A few years ago, you couldn’t go to a treasury conference without hearing about blockchain.

It was going to change everything.

There were presentations, webinars, panel discussions and an awful lot of noise.

Then…

Well, not a lot happened for most treasury teams.

Now there’s another term appearing everywhere:

Stablecoin.

Will they go the same way? I’ve no idea.

But I recently spoke to a Treasurer who had exactly the attitude I think you should have towards these things:

Understand it well enough to make your own mind up.

I think that’s the right approach to ANY new technology.

Because treasury professionals are being bombarded with this stuff at the moment.

And there are two very easy reactions…

You can jump on every new shiny thing and declare it the future.

Or you can roll your eyes and say:

“That’s not relevant to us.”

I don’t think either is particularly clever.

You need to understand something before you can dismiss it.

Blockchain is the perfect example.

Plenty of treasury professionals took the time to understand it and ultimately concluded:

No. Not for us.

That’s fine.

There are companies where there may be a use case, but there are plenty where there isn’t.

Learning about something doesn’t mean you have to use it.

Sometimes learning about it simply allows you to give a much better “no”.

But occasionally, something comes along where the answer is very different…

Look at AI.

Two years ago, if I’d told you to go and ask ChatGPT, plenty of people would have replied:

“Chat what?”

Now I use these tools virtually every day.

They’ve allowed me to do things I’d previously never have the time for.

And that’s when technology becomes interesting to me – because it actually does something practical and useful.

I think every treasury professional should take the time to study new technology that may help them in the role.

While you don’t need to become an expert, you need enough curiosity to understand what it might mean for you.

Because at some point your CFO may walk into your office and say:

“I’ve been reading about stablecoin. Should we be looking at it?”

Or AI.

Or tokenised deposits.

Or whatever comes after those.

They won’t expect a 45-minute technical presentation ready to be presented to the board that day. But a well-prepared Treasurer should be able to have an intelligent conversation.

1. What is it?
2. What problem could it potentially solve?
3. What are the risks?
4. Is there actually a use case for our business?

The answer at the end of all that might still be no.

That’s absolutely fine.

In fact, sometimes that’s exactly the right answer.

But there’s a big difference between:

“No, we’ve looked at it and it doesn’t solve a problem we have.”

And:

“No, we don’t do that sort of thing.”

One is good judgment. The other could eventually leave you behind.

So the next time everyone starts talking about the latest thing that’s apparently going to “transform treasury”, you don’t necessarily need to believe the hype…

But don’t automatically dismiss it either.

Learn enough to make your own mind up.

Best regards,

Mike

Imagine you could sit down for half an hour with someone who’s already reached the position in their career that you’d like to reach.

Would you jump at the opportunity?

Or would you say;

“No thanks, your job’s too different from mine”?

I recently heard someone say that most treasury professionals do not care what Treasurers at Fortune 100 companies are doing.

Instead, they want to hear from people facing exactly the same challenges they are.

I understand that part of the argument…

If you’re a Treasury Analyst working in a relatively small team, hearing someone explain how they manage global treasury operations across 50 countries might not immediately help you when you’re reconciling cash balances at 9am on a Tuesday morning.

But does that mean there’s nothing you can learn from them?

Absolutely NOT.

If you’re attending a treasury conference, listening to a webinar or coming to one of our events, I assume you’re probably there for a couple of reasons.

You want to learn.

You want to meet people.

And hopefully, you want to develop your career.

So why would you only want to hear from people doing exactly the same job as you?

I’ve recorded more than 440 episodes of the Treasury Career Corner podcast and spoken to over 500 treasury professionals.

They’ve all had different careers.

Some started in banking. Some started in accounting. Some fell into corporate treasury almost by accident.

I’ve interviewed people who’ve worked in businesses drowning in debt and spent their time negotiating with banks.

I’ve spoken to others who’ve joined incredibly cash-rich businesses and faced a completely different set of problems.

They might all eventually have “Treasurer” written on their LinkedIn profile, but their experiences are completely different.

That’s what makes hearing from them SO useful.

You listen to someone who’s further along in their career and can find out how they got there, what they would’ve done differently, and what you could steal from their experience and apply to your own career.

Because interestingly, the stories that get the biggest reaction at our live events aren’t usually:

“Here’s everything I did brilliantly.”

It’s the missteps. The wrong turns. The job that didn’t work out or the project that went off course.

And, most importantly, what they did next.

Those are the moments when I see people in the audience really lean in.

Now, that doesn’t mean I think everyone should only listen to Global Treasurers.

Far from it.

Sometimes you need someone who understands exactly where you are today.

It’s actually why we’ve changed our own events.

We introduced Ask the Treasurer, so Treasury Analysts and Treasury Managers can sit down with experienced Treasury professionals and ask them in small-group situations:

• “When you were at my level, what did you do?”

• “What helped you make the next move?”

• “What would you do differently?”

And our roundtables give senior treasury professionals the chance to sit with peers facing similar challenges.

There’s value in both.

But I don’t agree with the idea that because someone works in a Fortune 100, a FTSE 100 company, or another global multinational, their experience becomes irrelevant to someone in a smaller treasury team.

Of course you’re not going to take Amazon’s treasury set-up and replicate it at your company on Monday morning…

That’s not the point.

But you might hear one thing they’ve done…

One decision, mistake, or approach to their career that you’d never considered.

And that one thing might be incredibly useful.

I’ve been fortunate enough to watch some treasury professionals go from their first major treasury role all the way through to becoming Global Treasurers.

I’ve even placed some of them at several different stages along the way.

And if I were starting my treasury career today, I’d want to hear from those people.

Because you don’t always learn the most from the person sitting next to you…

Sometimes it’s worth listening to the career journey from a treasury professional who’s already at the destination you would like to go to as well.

Best regards,

Mike

Earlier this year, I spent weeks travelling between treasury conferences, events and meetings.

• Texas
• Liverpool
• The West Coast
• London
• Amsterdam

At one point, I got back from the US on a Sunday, drove to Liverpool on the Monday, spoke at the UK Treasurers conference, came home, and then got on another plane to the Netherlands!

It was brutal.

I remember thinking:

Why am I doing this to myself?

Then I gave myself a fairly simple answer.

Shut up and do your job, Mike.

Because my job is to be wherever treasury professionals are.

Over those 6 weeks, I was in the room with over 3,000 treasury professionals.

I didn’t get to speak to every single one of them. But I had hundreds of real conversations about careers, recruitment, technology, salaries and the challenges treasury teams are facing.

Those conversations don’t happen while I’m sitting behind my desk.

I could have stayed at home. There were certainly moments when I would have preferred to (rather than being stuck in an airport for a four-hour layover).

And when I finally had a few weeks without a plane, train, or long drive, someone asked me what I was enjoying most.

My answer was:

“Doing nothing.”

I enjoyed being at home, catching up with work, and having a bit of normality again.

Anyone who travels a lot for work will tell you that travelling isn’t glamorous.

It’s work.

I’m not flying to Las Vegas later this year with the thought of extending the trip and spending a week by the pool. I’ll arrive, speak to treasury professionals, do the work, and get back on the plane.

But that investment of time is also why we are now so busy.

We have more roles coming through from the US.

Our events are growing.

I’ve been given opportunities that I could never have imagined a few years ago.

And that all started with putting my hand up and saying yes.

“Would you like to speak in Chicago?”

Yes.

“Can you come to Liverpool?”

Yes.

“Would you like to run another session in the US?”

Yes.

I’ll be honest, I don’t enjoy public speaking.

I never wake up excited about standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people.

But saying yes has taken me outside my comfort zone and opened doors that would never have opened if I’d stayed at home.

More importantly, it has allowed me to make a real difference to people’s careers.

At our recent Treasury Career Corner LIVE event in London, James Kelly asked Louise Woodroffe, Head of Treasury at Hastings Direct:

“Louise, who were the people who helped you progress and who helped you believe that you could be more, and what impact did it have on you?”

Her immediate answer was:

“Mike Richards.”

I’ve placed Louise previously, but hearing her say that in front of a room full of people genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

And no, I didn’t pay her to say it!

You can watch the moment here:

https://youtu.be/wGEbc2Yf1b0?si=uZceUhRE7f0smgA1&t=167

That is why I keep travelling.

It isn’t about collecting air miles or posting photographs from different cities.

It’s about being present, meeting people where they are, understanding what they are dealing with, and helping when I can.

You cannot attend one big treasury conference each year and expect to meet the whole profession.

Not everyone goes to the same event. And the US alone is enormous.

That’s why I go to Texas, New York, Chicago and the West Coast.

It’s why I attend events in London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Luxembourg.

You have to go where the people are.

So I’m finally looking forward to a slightly more balanced travel schedule for the rest of the year.

But I’ll still be getting on the plane.

Because every time I consider staying behind my desk, I remind myself of all the conversations, roles and opportunities that started because I decided to show up.

Sometimes the answer really is that simple:

Shut up and do the job!

Best regards,

Mike

P.S. If you see me at an upcoming treasury event, come and say hello. The best conversations don’t always happen on the stage, they happen in the room.

Starting Your Treasury Career? Start Here.

When you’re early in your treasury career, everything can feel a bit unclear.

• What should you focus on?
• What actually matters to hiring managers?
• And how do you go from “doing the job” to building a proper career?

I see this all the time when I speak to treasury professionals at the start of their journey.

Some fall into treasury by accident and never quite get a clear roadmap. Others are more intentional but don’t always know where to focus their time or energy.

That’s exactly why I pulled together this listening list.

Over the years, through hundreds of conversations on the Treasury Career Corner podcast, there are certain themes that come up again and again:

• The people who progress fastest take ownership early
• They build strong foundations, not just technical skills
• They stay curious and keep learning from others
• And importantly, they treat treasury as a long-term career, not just a role

So rather than leaving you to figure it all out yourself, this is a curated set of episodes to help you shortcut that process.

These are the conversations I’d recommend if you want to understand how treasury careers really develop, what great looks like, and how to position yourself for the next step.

Recommended Listening for Early Stage Treasury Professionals

Starting Out in Corporate Treasury:

What I have seen in Great Treasury Managers:

What I’ve Learnt About Group Treasurers from 200+ Episodes:

Our Take on the Corporate Treasury Industry:

How Taking Calculated Risks and Strategic Moves Created a World-Class Treasury Career:

Why Corporate Treasury Needs to Be a Career Choice, Not Just a Happy Accident:

How to Build a Strategic, High-Impact Treasury Team – Lessons in Process, Progress and People:

How to Build a Strategic, High-Impact Treasury Team – Lessons in Process, Progress and People:

The Treasury Playbook: Centralize Cash, Scale Globally, and Build a Function That Delivers:

How Do You Build a Treasury Function from Scratch in a Global Company?:

How Tradeweb Enhanced Its Treasury Team with Tech – No Expansion Required:

Write Your Own Career Playbook: Lessons from Amazon Treasurer Tony Masone:

From Banking to Treasury: The Career Move That Seemed Like a Step Back But It Wasn’t:

How Treasurers Can Avoid Costly Mistakes and Master Risk, Hedging and Liquidity Strategies:

What You Should Take Away From This

Don’t try to listen to everything in one go.

Pick one or two episodes, take notes, and actually reflect on what you’re hearing.

Ask yourself:

• What skills do I need to build next?
• Where am I adding value today and where am I not?
• Am I being proactive in my career, or just reacting?

Because the biggest difference I see between those who progress and those who don’t is simple:

The successful ones take action.

They don’t wait for someone to map it out for them. They learn, they apply, and they keep moving forward.

If you treat these episodes as more than just background listening and actually use them as a guide, you’ll be in a much stronger position than most of your peers.

And if you want a bit of help along the way, whether that’s career advice, market insight, or just a sounding board…

Let’s grab a coffee and chat treasury careers.

Every so often, I hear the same claim…

Treasury is too small to produce reliable salary benchmarks.

Apparently, there simply isn’t enough data.

That simply is NOT true.

Having benchmarked treasury salaries for more than 20 years, and with nearly 1,800 treasury professionals now contributing to our Global Treasury Salary Survey, I have to disagree.

The problem isn’t that the treasury is too small.

The problem is how the data is being interpreted.

There are many salary surveys out there that are a joke.

They’ll tell you that the expected salary for a treasurer is between £100,000 and £300,000…

Useful, if all you wanted to know was that some Treasurers earn more than others…

Duh!

So, where do these salary surveys go wrong?

Well, the problem isn’t that treasury is too small. Far from it…

The problem is that people look at job titles instead of the job itself.

For instance, a Treasurer running treasury for a housing association simply can’t be benchmarked against a Global Treasurer responsible for six international treasury centres.

Same title, but one might earn £100,000, the other £250,000+.

They’re completely different jobs. And if you just throw both into the same spreadsheet, your salary data rapidly becomes meaningless.

That’s not how we do it.

When someone completes our salary survey, we don’t just accept whatever title is on their LinkedIn profile. After recruiting treasury professionals for nearly 30 years, it doesn’t take us long to place people in the right bucket.

We ask ourselves:

• How big is their team?
• Who do they report to?
• How international is the role?
• What’s the level of responsibility?

We can quickly see that someone might call themselves a Treasurer, but in reality they’re doing what most companies would describe as a Treasury Manager.

Or someone might be Head of Treasury, but the scope of the role is more equivalent to a Global Treasurer.

(And that’s not even taking into account all the variables that come with a role in the UK vs the US, for example).

That’s why titles on their own don’t work.

The role does.

It’s exactly the same when clients ask me to benchmark a salary.

I’m not comparing one job title with another; I compare the actual role.

That’s why I have to disagree with anyone who says that treasury is too small to produce reliable salary benchmarks.

If you think treasury doesn’t produce neat salary reports because the profession is too niche.

Well…

We’ve now had more than 1,800 treasury professionals take part in our Global Treasury Salary Survey.

That gives us a pretty robust dataset.

But the important part is that the numbers only really become useful when someone understands what they’re looking at.

If you’re wondering whether you’re paid fairly, click here to take part in our salary survey

If you’re hiring, building a team, or trying to benchmark a role, that’s usually when it’s worth picking up the phone.

You might think the data will tell you the answer, but sometimes you need someone who’s spent nearly three decades looking at treasury roles to explain what the data is actually saying.

Best regards,

Mike

P.S. The more treasury professionals who participate in our salary survey, the stronger and more useful the results become for everyone. So click here to take part and get your personalised salary benchmark!

I keep seeing recruiters announcing on LinkedIn that they’ve been “retained” to recruit another senior treasury role.

Sometimes they even add that it’s confidential.

But I always find myself thinking…

Are you really retained, or are you just pretending?

Not because retained recruitment isn’t a real thing. Of course it is.

But if you’re a treasury professional thinking about your next move, the word “retained” shouldn’t be what convinces you to have a conversation.

What matters is something much simpler…

Does that recruiter actually know the role?

Do they:

• Understand what the business is trying to achieve?
• Know why the previous person left?
• Know what success in the role looks like?

Or are they simply reading out a job description?

That’s the difference.

A recruiter working on a genuine retained search really knows their client.

They understand the business, would’ve challenged the brief, and know what the hiring manager really wants – not just what ended up being written on the job advert.

And if it’s confidential, maybe they can’t tell you who the company is straight away.

That’s reasonable.

We often recruit roles on a confidential basis ourselves.

There are all sorts of legitimate reasons for that:

• There could be an internal restructure
• The client may need to manage the transition carefully
• Someone may not have announced they’re leaving yet

That’s all part of the job.

What I don’t understand is when I see someone posting on LinkedIn that they’ve been retained on a confidential search… and that’s the end of their post.

To me, that’s like shouting to everyone you know a big secret, then just walking off…

What’s the point?

Often, I’m left wondering if they’re really telling the truth.

You certainly won’t ever hear that from me, because from a candidate’s point of view, the label doesn’t really matter.

The quality of the conversation does.

If a recruiter can explain the business, the team, the challenges, the reporting lines, the culture, and why you’re being approached…

That’s someone worth listening to.

Whether they’re working on a retained search, a contingent assignment, or anything in between.

So next time a recruiter tells you they’ve been “retained” for an exclusive role, don’t assume that automatically means they’re the right person to trust with your career.

Ask a few questions. See how much they really know.

Because in my experience, it’s the quality of the recruiter that matters far more than the label they’re using.

Best regards,

Mike

I saw someone experience one of my own personal nightmares the other day.

Their event had completely flopped.

Lots of people had booked…

And no one showed up.

They’d posted about it on LinkedIn, but what struck me was that their frustration was aimed at the people who hadn’t come.

And I have to admit, I looked at it very differently…

Because I’ve had events where attendance has been disappointing.

In fact, one of our Treasury Career Corner LIVE events was probably the toughest one we’ve ever run.

Everything that could have gone wrong did.

The venue turned out to be much harder to reach than I’d realised.

It was the end of a long working day, so people were already tired.

One of my panellists had to pull out at the last minute.

It would have been very easy to blame the people who didn’t show up.

But honestly… how could I?

No one owes me their evening.

People have jobs and families. Trains get delayed. Meetings overrun. Life can get in the way.

If someone decides my event isn’t worth attending, or they simply can’t make it, that’s my problem to solve, not theirs.

So instead of getting annoyed, I asked myself a different question:

What could I do better?

And that one event has changed how we run ALL of our events today.

We make sure the location is easy to get to.

We became more selective about our speakers.

We thought far more carefully about the experience from the moment someone arrives.

And another big change came after I noticed something at another of our events…

There were several name badges left on the registration desk at the end of the evening. Most belonged to treasurers in junior roles. And that made me wonder…

Maybe the event wasn’t giving enough value to people earlier in their treasury careers?

I could’ve complained that they hadn’t turned up, but instead, we created something specifically for them.

Our new Ask the Treasurer sessions now give junior treasury professionals the opportunity to sit down with experienced Group Treasurers and ask whatever they want.

The response to Ask the Treasurer has been incredible.

People have told me how much they’ve enjoyed the sessions, but the biggest proof is that more junior treasury professionals are now turning up.

And more bums in seats tells me we created something they genuinely value.

So I don’t believe in shaming people who don’t attend your event.

Frankly, I think that’s just rude.

My job is to make the next event so good that people don’t want to miss it.

Of course, attending an event during or after a busy working day takes effort.

But it is also an investment in yourself.

An investment in your network, your knowledge and your treasury career.

And surely that’s worth making time for?

Best regards,

Mike

P.S. Our next Treasury Career Corner LIVE events are already filling up for this year! If you’d like to join us, I’d love to see you there. You can find all the upcoming events and locations here.

Every week, I receive emails that all sound something like this:

“Mike, could I borrow 15 or 20 minutes of your time?”

Sometimes it’s someone wanting career advice.

Sometimes it’s someone trying to move from banking into corporate treasury.

Sometimes they’re hoping I’ve got a job for them.

And almost every email finishes with:

“I’d just really value your advice.”

I’m very thankful for the position I’m in, and that people look to me for help in their careers.

I feel privileged about that.

And I genuinely would love to help everyone, but the truth is…

I get so many of these requests that if I answered them all, I would run out of hours in the day.

So while I love talking treasury. I love hearing people’s stories. And I love helping people think through their careers.

There’s also a practical reality.

I run a small business. I don’t work inside a large corporate with a team of people around me whose job is to manage requests, calls and diaries.

The team and I pay the bills by recruiting treasury professionals for our clients. That has to be where most of our time goes, because that is what keeps the business moving and allows us to keep creating free content, events, podcasts and resources for the wider treasury community.

And yes, speaking to new people is part of what we do. I love that side of it.

But there simply aren’t enough hours in the week to have a one-to-one career chat with everyone who asks.

That’s not me being dismissive.

It’s just the honest reality of trying to help as many people as possible while also running the business properly.

However, that doesn’t mean I can’t help you.

This is exactly why I started this newsletter.

People sometimes assume it’s just marketing. Whilst that is a part of it. It’s also my way of answering the questions I get asked over and over again.

In fact, I’d wager that almost every email I receive has already been answered somewhere – in a newsletter, our podcast, or at one of our events.

• Am I underpaid?
• How do I build my network?
• What qualifications should I study?
• How do I move into corporate treasury?

And if we haven’t covered it yet, you can bet we will in the future.

Because if one person is asking, chances are another hundred treasury professionals are wondering exactly the same thing.

Now, if you really do want to have a conversation with me, here’s what I’d suggest…

Don’t send me a cold email and hope for the best. Instead, come to one of our events. I’ll happily chat before the event, during the networking, or over a drink afterwards.

Why?

Because you’ve invested your own time too.

You’ve shown up.

You’ve joined the treasury community.

And that’s exactly why we created those events in the first place.

So please don’t take it personally if I can’t jump on a call. It’s never because I don’t want to help.

It’s because the best way I can help the greatest number of treasury professionals is by creating resources that everyone can access.

And fortunately…

They’re ALL free.

Best regards,

Mike

P.S. If there’s a treasury topic you’d like me to cover in a future newsletter or podcast, drop a comment and let me know. I can’t promise a phone call, but there’s a good chance it’ll become something that helps the whole treasury community.

 

Every week, I sit down to write this newsletter with one question in mind:

What’s the conversation treasury professionals need to be having right now?

It could be about careers. Sometimes it’s about hiring. Or usually it’s something from a conversation I’ve had with a candidate, a treasurer, or a hiring manager that I think deserves a wider audience.

Either way, over the past year, thousands of treasury professionals have read, shared and commented on these newsletters…

Some sparked debate, some might’ve even struck a nerve. And a few of them have generated more messages in my inbox than almost anything else I’ve written.

So I thought I’d do something a little different this week…

Rather than writing something completely new, I wanted to look back at the newsletters that resonated most with you.

If you missed any of these the first time around, they’re well worth a read.

And if you’ve already read them… perhaps they’re worth another look.

The treasury profession is moving quickly, and many of these lessons are just as relevant today as when they were first published.

So, let’s start…

5. After 25 Years in Treasury Recruitment… One Thing Is Clear

After more than two decades of recruiting treasury professionals, I reflected on one lesson that has become impossible to ignore.

The people who build exceptional treasury careers rarely leave everything to chance. 

They make deliberate decisions about their development, their network and the opportunities they pursue.

Inside this newsletter, you’ll discover:

• Why the best treasury careers are built intentionally rather than accidentally.
• The habits that consistently separate high-performing treasury professionals from everyone else.

Read it here.

4. My Event Didn’t Go the Way I Expected

Sometimes the best lessons come from the moments that don’t go according to plan.

In this newsletter, I talked about an event in a new place that really challenged my expectations and reinforced an important truth about what treasury professionals really value when they come together.

Inside you’ll discover:

• Why authentic conversations matter far more than polished presentations.
• What successful treasury networking really looks like in practice.

Read it here.

3. Are You Missing This?

Many treasury professionals work incredibly hard, build strong technical expertise and deliver excellent results… yet still wonder why someone else gets promoted first.

Often, it’s because they’re overlooking something hiding in plain sight.

Inside you’ll discover:

• The career advantage many treasury professionals underestimate.
• Practical ways to become more visible without becoming more self-promotional.
• And what really gets you hired.

Read it here.

2. The Treasury Talent You’ll Never See on LinkedIn

One of the biggest misconceptions in recruitment is that the best candidates are the easiest to find.

They’re not.

Many of the strongest treasury professionals aren’t actively posting, updating their profiles or applying for jobs. They’re doing their job, and doing it well.

This newsletter explains why that’s important, whether you’re hiring talent or thinking about your own career.

Inside you’ll discover:

• Why the strongest treasury candidates are often invisible online.
• What hiring managers need to do differently if they want to reach them.

Read it here.

1. Why I Only Do Corporate Treasury Recruitment (NOT Banking Treasury Recruitment)

This was comfortably the most popular newsletter of the year.

People often ask me why I’ve spent my entire career specialising in corporate treasury rather than broadening into banking, finance or accountancy recruitment.

The answer isn’t because those markets aren’t interesting to me…

It’s because I believe specialists create better outcomes for clients and candidates alike.

When you spend decades immersed in one profession, you build deeper relationships, understand the market more intimately and can offer advice that generalists simply can’t.

If you read just one of these newsletters, read this one.

Inside you’ll discover:

• Why deep specialisation has shaped every part of my business.
• How treasury professionals benefit when their recruiter genuinely understands their world.

Read it here.

That’s a wrap!

Thank you to everyone who has read, commented on, and shared the Treasury Career Corner Newsletter over the past year…

Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or only subscribed recently, I genuinely appreciate you spending a few minutes of your week with me.

Now I’m curious…

Which newsletter has been your favourite, and what would you like me to write about next?

Best regards,

Mike

 

Whenever I look back at the careers of the most successful treasury professionals I’ve spoken to, there’s usually one thing they have in common…

Things rarely went smoothly.

At some point in everyone’s career, something sprang out at them and changed things in a way they never expected.

It might be an acquisition, a restructure, a new CFO, a new integration, or something like AI comes along and completely changes everything.

You can’t plan for those moments.

They just happen to you.

But what really matters is how you respond to them…

Take one deputy treasurer I know, for example. She was in a fantastic role. Close to the CFO, involved in strategic decisions, getting exposure across the whole business. She’d just been promoted and couldn’t have been happier.

Then the company was acquired.

Almost overnight, everything changed.

Treasury moved into a much larger organisation with a completely different structure.

Instead of seeing the CFO every week, she’d be lucky to see them once a quarter.

Instead of being involved across treasury, she became responsible for one small area.

Her job title may have remained the same, but she was doing a very different job.

She’s now looking for her next move.

I’ve seen the opposite happen as well…

Another treasurer found himself thrown into a major integration project after his business was acquired.

Initially, he wasn’t even sure he’d have a job six months later.

Instead, he embraced it.

He stepped into projects he’d never expected to lead. He proved himself. And he’s since been promoted twice.

That’s the thing about change – it doesn’t automatically make your career better, but it usually creates opportunities that simply don’t exist when everything is ticking along nicely.

The mistake I see people make is assuming the project is the destination.

It isn’t.

They all have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The smart treasury professionals enjoy the project, but they also keep one eye on what comes afterwards.

Because eventually the project finishes, or the company changes again, or the role you’ve loved simply isn’t the same role anymore.

That’s why I often say:

When’s the best time to look for your next job? Yesterday.

When’s the second-best time? Today.

I’m not saying you should be actively applying for jobs every week…

But you should know what’s happening in the market.

So, keep your LinkedIn profile up to date.

Have a coffee with someone in your network.

Understand what opportunities are out there.

And answer the occasional call from a recruiter (especially if it’s me ).

This is an extract from one of our recent Treasury Career Corner LIVE Events where Louise Woodroffe, Head of Treasury at Hastings Direct, gave some great advice about keeping in contact with recruiters…

Mike: “Who were the people who helped you progress and helped you believe that you could be more, and what impact did it have on you?”

Louise: “Mike Richards.”

(Whilst I was blushing, Louise carried on to say…)

“To a certain extent, recruiters. I think in hindsight, there’s a couple of bosses that have been incredibly kind to me and said how much they liked working with me, how much they could see potential. 

“But that’s not something I felt in the moment while working with them. So it’s been a real development in our relationship. 

“Therefore, it has been the recruiters. Getting to talk to them about my experience, what it is that people are looking for. They are the ones who have really pushed me, and pushed me to consider taking roles that I might not have necessarily thought I was going to be right for.”

Now, to close, I’ll just finish with this…

When change arrives (and at some point, it WILL!), if you take all this advice on board, you’ll be able to make your decisions from a position of strength, not reacting because you have no choice.

The biggest career moves I’ve seen in treasury haven’t happened because someone sat still.

They happened because someone recognised that change creates opportunity…

And they were ready when it arrived.

Best regards,

Mike

P.S. Some of the best examples of treasury professionals navigating change have come from guests on the Treasury Career Corner podcast.

If you haven’t listened recently, it’s a great place to hear how others have handled the unexpected. Click here to get the latest episode.