Visibility, Voice and Leadership: Treasury Career Lessons from Victoria’s Secret, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Horizon BCBS

Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: So welcome back. Now those of you hands up, those of you who have come to one of these before, look at that. So we must be doing something right. Whoa, I’m loud. Let’s take that down a bit further, right? So I usually do this bit. I say get a bit of enthusiasm. Everyone gimme a big and then we do it twice.

Mike Richards: It’s a bit boring. So I’m going to give a good evening and you are going to give it back cause you’ve got some amazing guests here. Good evening, New York. Good evening. Evening. Oh, you didn’t let me down. Thank you very much. So you’ve all made the effort. I don’t know if Cisco can turn this down a little bit. You all made the effort to come here.

Mike Richards: Good thing is there’s no wifi signal so it means you can’t go on your phones now. I don’t know why I’m getting feedback. Can we get Cisco? Can you ask Joe? Move out from under speaker. Yeah. Whereabouts? Oh yeah. Sorry about that. Right? Yeah. But I’ve got to be here. I’ve got to talk to my guests. Here’s the thing.

Mike Richards: So, um, you have come here, so be present, join with these me and three amazing treasurers. Then afterwards, you get to network with a lot of your peers. You also, by coming here, get CTP credits. Thank you very much. I know

Mike Richards: I want to, firstly thank as well Chrome 11. Where is Ken? Where’s our host? That’s Ken. You have to be really nice to Ken. He’s providing them. Thank you.

Mike Richards: And we’re getting free drinks. Even from the guys at Treasury Spring and Kyriba, ICD, Redbridge, TIS. Can you beat your hands up please? Right. Those are the guys you really need to be nice to,

Mike Richards: because they’re providing the drinks, they’re paying for the venue and everything else. So who am I? Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. As you can see, I’ve got face radio. That’s why I do a podcast. We have a lovely team. Got Joe here today, Katie, back in London, and myself over here. I’ve been a treasury recruiter now for the past 25 years after doing it, well, about six years ago I started a podcast.

Mike Richards: I thought we’d do 10 episodes. We’ve now done 375. Every single week I speak to a treasurer about their treasury careers. I was just explaining earlier to Frank. Soon we’re just going through the approval process with a FP. You’ll be able to listen to the podcast whilst you’re walking your dog. Go into the gym and earn CTP credits as well.

Mike Richards: I know another reason to listen to my lovely voice every week, but more than that, you actually get to listen to amazing treasures like these three. So this is what we’re gonna do this evening. We are gonna go through each of our panelists with, they’re gonna give a quick run through of their backgrounds.

Mike Richards: We’ll talk about the new parts of well life, if you like, and this new ways of working, a bit of hybrid and everything else, what they do. Then you’re gonna get a chance to ask some questions, ask some questions. When was the last chance? Last time rather you got the, the opportunity to have the Treasurer of Victoria’s Secret, treasurer of Bristol Myers Squibb and Frank and he, he’s gonna explain all about his company as well.

Mike Richards: So, summer over to you.

Summa Simmons, Associate Vice President of Treasury at Victoria’s Secret & Co.: Alright, we’re jumping into this. Hi everyone. I am Summer Simmons, and. My career has been shaped by one simple mindset. I always wanna be a volunteer, never a hostage to my career. So I, in needing to live through that, that means I had to say yes, excuse me, to the opportunities that took me outside of my comfort zone.

Summa Simmons: It means that I just had to step outside of my box. I’m an accountant by trade. Um, after about a decade of booking journal entries and planning my whole life around month end, um, including my wedding, never being able to take a day off on my birthday, I had an unplanned hallway conversation that just changed everything.

Summa Simmons: So I went from managing the rear view. That’s a little historical context kind. Y’all got it? Okay. Um, to focusing on the future. And that shift literally happened overnight when I joined Treasury as a practitioner. Um, fast forward about 12 years later today. I lead a treasury team at Victoria’s Secret and Company where I’m responsible for managing cash, um, capital structure, corporate finance, risk m and a, and everything in between, um, given the day.

Summa Simmons: And this audience can appreciate that better than anyone. And if there’s one thing that being in treasury has taught me, it’s that a successful career doesn’t necessarily follow a straight path. After finding myself in this field, I made a promise I am no longer putting limits on what my career should look like, and I’m staying open to what it could look like.

Summa Simmons: Sorry. Because the big opportunities don’t always follow a roadmap. So here we are today, super excited to be here back home in New York, um, for about 48 hours. But more importantly, humbled to share a panel with these esteemed individuals and the MR. Treasury himself. Me, by the way,

Sandra,

Sandra Ramos Alves, Senior Vice President & Treasurer at Bristol Myers Squibb: so thank you and I will not be as eloquent as sum you.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, my journey has been more so about risk taking and, and, um, opportunities. Um, I too was an accounting major and I’m a CPA. I’ve done one journal entry my entire career and I’m quite proud of that. Um, I started my career in at and t at, uh, in a rotational development program. Um, and as my entire career has basically led to every company I joined kind of disappears.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So a month into being at at and t, they announced Triva stature. I chose to go to Lucent, so the unknown. Um, I had a wonderful seven years there. Uh, I had a couple of international assignments, so I took the risk, used my language skills, spent a year in Mexico, spent a couple of years in internal audit, uh, supporting Latin American, and I spent almost a couple of years in Brazil.

Sandra Ramos Alves: I decided that I wanted to come back to New Jersey and be close to family. I did not have a job, so I came back with a hope and a dream of finding a job. And serendipity happened and an FX manager opening happened to come about, and that’s how my career started in treasury. And I’ve been in treasury ever since.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So I’ve been in treasury longer than most pe Some people in this room have probably been working, uh, or alive. Um. I, I left, uh, Lucent because, you know, Lucent also had went through some challenges and some troubles and a headcount cut and et cetera, et cetera. I joined a company called Sendent Corporation and their international Treasury department, which was, it was a broader role.

Sandra Ramos Alves: I was there for around two and a half years. Always had a keen interest in pharma. You know, I wanted to work in an industry that made a difference in people’s lives and, you know, who hasn’t had someone impacted by cancer in their family. So that just meant something to me. Um, I had an opportunity to go either to j and j.

Sandra Ramos Alves: As, uh, an international treasury manager or to a no name company, Celgene. At the time, it was a $400 million thalidomide company, um, which could have failed within a few months of my being there. And of course, I chose to go to the no name company and, and take the gamble. And it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Sandra Ramos Alves: It, uh, changed the trajectory of my family and my career, frankly. I was there for 15 years, um, had my kids while I was there, got to grow and build a treasury organization, touched every single thing in treasury. Uh, learned what I liked and didn’t like. Um, and then we were acquired in 2019, so, you know, third company down.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, so I have been at, uh, Bristol Myers Squibb since 2019. I did lobby, um, for my role, um, at Bristol Myers, I, I had a choice. Do I wanna stay or do I just want to go in and look for a different opportunity? I, I did lobby for a promotion. So when I went to Bristol Myers, I did go as a vp, uh, assistant treasurer, and then I did lobby that I wanted to be treasurer one day.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So my lesson to everyone here is advocate for yourself. Because if you don’t speak up, people may not even know that you’re interested in the role. So I did approach our CFO one day. I said I would like to be treasurer one day, whenever the time is right. I got the, I got the call in, uh, 2021 and, uh, I couldn’t believe it.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Literally, I thought I was getting in trouble. I thought I was getting fired actually. ’cause there was an HR person in the room. I said, oh, goodness, what did I do? Um, so I got the job. He told me, you know, you have to fire x. Person and you have to build the treasury of the future. So we have been on an amazing ride, um, over the last few years building and changing the BMS treasury function, and I have an amazing team that I’ve been able to build and support me.

Mike Richards: And I want to explore a little bit more about your teams as we go through. We’ll go across to Frank over to you.

Frank Melaccio, Vice President, Finance & Treasurer at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ: Sure. Um, so I probably have the opposite, um, way kind of. I got into treasury, so I started off in banking. I worked in two different banks, and then I made my way into an accounting firm doing structured finance.

Frank Melaccio: So working banking at an accounting firm as a pwc for a couple years. Um, made my way over to a client, which was a health insurance company, which probably the last place I thought I was gonna work on my career trajectory, which I’ll probably cover a little bit in comments later. Um, and now I’m at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield in New Jersey.

Frank Melaccio: So one thing that perhaps you can take away from today is most people know the name Blue Cross Blue Shield, but don’t understand how it works. So I’m gonna kind of explain it to you real quickly. Um, each Blue Cross Blue Shield Company is an independent company, or most of them are, um, they share a franchise license and they have a governance, right?

Frank Melaccio: So, for example, my company has the, the rights for the logo in the New Jersey. We share a network. So once you’re covered by one company, depending on your plan, you’re generally covered by any Blue Cross Blue Shield Company. So if you think of it like a franchise, that’s effectively how it operates. Um, probably the most well known as Ance, that’s the publicly traded Blue Cross Blue Shield company.

Frank Melaccio: They cover a couple different states, including New York. Um, but we’re focused on New Jersey. Um, you know, in terms of my role, I kind of started in treasury at my last company, which is Emblem Health and Insurance Company based here in, uh, New York City. Um, and then went over to Horizon and it’s been a, been a good opportunity for me.

Frank Melaccio: I’ve certainly learned a lot. Um, and I think the, the interesting thing about our different industries, although we’re both in healthcare, they’re kind of different sides of healthcare. Um, treasury has a kind of common bond no matter what industry that you’re in. Um, and there’s always nuances. So I think, you know, one of the things that I think about in my career, I’ve kind of become the expert on health insurance, but it’s interesting to interact with other treasurers because I like learning about different industries.

Frank Melaccio: And so I’d always say take advantage of opportunities to hear from others and learn those different industries. You’ll get a lot out of it that you sometimes take back to your job.

Mike Richards: And also you then lecture as well, don’t you, at Hofstra? Yeah.

Frank Melaccio: Yes. I’ve been, uh, I’m actually a union member, so I’m in the, uh, the professor’s union, uh, nationally.

Frank Melaccio: I’ve been doing it for about 10 years at Hofstra. Um, definitely a passion of mine. I love teaching. I love education. I love being part of the university. And quite honestly, I’ll be one of my other comments. I think it keeps me fresh. Um, you know, there’s a lot to research, a lot to study, and so the fact that I can cite like cap end, you know, formulas and things off the top of my head and I’m proud of that.

Mike Richards: Well, we’ll start actually with yourself then. Maybe, you know, we’ve got a mixed audience here. So some early practitioners, you know, maybe studying CTP as well and some that have been through the program study-wise. You know, obviously you are, you’re seeing that as you say, every day, you know, for the past 10 years.

Mike Richards: Why do you think that’s so important if that

Frank Melaccio: I, you know, I think if the pace is just going to continue, so, you know, the idea, I think a lot of times people thought years ago, um, oh, I go to school, maybe I’ll get my MBA and then I’m done for the rest of my life and I’m kind of, and, and that wasn’t the case then.

Frank Melaccio: And it’s even less the case now. Um, skills are, you have to be relevant all the time. Myself, I challenge myself to study up on things. Um, you know, and the best thing with the way things are structured today is. You can go online and you can read, do a podcast. I mean, podcasts are great ’cause you can get exercise and learn a lot at the same time.

Frank Melaccio: I mean that, that’s really important. And so the ability to learn continuously is going to create those opportunities. Because, you know, Sandra just spoke about earlier that advocating for yourself, you know, no one’s gonna say, oh, I think you know this. You have to prove that you know it. And so the best way to do that is to take that on yourself.

Frank Melaccio: You know, whether it’s a certificate, a course, whatever, to say, Hey, I’m motivated, I’m interested throwing on it on your resume. I think that’s one great way to advocate for yourself,

Mike Richards: Sandra, with you and your team, you know, obviously you’ve got, again, a range of them, you know, junior guys, mid-levels, you know, what do you do to support the education and development of those guys?

Sandra Ramos Alves: Yeah, so we are very keen on developing our team and cross training. Um, we do a lot of benchmarking as well. So we are, we’re very involved in the no group organization where we’re benchmarking with all of the other mega caps and we’re always, we are gonna learn something ’cause it doesn’t matter what industry you work in.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Treasury’s treasury risk management is risk management. Um, we take advantage of all of the bank the banks have to offer. The banks certainly have a lot of great ideas and sometimes those ideas require a lot of education for us to actually be able to explain them to our senior leadership and to implement.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, so it is a continuous journey. We have lunch and learns as well, so that we’re teaching different areas of the department, what other areas are doing so that everyone is on par and understands kind of how we’re delivering value for the organization.

Summer.

Summa Simmons: Similar, um, to Sandra, we take advantage of the bank’s willingness to teach, quote unquote for free.

Summa Simmons: Um, and we, I personally try to stay really engaged with my peers, um, and encourage the team to find their equivalent in retail and outside of retail as everyone on the panel has shared. Treasury is treasury or industry looks a little different, but the things that we’re challenged by we’re all challenged by them.

Summa Simmons: Um, I think having access to relevant information, understanding that our role is best elevated outside of the company. Like most people in our four walls can’t teach us treasury. We’re normally teaching them. And so getting outside of our building, whether it’s virtually or in person, a few weeks ago, um, we finally took Goldman Sachs up on an offer, um, to come in and have a teach in.

Summa Simmons: And it was fantastic, right? Like the team was like, oh my gosh, this is what they’re building is. I was like, don’t get ahead of yourself, you see what we pay them. Um, so it was just a really fantastic. Time to be outside of the cubes or your home office and being someplace else in a quasi classroom environment.

Summa Simmons: So taking advantage of all the access to resources, whether it’s podcasts, um, off the shelf decks that the banks might have or no group, just looking for bits and pieces that can help tell the story in bite-size, cognitive easily, um, to digest ways that has really helped the team. I have a team that’s coming from fp and a, they have no treasury or they had no treasury experience and so we agreed that they would trade their institutional knowledge and I would teach them treasury and get to be the hero.

Summa Simmons: Um, and now they love it. And so what’s valuable in that is just really figuring out what do they need, how do they digest things and giving them access to it.

Mike Richards: Cool. Sandra, did you move your microphone up a little bit? Just that one? Yeah, that’s it. Perfect. Um,

Sandra Ramos Alves: even with the mic, I speak too loud.

Mike Richards: Um. What do you see as key to your success?

Mike Richards: I’ll start with some and then come across. If you’re like looking back at your career and, and thinking some of the steps you’ve made or missteps you’ve made as well. The do’s and don’ts again for, you know, I do that every week when I talk to people on the podcast and I have pre-brief my audio, my, my panelists.

Mike Richards: Don’t worry, these aren’t tricky questions. When you look back at that, what were the thoughts of yourself? What did you look at?

Summa Simmons: Alright, so I’m gonna start with the keys to my success. So most people, um, their moms know them best, right? And if your mom were to describe you growing up, two, three words, she’d have them tip of her tongue.

Summa Simmons: My mom would describe me as chatty and nosy. She would probably still describe me that way today. Um, and so after years of being chatty and nosy and the benefit of perspective, I realized that that translates into curious and able to establish connections really easily. And so that has been everything for me in the course of my career.

Summa Simmons: So whether it was being an accountant and just kind of stepping through what that looked like to networking and engaging and having this unplanned hallway conversation that then allowed me to get into treasury, I find that I’m still using that, talking to bankers, talking to our key stakeholders, helping people who really just wanna understand the difference between, most people think that treasury is some weird combination of AP and I don’t know, accounting.

Summa Simmons: Um, they wanna know, do we have enough money for me to get paid next week? That’s all they care about, and I’m okay with that. ’cause that means they know that I exist. And so that’s a large part of not just me, but our team exists. And that’s a large part of the communication and the connection. More importantly, that means that treasury is always thought of in the context of, we have this great idea, but do we have the money to do it?

Summa Simmons: And I will take that all day before they spend the money, and then we find out that they spent it and we’ve gotta go looking for it. So from a success perspective, I would say it’s just channeling your inner kindergartner and figuring out how that shows up in your day job. And I’ve been able to do that.

Summa Simmons: Um, missteps. I think the biggest misstep that I’ve made during the course of my career is waiting to be perfect or waiting for somebody to tap me on the shoulder or waiting to be able to hit every single bullet on a job description to say, okay, I’m ready. And you get one boss, too many that has no idea what you do and you figure out I’m gonna start applying for these jobs.

Summa Simmons: ’cause apparently anybody could do it. Um, not anybody could do it, but I got to a place where I stopped waiting for perfection, and I finally started saying to Sandra’s point, raising your hand and saying, I’m interested in doing X at some point in life. Raising your hand for the stretch assignment, raising your hand to be the project lead for treasury on some bigger project.

Summa Simmons: And it’s really just giving yourself permission to lead with progress, not permission. Not per, not perfection. Sorry

Sandra.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So in terms of my success, I think first and foremost it’s having a very strong support system and a strong team surrounding myself with really smart individuals. And sometimes people that are smarter than me.

Sandra Ramos Alves: You know, we don’t, I don’t know everything and I don’t have to, I have a great team and I can rely on them. You know, the other things that are on me is my work ethic. I have an incredible, uh, work ethic, a little, actually work a little too much. Um, uh, my desire for results and, and our focus and just always delivering value for the organization and really selling that and, and highlighting for everyone in the company what treasury can deliver for the organization.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Because we are not a cash management shop, we actually do a lot of other things. Uh, we treasury and we do have the ability to deliver value. And it is the only finance, uh, function that actually delivers p and l. Um, in terms of missteps, I don’t really focus on mistakes. ’cause to me they’re all learning opportunities and it’s more of a personal learning.

Sandra Ramos Alves: It is balance. So, because I’ve always worked so hard, I missed out on my kids growing up. So my learning was I should have had more balance when my kids were younger and spent more time and gone to the, the elementary school to go to the class party to go to the Halloween party. Because when they call you out on it, let me tell you, it doesn’t feel good.

Sandra Ramos Alves: And they remember. Um,

Frank Melaccio: no thanks. Um, yeah, no, I think some really, really great points from both of you. Um, you know, from my perspective, I, you know, when I think about what I, perhaps earlier on in my career, I didn’t think through is. I think a lot of people have this view on, I want to do this, and I don’t open myself up to the various pathways.

Frank Melaccio: And I kind of said, my earlier comments, if you would’ve asked me if I’d work at a health insurance company, I, I would’ve told you no, you know, 20 years ago. Um, and if I told you two health insurance companies, I definitely would’ve said no. And here I am, right? So sometimes the opportunities that life brings you, um, you don’t expect.

Frank Melaccio: And if you’re not open to them, you know, you can actually cut off viable career pathways for yourself. So be open to opportunities. I think that’s a misstep that I’ve probably been guilty at at some point in time. And I think a lot of us are, um, because we have our own biases and perceptions about what we think certain jobs or roles or industries are.

Frank Melaccio: Um, I think the different di uh, differentiator, um, that you can think about when you go out in the market is, um, you know, one of the things I’ve learned in my career is, you know, some people say, oh, I want the job and then I’ll do, and I think, you know, at least in corporate America. That’s a really hard proposition to make because companies, managers, particularly at the C-suite, they’re not looking to reward you and then take a chance on you, right?

Frank Melaccio: You have to show your value to them in order to, to get there. And so you, you think, oh, well, I put in my time, I should get it. Whatever the case is, may be the case. But that’s not the world works, in my opinion, and that’s not been my experience. And so I think the, the biggest advice I could get to everybody that I’ve kind of benefited from my career is do the role demonstrate you can do it even though you don’t have the title and sign up for more responsibility, even without any of it.

Frank Melaccio: And at the end of the day, it’s going to give you one or two things, right? Either you work for a great company that’s gonna notice you and is not going to wanna lose you, and now your leverage just went up because they’re worried that you’re very marketable, and so they better promote you or pay you, otherwise you’re gonna go someplace else, right?

Frank Melaccio: Or if it doesn’t happen at your company. You’ve just improved your resume dramatically and you’ve created better experiences that you can give to another employer. So don’t say you have to pay me to do that job responsibility. Just sign up. And that’s been kind of the story of my career. Um, I’ve, you know, people that known me, every time there’s someone and they can’t figure out a way to put it, give it to Frank, sure, I’ll do it.

Frank Melaccio: I don’t complain. Get it done. So be a doer, don’t complain and be disciplined. I think that’s benefiting. And if

Mike Richards: you are coaching and managing a team to do that, how do you, how do you get that across them? ’cause again, we’ve got some people here in the audience. They might be freshly, you know, they were a treasury analyst senior, now they’re becoming a treasury manager, they’re starting to coach a mentor.

Mike Richards: You know, what advice would you give? We go there and we come back through the panel.

Frank Melaccio: I would, I say all the time, the hardest part of my job is managing people. All the technical stuff is really easy. Um, and as you grow, go, you know, forward in your career and get promoted, you have to manage more people and more different personalities.

Frank Melaccio: And so companies pay you to manage people. They don’t pay you for just your intellect. Otherwise they could just hire a PhD to, to be the treasurer, right? And so putting together teams that work is difficult. Um, I would say the most important thing to figure out is who’s ever on your team? Sit down and ask them what is important to you, right?

Frank Melaccio: Because when you ask somebody what’s important to them, you’re going to get a different one. Some people it may be work life balance, another person, it might be career progression. Um, another person might be experiences or exposed, they want to get, so figure out what makes each person on your team tick.

Frank Melaccio: And then being the manager figure out, how can I put this team together so that as a whole, they function. So if you can figure out what’s somebody’s strength, the other person’s weakness, how can I blend that to make a more effective team? That will really help you out If you just sit there and say, I want everybody to do the same thing.

Frank Melaccio: That’s great in theory, but really good teams don’t execute that way. Um, people are trying to work with each other and partner to cover up where the weak spots are and it makes the team better. Um, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the last year or two working on my leadership and the company’s invested a lot in that, and I think I’ve learned a lot in the process and I, you know, quite honestly, I think the teams that I’ve had have been excelled because of that.

Mike Richards: Yeah. I wanna get to Sandra, I was just gonna chip in as well. I, I did a, um, a session with a number of US treasurers just at the end of Covid, and we were talking about our treasury salary survey, and I was talking to them, they said, oh, it’s all about the money. I said, do you know why it’s not? They’re like, whoa, whoa, no.

Mike Richards: Yeah. This is your salary survey. This is it. I said, and I went back through and they said, well, what advice do we need to do to keep our team? And literally, and I, I just kept, luckily I kept the slide here and it was like I said, right. Go and have this conversation with ’em. Say, what’s your work life balance like?

Mike Richards: Am I being a decent boss to you? Are we giving you enough variety? How are you fitting in with the team? And then ask about the salary, and they said, well, why? And I said, well, 85% of your jobs will go, your problems will go away. They’re like, really? I said, yeah. These are the top reasons. 80% of staff leave ’cause of these.

Mike Richards: So Sandra, for yourself, what? You know, how do you manage it?

Sandra Ramos Alves: So to me, culture is everything. If you have a good culture on your team, you’ll get the results that you need or even exceed. Um, so when I was building out my team, um, it was all about fit. It wasn’t necessarily about having the tru uh, the treasury skills because we can teach those, but it was about, uh, the mindset and the fit and the being open-minded to change.

Sandra Ramos Alves: ’cause change was coming and it was gonna come fast, um, which meant trust and psychological safety was a top priority for me. Um, you have to get the team to really trust you and, and to buy in to what you’re trying to do and, and change because people change is hard. There’s a lot of fear that comes with change ’cause people automatically assume.

Sandra Ramos Alves: With change, that means I may lose my job. And that’s not really what change is about. Change is about improving and enhancing your work-life balance. Um, so we focus a lot on the work-life balance, um, and having fun at work.

Summa.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Yeah.

Summa Simmons: We work for a place that sells thongs, so have fun at work. You send a typo.

Summa Simmons: Instead of putting the things, you put thongs, you don’t get a call from HR because you could just be talking about sales and thongs. Yeah. In seriousness, uh, both my panel, my co-panelists nailed it, right? Like, I like to believe that hiring for mindset over skillset is way more important. You can teach someone treasury.

Summa Simmons: Most of us have all learned treasury, hands on the job and understanding what the work entails and how you need to think about it. We can step through that. We can do all the things, but is the person willing. Right? Is the person willing to think outside the box? Do they ask good questions? Do they follow up with solutions?

Summa Simmons: All of that. I don’t believe you can always teach. So there’s that piece. The other piece of it, Frank, nailed it, it’s about identifying what motivates your people. Some people want visibility. They wanna be in every meeting with the CFO, they wanna be front row, they wanna be presenting. And then there’s the person who’s a steady Eddie.

Summa Simmons: They wanna have mastery in their role and they just wanna know that they’re making a valuable contribution. And then there’s a person that’s trying to figure out, is this my thing? Like they all seem to love it. I don’t know if I’m into it. And working with them to figure out, maybe they’re your projects person.

Summa Simmons: Maybe they don’t love the mundane, maybe they wanna be at the front of what problems the rest of the organization has and how treasury can navigate that. So being really thoughtful about your TBS and your touch bases with them and understanding not only what’s on their to-do list, but what’s on their to-do list.

Summa Simmons: For their career and for their lives, like our touch bases. Um, there’s a thing that I have the team fill out. It’s called the weekly status report. And it’s just what’s on your plate? What’s a big thing that we need to keep in mind? And then what’s coming down the forefront? We might spend five minutes on that.

Summa Simmons: It saved. I can read it whenever I want to, but I really wanna know what’s going on. One team member, he’s expecting his first child in, in less than six weeks, another team member is going through a really challenging time, um, with a family member. And that’s what we talk about. How are you navigating, how are you feeling?

Summa Simmons: That helps me figure out where they are in their workload and how they’re showing up. And it’s my job to be able to identify something must be going on with Sandra because she’s not, she doesn’t seem like herself. It’s my job to understand that and to figure out how to support them. The other thing to, um, keep in mind is feedback, right?

Summa Simmons: Giving feedback real time. I’m not waiting for an annual review to tell someone you are killing it or. You need to step up. You are minutes away from a pip. That’s not, when you say that, like, that does not build trust. Um, and then there’s the trust. All of these small opportunities that you get to spend with your team, whether you’re in front of the CFO or it’s just you all having drinks or working through whatever drama just happened, you can figure out who you’re working with.

Summa Simmons: They get to learn more about you. And those moments where they make a mistake, guess what they’re gonna tell you? Hey Mike, I messed up. And you’re gonna say, of course you did. What’s the problem? That’s, let’s step through it. But it’s also about no surprises. Like I tell the team, you can, I’m gonna have your back no matter what.

Summa Simmons: Unless of course you go completely rogue and I can’t defend it, or you don’t tell me about it. Just be honest, let’s fix it. So I’d say trust, figuring out who it is that you work with and making sure that you’re giving real time feedback.

Mike Richards: Okay, go to Frank first. We just talked about work life balance, hybrid, you know, 10 years ago that was just a car and that was it.

Mike Richards: No one knew it. Now everyone does it. I was, was just with a client this morning, we were talking about, is it five days a week in the office? And I was like, really Good luck. Yeah. You know, five days a week we’re out. You know, it was like, and actually well it’s three to four and I was like, okay, if it’s three, that’s fine.

Mike Richards: If it’s four and it has to be, yes, we understand that. But why, what’s the balance with you guys? We’re coming back round through the panel, you know, with the balance of work with you guys. Yeah,

Frank Melaccio: so our industry has become much more remote in hybrid recently, so it’s really hard to recruit people throughout the company if you don’t have some type of remote hybrid availability.

Frank Melaccio: Um, my team’s in about two days a week. Um, I’m in three days. Um, and I think it’s important, like as a leader, that you don’t wanna be in any less than your team, right? So I purposely come in one day more than my team. Some days I’m in four days a week. Um, but I think we’ve evolved to a point in time where, you know, there’s really unnecessary, especially, you know, if you’ve gone and be on Zoom meetings all day and you’re not interacting with people face to face, five days in the office, just seems like complete overkill.

Frank Melaccio: Um, but I do think there is value to coming together, you know, once or twice a week as a team. Um, I saw a difference when we came back in the office. Culture improved. People start working together a little bit better. Um, some people may be more productive in the office or less. It depends on the individual, but culture is a lot easier to impact when everybody comes in the office at least once or twice a week.

Frank Melaccio: Sandra?

Sandra Ramos Alves: Yes, so he nailed it. So we have a hybrid, um, schedule. We’re mandated in 50% of the time every two weeks. So I’m generally in the office, two, three, sometimes four days a week. It really just depends on. What transactions we have and what meetings we have. And some meetings you just wanna be in person.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, it’s a privilege. Um, and we certainly hope that it doesn’t get taken away from us, um, because it’s really just an amazing benefit to have, to be able to have the flexibility to work from home a day or two a week. Um, but it’s amazing for culture and I do believe that our culture would not be as strong if we were remote because I, it’s really hard to build culture and team building and, and really understand, uh, what people are thinking by body language on teams.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Mm-hmm. Um. So it’s, it’s working out beautifully for us. And you know, we, my team is very compliant. We follow the rules, you know, but there are teams in the company that don’t. And, you know, our, our badging is tracked and, you know, it comes up often enough that if people aren’t gonna follow the rules, the benefit is going to be lost.

Sandra Ramos Alves: And by the way, it might impact your bonus next year. So, um, you know, the, these are benefits that we should, you know, thoroughly enjoy, but you know, they are benefits that can be taken away. And, you know, we, we enjoy being in the office and, and spending time together because sometimes that’s when ideas are generated.

Sandra Ramos Alves: I’m not talking to anyone in my home office. You know, I sit next to my assistant, treasurers in the audience for moral support. I sit next to him. I literally speak to him more than I speak to my husband. ’cause we’re in the office a lot. Um, but we might be talking about God knows what and an idea. It just pops up and it can generate EPS if I don’t, if I’m at home, I’m not doing that.

Sandra Ramos Alves: I’m not chit chatting with him and, you know, so, you know, it’s, it’s a great thing. And, you know, people really should embrace the ability to work, have the hybrid schedule.

Summa Simmons: So what we probably average maybe once a week, twice a week if there’s a lot going on. Um, and, and similar to everyone else, it’s really being thoughtful about the time that you’re spending in the office.

Summa Simmons: Is it effective? If, for me, I try to make sure that I’m having my touch bases on those days so that we can connect in person, have team meetings in person, maybe break bread, shoot the breeze a bit, take a walk, um, everything else we can kind of do on teams, we can figure it out at home. Making sure that when we are together, we are solving for things that seem better together, like brainstorming.

Summa Simmons: We were trying to solve for, um, repatriating some cash, and my leader was just like, Hey, why don’t you guys brainstorm about this? And I don’t think he thought we were gonna do it. And we got together and we had some ideas and he came back in and we gave him a really fantastic list.

Summa Simmons: And he was like, wow, you all came up so much more than I anticipated you. I thought you were gonna come with three ideas off on the side. But all of that was born out of us sitting in the atrium and just thinking and speaking out loud amongst each other. And so that said, as treasury practitioners, you know, we have a lot of boring transactions and contracts to read.

Summa Simmons: And so that time alone where you’re able to do deep work. Really valuable in an open environment, open concept. You’ve got five team teams calls going on in one ear and somebody talking about what happened to their dog last night and the other. And so having that space to be able to think, um, mark up a document, make your notes about what you want to talk to your internal external counsel, really valuable.

Summa Simmons: So I don’t think of hybrid as it is a perk, but I think that we’ve demonstrated that it’s normal. And I do think that to your point, let’s hope that our colleagues don’t abuse it. So we don’t wanna back up five days in. But I also think that there’s just, we’ve opened up this access of access to talent.

Summa Simmons: So if you go back to five days now you’re looking at being subject to your geography and some people don’t wanna move, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it’s the best of both worlds and we’re trying to navigate that.

Mike Richards: So as you can see up on the, on the panels, we are gonna move to Q and a soon. Not quite yet, uh, but do have some good questions.

Mike Richards: Because you’ve got this incredible opportunity. When did you get a chance to quiz three great treasures about their treasury careers and everything else? You don’t. Then also, the panel do have some good takeaways as well, so we’re gonna leave some time for that. But as I do each week on the podcast, we talk through people’s careers.

Mike Richards: Then I talk about what do you see as the next step for treasury? Obviously, you know, we’ve gotta say ai. Everyone’s saying that’s it. Great. The robots are taking over the planet. That’s it. Let’s go home. But apparently everyone’s still got jobs in here now, and everyone says, well, actually it’s the people that can use ai.

Mike Richards: They’re gonna, you know, be. The future and everything else. I’ll start with Sandra and then go across to Frank and then come back to Summit. Sandra, what, what are you seeing? Is it ai? Is that the key thing for you or other, other areas that you think, or any key ones?

Sandra Ramos Alves: So, I hate to say it, but yes. AI seems to be the flavor of the year.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, and we are very focused on ai, although I’m not sure that anyone in treasury has actually found any real use cases for ai. You know, we, we keep talking about it, um, but I’m sure we will all, as a collective community, figure out how to implement AI in our work processes, in our cashflow forecasting. Um, and it’s really gonna be about data analytics and just being more strategic rather than spending so much time doing manual work.

Sandra Ramos Alves: You’re going to be able to automate all of that and you know, it’s about adding value and coming up with ideas and working with your banking partners for those, uh, value added, um, opportunities that you can come go to the C-suite and show your value.

Frank Melaccio: Right. Um, yeah, I think obviously ai, everybody could always talk about that, but I’ll, I’ll be stepping a little different.

Frank Melaccio: Um, so I, it seems to me like we’re moving into a world of more volatility and geopolitics is going to play more of a challenge for companies. Um, and there’s really no part of the organization that’s better prepared to address that than treasury. And so I think where there’s going to be probably an evolution where we’re going to see more differentiation in terms of treasury departments is what organizations can utilize tools to help CFOs address challenges and volatility that will arise.

Frank Melaccio: Right? Because I think that’s gonna be increasingly important for shareholders in terms of. You know, what does that mean for earnings? How much exposure do you have to various risk factors? Um, having kind of come from banking, having a risk background, um, I, you know, I think people are really worried about how you’re hedging, how you’re thinking about that.

Frank Melaccio: So, you know, treasury in my mind is a profit center. I think you said it best, right? And so those organizations that can demonstrate themselves as a reliable profit center are really gonna move to shine. And those individuals that can contribute to the profit center will be valued in the marketplace.

Summa Simmons: If I said Dito, would you be annoyed?

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Summa Simmons: Okay. I thought so. Don’t

Mike Richards: say Ditta. Come on. I won’t say give it more.

Summa Simmons: So since the pandemic, I think that’s where treasuries level up happened, right? Like you had teams that didn’t know that we existed, that again, were worried Do we have enough cash for payroll? Yes, we have enough cash for payroll. It started there and since then, to Frank’s point, it’s become a team that’s demonstrating the value.

Summa Simmons: To the organization. CFOs are now coming to treasury with questions around, Hey, we’re thinking about X. How can you make that happen? And a large part of this, I think, is only going to continue and become way more valuable, much, um, bigger decisioning. Maybe it’s more than a five year long range plan. It might be stepping out into a 10.

Summa Simmons: But the real idea behind this is how can you all manage our risk in such a way that we can go out and have some really great ideas that will generate cash, but you are managing the volatility of the market safely for us so that we can do what we do best, which is run the business. I don’t know that we can get any more next level than that.

Summa Simmons: I think that’s what our job entails today. And as the geopolitical environment continues to shock us and surprise us as well as the government, it’s our jobs to be thinking ahead and sharing with our leadership team. We got you covered. Mostly go off, come up with the great ideas and we’re gonna show you just how.

Summa Simmons: Feasible that is, and or demonstrate where the guardrails are that we need to consider.

Mike Richards: Okay? I’ve talked to a number of treasurers about their, how do they show the difference they’re making? And one of my first ever podcast actually with Nick Taylor from Schroders, he talked about his chairman saying, right, I want you to come to me with a black book.

Mike Richards: And that is you look at what difference have you made this week? Each week, just have a coffee with yourself every month. Have a coffee with me. But you said, I wanna see what difference you’ve made. And it was all about those little gains. And at the end of each year it was able to come back and the book got thicker and thicker every year.

Mike Richards: Personal strategies for you guys to, you know, get tr treasury out there amongst the company and stuff. We’ll go from you somewhere and then across, you know, how do you do it, obviously, you know.

Summa Simmons: Yeah. So, um, a couple of different ways. So we created something, um, called Finance Development Day. So the four days a month at all of finance.

Summa Simmons: Is in the office. At the same time we, there’s a small committee of us that have come up with curriculum and we figure out what does the broader audience need to understand and learn, and whether it’s improving your presentation skills to technical components. We hosted a treasury one-on-one session, and we essentially just walked the team through what does EBA is, but more importantly, what is an A BL?

Summa Simmons: What does a syndicated of banks mean? Why are these relationships so important? Why is it imperative that as you’re thinking about business decisions and RFPs, you talk to us because we might have bankers that offer that service. So really walking them through our capital structure, helping them understand what we mean when we say we’re paying down the loan.

Summa Simmons: Like literally Treasury 1 0 1, it was incredible. One thing that came out of it is everybody wants to join our team. So winning. Mm-hmm. Um, more importantly. People felt more inspired to ask us questions because they felt like they should have known, but they didn’t. And we broke down this wall. And, and treasury, as you all in this room can appreciate is incredibly interesting.

Summa Simmons: So there’s that Treasury 1 0 1 concept. The other way, um, that I feel like we are sharing about treasuries. I share a lot of thoughts on LinkedIn, whether it’s thought leadership or it’s about things that’s, that I’ve learned about treasury. I’m sharing it there as well because I don’t think that all that knowledge should be just limited to the people who are fortunate enough to work with me.

Summa Simmons: Everybody should hear my great ideas. Um, but in all seriousness, taking advantage of peer networks. So we have a group in, um, Columbus, Ohio that I don’t love the name. I must have missed the vote, but we call it the Columbus Treasury Coalition. It sounds like a labor union. Um, and it’s just a male group of assistant treasurers and treasurers, and any questions that we have.

Summa Simmons: We keep it so that there aren’t banks allowed in said mail group. And we talk about everything under the sun. Whether someone’s thinking about an RFP, what experiences that they have, good, bad or different if they’re trying to bank in a different country. So that peer access comes in really, um, handy. And I think it just speaks to the value of networking community.

Mike Richards: So good.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So I love this treasury 1 0 1 idea and I’m gonna borrow it or pay it or et cetera. And this is where the benchmarking comes in because inevitably, wherever I go, I learn something. So this is great. Um, I. So in our organization, I guess maybe we’re very lucky to be very embedded within, um, within finance in that we have to partner with every organization.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So we’re a big m and a shop, so we do a lot of acquisitions. So we’re very involved with all of the BD kind of planning and, you know, how you’re gonna basically pay and, and the rating agency impacts and, and all of the planning around. Um, the m and a. So we’re deeply embedded with our BD finance and bd, uh, business development organization.

Sandra Ramos Alves: You know, we, we’ve launched the Working Capital Optimization program, which is actually one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my career. It has been the most challenging thing to get done, um, here. Um, but we will prevail because there is a lot to be captured and, and we need to win the hearts and minds of everyone, and everyone really needs to understand it.

Sandra Ramos Alves: So, um, when you’re out there talking about the things that we need to do for the organization from a cash flow perspective, people will know who Treasury is. And so, you know, it’s, it’s baby steps. You know, some people don’t wanna talk to you straight away, but it’s okay because. Some of us are very persistent.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, but it’s, it’s always about delivering value. So if, if, if the Treasury organization can prove that they can deliver value, they’ll, they’ll partner with every organization in time.

Frank Melaccio: Yeah, I completely agree. Just to kind of build on that, you know, the treasury’s very much the internal bank of, of the company, right?

Frank Melaccio: And so if you think about your best bankers that you work with, they’re generally going to be people that understand your industry, understand your company, and bring value to you. And so when you’re thinking of yourselves as, you know, treasury professionals, you really have to bring value to the business partners that you work with throughout the company.

Frank Melaccio: I think sometimes treasury gets very. Insulated, and therefore people don’t know what you do. You don’t understand their business, and so therefore they’re not really going to listen to you. But if you take the time to understand your business and understand others and bring solutions out to the business, it changes the dynamic a little bit because you’re no longer saying, Hey, you’re having a conversation that impacts me.

Frank Melaccio: I need a seat at the table. Because even if you ask for the seat at the table, people will barely give you the seat at the table. But if you’re somebody that’s helping them out and bringing solutions, then you don’t have to ask for the seat at the table. They’re bringing you in because they know if you’re not there, they’re going to not make the right decision or not have all the information that they need to make that decision.

Frank Melaccio: So, um, you know, it’s very much be a, you know, consultative banker for your internal team and understand your business.

Mike Richards: Okay, so questions for the room and then we’ve got some great takeaways from these guys. What questions do we have? Let’s get some hands up. Come on. There must be some. Please,

I’ll throw one out on the geopolitical front.

Um, I’ve heard there might be some tariffs and other things going on, um, supply chains and all that issues. And we know that cash is king, you know, cash way up over the last four years. So what, you know, what are you guys missing in terms of where you can put money and, and make money? Like what’s, what’s not there for you?

Because I feel like, you know, milk curve flat, total volatility can’t go out anywhere. What do you do?

Summa Simmons: What’s missing the crystal ball?

Frank Melaccio: Like

Frank Melaccio: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, my thoughts on that are you’re going to have a challenging environment, right? So particularly if you have an environment where I. We have higher inflation due to tariffs. Theoretically, if that happens, um, and you have slower growth. And so the question is, do you wind up in stagnation?

Frank Melaccio: Um, and so what does that mean? It means different things, right? So I think one of the best things that you need to do is you need to look at your business to say, okay, what are my impacts? Right? So, and I going to be impacted from tariffs and therefore I need to buy inventory, you know, now. And so therefore there’s a cash demand.

Frank Melaccio: And you know, what does that mean from a working capital perspective and what’s the cost of it? And then going back to the CFO and saying, listen, if we want to kind of buy now and build our inventory against that, this is the cost. So this is kind of the breakeven point in doing that work. I think that’s one way to, to kind of address it.

Frank Melaccio: And then understanding, you know, talking to the business line leaders. Is there demand issue here that we need to be aware of? Uh, are we gonna expect our receivables to spike? And what does that mean? So I think that’s the other like. And then from a debt standpoint, which I’ve been giving some thought to of, you know, what does your debt stack look like?

Frank Melaccio: Um, and do you want to change that? You know, do you want to use swaps? Do you want to use collars? Things of that nature. And so, you know, you know, there’s not like one right outcome because nobody has the crystal ball. And so I think any solution’s gonna have pros and cons. And so what I just did in a recent work with my CFO, as I said, listen, here are the different paths we can take, at least on the debt side to figure out how we want to position ourselves.

Frank Melaccio: Um, here are the pros and cons. Um, if you’re worried about the downside risk, really this is the right solution, right? If you want to, through the upside, that’s the right solution. If you don’t really care, then the middle solution works. But I think bringing that out is, is an important way to address it.

Frank Melaccio: But I don’t think there’s gonna be a great solution, unfortunately, because anything that you do is gonna have a risk, uh, as a result of fail.

Sandra,

Sandra Ramos Alves: I, I mean, pharma is in the crosshairs. Republicans hate us. Democrats hate us. You know, we have IRA, we have tariffs, we have tax there. There’s so many things against us and we simply don’t even know what it, where we are.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, in terms of tariffs, I mean, we have a manufacturing footprint outside of the us. We don’t know how the tariffs are going to impact us. What we do know today is we have receivables and payables and inventory that we can optimize. So we, we need to focus on what we can control today and when things are well defined, we will figure out how to proceed

from there.

Summa Simmons: From there,

yeah.

Summa Simmons: Not much to add. I’m in retail. Um, so we sell thong, we sell thongs cares. Um, so I think it’s exactly what both Frank and Sandra said, it’s being aware of. What your pending risk is and over communicating this is what this looks like, this is what we’re up against. Uh, making sure that the board and the leadership team are fully aware and so that there are no surprises, but it’s not quite clear.

Summa Simmons: So what the organization wants is confidence that somebody’s paying attention, that as things swing from left to right. Um, we’re focused on how we would need to pivot and I think that’s all. I don’t wanna say all we can do, but it’s what our job entails and it’s a perfect time to really evaluate the importance of volatility and the importance of staying in tune with everything that’s going on.

Summa Simmons: So you aren’t the reason for the surprise.

Time for one more. Where have we got Daniel? Obviously success career you had to look at, what would you tell yourself, Hey, should back to get to a different part you career.

Mike Richards: So the questions, what, what would you give, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Mike Richards: Looking back now, we’ll start with summer,

Summa Simmons: I would’ve thrown away the journal entries much sooner. I wouldn’t have waited a decade

Mike Richards: and that’s it. And that, that was the end of her career. That’s it. Okay. Um,

Sandra Ramos Alves: um, I probably would have branched out of treasury at some point so that I wasn’t pegged into the treasury box because now I am in the treasury box and if I wanted to do something different.

Sandra Ramos Alves: It’s gonna be very hard for me to get out of that treasury box. I’ve been in treasury for 24 years and now everyone knows how old I am. Um, uh, so, you know, sometimes we have to step out of, I’m very comfortable in treasury. I love my job. Um, so I don’t actually wanna be a CFO anywhere, but if I had endeavored, uh, to do something else, um, you know, that would’ve been something that, you know, i, I should have done earlier in my career.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, and I think the other thing, which is gonna sound a little cheesy, is believe in myself and eliminate the negative, uh, voices. You know, I was once told you can never be treasurer of a $90 billion company. I’m not sure what we’re trading at today, but I think our market caps a little over 90 billion. Um, so there will always be people out there that will put you down and you have to just learn.

Sandra Ramos Alves: To switch that off and, and move forward and believe in yourself.

Frank Melaccio: Um, I think the, probably when I think about it is, and I alluded to this earlier, is don’t be so prescriptive about what you’re going to do. Right? Be open, listen to everything. Um, take it all in. But when you make a decision, you know, make sure it’s the right decision.

Frank Melaccio: Be methodical about it. Um, it’s okay to take a risk. Just, you know, if you’re going to take a risk, say, downside is this, this is my exit plan. Upside is this, this is how I’m going to go forward. If it doesn’t pan out, then I pivot, right? But having planned but being open I think is important. And I learned that later in life.

Frank Melaccio: I think it’s a good lesson to learn when you’re young.

Mike Richards: You will also get to ask the questions, actually, when we’re doing the networking drinks and everything else. We’ve got some great takeaways from our panelists today. So we’ve done the questions Summer. They’re yours.

Summa Simmons: I won’t read them to you.

Mike Richards: No,

Summa Simmons: but I’ll just hit the high reel.

Summa Simmons: Um, visibility is your value, right? People need to know that you exist, what you bring to the table, what you’re interested in. Um, relationships are your strongest currency. My stock just leveled up. I sat on a panel with these two. Um, it’s really important for you to connect beyond your circle of trust.

Summa Simmons: Get out into a conversation as we step into the networking sec session of this evening. Talk to three people that you don’t know, um, volunteering to be one of them. Even though I think you know everything that you need to know about me now. Uh, bet on yourself. Frank said it. Sandra said it like, just even if you don’t think you’re ready, take a, take the chance.

Summa Simmons: The only person that knows that you failed is you. Um, and you’ll be able to figure out where your gaps are and fill them. And last but not least, treasury is more than the job. It drives the strategy of the company, I think. Over the last 45 minutes. That’s what you’ve heard hopefully, um, from the three of us.

Summa Simmons: And we have really big, important visible jobs and it’s our job to ensure that the company is not able, is not, not running because we don’t have any cash to do it.

Cool. Sandra?

Sandra Ramos Alves: Yeah. So, um, treasury is a very small world. Um, you know, your reputation will precede you make those good relationships with those bankers because those bankers can make or break your careers.

Sandra Ramos Alves: You know, I, my at came to me through a banking relationship. Um, so careers can be built, um, on having that reputation and those relationships. Yes. Um, and like I said before, you know, take ownership of your career. Um, you have to be proactive. No one’s gonna hand you a job on a platter that you really cot.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, you know, I’m results focused. So I will always tell you that you have to focus on delivering value and, and showing how you’re strategic and, and, and to justify why we exist really in an organization. Especially many of us are going through cost cutting. Um, be open to change, you know, um, change is constant and um, and if we don’t embrace it, we’re just gonna fail, honestly.

Sandra Ramos Alves: Um, and get uncomfortable. And frankly, this was really uncomfortable for me, so this was me getting uncomfortable sitting here. Um, but that’s how we grow,

Frank Melaccio: right? Um, I think the biggest thing I would say to take away from these bullets, they tie into one, you

know.

Frank Melaccio: Be a differentiator, right? Differentiate your brand, whatever your personal brand is.

Frank Melaccio: So how do you do that? A couple bolts here. One, think like an owner. Um, a lot of people worry about them and they don’t worry about the broader company. If you wanna differentiate yourself to the C-suite, think that you’re thinking globally and not just what’s about, what’s good for you, what’s good for everyone.

Frank Melaccio: Very few people do that. And so if you do that, it, it will be rewarded, I promise you that. Um, lifelong learning commitment to always wanting to know what’s going on, be able to bring new ideas to the table. Um, valued personal connections. We’re in a digital world. It drives me crazy, don’t get me wrong. I love technology, but people use that as a way to put up a shield and not interact with people.

Frank Melaccio: Um, careers are built on deep personal relationships and you know, whether it be bankers, events like this, but you don’t have to see everybody face to face all the time. Believe me, I don’t wanna see everybody. I like my personal space sometimes. And, and, but. Take the time to go out, challenge yourself. I’m going to do one, one, you know, external networking event a month.

Frank Melaccio: Make connections. You will differentiate yourself. Most people do not do that. Um, and make sure that you’re positioned for opportunity. So if there’s something that you want to do, right, ask for it. Say, I want to do this, whether it’s ask Mike, Joe, your boss, whoever, what is missing from my resume? What do I need to do to get to that next level?

Frank Melaccio: Because people just won’t ask, right? They’ll assume, oh, I’m perfect, right? Be, be vulnerable, say, you know what, I have things I could work on, right? You’re looking at my resume. What am I missing? And let somebody, and even if you don’t like the answer, right, take the feedback, you know, process it and then move forward.

Frank Melaccio: Because if somebody is going to be open and honest with you, that’s great because most people aren’t. And so getting that candid feedback is going to help you grow.

Cool.

Mike Richards: So my tips here, you’ve got here these relationships. You’ve just seen three amazing treasurers talking through the evening. When you go out there, make sure exactly as summer said, you speak to three people you don’t know because otherwise, why did you bother to come here today?

Mike Richards: You’ve made the effort. It’s not easy. You’ve done a long day at work, you think, oh God, yeah. It would be much easier just to go get on the subway and head home. You’ve made the effort to do it. Give it before you get. Now that actually came out from Nicole, wherever Nicole is at the back. She was amazing.

Mike Richards: Uh, New York Cash Exchange. She is lovely. Don’t, whoa, whoa, whoa. Her head is already big enough now. Don’t want any more. Okay. Uh, basically I put my hand up and I said, look, I noticed you’re doing some sessions. Can I help? You know, can I, you know, just do that. Next thing I know, I’m them speaking again later this year.

Mike Richards: But then she was the one that actually said, why don’t you apply for CTP credits for your sessions? These are educational, da da da. I was like, really? They’ll do it. Yeah. Now all of our live sessions, but that came from me putting my hand up. And also, I know everyone’s seen a lot of these sessions. They’ve done this, I did this back in Chicago a few years ago.

Mike Richards: I don’t enjoy public speaking weird. I don’t enjoy it. But I know to grow my business and to get out with you guys, I have to do it. Get outta my own way, get outta my comfort zone. And that’s where the visibility pays off. You might have seen some of the posts. I’m doing a bit on LinkedIn and everything else.

Mike Richards: This latest one, lovely rugby picture. Thank you for the comments. Um, but the fact weird thing is I don’t do my personal life on that. I don’t even do Facebook. But the fact is, we now do a newsletter every Tuesday and then do a comment video on it. It’s now taking off. Now all of you guys might not say, well, actually I’m a treasurer.

Mike Richards: I shouldn’t be on LinkedIn going on about this. This is the other one. Sharing your wins isn’t bragging. So when I did the session, uh, with, uh, Catherine Grant Olston or whatever, um, with New York Cash Exchange, we asked who had put one of their achievements or some, one of the bits that they’d saved. The treasury, uh, professionals were on the call.

Mike Richards: 65% said they hadn’t put one achievement on their LinkedIn profile in a year. What, like guys, you do hard jobs. You just talked about geopolitical. You’re doing all this, you’re working hard, you know, get some credit for it. It doesn’t have to be confidential company information. It can be, Hey, this is what I achieve this week.

Mike Richards: So stick it in your diary for Friday. Just take five minutes over a coffee and make a note of what was your one win of the week and do it every week. Then you’ll have 52 wins for the year. If you’re not getting 52 wins, call me. ’cause that’s what we do. And then final bits, again, that’s tracking your achievements.

Mike Richards: So. I want you guys to put your hands together in a moment. Wait for it, and then do take five, 10 minutes because we’ve got some lovely sponsors who have paid for the drinks. You’ve got to make the most of the opportunity. If you don’t just go on the escalator, it’s up to you. So your choice, there you go.

Mike Richards: Big hand together please.