot of our, our members, a lot of our customers, they really look to others to learn about how they’ve done it in the past. Effective case studies, like organizations that are out there that have effectively applied. Artificial intelligence to drive effectiveness and efficiency, to be able to free up staff time, to be able to be more strategic and really be able to drive growth for their organizations.

Pat Culkin: For those of your listeners out there that have, that can talk about what they’ve done, I’d invite them to reach out to me, connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m all over the a FP website to be able to find my email address. Um, I’d love to hear from you because I think that. Stories that we can garner from the broader community will help the rest of the community.

Pat Culkin: I think that helps kind of bridge that gap for the people that are out there. And I am one of them. I mean, I’m, we’re all one of them. At some point, we don’t know what we don’t know. Help us understand what that might be. Show us what you’ve done, and we can use that as a way to help educate the broader community.

Mike Richards: That’s a lot of what we do. We do the, I’m speaking at a FP in Boston later this year, and it’s that collaboration, it’s, as you say, I’ve seen them before where people put forward their sessions and they, it’s a very narrow slice and things like that. It’s gotta be a value to the rest of the community and that’s where collaborative learning and everything else and, and.

Mike Richards: Very nicely into, Jim, I know was very passionate about the why being the success of your members and them doing well. What’s your why as you sort of take over, by the time this comes out, you’ll probably be in the number one seat by the time, what’s your why as the incoming CEO? My personal why? But you can be both.

Mike Richards: Your personal why and your why for the organization isn’t that for the organization?

Pat Culkin: So Jim and I have worked together very closely. Yeah. For many years. He’s obviously, he’s been the CEO of a FP my entire time at the organization. He’s been my, my direct supervisor. I’ve reported to him for many years. My coach, he’s my mentor.

Pat Culkin: Um, yeah, Jim Juvenile align in a lot of ways, I think for organizationally. Why a FP success exists and why we, we like our beacon is really around helping to PE people to be successful. Like if you ask me why does a FP exist? Like Jim, I would say we exist for the success of the corporate finance professional worldwide.

Pat Culkin: That’s boilerplate. Why? Yeah, and I think that it’s just as powerful now as it was the first day we kind of came up with it as we were talking about it as an organization. From a personal standpoint, like that reward I get from having an impact, my personal why revolves around that. Like I want to have a positive impact on a FP and AFP’s ability to be able to serve its organizational.

Pat Culkin: Why for the broader market, like if we can, if I can help the organization and help the organization to serve to. Drive more success for the broader corporate finance treasury market. I, I would find that incredibly rewarding. And it, it’s just, it’s interesting you don’t, some of those things you don’t kinda what?

Pat Culkin: You don’t know what you don’t know. 20 years ago, I didn’t know that was the thing that was gonna be such a driver for me. And it continues to be.

Mike Richards: And you guys, and we partnered with you on the certification CTP ’cause we’re pro-education and that’s why we’ve pro partnered with you guys. We we’re pro-education wherever it is.

Mike Richards: And that’s a, that was a big discussion point that Jim and I talked about, but also you’ve got other. Things that are coming along. Education, networking will come onto personal brand and things a little bit more, but where do you see a FP and the adding more value to its members, if you like, as we go forward?

Mike Richards: And it was funny, I was listening to a podcast just last night and the lady said, oh, predicting in recruitment where you’re being five years. And she said, I can’t, she actually said it to someone I can’t, but do you know where you’re gonna be in five years? I was like, yeah, it was a good point. It was like she could barely know where she.

Mike Richards: What it’s gonna look like in a year. And I thought, oh yeah. And I don’t wanna say the three to five years with yourself, but Yeah, please don’t gen Wendy. What’s the direction of travel?

Pat Culkin: So I think for a FP, we’ve got our core business. Yeah, we can, between the certifications, our events, our membership, our training, I really think that the value that, especially kind of in the day and age of where we are and you know, the, what we’re all dealing with, like around the world, we’re all dealing with very.

Pat Culkin: Similar flavors of challenges, let’s say, right? Things are moving quickly. How do you stay relevant? How do you make sure you’re not falling behind? I think that a lot of the value that a FP, how we can provide that value, you can say it a little differently, how we can provide that value to that broader market.

Pat Culkin: I actually think communities a really big part of it. I think that. Have you ever heard the expression, I’m sure you have the expression, it takes a village raising children, it takes a village. I actually think that applies very much to the profession. I think that the value that we can drive is largely based on how we can learn from each other.

Pat Culkin: And if you think about an organization like a FP, A professional society. We have a set of expertise in house, right? We’ve got a team of subject matter experts. We have people that come from the profession that have been corporate practitioners in the past, but we leverage members. We leverage volunteers.

Pat Culkin: We leverage partners, we leverage organizations. People like you, Mike, like we talk with you about. What are you seeing? How are you seeing these challenges evolve? Our ability to be able to take all that information in. Is leveraging the community to be able to then dissipate some, to distribute some of that information back out in a manner that can be applicable across a broad swath of the market.

Pat Culkin: Now, I think that for a FP, as we continue to build community, we like things like our member meetups that we’re doing. We do virtual meetups and obviously this in-person events. It’s a big part of it. Yeah. A FP collaborate, which is a. Online platform in order to be able to communicate with other people within, within the broader A FP community.

Pat Culkin: We’re doing our member meetups round table sessions. It gives individuals the ability to be able to learn not only directly from AFP and AFP’s team, but also from others in the broader marketplace. I see that as being a huge value for us and a significant contributor to how we can drive towards that mission.

Pat Culkin: Moving forward. It also helps us all to keep up. Kind of going back to that same theme, right? We’re all continuously learning. I am. You are. Your listeners are. We all have to be in order to keep up with the, with the paid world.

Mike Richards: Well, yeah, and this is we, and going back, actually, it’s an interesting one. We come back to the global nature of it.

Mike Richards: So when I first started in treasury recruitment. A FP was a very U US-centric organization. It was, and now it’s much more global. And people have asked me, actually, I was just asked a couple of days ago why I was a treasury recruiter. I said, look, I didn’t know what treasury was. Met all these treasury guys, they often were the first of the bar, the last to leave it very relationship focused.

Mike Richards: I really liked them. I was like, and I just thought, yeah, I found my people. I love this. But joking aside, I also realized quite quickly that I was doing it, started doing it in the uk and then I was like, oh, actually I can do this. Across Europe. Oh, hang on. And then off I went to Singapore taking my wife and kids and it was great.

Mike Richards: And it took me around the world and now it takes us across the US and it’s got that global nature. So as you’ve grown your presence as an organization, is that where you plan that to continue that momentum? Or where do you see it serving its members or what’s the growth going from there?

Pat Culkin: Ab, uh, absolutely.

Pat Culkin: There was a point in time way back when where we were a very US centric organization and we had this belief that, an inaccurate belief to be clear, like, but we had this belief that really our product and service mix was really a product and service mix that would be much more geared towards the US market and.

Pat Culkin: I’m thrilled that we were wrong. I’m thrilled about that because what it’s turned into is that we see massive, we were seeing a significant percentage of our overall growth coming from outside of the United States, whether it be the, the Asia Pacific market, middle and African markets we’re seeing are, we’re seeing significant growth in the European markets.

Pat Culkin: I think that, and particularly with CTP, like this window for our, his current window for our CTP exam is the highest registration number that we’ve ever had, and a lot of that is coming from outside the US and it’s not like a concentration of, we’re seeing this huge growth in the MIA market, but little bits and pieces here and there elsewhere, it’s coming from all over.

Pat Culkin: And I think that when we kind of bake it back, boil it back down to a FP and. Mission, the way I look at things when approached about a different or another market, or should we be looking at another part of the world or a different geography? There’s really only two questions. Like the first two questions I ask are, one, can we effectively serve our, is there a market to serve our mission there?

Pat Culkin: Right? If the answer is yes, that quickly leads to the next question of how can we do so effectively in obvi, and of course, in some level of financially responsible manner over a longer period of time, but how do we do it effectively in that market? And it’s been interesting because just keeping it simple, like I, I’m a fan of simplicity, like keeping that simple approach of should we go here or should we look into what we can, what we might be able to provide here.

Pat Culkin: The question becomes, is there a market there that we can serve our mission? Because our mission is to be the global organization and serve helps drive the success of corporate treasury and finance. And then how do we do it? And those two questions have, looking at that way, has really kind of opened up a much broader world for us.

Pat Culkin: And I think it’s been a part of how it’s led to the organizational growth. I mean, or a FP as an organization is looking at. We’re not looking at the constraints of where the US borders are. We’re looking at the constraints of where can we serve our mission? And that is a very big, it’s an enlightening way to look at things.

Mike Richards: And also, do you find then the requirements that. The same. I imagine they’re different from your non-US based members, or how does it differ sort of thing. I know certainly for me, when I’ve talked to people, they say, oh, what should I study? And in fact, a guy in the US the other day was saying, should I study C-T-P-C-F-A?

Mike Richards: The FRM? I was like, well, what do you want? I. Later where, what are the stepping stones? And I was just talking him through that and I said, if you wanna be in treasury in this period, do this. And we’re giving him some advice. But that was the thing, if you wanna be in treasury, do the treasury qualification, but more not just the qualifications, but are there different ASK requirements from those guys?

Mike Richards: Or what are the thoughts from those you you’ve seen? In terms of

Pat Culkin: our certification,

Mike Richards: like the CTP? No, just the certification, but more the membership is the, what are you hearing from other members or other, because I know that you’ve done a lot of stuff in the Middle East and Egypt and various other bits.

Pat Culkin: It, that’s really an interesting question because, and we’re still learning to some degree. Yeah. What. If we go into a different market, so let’s use the Middle East as an example. Yeah. Like as we started to work more effectively in the Middle Eastern region, we’ve got a partner that we work with, beacon Financial Training.

Pat Culkin: They’ve been instrumental in helping us to understand that market more effectively, and I think that largely. The challenges, the, the skillsets necessary. They’re largely the same, but they apply differently at different levels. Right. And that’s where there’s been some fine tuning that I think we really had to focus on at a given title level.

Pat Culkin: We can map out in the United States, this is typically what their job might look like at that same title level in the UAE or in Saudi or in Egypt. That same title level. The job is defined differently, and it’s not that the overall treasury function is drastically different. It’s how, it’s the puzzle of the treasury organization and where the functions land in different positions, which.

Pat Culkin: It sounds a little bit silly to talk about it this way because it, well, it treasury’s treasury for the most part. I mean, outside of the, the like US specific regulations are gonna be different than Saudi specific regulations, but the overall function as a whole, it sounds silly to say that it’s the same but different.

Pat Culkin: It kind of is. It’s the same, it’s just structured differently.

Mike Richards: Well, I wanna jump in there because people talk to me. In fact, I was interviewed by a magazine just today about our salary survey, and they were saying, well, what’s a treasurer? I said, yeah, it depends. I said, that’s right. And they were like, well, what do you mean?

Mike Richards: I said, well, I get a treasurer. Someone will call themselves a treasurer. They might be in Europe managing three countries with a couple of, with a couple of currencies, and that’s it. And they call themselves treasurer. They’re not a treasurer, they’re a treasury manager. So for a salary survey, and then you go to someone’s housing association and they have only one currency, but they’ve still got a team of a eight or 10 people.

Mike Richards: They’re a treasurer. They’re not a global treasurer, not the, they’re not a global treasurer of a mega major multinational corporate with 80 staff in five different service centers. And so we put them in different baskets. And that’s what I was explaining. I said, the one thing you can be, they’re all different.

Mike Richards: I just said, yeah, that none of them are the same. And it’s the same with the podcast. Just like when I’ve said to people, what, how come? And I said, 375 plus podcasts. Every story is different. One treasurer is Debt LA and one is cash rich, one is centralized, one is decentralized. And people, listeners have heard this time and again, that I can be standing within three feet or 10 feet of 10 different treasurers and they all have the same title.

Mike Richards: All their jobs are different.

Pat Culkin: I think there’s a huge benefit to that. When you can go back to that whole community aspect, like as you, so using your podcast as an example, you had, what’d you say, 385?

Mike Richards: 300. Yeah, we are 378 I think at the moment. As of not, I’m counting, but yeah. Only thought we 10.

Pat Culkin: You’ll

Mike Richards: be at three 80 I think.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Pat Culkin: Alright, so about 380 podcasts and you got different versions. People’s stories of how they’ve developed in their careers. And I think that the fact that you’ve had, you have this level of diversity, it’s added to what the podcast can provide to your listeners. Yeah, and I think that it’s very similar when we think about treasury, and you’re exactly right.

Pat Culkin: What is a treasurer? Well, it depends. It’s different. I think understand, acknowledging and understanding those differences gives you the ability to listen to what their challenges are because. You can frequently learn something from it. You can learn like there’s a challenge in this particular area with this particular, in this particular role that might be applicable maybe not to the, to the same title across another organization, but that might be applicable elsewhere.

Pat Culkin: Yeah. So leveraging the, it’s a little bit of the concept that our differences make us stronger, and I think that’s the case. I think that’s a. It’s a challenge that people like you and I and your organization and a FP we’re gonna be dealing with for the rest of our careers. Understood. But I think that if we look at it as a challenge, every challenge has an opportunity.

Pat Culkin: And I just think that opportunity is to take that information, learn from it, and how do you aggregate that and put it into a format that can be effective to teach and to help people learn and help people drive their growth.

Mike Richards: And nice segue. It’s like we haven’t planned this bit, but education and learning, obviously I know they’ve been a real passion project for you and for Jim.

Mike Richards: Yes. About and early career engagement. I’m shouting about it from the rooftops to say to people they should do more treasury in universities and things. Why is that such a big priority, maybe even for you personally or professionally for you?

Pat Culkin: They have the future of the profession. I mean, I think that.

Pat Culkin: When I ask people, like in conversations I’ve had, whether it be at our events in any one-on-one conversations I’ve had, and actually you’ve alluded to this a bit before about your career path, when I asked how they got into treasury, the answer is very frequently some version of by accident. A hundred percent.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Pat Culkin: And I think about treasury and I think about what the career. Options are, and the opportunities that exist and the contribution that people can make in a treasury career towards not all their own personal success and satisfaction, but to the business success. And it, it, it honestly drives me a little bit crazy that people are only falling into treasury by accident.

Pat Culkin: That there’s not enough information or education for people earlier in their career path, even at the student level when they’re in at university about. How tr like even what is treasury? Like, I don’t think that most people understand it when they’re coming out of school. I mean, you mentioned that you didn’t really know much about treasury when you got into it.

Pat Culkin: I didn’t. I knew nothing, very honest. Yeah. Either. Did I? Yeah, it was, I started, when I first started working at a for a FP as a contractor, I didn’t have a good understanding as to what treasury is. And I think that’s, uh. That is a massive opportunity for us, I think for a FP and how we serve the focus on serving the profession, building, helping to build and develop and educate people.

Pat Culkin: Actually, lemme take it a little bit differently. Yeah. First step is how to just inform them. Inform them about what treasury is. Then those that after they’ve been informed, they can understand a little bit about whether or not they have an interest. And once they have an interest, they can start to dive into it a little bit.

Pat Culkin: Maybe that’s starting with a, like more of an introductory course, something on the basic side, maybe do a little bit of reading on it, and that might lead into something that could turn into a treasury career, a decision around a treasury career that could be much more of a informed decision, strategic decision about where someone might want to take their career path.

Pat Culkin: Versus they found it by accident. Yeah, our, we just did a treasury benchmarking survey and one of the things that came out of it was recruitment, like how people are finding, and lemme ask a question about how people are finding recruiting and bringing people into treasury. And it’s the same story. It’s we’re bringing people in from the outside, they’re frequently coming from accounting, and then we try to educate them and train them, teach them the job on the go.

Pat Culkin: Now, it’s not to say that’s a bad pathway, but it just makes me wonder how much of an opportunity that may have been for to start developing that talent earlier, or even for those people that are transferring, transferring their careers from another component of finance into treasury. Maybe they could have been in a few steps ahead.

Pat Culkin: If treasury is ultimately where they were going to land, they could be a little bit further ahead of the game if they could start building those treasury skills and those experiences earlier.

Mike Richards: And you and I have talked about it and we will do it. And Jeff and I have talked about the early years guide or something actually, to give more information, which we, which is on the roster.

Mike Richards: We will get it done sort of along with everything else. But you’ve only got C EShip to do. Yeah.

Pat Culkin: We’ve done a lot of work in, in terms of our early career content development. We have a university partner program that we’re working through. Trying to identify and work with universities around the world that might have some interest in integrating some of AFP’s curriculum into their curriculum.

Pat Culkin: Because we think, Eric, with the content that we have and the curriculum, we have the ability to help at least provide a guideline or some information to help put together a treasury coursework for a university quickly. Yeah. And if we’re able to do that effectively, I think that builds the pipeline of talent.

Pat Culkin: The profession moving forward, which benefits all of us.

Mike Richards: Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. I know we spoke earlier about, and I don’t wanna run outta time, we are not that far from the end of the show, but you and I talked about how. Treasury professionals now have to embrace branding. That’s what I’m gonna be talking about with personal profile, and this is one of the things I’ll talk about a FP in Boston and things, but you know, just on that you’ve worked across many departments, a FP, and now you’ve seen how treasury and treasury professionals have to be more adept at networking.

Mike Richards: And on top of that, it’s not just enough to do your day job. How do you see it now?

Pat Culkin: I think that. Really for anybody out there building your presence, your network, building your relationships, um, talking with others, it’s something that I can’t recommend enough. Yeah. I think that there’s a couple different pathways that will help people in, like one kind of that broader learning, which I won’t, I know I talk a lot about that.

Pat Culkin: I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pause on that one, but the broader learning, being able to learn from others. Yeah. The other piece of it though is it starts to put you in a position where. You start doing things that might be a little bit outside of your comfort zone, and I think that anything that is outside of your comfort zone means that you’re testing yourself, you’re expanding your horizons, and you get out and build that network more and more.

Pat Culkin: I think it positions you in a way where. When others are thinking about opportunities that exist, projects that exist, other career pathways or jobs that could exist upward mobility opportunities, I think it puts the person in a little bit of a better position than if they were a complete unknown.

Pat Culkin: Getting out there, making a name for yourself, expanding your brand, sharing your knowledge. Asking questions, gathering knowledge. I think that drives credibility, drives skills, building. It drives recognition of the individual. It’s all good. It can’t hurt. And

Mike Richards: it, and it comes down to basics as well. When I was delivering this, and we’ve talked about everyone having their little black book, one of my recent podcast guests, she sends herself an email every Friday that she puts in a folder about what she and the team have achieved or the team have achieved first and herself.

Mike Richards: So when the C-E-O-C-F-O walks up to her and said, oh, how are you getting on? What have you done this week, this month, or whatever? She goes, hang on, boom. I was gonna just read it off. Just thought that’s great. But like there are people then like in the room going, oh wow. And it’s like wide-eyed like, baby dear.

Mike Richards: I’m like, guys, come on. You’ve gotta shout about this. You can put it on LinkedIn. I’m just said, look, when was the last time any of you update your LinkedIn? I did a New York session and 90, this was to the New York Cash Exchange. So it was a virtual session rather than our actual in the room session. 90% of the people admitted they hadn’t actually put an achievement on their LinkedIn profile in in anything, or done any change to their profile In about six to nine months, I went, guys, this is your calling card.

Mike Richards: Just update it a little bit. Just put, just update it full stop. Just say, what are you doing this week? Nothing confidential. What are you doing it? And people are like, oh wow. It’s just like, you guys do an amazing job, so tell people about it. That’s one of the key things I think treasurers for too long have just hidden that light.

Pat Culkin: Yeah, I think that, I think for the. It all depends on the profile of person. Yeah, right. There’s some people that are a little bit more introverted, a little bit more reserved. They kinda wanna stay behind the scenes, and I think for people with that profile, that’s a difficult thing to do. And I would challenge those that can fit that profile.

Pat Culkin: Try it. Yourself out there. It can start small. I mean, it could be simple LinkedIn posts. It can be reaching out to one or two people that are in your network, people that you’ve worked with in the past, just to check in and see, see what they’re doing. See what their, where their, what direction their career has taken them.

Pat Culkin: Yeah, there, there are people out there with the profile that are gonna stand on top of the mountain and shout from the rooftops about all the things that they’ve been part of and what they’ve been able to do, and I think that’s great. There’s a lot of talent. There’s a lot of talent, a lot of capability, a lot of experiences that are had by those people that maybe are a little bit more reserved.

Pat Culkin: You don’t want that to be a limitation. Yeah, you want them, like I would encourage them to come to an event, be part of, like from an AP standpoint, I would encourage them to come to an event. Maybe be part of one of our meetup sessions and maybe participate in a discussion on a FP collaborate. It’s just another opportunity to start small and get out there and help someone else.

Pat Culkin: Yeah, share a little bit of information, ask some questions. It’s a starting point. I.

Mike Richards: We had a real life example in Houston. When I did my session recently. I said to the room, you’ve come here. You’ve made the effort to be in this room this evening. By the time you leave here, you need to have made at least three more connections.

Mike Richards: That’s the challenge. You can’t leave here until you’ve done three. And one of the guys came up and went, I’ve done seven. I’ve done seven. I was like, what? What are you talking about? He went, I’ve connected with seven people. I said, don’t just connect with them. I said, you’re not allowed to just go, oh, can I connect with you?

Mike Richards: I said, you have to have a meaningful conversation. Introduce yourself, talk about what you do. We didn’t do the elevator pitch too much just about what you do, who you are, and expanding the network and see, he said if they’re not gonna be useful, it a useful connection for both of you. Then obviously don’t connect.

Mike Richards: But he was like, I’ve got seven useful connections. And they said because, and they said, well, tell me about what and, and actually he could justify all seven. I was like, that’s fantastic. And I was like, great. And then he was just like, oh, I’m gonna keep doing this. I went, yeah. Look at it. And it’s,

Pat Culkin: I’m gonna give you a little bit of credit.

Pat Culkin: Oh, yeah. I wasn’t able to attend the live session in New York that we had talked about. Yeah. That I, that I joined. But one of my colleagues was able to make it. He was telling me about the fact that you told people, I, I want you to connect with three people. Yeah. And the way he described it was, at first it was quiet, maybe a little bit, maybe there was a little bit of awkwardness Yeah.

Pat Culkin: And uneasiness about the discussions. But within a few minutes. It was loud, like people were talking, there were conversations happening and to your credit, you pushed those people, you, that, that group, at least some number of them out of their comfort zone. But they did it. Yeah. And they saw the, they saw benefit out of it.

Pat Culkin: And also I figured out how to make it happen. I,

Mike Richards: I did feel bad ’cause I do guilt the audience a little. I said, look, you can come here and just waste your time. It could be a just a complete waste. Yeah, you’ve got some great knowledge from these great treasurers, but you could walk away with this bonus, and the bonus is two or three connections that could actually help your treasury career.

Mike Richards: You could help their treasury career. Wouldn’t that be amazing? And they were like, oh yeah. And it’s like, come on guys. Come on, this is it. You are good at this. You can do this

Pat Culkin: as well. You just encouraged me to reach out to a few people that I haven’t spoken to in a while after we hang up.

Mike Richards: That’s it. Well, yeah.

Mike Richards: There you go. Sorry. Sorry. That’s a couple of hours extra where you’re like, oh God. Um, now we’re nearly a wrap up, but I’ve got a couple more questions just before we do. So if someone listening today, maybe they’re a treasury analyst, mid-manager or something like that, and a FP? Yes. And I’ve got the, I’ve had feedback, actually.

Mike Richards: I’ve had feedback over the years. Originally the feedback was, oh a FP, there’s more junior guys going to the A FP conference. And I’ve gone, no, it’s not. And they’re like, oh, what? I said, no. The people I met and I talk about some of the people I meet and they’re like, oh, crumbs. I said, yeah, you get the full mix and now that’s the great thing.

Mike Richards: So it’s all the way, but if someone is listening today and they are maybe a more junior analyst or manager, how can the a FP help them and what, how should they engage? You mentioned there about, and I’ve said to people, put your hand up. Get on a committee, put on a panel, just join in, go to the events.

Mike Richards: Anything else?

Pat Culkin: I mean, I think you could, there’s a couple different ways you could do it, depending on the level of comfort for someone getting started. But you know, as I mentioned, there’s some easy ways to kind of get involved. A, if you collaborate, you could participate in a meetup, you can attend one of our events for those that want to maybe dive in a little bit deeper, be part of our vol, one of our volunteer committees.

Pat Culkin: I mean, we are always looking for people to help us. As I mentioned, we learn from, from the profession as much as we can to help be able to reconvey some of that information back out. Like help us with that. Like help us understand what you’re seeing and what we could be doing. What we could be providing or what we could be doing differently to the broader market.

Pat Culkin: I challenge people frequently, dedicate some time every week towards learning, and I would challenge that. One thing that people can do with a FP. Take some time, read some of our content, like go on our website, look at some of our research, look at, read some of our guides, read some of our articles, read the collaborate board.

Pat Culkin: I think that. Dedicating that time is important. Yeah. I would, you know, I’m gonna stop a little, just a little bit short of doing the whole sell on a FPI would like

Mike Richards: sell sell. We don’t mind. It’s all right. We can cut it out afterwards if we don’t like it. No, we won’t.

Pat Culkin: I think that clearly engagement with a FP is a, is an objective of mine.

Pat Culkin: Yeah. Whether it’s through the events or certification training, membership, the meetups collaborate. I could go on and on with all the things that a FP can do for people. If they wanna start small, like really small, I would just say dedicate 30 minutes a week, maybe twice a week. Let’s push it a little bit.

Pat Culkin: 30 minutes, twice a week to read a piece of content, listen to a podcast, use it as a time to, to reconnect with others in the profession. Ask someone on LinkedIn through Messenger a question like ask them about how they’ve done something or their career path. I think that. These are all ways that people, you know, particularly those that are kind of getting started in the profession, maybe earlier and even into the mid-career level, actually spans the spectrum.

Pat Culkin: But you can get, if you think about the opportunity to be able to take something in a couple times a week, it’s invaluable. A FP can absolutely be a pathway for people to do that. But I think the fir the, to get that started, you gotta take that first step.

Mike Richards: And also, and what I would add to that is, and again.

Mike Richards: It was one of the conferences a while ago, and I just said, be selfish. And they were like, oh, what? I said, no, if you are, you can make your life easier by reaching out to someone who’s already done it. You know, you put your hand up and a FP is a great network that, oh, have you done something like this? Oh, actually, and we do this.

Mike Richards: I’ve had it again, had a bubbling session where I said, right, ask the person next to you, have they implemented a treasury management system? And they were going, what? I said, do it now. They were like. Oh God. And I said, right, ask them. And they said, okay, which one was it? Ask them in this, ask them a couple of questions like this.

Mike Richards: And then afterwards, maybe you could all you know, and they’re, oh wow. And as you said there was, they calm it down ’cause they were all going, oh, they were buzzing. And I’m like, yeah guys, how five minutes ago? You know you didn’t know each other. Now you are exchanging that. Oh yeah. It’s through the collaboration and that’s what treasures, if they get outta their own way, they’re really good at it.

Mike Richards: There’s a theme that

Pat Culkin: we utilize internally at a FP that I think is very applicable to that. Like we’re always looking for collaboration and try to drive a, an idea and kind of kick it around to see if you can make it better. The way I like to pose it is like, if I have an idea and I might, I’ll share it with a group.

Pat Culkin: I’ll spread it out there. Like, here’s an idea that I had. First question, and this is through process of discussion, but first question is to evaluate whether or not the idea has any merit, right? So is it, is there anything there? The second thing is, help me to make it better. Like if there’s merit to an idea, help me to make it better.

Pat Culkin: Because it’s the collection of that, that critical thinking, that questioning and challenging that helps to drive to a better outcome. And what you just suggested is exactly that. Ask a question, oh, you’ve done it this way. And it creates that buzz. And that buzz is the opportunity to help make an idea better.

Pat Culkin: Yeah. Help to make a process better or help to make a. The strategy better. And I, I think that’s invaluable for people.

Mike Richards: Yeah. The sum is greater than all the parts put together, and that’s the key thing. And everybody has something to contribute. Yeah. And I think that’s important. I. And run. Use those as your closing words.

Mike Richards: We’ll put your LinkedIn details. You mentioned it earlier on the show, but we will put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. Any final takeaways for anyone else listening today? Obviously the great thing is they get to listen about a FP, but they get CTP credits by listening to the show. Fantastic.

Mike Richards: They get to you, meet you and I. And they’ll get to see me live on stage and meet you in Boston as well. Great. And if they get on a website, they can get a discount as well. So they should be in Boston seeing us, but they can be, if they get in the discount, I might even buy them a beer. I don’t know. We, we will see, and I don’t wanna go too far to all the audience, but Great.

Mike Richards: Are we going

Pat Culkin: back to the first in the bar last to leave? Is that what we’re going back to? That’s it. And I

Mike Richards: love my treasury folks. That’s it. That’s the only reason I do this job. But yeah, for you, how would you close the show today over to you?

Pat Culkin: I am. First off, I think that anything that, any opportunity that I have to connect with individuals and in, in the broader audience to, to talk, to, learn from, I welcome those connections.

Pat Culkin: Yeah. And absolutely invite everyone to join us in Boston. I’d love to see you there. I’d love to shake hands with you at the a FP booth and talk a little bit about what you do and really, I’m gonna ask you questions. I’m gonna ask questions about how we can be more effective, how we can help you to be better at your role and better at what you do.

Pat Culkin: And I. I’m not shy about asking for help. I will ask your audience, and if you come and see me in Boston, I’m gonna ask you to be part of a FP, to be part of the broader community and to volunteer and contribute your expertise and. And they don’t have to wait till Boston do they? They can

Mike Richards: reach out and

Pat Culkin: connect now.

Pat Culkin: Why not? So if you connect on LinkedIn, I wanna get all the connections first, then I’ll subtly ask the questions. But ultimately, yes, I think that being part of the broader community is something that is of benefit to all of us and fantastic. My parting words would be, engage in the profession, engage in the community.

Pat Culkin: And I think that we can together go a long way.

Mike Richards: Fantastic. I’m gonna leave it on there. Thanks very much, sir. You’ve been an amazing guest and, and you would be. Thank you very much,

Pat Culkin: Mike. It’s great talking with you as always, and I’m looking forward to that pin in Boston.

Mike Richards: Oh god, Mike, thank you. I hope you enjoyed listening to this week’s podcast just as much as I did recording it with another amazing guest.

Mike Richards: Now, don’t forget to subscribe on your usual platform, whether that’s Spotify, apple Podcast, wherever you listen, so you never miss a future episode. Whilst you’re there, if you listening on Apple Podcast, maybe give us a five star review. Why? Because it helps other treasury professionals find the show, join the conversation, and get even more value.

Mike Richards: Now also, we’re helping you guys in treasury. If you are thinking about studying for your CTP or FP and a qualification, then listen up. We partnered with the A FP to offer a discount on study, both for the studying and for the preparation. Platform as well. So you can get through us. $150 discount. Yes.

Mike Richards: $150 for each. My goodness. Yeah, we, we are here to help. So it’s a great step for your career and always good to save where you can. So all you need to do is go to treasury recruitment.com, four slash partners. You’ve got the codes there, then you head across to their website and you get the discount. You also as well, if it wasn’t enough, we’re gonna be heading to a FP Boston, uh, later on in the fall.

Mike Richards: As the Americas call it in October. And we also offer $150 discount off your registration. So wherever you might be, it’s a great conference. Whether you’re in UK and Europe, you should go. I’m going. It’s gonna be amazing. So incredible few days, great insights, proper networking, great conversations with lots and lots of treasuries.

Mike Richards: Last time in Nashville. 8,000 plus one of their biggest ones ever. It was amazing. So just go to the show notes and you’ll find the link or treasury recruitment.com or slash partners and get it all from there. Remember, if you’re looking for a role, visit treasury recruitment.com. If you need some advice, reach out mike@treasuryrecruitment.com.

Mike Richards: Um, or come and meet us in person. We’ve got our sessions coming up. We’ve got sessions throughout this year in Texas. Then we’ve got London, then we’ve got Dublin, then we’re back to the US for Chicago, then New York, crumbs everywhere. EuroFinance the locked, and then a FP, and then back to London. And then we’re doing Netherlands as well.

Mike Richards: So it’ll be great to see you. We’re gonna be everywhere. So looking forward to it. Thanks very much. And until next week, enjoy the show.