Be the CEO of Your Own Treasury Career: Lessons in Leadership and Growth

Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: So welcome to this week’s Treasury Career Corner podcast treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they’ve built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession go to next. In this week’s show I’m joined by Emily Howell, the Corporate Treasurer, Senior Director Treasury and Risk at Copart Inc.

Mike Richards: Founded in 1982 with a single salvage yard in California, Copart has grown into a global leader and premier source of online vehicle auctions. Coparts innovative technology online auction platform link buyers and sellers around the world headquartered in Dallas. Uh, the group actually operates more than 200 locations, 11 countries, and more than 175, 000 up for auction every day, every week, every day.

Mike Richards: Amazing. So they also specialize in reselling used wholesale and salvage title vehicles for a variety of sellers. We’ll go through that a little bit more and I’ll get Emily to explain a little bit more. I want to get onto Emily’s journey within treasury or finance and then treasury. Emily, if you would talk us through, how did you welcome to the show?

Mike Richards: And how did you first start? Cause you started in insurance risk and then discover treasury over to you.

Emily Howell, Corporate Treasurer, Copart: Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me, Mike. I’m very excited to do this episode with you and talk about Treasury and Cope Art, my two favorite passions. Um, I got into Treasury through sheer dumb luck, to be real honest, it was a mix of serendipity and kismet, uh, to find my passion a little bit after the halfway point of my career so far.

Emily Howell: So started in risk and my first job after college and spent about seven years at Liberty Mutual learning both types of casualty insurance. And really developing my love of, uh, working with people and, and knowing kind of that future minded outlook on what’s to come and prevented incidents that come down the line.

Emily Howell: And I just really enjoyed that time. Um, when I moved over to my first corporate role in 2015, it was for a brand new company that had been spun off. Um, it was bought by private equity and they know that they needed a risk person, but didn’t have any liabilities yet for me to manage. And so during that time, they let me know, Oh, by the way, since you’re not busy yet, you’re going to help back up the treasury function.

Emily Howell: And at that time I was like, that sounds awesome. What’s treasury. So I have been very lucky during that seven year sin at, at Fortera, which is the company I later became to be, to have wonderful mentors that really taught me what treasury was. And it was during that kind of pivotal time that I realized this.

Emily Howell: Is my passion. This is what I love to do.

Mike Richards: Can you explain that? So for Tara, who are they? I know that we’ve got it here, but so that if someone else, uh, maybe a more junior level is thinking, Oh, what should I get into? Who were they? What were they?

Emily Howell: Sure. It was a spinoff of a building products group from a company called Lehigh Hanson is owned by Heidelberg cement in Germany.

Emily Howell: And they had purchased a company, um, looking for the aggregate and by way of that purchase also wound up with some building products, uh, lines of business that they didn’t really want long term. They held it for a while. That was during the 2008 market upheaval. And when the time came and the market rebounded in 2015, they spun off that building product group as a distinct entity.

Emily Howell: And it was started brand new March 13th of 2015. And they staffed up to run that company for the next seven years to grow it, uh, streamline its vision, divest some, acquire some, and really become something wonderful. It became the number one water company in North America during that time. We went through an IPO and did just a lot of really cool finance.

Emily Howell: And it was just like I said, just very lucky for me to be in the right place at the right time to learn all about treasury and finance during that era.

Mike Richards: And with that time you were in treasury, but was there someone, you know, who was coaching you, who you said about mentors and things like that? What was that like?

Emily Howell: Well, so that position turned over a few times, which is just the nature of private equity. But I had some really great VPs that I worked for, some really great CFOs I worked for are still friends. We still meet quarterly just to get together. But my VP originally was a gentleman named David Lawrence.

Emily Howell: He’s gone on since then. He’s in food service, leading that treasury group. Now I had a really great mentor, CFO, Charlie Brown, who embodies Charlie Brown. Yeah. Love it. He’s wonderful. And then just the treasury professionals that I work for in my group, there was a woman who’s now Here locally, that was Stephanie Harp.

Emily Howell: She just, she taught me the day to day of what treasury is. She was willing to really sit down with me and explain, you know, treasury for dummies basically, and then a right way that made it accessible to me and see how, how great that that profession could be.

Mike Richards: And, you know, interdepartmental. I know that that was a key thing.

Mike Richards: You, you’re very much based on relationships, you know, so you’d came in as the treasury, you know, I was looking through some of your background and things. I know that working across departments is a big thing that you’d like. How, how would you say other treasury treasury professionals should do it? Is it, you know, meeting other people for coffee or what should they be doing?

Mike Richards: What’s the sort of what’s your watchword?

Emily Howell: I think it’s it’s very personality based. I happen to be just a flaming extrovert in every single form of the fashion. I just love people. So what I do is I asked people out for lunch dates. That was a big thing that we do. I also asked to be one on one, put one on ones on people’s calendars to kind of compare visions and roadmaps to see where we can find opportunities to streamline a little bit, just learning lessons along the way.

Emily Howell: I realized a couple times. In my career that there was some duplicity of efforts where my team might be working on something and another team was also working on that. And we were doing the same thing in parallel where we could have collaborated and just had a more streamlined approach to solving issues.

Emily Howell: And that bothered me I didn’t like this, working in silos, doing the same thing in different departments and so really building inner departmental relationships. has become one of my pet passions here at Cobourg and also at Forterra. Getting to know what, what does other people’s future look like and how do we fit together in a line where we can support them.

Mike Richards: Well, let’s, let’s get into the code part bit, but as we, as we do that, I just want to use that sort of going back to what you just said is, there can be some times, I’m not saying you’re going through it, but where some people are like, hang on, no, that’s my turf. You know, you’re looking after that. How’d you get over that though?

Mike Richards: You know, again, maybe in Fortera up to now.

Emily Howell: There, there’s been times where, where people might feel like, no, it’s, that’s my job and if you do my job I won’t have a job. And really, treasury is a supporting actor or actress in the, in a business. We are here to reduce kind of that menial or manual type point pain points that other departments have to make their.

Emily Howell: Work in time more value added and other things that we aren’t good at and don’t excel in. I’m never going to be wonderful at operational excellence. That’s just not my background. It’s not my passion, but I can take off some of this just duplicative or harder manual processes that maybe the operations folks are doing by streamlining streamlining or automating.

Emily Howell: in treasury and free up their time to go do something awesome that makes the overall whole better together. And that’s really. By explaining that we’re not here to take your, uh, we’re here to give you time back to go do your job better is really how we kind of win those hearts and minds for partnerships.

Mike Richards: And so then you, so you were senior treasury manager for Terra, managing all the pipe work. Love it. Fantastic. How did you then move across to Copa? And then you can explain who they are. Gave a bit of a header, obviously, about the company. Talk us through.

Emily Howell: For Terra was number one in North America and what we did, but we were private equity and the goal of private equity is obviously value creation and then moving on to the next project to do the same thing.

Emily Howell: So it was a finite timeline in 2018 is where we started having discussions about being purchased by another company, which was quick beat the Winchester portfolios out of it. Wanted to streamline that business with their own version of it. And so we did go through an acquisition. So for the first seven years.

Emily Howell: We were the acquirer, and in the end, we were acquired, which initially broke all of our hearts. We had built a wonderful team. We loved working together. We had done fantastic, exciting projects, hard things together. Our joke was steel is forged in fire because we had steel pipe. And we were sad that that was going to be breaking up.

Emily Howell: We still get together though. It didn’t, you know, we’re all still here local, but that time is when we realized that this company that was purchasing us, purchasing us is based out of it, Leanna And they wouldn’t need a Dallas Finance. And so, we were giving along, this is also during COVID, so we started getting into 2020 COVID era.

Emily Howell: And they were fantastic about it. They helped us with resume writers and professional headshots. And really networking to get that office placed in their next role. Which was a great thing to go through. Being on both sides of that point, I

Mike Richards: just, I just want to jump in there. That’s quite unusual really for a PE firm.

Mike Richards: So sometimes they’re just like, you’re just a product. You know, you’ve just got your, you know, streams. I know that at Julie Fabris back on the show years ago, and I just said, let’s all about the cash rate. Are you in PE get the cash? And she said, well, actually. I remember even now that she said, you know, we’d had a jokey chat.

Mike Richards: Yeah. It’s about getting the cash and then you get to do all the fun stuff. So, oh, wow. Okay. She went, yeah, get the cash, get that all sorted, streamlined, and then move on. But you were in that PE situation, but it sounds like they weren’t quite your normal PE firm. That that’s nice that they were doing that.

Emily Howell: They were. So it was the PE firm was Lone Star Funds out of Dallas. Part of it was probably the era in which we were in. We did have to go through a DOJ review. For for combining those two large businesses. So it was a drawn out process. I think they would like they wanted to retain the folks that were going to close the deal.

Emily Howell: So they, they did make it attractive for us to stay. But part of that was the partnership of if you stay, we will help you land your next role and move to your next position. So it’s very, it was, it was a good period. It was a good thing to go through. Honestly, it was not sudden and it was not traumatic.

Emily Howell: It was.

Mike Richards: Nicely planned. Yeah. Purposeful. Yeah. And then, as you say, purposeful. They helped. And then you’ve got this next role. So talk us through, as I said, I gave the corporate spiel, who our co part, and then let’s boil it down a little bit more to the treasury, the co part.

Emily Howell: Sure. So Jeff Miao is our CEO here, and his tagline is, we’re the best company no one’s ever heard of.

Emily Howell: Just because we. We are incredible. And I, that sounds boastful, but I really, I love Copart. I love the culture. I love Willis Johnson’s vision for this company. He’s still active as the executive chairman. He was here last week walking the floor. It really, it’s a special company that I love. At Fortera, I was afraid I had peaked in my career because that was the most fun job I could envision and I was just sad and nervous that that was going to be my highlight and everything else would fall short.

Emily Howell: And I have been so very pleasantly surprised to come to Copart and find that it’s not the case at all. This is more fun, the work we do and just kind of the freedom we have to create here is wonderful. So, as you mentioned, Copart is an online auto auction platform. We partner with our Sellers, which are primarily insurance companies to help provide that platform to sell on consignment the vehicles that they have repurchased from their insurance.

Emily Howell: So that’s not the only thing we do. That’s the primary thing we do. We also have partnerships with financial institutions or leaks to sell those as well. But we provide this platform for a global audience for vehicles to move around the world. And that is, in a nutshell, what we do, but. There’s so much more to just the innovation we’re allowed to have Jay Adair was our former CEO and he’s the current chairman of our board.

Emily Howell: He has grown up in this business. And in the 90s, he took us online before online was cool. And it was because he had the vision. And that mentality of what’s next. What can we do next to provide value for our sellers and our shareholders to be pervasive. So no one here just sits on their laurels and says well my job is to push this button for the rest of my career.

Emily Howell: It’s my job is to go find what’s next and bring it back and find a way to add that value into our department.

Mike Richards: And you said that he, he saw the value of the internet and going online and everything else. Was that just a business decision or, you know, as you say, it’s quite persuasive, you know, which it sounds different.

Mike Richards: I want to dig into that for the treasury side, but, you know, you feel that you’ve got the latitude to dig into other stuff or.

Emily Howell: Right. So he saw it as, as not only just the future, but reaching more of an audience to sell these vehicles for our sellers. So in a local auction, you have the local buyers by going online, you have the world.

Emily Howell: And that is where we can really provide that value for both ends. A buyer in a remote part of the world might not have a dealership. They can just walk into, but they have a need for transportation. So we provide that service where they still have access to these vehicles. And for our sellers. You know, their duty is to their insured, so to move those vehicles quickly for them, get their insured paid out so they can go buy a new one if they need to, if the car’s been totaled, we’re providing the service to move these vehicles quickly for them.

Emily Howell: And by going online, it’s just a wider audience to have those sold at the proper value and then also as fast as we can.

Mike Richards: And when you joined M& E and, you know, you can give us maybe what was treasury and then risk and the things that, what would, what was it? You walked in the door. What was there? Was it a clean sheet?

Mike Richards: What, you know, Greenfield or what was the situation?

Emily Howell: I did walk into an inherited group of some really talented individuals. My predecessor had left to go pursue his passion in a non for profit treasury role and kind of open this door. He, he’d laid a lot of bedrock for us on future projects and vision, but there was still a, you know, I’m not sure I’ll ever be done, but there was still a lot of projects to go and finish.

Emily Howell: And so I walked in with my team of I had six people here and outs and we did everything from some investments and making payments easier and handling, you know, financial transactions for the company. And that’s grown in scope over the last three years. My team is now, we have 19 people and we’ve taken on other departments from our P cards application group, which is a group we have here.

Emily Howell: And then also I’ve built out the risk function here. So we have several risk professionals.

Mike Richards: And again, we touched on technology there and we talked before about your treasury system and things like that. Yeah. How are you taking treasury forward?

Emily Howell: So. And I credit a lot of this to Leah, who joined us, uh, who is my RCFL, Leah Stearns, and she joined us about two years ago, but the focus has really been on problem solving, manual work, just to really free up time for everyone to take off things that have to be done, but aren’t necessarily creating value to allow more time to go find new ways to create value.

Emily Howell: And so we did that through people processes systems, making sure we have the right people, making sure we have the right systems. And that we have documented processes that make sense for everyone and really eliminating things that are not value add at all. Maybe their legacy that started it for a reason 20 years ago and they’ve been continued on and really taking a critical look at them now to say, is this still a needed function or can we, you know, sunset that and go tackle something else.

Emily Howell: And having that freedom and buy into raise our hand and say, Hey, we’ve grown. We’re a multi, you know, global multi billion dollar company. We should have a TMS, uh, we shouldn’t be working off, uh, Excel spreadsheets from our global finance directors to provide a cashflow. We should have a way to just click a button and get a dashboard, which we do now.

Emily Howell: And really having the freedom to go find a tool that makes us better has been wonderful.

Mike Richards: And just going back to that tool, cause I want to dive into that. I’m assuming that’s not an AI tool. Everyone’s going on about AI or is it an AI tool?

Emily Howell: There is some, there is an element of that. So not generative AI, but machine learning to help, so kind of differentiate what type of AI we utilize.

Emily Howell: We don’t in treasury use anything that’s generative, but we do have machine learning that we utilize to help our cash flow and automate some processes to sort things into the buckets for cash flow where they should go, so that a human’s no longer physically doing that every week.

Mike Richards: And I think that’s the, you know, we interviewed Dana Laidhole back last year, live on stage, but this time last year, and at NASDAQ, and they would then, with machine learning, taking, scraping the exposures on their foreign exchange for NASDAQ.

Mike Richards: You know, previously it was manual, then they were doing it, then they were scraping, scraping, and then they were doing it live. Live scraping of all the FX exposures. Someone asked me the other day, Another recruiter, and they said, Oh, are you using a I used using? I said, I am a bit, but actually the straight through processing for our salary survey.

Mike Richards: If someone does this, I get the person to do it. It automates it. And there’s automation. I think there’s a lot of noise in there. AI is the new buzzword sort of thing. How do you, I mean, I’m sure you’ve got that. I know that you’re involved with various associations of things. We’ll go on to that, but you know, how do you deal with that noise?

Emily Howell: I think that initially when AI came on, everyone’s initial it takes a while. They’re going to take our jobs. Like machines are going to take our jobs. Um, I was at an event last week, um, with some really great CFOs that put on various topics. It was a learning event. On one slide of the final, uh, presentation on ai, there was a quote that said, and I apologize, I I don’t have the original person who said that, but the quote was, AI is not gonna replace our jobs, but humans with AI will replace the jobs of humans without ai.

Emily Howell: And that I wrote down, I was like, oh my gosh. I think I’ve told probably 10 people. That’s exactly it. So we’re not gonna have bots sitting here anytime soon. Maybe in 500 years, but having the tools to make us more efficient and use our brain to critically go find new opportunities that that’s where a I really augments the treasury function.

Mike Richards: I mean, and so I’m bringing it back here that with the salary survey this this guy was like, Oh, I’m going to do it this way. I’m going to do that when I was like, That’s fine for you. And I wanted to say to him, I know it won’t work because I’ve tried it myself. The more that you can automate it, the more than there is.

Mike Richards: And there was a big hump at the beginning, but then the benefits just like, take, take off and don’t they, and financing with you guys again, we’re not going to get into confidential info, but more. You know, what approaches have you taken? Because again, I think you said you’ve got 11 different countries and you’ve got international operations.

Mike Richards: What’s that like for you as a treasurer.

Emily Howell: I have a privilege of leading a very successful company right now. At Forterra, we were highly leveraged. It was all about debt management and being creative and managing the debt. Here, it’s more working capital and managing cash. And so we don’t have debt, which is a very wonderful privilege.

Emily Howell: We have quite a lot of liquidity that we’re able to find new ways to responsibly invest and create that return for our shareholders. We’re always looking to squeeze a little more blood out of the tournament to get more and more. Return on our investments for our, our group and the financing. We’ve taken different strategies just in my time here on if we want to utilize outside financing or internal and try to we’ve done both to see which one is the best fit.

Mike Richards: We talked there, you know, we’ve gone from you joining risk and insurance and things like that. Now you’re the treasurer, the co part. As you’ve taken on the leadership roles, and I know that I’m seeing you in Texpo in a few weeks time and things like that. As treasurer professionals there, we’re giving our treasury career corner live.

Mike Richards: We’re doing that to show how other treasurers have done it. You know, what advice would you give to those treasury professionals? I know you’ve spoken at some of these conferences. When you’re talking to that audience, is it about study? Is it about getting around the company? Or what are some of the secrets for success, if you like?

Emily Howell: So for me, it’s my personality. It’s building relationships, both internal and external is knowing who you’re supporting and what their goals are so that you can then tailor your goals to support their goals. Treasury is a cost center, not lately because of interest rates and we’ve, we’ve had some good returns but in general we don’t go create value out.

Emily Howell: In the world by making the things are selling the things we create value by supporting those who do. And so it’s critical to know them, know their priorities, know their future vision, and then tailor what we’re doing to help them achieve that. And building those relationships is the critical point because I could think something’s a fantastic idea I love the product and I want to go implement it.

Emily Howell: And then it provides no benefit for that the overall organizational goals. And while it was awesome and cool, it’s just it’s accomplished and doing nothing to drive value. Whereas if I go and have these regular one on ones and go to lunch and have those conversations and be included in the meetings to know what the vision is the long term horizon.

Emily Howell: Then I can get in line and make sure that we are an engine behind those that are doing it to really push them forward in a more meaningful and efficient way. I

Mike Richards: mean, if someone is, how can I put it? If someone is facing that situation where they are talking to a colleague who is quite passionate about one of the things they want to do, and you’re trying to, you know, again, without confidential things, how do you coach them out of it?

Mike Richards: If they’re going, Oh, yeah, we should do this, we should be like, yeah, yeah. But

Emily Howell: I think a lot of it is by having them talk you through it and kind of come to those conclusions on their own once they start getting deeper. So, you know, there’s the five whys and like, why do you think that’s the direction we should go?

Emily Howell: What do you see the benefit? And then kind of seeing where. Perhaps a different approach might be more beneficial in the long run. And if not, understanding that I, you know, maybe it’s me that needs to compromise. Maybe it’s my vision that needs to be aligned. So not coming in with a hammer, but coming in as a note taker and understanding.

Emily Howell: Um, how we can work together to accomplish a goal and not work against each other. I think one of the challenges that I faced is resistance to change co part is wildly successful, and in 42 years they’ve accomplished amazing things. And so there’s a tendency. For folks that have been here 25, 30 years to be like, this is how we got here.

Emily Howell: And I don’t want to change that. And so being respectful and be like, you have done an amazing thing and you have gotten here and accomplish these things with maybe archaic tools now and today. But what got us here is not going to get us to the next level. And, and how can we pivot and use the knowledge that we’ve grown and accumulated over this time to then.

Emily Howell: leverage up to what the next plateau might be in another two years.

Mike Richards: And now I wanted to sort of move into, I know you’re great with your relationships. You’re great with, you know, volunteering for, you know, committees, paying it forward and things like that. I was just actually putting together some of my, they won’t have heard this.

Mike Richards: This is a good thing. People won’t have heard my final slides and things, but you know, I was talking about the New York cash, so the team Manny association, and I put my hand up to help with one of their sessions. They said actually we fully fall for that one. Can you, could you help with this other one?

Mike Richards: That’s led to two or three other things up, but I never did it for that reason. It wasn’t done in a pre plan. I must do this. It was like, look, do you want a hand? I can help if you want, you know, I’ve got this expertise. I know you do a similar thing with various organizations. You know, is that just at the goodness of your heart or why are you doing it?

Emily Howell: So finance in Dallas is a somewhat small world, and I take the responsibility of acknowledging that my team is the future leaders of finance in Dallas. And it’s, it’s not through me, but it’s through encouraging them to participate in things like that, that they get exposure to and develop who they’re going to become when they’re in 10 years or 15 years, and really investing in the people and in the organizations that support the people now.

Emily Howell: Pays off in the future so that people have been like, I remember that I sat in a meeting. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I’ve done it before. And now I feel more confident to do it this time. And that’s really what the mentors early on in my career did for me. And it’s something that I’m really passionate about doing for not only just my team here at Copart, but for the others that are just starting is that exposure to.

Emily Howell: Big things early on helps build the confidence of what this is for sure what I want to do. And then when you get there knowing, Oh, I’ve done this before, I recognize this, I’m familiar with it and having the confidence to then move on purposefully in that next project or role. And beyond that, knowing that I’m kind of teaching them to teach others so that when they get there, they’re the same thing.

Emily Howell: And having this generational impact on the finance and Dallas is something that I am passionate about.

Mike Richards: Although I got some pushback for this, actually, when I was at AFP, and I was talking to a couple of, uh, treasurers, they were like, listening to podcasts all the time, Mike, really enjoy it, but sometimes you talk about these treasurers, I just don’t know where they get the time.

Mike Richards: You know, it’s like, you know, if I’m giving time to my association, if I’m doing this, and I was just like, well, It’s not like you make time, you’re not robbing time with your family, you know, for me, it’s sort of, you know, it’s given opportunities to travel the world and, and actually now, you know, when we do AFP later this year, it’s going to be a family trip because it coincides with a holiday.

Mike Richards: That’s what I, one of the things I was saying to them, you know, we’re planning ahead and things, but how would you justify it? You know, if you’ve got sort of someone that’s perhaps not quite so keen, you know, how do you, how do you convince them? What’s the convincer?

Emily Howell: I think it’s very personalized on positions in life at any given time.

Emily Howell: My kids are teenagers, they’re about to go off to college, so I have a little bit more time. I don’t think I could be as invested if I had three year olds in daycare. So recognizing one size does not fit all at any given time. And honoring that sometimes a boundary is important because you want to be there for a little league game.

Emily Howell: My little league games are done. And so I have a little bit more time in the evenings to invest in the organization. And then also just prioritizing what you’re passionate about. I probably would not be as invested as I am if I was some other career that I didn’t find so exciting. But because I sound my passion, it’s not work.

Emily Howell: It’s not like, Oh, I have to go to this event. It’s like, I get to go to this event. I get to be with other thought leaders and learn from them. And it’s just exciting to me. I just really enjoy it. So it, it’s not necessarily a burden. It’s a privilege.

Mike Richards: And I’ve talked to, I’m trying to remember who I was talking to the other day, but we were talking about the working from home life balance and things.

Mike Richards: And actually now, we were talking about the fact that they They do a lot of their work. They then get to see their kids and everything else. And they know that they’re going to be on for a couple of hours that evening. That’s fine. They said, actually, because I’m, you know, I’m able to go to the gym in the morning, then I’m dealing with the U S then I’m doing this and then, you know, I mean, but there’s a flexibility there and it’s not like they were saying, but I have to work 12 hour days.

Mike Richards: They were saying, no, I work. An eight hour day, but on my own time in working from home and things, and they are sometimes traveling to the city and things like that, but it sounds like you’ve got similar thing as well.

Emily Howell: We do. Um, we are primarily, um, in person here. I, we do rotate just one day at home to be able to do the things as well, but it is similar that we might jump back on in the evening to finish a project, but it all stems from something because we’re passionate about it, so it’s not.

Emily Howell: An atmosphere of like crushing, like despair of, Oh, I still have to do more work. It’s like, Ooh, I have some more time to go work on this a little bit more. Because you can see tangible differences that you’re making in an organization. It’s exciting for me. And for most of my group, I think would say the same thing.

Mike Richards: And I know that you’ve spoken at industry conferences. We’ve talked, you know, we both do this. And then you also have been recognized as a nominee for treasury today’s woman of the year and things. You know, how important to that is that that sort of recognition, but also networking thought leadership and things within your career.

Mike Richards: Is that something you think you’ve just touched on there? That’s why it’s sort of, you know, bringing it to mind. Is that the thing you think everyone should try and do?

Emily Howell: I think, again, it’s individualized. The recognition, obviously, is very, it’s nice. It’s not a driving factor. I think it’s important for the industry to have ways to recognize folks and future leaders really combat things like imposter syndrome.

Emily Howell: If you’re in a brand new role, and you’re trying your best and you love doing it but you’re not getting that feedback by doing a good job, am I making a difference am I participating in the larger ecosystem to make it better. Those little benchmarks and touch points of, Hey, you did something really cool.

Emily Howell: This is really great. It’s reassuring to be like, okay, what I’m doing is making a difference and it invigorates you to continue going on. So I think those industry groups and those recognition and awards is, it’s great to really spur on, uh, the folks that just. Give them a touch point. If you’re on the right track, keep going.

Mike Richards: Yeah. And any other advice you give, maybe looking back to yourself a number of years ago that you, you now wish, oh God, I wish, you know, if you were listening to the podcast today and you’re a treasury assistant moving into your first analyst role or something, any, any advice there?

Emily Howell: I definitely wish I could go back to 2018 and listen to my then mentor and boss at the time who told me, go get your CPA, because at the time I thought, Oh, that sounds awful.

Emily Howell: I just finished my master’s in accountancy in August of last year. So it took me a few years to get there. Um, and I, I definitely wish I had invested more into education and learning and being prepared for the roles to come versus just being complacent is probably not the right word, but just enjoying where I was.

Emily Howell: So having more of a future, a longer vision for where I wanted to go would have been great to have. I still wound up in a wonderful place. But now it’s something that I really take seriously of driving where I want to go from here and, and being the CEO of my own career to know, um, where the next steps might

Mike Richards: be.

Mike Richards: Love that. I’m going to take that. Well, I’ll cut that out and say, I want that one. CEO of your own career. Great words from Mike Richards. That’s amazing. I’ve got a lot. I’ve got a Leanne going or your network is your net worth and all this stuff. And I’m getting the CEO over in your own career. Why are you giving value bombs?

Mike Richards: Like these are mine, but actually one of the things that will say is you can talk about investing in yourself. We were just talking before the show that we are working more closely with the AFP, for instance, at Jim Cates on the show. We’re going to get other people, but because we’re doing stuff and you know, we’ll put a link in the show notes to people if they’re thinking about studying.

Mike Richards: We have partnered with AFP with, you know, to go and do CTP. We love all education is just how it happens. We’re going to work closely with those guys because that’s something we want people to do. You know, get that education. It helps you. Don’t you come to get away from people?

Emily Howell: That’s absolutely right.

Emily Howell: Education or travel are the two things no one can take away. And that CTP credential I earned mine in 2018. It makes you kind of a jack of all trades in treasury so that you’re ready to tackle whatever project. presents itself next or where you want to drive, you know a little bit about a lot of things.

Emily Howell: And that is invaluable so that you’re never starting from square one at any given time when a new project comes up, you’re like, Oh, I remember this, or I know where to go for this. Um, it’s just incredibly value additive to appear in treasury.

Mike Richards: Well, we’re going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes.

Mike Richards: And I mean, we will finish on your lovely phrase in a minute, because that was just brilliant, but LinkedIn details in the show notes, what are the takeaway pieces of advice that you would give to anyone listening today?

Emily Howell: From a treasury perspective, this particular brand of finance is. It’s extremely collaborative and being willing to maybe push your comfort zone, seek out leaders.

Emily Howell: People love talking about their passions. Here I am now. You know, I love talking about treasury and I’m so excited to be, be on your podcast. So asking others that maybe be a leader in a different part of the business to tell you what their passion is and see how you can support that. I think building relationships and being collaborative is the key to innovation in treasury for, for.

Emily Howell: You know, now and into the future.

Mike Richards: Amazing, but we can’t leave it there. You’re going to have to, you’re going to say the words and, you know, you’ve got to repeat them. Being CEO of your own treasury career, you’ve got to say that, surely?

Emily Howell: I do, and I take ownership of my career. I know that I’m the CEO of my career and I’m in charge of me to know where I need to augment what my current skills to go to where my future vision for myself will be.

Mike Richards: You can’t make that up through chat, but GPT, you can’t give us gold like that. So anyone listening today, be lucky, lucky to have Emily in your, um, circle, uh, connect with her. We’re going to see each other in Texas very soon. Thank you very much. You’ve been an absolute superstar.

Emily Howell: Thank you so much, Mike.

Emily Howell: This has been wonderful. I really, I, it’s an honor, a privilege to be part of your podcast.

Mike Richards: Thank you.