How Treasury Professionals Earn a Seat at the Table Without Bragging

Mike, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: Welcome to this, my first ever Treasury Career Corner LIVE in Chicago. I love Chicago. Who doesn’t love Chicago? I’ve studied at Northwestern. Spoken at the Windy City Summit and worked with the TMAC guys and love coming to Chicago.

Mike: So it’s up to you guys to make it a success. So I want some energy from you guys. So sometimes we do this repetition. We’re not going to do that. Good evening, Chicago. Good evening. Good evening. You’re awake. Thank goodness. Well done. Thank you very much. So we’ve got the enthusiasm. We’ve done that card. That’s fine.

Mike: When was the last time you got to see two incredible treasury professionals? And an alright treasury recruiter in real life, telling you about treasury career stories and how to run your treasury careers for success. The answer is you didn’t. You haven’t. So make the most of it. We’re going to be having some quick Q&A with them later as well.

Mike: But before I do that, I want to also thank, see I’ve got a good slide for this. Right, where’s Loop Capital? Where are you guys over there? Without them, we would be doing this in a bar around the corner. I know we’re doing the bar later, but Kyriba people, hands up please. Those are guys at the back. Redbridge, TreasurySpring.

Mike: Right. Without them you wouldn’t have this. They have sponsored it. They also pay for the drinks later. Yes, they do have the drinks tickets. You have to be nice to them. So give them a quick round of applause. We’ll do that now first. There you go. So who am I? Why am I putting this on? Scan the slide. I’m Mike Richards, and I run The Treasury Recruitment Company.

Mike: I’ve been talking to you treasury professionals for 27 plus years. Love talking to you. And I’ve got two amazing placements that I’ve made in the past. Oh, Mary and Robert: . So, yeah. So obviously I did something very right in a previous life and placed them and I persuaded them to come back and join me live on stage.

Mike: But how did I get all this knowledge? Well, I also do a Treasury Career Corner podcast. Oh, there you go. There’s the team. They’re a great team. There you go. Started the podcast seven years ago, thought we’d maybe do 10, 15 episodes. We’re at 400 episodes. We have 200,000 downloads. Why? Because you guys love talking and hearing the stories of other treasury professionals.

Mike: Each and every week I talk to a treasurer about how they started their careers, and this is the live version of it, how they progress their careers and where they see the treasury profession going to next. We’ve got some great guests coming up on the show and this will also become a live podcast. You also get CTP credits for being here this evening, and you get it for listening to the podcast as well.

Mike: Hang on. You could be going to the gym, walking the dog and get CTP credits. Yes, that’s why I’ve done it for you guys. Other things, switch off your phones please. At least put them on silent. When was the last time you got to, there you go I see a few people putting them on silent now. Do that because, give this hour to yourselves.

Mike: That’s enough from me. This is the topics of discussion we will go through talking about the guys, how they built their careers. Later on we’re doing Q&A with about quarter of an hour to go. And then with five minutes to go, we’ll do takeaways and then we’ll be going to the ETC Bar around the corner, out the building.

Mike: Turn right, follow us, big posse of us, and nice free drinks from the sponsors. Love it. Mary, she will talk through now how she started in treasury over to you.

Mary, Director of Investor Relations at Baxter International Inc.: I started with Mike. No, I’m just kidding. No, we love it. So first and foremost, I’ve been in the treasury space now for nearly 19 years. It’s scary to kind of say that a bit.

Mary: That’s great. And I started my career, believe it or not, in commercial banking, and retail banking. And I very much enjoyed that time and just partnering with customers and hearing their stories, et cetera. However, banking wasn’t the space that I found myself wanting to be in, and I decided, okay, I finished my bachelor’s.

Mary: I’ll go back to school. I’ll get a master’s. My master’s is actually in accounting and financial management. We’ll talk about education a bit later. And then after I finished grad school, I said, well, what am I going to do next? Right? Like, what, what do I do next? I see the TMAC team here. One of my favorite professors at NIU was Norman Goldstein.

Mike: Love it.

Mary: So Norman goes to me, have you ever considered treasury? What are you doing right now? Come to this TMAC meeting with me. And I said, alright, I’ll go. I’ll see what it’s all about. And, you know, during that time I thought, okay, I guess I could do this. I’ve always loved the whole Frank Abagnale and the check writing scheme.

Mary: Like, I watched a movie, we can do this. I’ll go and see what it’s about. And, my first career job was with Andrew Wireless. That was later bought by CommScope. And at that time they said, hey, why don’t you be an analyst for FX? If you know me, you know that this is a story. You know what my. Sort of, I’m an SME now in FX.

Mary: People call me all the time for advice. However, at the time I was so intimidated by FX and going into this space, and then I realized how much I loved it. And I wore different hats over the years. I’ve worked for, you know, Duracell, now Baxter. And even now I’m a little sad to say that I’m no longer in treasury.

Mary: It’s not on my LinkedIn yet, but I’ve taken a new journey into investor relations. But it’s been very interesting in this treasury journey. I’ll share more about, you know, what I think, the key highlights are and the things that I’ve learned along the way. But I’m excited to be here with you guys and I don’t want to give it all away.

Mike: That’s great.

Mike: There’s some nice hooks there all the way through. So, I will hand across to Robert: .

Robert, Treasury Director, Global Capital Planning at GE HealthCare:

Yeah, thanks Mike. And, I see quite a few, you see quite a few familiar faces, so great to to see you all. So my, career really started in banking as well, commercial banking side. I started as a credit analyst, which was a good learning experience, but became pretty repetitive at a zero, take a zero way, depending on the company.

Robert: I had a colleague at the time leave to go join corporate treasury in the FX space. And he called me about six months later and said this, is what you’re interested in. This is what you should do. So I followed him and I’ve been in treasury now, I think it’s 12 years or so total.

Robert: That colleague has since gone to law school. He’s out in Silicon Valley as a lawyer. For better or worse, I’m not smart enough. So I’ve been in treasury for quite a while, which I’m thankful for. I started in treasury in more of a middle office function. So I was doing, rather than FX directly, I was doing more of the compliance.

Robert: More of the settlement confirmation. And ultimately then switched over to the FX front office side. And a theme early in my career was that I, rather than majoring in accounting, I ran as far away from accounting as I could. I took, I think one required class in college, and then ran the other direction and said, I want to get as far away from this as I can.

Robert: And ever since it’s been really trying to pick that up, I feel like I’ve, you know, Mary will be the first one to tell you if you really need, if you really want to understand FX in particular, you really need to understand the hedge accounting side. And so that’s really been, a focus of my career.

Robert: And then I’ve really jumped across a couple different companies and industries. So, large teams, small teams, larger companies, smaller company, manufacturing, med tech, retail. So, really trying to get different types of experience and understand what, like why companies are the way they are and how that makes our jobs different.

Robert: We will

Mike: go back, as you said Mary, talking about education. If you were to look back, you’ve got, we’ve got whole mixed audience. We’ve got more senior treasury folk, but you know, some treasury professionals earlier in their careers. Treasury education, CTP obviously a big thing for you. Or what, what would you say in general?

Mary: Was it a big thing for me? No. In the beginning? Yeah. And that’s because truly you guys, I got a degree in a masters in accounting, financial management. The emphasis was forensic accounting. I was convinced I was going to go work for the FBI. I had a job offer in Princeton, Illinois. Didn’t want to go that far away from, you know, family.

Mary: So treasury was not my first pick, so it wasn’t a desire for me at that time to get the CTP. Over the years, I’ve considered going back to get it, but I also felt that the more experience I had working in the space, it wasn’t a requirement.

Mary: It is kind of interesting when you suffer from imposter syndrome and the desire to go out and get a CTP or get a CPA funny story, I will share this with all of you guys.

Mary: Uh, last year I go to one of my coworkers and I said, you know what? I should sit for the CTP finally, after, you know, almost 20 years, right? And she says, I’ll do it with you. Because she also has a CPA that is in accounting. And so we both agree to sit for the CTP, we had a study plan. But it absolutely went to the hay. We were, you know, if you guys know anything about Baxter, we were splitting Vantive, neither one of us have time. We’re also both, you know, Mums. And, uh, she took the exam a week before me and then I said to her, I said, I think I’m going to postpone, you know, I had some family things.

Mary: And I said to her, I have not studied. I do not want to sit for this exam. And then she says, just do it. I mean, what’s the worst case? What’s the worst thing that can happen is you’ll fail? I failed. I completely failed as a practitioner of 19 years. I failed.

Mary: I open up the score, because they give me this paper and they say you pass or fail. And I open it. And if you guys know everyone that has a CTP, raise your hand. The passing score is 300. I open it up. 295, and I was convinced that it was all of the practitioner style questions that I went back and changed.

Mary: It was 42 questions, went back, changed every answer, and I’m convinced that’s why I didn’t pass. So nevertheless, you guys now know I am sitting forward again because I can’t accept failure even though I’m not in treasury anymore. However, I said all of that to. Say, I don’t necessarily think it’s a requirement, but I think it’s important.

Mary: I think it’s important to have, but it doesn’t tell your story.

Mike: And I think you’re right. And I think when I talk to employers, it’s a nice to have or it’s a rubber stamp if you are maybe earlier on in your career. It’s not, you must have, and I know that, you know, you guys have done that and there are other qualifications.

Mike: You know, I get, you know pushback from people and they say, oh, should I do CTP? And I went, if you want to. And they’re like, I said, but sometimes you’ll get on the A list, sometimes you won’t get on that, you won’t be interviewed because there’ll be big competition to put you above. And there are other, you know, qualifications in the UK, across Europe.

Mike: I said it depends on what career path. And again, as you say, you do accountancy and stuff with Robert: . I know that you’ve got some qualifications, just, you know, one or two. Yeah,

Robert: I do. Yeah. I’ll start, maybe not with myself, but some of the people, more senior treasury professionals I’ve worked with.

Robert: So thinking just treasurers, assistant treasurers I’ve worked with in the past. You’ve got really a wide range, if I think of the best ones I’ve ever worked with, you have some with strong MBAs, some with high school diplomas, some with PhDs in completely different fields. So there really, it hasn’t been a trend or a theme

Robert: When I look across those in my career. For myself, I think early on I spent a whole lot more time thinking about education and what education I should pursue than I did actually doing it. I knew every, every business school program, I knew every certification, trying to debate one versus the other.

Robert: And I finally got to the point, probably six, seven years into my career where I was just like, alright, quit thinking about it and just go do something. So, I went and got my MBA, in the evening. And it, you know, like everyone else, I think the soft skills, the part, the course is like negotiation and communication.

Robert: Having a professor sit there and, you know, press a button and to beep every time you say, um, is, has a lot of value to it. So I think those type of things were more important than the, a lot of the hard skills. For certifications I did the CTP, I thought it was excellent. The reason I did it was, I had a lot of experience on the FX side, was starting to get some on the capital market side, and I thought it was a way to round out

Robert: My experience a little bit, get a little more exposure to more of the operations and the cash management side. It’s still today one of those areas where I just don’t have a lot of experience and so the CTP was just trying to kind of address a weakness head on. I’ve since also I mentioned really trying to get up to speed on accounting.

Robert: So I’m currently working on CMA Certified Management Accountant, just as a way to, number one, get some experience. I work for a company that does a lot of manufacturing, so gets some experience on the management accounting side. Cost accounting, things like that. So I would just say overall, I’ve noticed that, like Mary said, when I didn’t have an MBA or didn’t have a CTP, I thought the world of it, and I thought people that had it were going to have so many more opportunities than I would.

Robert: And then I went and did them myself, and I was kind of like, yeah, anybody can do that. So for me the lesson learned was, number one, don’t wait, just go do it. If you think you need some type of education and would benefit from it. But then also on the backend, don’t think just because you have the certification or the education that you’re qualified, obviously you can not have it and be qualified or you could have it and not be.

Mike: Sticking with you for a moment as well.

Mike: You know, we talked before about mentors and some of the people that you’ve worked for, some of the bosses you’ve had, you know, anything that stood out for you about them, you know, and not necessarily about qualification, you know, what makes a good mentor to you, again, for some of the people here as well?

Robert: Yeah, I’ve always appreciated the mentors that were brutally honest. They tell you, you know, they help you celebrate your wins, but they tell you exactly what you can work on. I think having somebody that’s going to be honest and say, you know what, you need your PowerPoint presentations and your ability to go into a, you know, an executive meeting and give the right level of detail is off and here’s where you can work on it.

Robert: So I think those types of people are the ones

 

Robert: that I’ve really leaned on throughout my career. And they’re the people I talk to on a regular basis, you know, call them just to see how they’re doing, bounce ideas off them that are work related or not. I think that that’s probably what I look for most in a mentor.

Mike: Nice. Mary.

Mary: So I think it’s important to have yourself or to be, because most of us are senior professionals here, a mentor. I also think it’s important to have a sponsor. So we talk a lot about mentors, but I, you know, I’d like the idea of a corporate sponsor as well. You know, a mentor could be someone that.

Mary: is just in this industry or space and to, to Rob’s point, someone that hones in and kind of tells you and gives you that advice on what you need to improve on. A sponsor on the other hand is someone that will still give you that advice, but also advocate for you in the rooms that you can’t be president.

Mary: And I’ve found that I’ve benefited from both of those types of relationships over the years and. It’s taught me quite a bit in terms of being a mentor for others. So I’ve taken on, several different mentors. I probably have way too many at this point, or mentees I should say. And it’s something that I’m extremely passionate about.

Mary: I think it’s important for us to give that, critical feedback and candid feedback in order for us to develop, and for to develop others. You know, so many folks that I’ve experienced over my career, never got that candid feedback. And you can tell

 

Mary: when they haven’t. And so it’s important for me to give that honest feedback so that they can make the necessary adjustments to be successful in their career and in their path and on their journey.

Mary: And so those are the things that I find as the key takeaways is getting that open, honest feedback in individuals that’s going to advocate for you when you’re in the room and you’re not.

 

Mike: So leaders and things like that, what do you like as a boss? What do you like, what do you look for in your bosses, or what are you like as a leader, would you say?

Mary: I can appreciate a leader that gives me the autonomy to go out and do my job, essentially.

Mary: But I also can appreciate a leader that is giving you and challenging you in so many different regards. It’s so easy for us, and I know, you know, most of us here in this treasury space. It’s so easy for us to be an SME and stay in our box. It is so easy to stay in the box and do what you’ve done for years.

Mary: What I can appreciate is a leader that’s saying, hey, you have this skillset, but what if you tried something different? You know that sort of unselfish leader where they’re saying, I know I need you in this space, but you could actually go over there and do a lot better. Or you can grow

 

Mary: in this path.

Mary: So for me, a good leader is someone that’s going to advocate for you, develop you, and also that’s going to create different opportunities in terms of your career growth. Another thing that I think for me that I appreciate in a leader is transparency. As well as, you know, you know, I always struggle with the right word to say here, but not only just transparency, but honesty.

Mary: Like you can be transparent, but that, honestly, and I get it when we’re leaders, and the more you grow, the higher you get. The ability to be honest is kind of convoluted with HR and the things that you can say. But I think it’s super important to have that conversation, and be realistic with, you know, the individuals that report into you, because you’re setting the tone and the tone starts at the top.

Mary: And culture is important to me. So finding a leader that values the same culture that I value. Is key, right?

Mike: , Are there any mistakes you’ve made as a leader yourself?

Mary: Absolutely. In the same token of transparency and honesty, I am a rip the band aid off. Type leader. I tend to be, one of my direct reports is here so she can maybe speak to this. She’s not in my direct, direct report anymore, but she can chime in here freely at the end during q and a, but.

Mary: I tend to lead with my heart. I tend to lead as being an impact. And I also really is just a rip the band aid off type person. And what I’ve found is that not everyone can receive that. And so I would say the one mistake that I’ve made is, you know, not adjusting to my direct reports and their style and what they need, because I tend to be, I am a go-getter and let’s rapidly move this along.

Mary: And I found that I’ve needed to slow down along the way, because I am, you know, hiring individuals and sometimes it’s higher, the athlete, teach the this sport. And so they are new and they’re coming in and I want to be able to develop them. And so it’s critical for me as a leader to slow down and do that.

Mike: Robert: , both sides, you know, some of the leaders that have led you and also what you like as a boss?

Robert: Yeah, I would say, probably two of my favorite questions that, that some of my bosses have asked. Number one is, what do you think? And that’s, a lot of times they’re more senior, they’re making the decisions, they know the answer themselves, but they come to me and say, you know, what would you do differently?

Robert: What do you think? And they, and they take that into consideration. So I, I think that that, you know, kind of feedback loop in allowing the people that are reporting to you to think through it themselves is important. The second one is similar. It’s what next, what’s next for you? I think having, there, there’s a time and a place for that.

Robert: It’s probably not the second week on a job, but I think the managers that are constantly thinking not only about themselves and their career, but also the people that are working for them, uh, the people that work for them tend to do well. They’re advocates and. I think it’s important to find the people that asks those kind of questions.

Robert: Mistakes or challenges, I guess for myself as a manager would almost be the exact opposite. And it’s, I’ve really enjoyed actually hiring people that don’t have prior treasury experience. Bringing them in, sending, spending a lot of time sitting in a conference room with them, going through all the models, going through all the details, trying to teach them treasury and hope that they love it.

Robert: Thankfully some of them have, but I, early on, I’m almost too hesitant to kind of let them run. And I’ve always been surprised, like once you just kind of just let them go. Like they, they’re a lot of people are really, really good at treasury and what they do and you can throw a whole lot at ’em and they’ll excel.

Robert: So I would say, if anything I’ve learned, just let them go. Uh, don’t, don’t hold them back and don’t try to like put up, you know, guardrails to protect them. Because a lot of people don’t need it.

Mike: I’ve see, seen a lot of treasurers again, I’ve done all these conversations with treasurers over on the podcast over the years and actually.

Mike: Well, it was actually written on this card here about a lot of treasurers have become accidental leaders. They’ve not planned with it, you know, so if you had someone in the Army, I’ve talked about this, and they were leading five people that they would have all this extensive training and everything else, I then talk to some of the treasurers and they said, right, how many people are you in charge of?

Mike: They’re like, well, my team’s 50 people now across these continents, so great. How much treasury leadership training have you had? And they’re like, um, can we move on to the next question please? And I’m like, guys, you need to invest in yourselves. And I think that’s one of the key things that I’ve noticed.

Mike: That’s one of the points of trying to make that actually, the more that you guys can, the better it comes out sort of thing. Yeah. Success, we all have a highlight reel, but are there any moments that you’ve looking back that you I don’t want to go too much into it, but any ways that you’ve, again, for people listening today that you’ve

Mike: overcome challenges and things like that and, what’s been the result of thing?

Mary: Oh man. Um, yes, there’s been various situations where I’ve overcome challenges. Um, I would say the, one of the key things that I’ve taken on over, over the years would’ve been the capital markets FX role led

Mary: at Baxter, you know, I joined Baxter at a very critical time, you know, after our FX investigation. And what I found coming in was that people were afraid. You know, you wanted me to keep it short, so I’ll keep it short, but I think the big success there was being able to go to the board, go to leadership and say, here’s my strategy.

Mary: Here’s how I think we can change the narrative. But also here’s how we can educate the business. You know, again, it starts at the top and it trickles its way down, and it’s really being able to educate folks on FX risk management, FX 101. That was kind of the course that I gave out to everyone to just say, let me tell you how this works and how it impacts your job in your job, in your job.

Mary: So that’s probably one of the most thing successful things that I think I’ve done, is to change the narrative. Dispel the fear around FX, but also build that trust and transparency in leadership, you know, so that they now feel better and they’re educated to the fact. And so that’s been, I think the biggest highlight that I’ve had.

Robert: Yeah, I would say, you know, in treasury we, we kind of have this unique opportunity at times where some of the things we’re doing are, are pretty niche, right? Where, there may only be a handful of people. You may have, you know, 10,000 or more people at your company and there’s only a handful that, that really understand a particular topic.

Robert: Not because more people can’t understand it, but they’ve never been asked to, they’ve never been introduced to it. So sometimes getting buy-in for certain transactions that, in the grand scheme of things probably aren’t too complicated. It, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of education. And I think for me, overcoming a lot of those, my learning has been don’t try to do it alone.

Robert: We, we call our banks all the time and say, Hey, how would you explain this to somebody who has never heard about it before? Cause they can probably do it better than I can. We call our vendors, we’ll call advisors. Internally, I’ll take a new analyst and say, all right, I’m going to talk to you.

Robert: You’re a, you’re a. Board member or, you’re someone in controllership, right? You’ve never heard this before. I’m going to talk you through it. And getting real time feedback from somebody who says, no, you, you’re making zero sense is helpful. So for me it’s been, you know, taking people from outside of that, that small group of people that understand it and try to make the argument and I’ve had success with that.

Mike: Our podcast is sponsored by TradeWeb. TradeWeb are an independent platform, trusted by thousands of treasury professionals worldwide to manage their short -term investments. One global treasurer recently told me was one of the smartest technology decisions they’ve ever made. No license fees, rapid setup and tangible returns. If you’re looking for a smarter, simpler way to manage your liquidity, then head over to our partners page, treasury recruitment .com forward slash partners, find out much, much more. Now let’s get back to the episode.

Mike: So we’ve got about another 10, 15 minutes before we go to questions and stuff, so get your questions thinking, um. Treasury teams, by their very nature are small. And you get these amazing projects done. You know, when I talk to you guys, the stuff you achieve is incredible, you know, but I would say you are your own worst enemy.

Mike: You guys, here you are not so good at sharing. Now, a couple of tips. One of the ones actually, Emma Haywood, good friend of mine, she was on the podcast Dowlais Group. I said, right, and she said. I’m terrible about sharing our wins. So I was like, oh, so she’s had to work on it. The way she works on it is every Friday she sends herself an email.

Mike: I’m like, okay, well that’s alright. But what she does is, so when the CFO swings by her desk and says, oh, how have you got on this week? How have you, how have you team? What have you achieved? What have you got through this week? She sends herself an email and goes into a little folder. It’s just winds of the week folder, and she has a coffee with herself every Friday, five minutes, boom.

Mike: Coffee and what have we achieved? How much have we saved the company or what have we done? And that builds up this record and what she does. Then every quarter she does a quick summary. Now she’s uses ChatGPT chucks it in there. I said, did it work? And she went, it was amazing. I said, why? She went, CFO swung by the desk and she went, I saved us a quarter of a million last quarter.

Mike: And she was like, what? How’d you do that? I went, we did this. We did the RCF, we did this. But she actually had the figures to hand now that’s how she did it. With yourselves. We’ll start with Robert:  first of all. How do you make sure that people around your organization are great, the corporate treasury 101 Idea education, but how do you make sure the CFO notices what you are doing?

Mike: You know, except for knocking on his door, saying, Hey, it’s my pay rise time, please.

Robert: Yeah, we have, we try to create forums for that. We did, last year we did a simplification marathon. And so it was basically kind of a call out to everyone to say, Hey, go create projects. Let’s see how much we can see.

Robert: And then we kind of created a forum for people to present to senior leaders. This year we’re doing a treasury shark tank. Same kind of concept. Everybody’s going, doing projects and at the end of it, you know, we’re going to have a lot of people presenting all their successes.

Robert: We also have a rotational program, kind of an early career rotational program. And so we try to give the people that are going through that program and rotate into treasury, as interesting things to work on as we can. Right. Things that can be a little bit more high visibility. Because at the end of the day, they may

Robert: be the one presenting to the CFO. And we had actually this year, we had someone going through a treasury rotation present to the CFO and, you know, won the top prize that year and stayed on full-time in treasury. So we’ve tried to make the organization, , they don’t always like to hear about treasury, but, you know, find opportunities where we can, you know, make ourselves just a little more heard.

Robert: Mary.

Mary: So my philosophy has always been treasury deserves a seat at the table. And so in order for us to get that seat up at the table, I believe in advocating and sharing every single win. And so, you know, we’ve created different forms, and I’m speaking in terms of Baxter, but it was the same, you know, in my prior roles, is

Mary: highlighting where we’ve been successful and identifying those key projects so that we can partner in, and being collaborative. I think that’s one of the things that we always think that Treasury, we just have a treasury project, but there is a tax project, there is an accounting project.

Mary: There’s all of these projects that we should be able to be a part of and join in on that win and be collaborative. So for me, it’s always been, I’ve never been one and not tell that story, Mike. It’s always been, I want a seat at the table. Treasury deserves a seat at the table. Because we’re oftentimes forgot, right?

Mary: We’re just off. We’re the money people. Yeah. Uh, and people come to us when they need cash and that’s it. But now what we’re really saying is, look, we need a seat at the table from the beginning before you need the cash. And so it’s really highlighting, you know, the values that we have to offer, the cost savings and all of those

Mary: things, are key and important. So it’s making sure that we do those things. And we also, similar to Rob, have that treasury rotation program. So being able to just bring in other individuals in a treasury and share with them what we do, is also critical. We, you know, we had an intern, we do this thing, uh, you know, it’s, it’s kind of amazing because our CFO, said I didn’t know you guys did all of that in treasury.

Mary: We brought in an intern. He spent six weeks with us and he had to present back everything that we’ve taught him. And they’re like, what kind of experience did you give this kid? Did he ever get a break? But you know, he was able to go through all areas of treasury and learn and then display that. So in those opportunities where you can display

Mary: treasury. You know, in the case of these intern presentations, you should do that as well.

Mike: Now, I know that one of the questions in a moment will probably be about AI because it’s got to be, hasn’t it? These guys are desperate for it and technology and things like that. Can you just give us maybe your views on it, maybe how it stacks up with you guys?

Mike: What’s the good and the bad of, you know, AI if you like. And you know, how was it helping giving you clarity if it is yet or not? Over to you.

Mary: I haven’t necessarily used it as much in my role in capital markets, I still go to, I mean, I can say maybe I said how I, how do I fit the debt stack, the tables all on one slide. I might have used it for like a pretty presentation, but I’ve never used it to really tell me how to do the job because I really don’t think that AI is going to give you that in certain areas.

Mary: Right. I think it can be very powerful in things like cash forecasting and understanding trends and analysis. So I think that it can be really cool. I’ve seen a lot of cool things from Kyriba and other, liquidity modules, on the AI. But frankly, I don’t want it to take away from the having that in-person experience and someone with that historical knowledge of the company and the trends and the detail.

Mary: Because in the end, that does matter. So for me, I’m not a big user of it in my professional life. Now, on a personal perspective, I use it all the time. I just go to ChatGPT and I said make a menu board for the grand opening on Saturday. It made a beautiful menu board. I sent it to Walgreens and I printed it for 18 bucks.

Mary: So I use it on a personal note, but I’m not a fan in my professional career. Fair enough.

Robert: I’m similar. I would say I haven’t really found a treasury specific use case quite yet for AI. You know, daily productivity things, I definitely do use it. Uh, different buzzword, I guess. But on the cash forecasting side, we have a team, not me, to be clear.

Robert: We have a team of subject subject matter experts including data scientists that created a machine learning forecast, on the, you know, cash flow forecasting side. So that was a, a big win and we’ve seen a lot of improvements on accuracy and efficiency there. But I would say AI at this point feels a little bit more like a solution and solution in search of a problem, than something that we’re actually using for treasury.

Robert: Yeah.

Mike: And actually one of the things from a couple of our guests we’ve had live on stage, we had Declan Doorly from DCC Plc a massive UK corporate. And I asked him, I said, how are you using it? And he, as he told the audience, he said, what we’ve managed to do, we’ve managed to automate from 15% automation to 90%.

Mike: And they were like, oh. And people say, oh, did you get rid of staff? And he said, no, we’ve kept everyone, but actually what it’s done is freed up our time. And they weren’t using AI, they were just using technology. And they were saying, look, this is where it cuts out the errors. And actually your ex-colleague Mags, she stood in front of a room of people as well, and she talked about how they had two systems that were failing and what they did, they switched them off.

Mike: And they moved everything back to Excel and they restarted in Excel. But I won’t say the system because people will get annoyed. But the fact was what they did, they put it back, pushed it back into Excel, and then they started to use bots. And then they started to do it, and actually it started to bring up the errors and they, you know, and then they were able to fix the errors.

Mike: And in fact, she was telling me some of the figures there that, as she said, we, they still had to give paracetamol to the bots all the time. They kept on breaking down, but she said. But actually it saved 80% of their time. So there are different ways and different tech stacks as well to do it sort of thing

Mike: we’re going to go to questions, then we’re going to do the wrap up with yourselves and takeaways and things.

Mike: Before we do that, if you look back at earlier in your careers, Robert: , if you do, we’ll start with yourself. What would you tell your younger self now, you know, like, you know, I’ve done this with a couple of clients actually, and they’ve just, you know, said various things like, don’t worry, it’s going to be all right.

Mike: You know, you’re going to get there and stuff. Or what, what are your thoughts?

Robert: Yeah, I think first us in the treasury field probably need to introduce it to people sooner. Most of us graduate from college without even knowing what treasury is, myself included. I did a few years in banking. I would’ve loved to go straight into treasury.

Robert: I would love, you know, loved to have got started a little earlier. Um, you know, when I think about my early career, I did move around with treasury, different roles, right? Probably two years max per role and then go try a different area. Um, I think, you know, early on, jumping around within treasury or outside as well.

Robert: But I think learning as much as quickly as you can has a ton of value. And then on the flip side, when you start managing people, you know, I think it’s important to, to be the advocates to not hold people back and to encourage them to move around. And obviously that requires managers to structure their team in a way that people can do that.

Robert: But I think that that’s, that’s really important. Cool.

Mary: For me it’s be a sponge, be a sponge. Listen, and then seek those different opportunities that come up. What I’ve, you know, what I’ve been able to experience in my career has truly been, because of, I think my ability to just take the jobs that no one wants, right?

Mary: Take the projects that no one really wants. It’s failing. Give it to me. Let’s see if I can turn it around. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and do something that will make you uncomfortable. Those are where you get the biggest wins. And frankly, when you have those. Wins. It does something to you, right?

Mary: Like just from, at least for me, I don’t know, I’m just a little, I’m a glutton for punishment. But it does do something

 

Mary: to you in terms of just making you want to do more and go after more. And you know, I think frankly, as a leader, having that broad knowledge across these different areas is what makes you dangerous.

Mary: I always tell my team, go and learn enough to be dangerous. Right? That is like my kind of saying is, you don’t have to go and be the expert, but know enough to be dangerous so that when you go into another room, you can sound like you’re an expert, right?

Mike: That’s awesome. So Q&A for you guys here in the audience.

Mike: We do have a question. Thank you there you go.

Robert: . So I think I can say from everyone in this room that you guys are successful treasury professionals. How would you define being successful in treasury, both professionally

Mary: and personally?

Mary: I will argue that I still don’t feel extremely successful in treasury. I think I’ve, Liz is laughing because she knows me very, very well. I am my own worst critic. I did a 360. It came back and literally. Everyone was like, what is wrong with you? Why do you rank yourself so low? I am my own worst critic.

Mary: Everyone else scores me extremely higher than I am, but I will tell you that one of the key things that I find that gives me a sense of being successful is having a sense of knowledge of various areas of treasury. For me, I never wanted to be known as the FX guru. It just happened to happen that way.

Mary: But I also have the experience in operations and I have the experience in cash management. A little to be dangerous on the risk management side for insurance, but again, just be dangerous. That’s what makes me successful. It’s someone that. Able to wear various hats. If you can do that, you’ve reached a different level of what my kid would say, mom, you’re a goad.

Mary: That’s like the new saying, my kid taught me. It’s a basketball term. I’ve learned this. But that’s what makes it successful for me. It’s truly just defining and being able to say, Hey, I’ve checked that box. I’ve checked this box, and I’ve checked that box. The reason I tell you I don’t. Feel as if I’ve reached the height of success is I’ve had to really sit back, so this was one of my key takeaways, so maybe I’ll leave it right now.

Mary: Really quickly, I had to sit back and identify what I wanted out of my career. Did I want it? Did I want to be a treasurer? Do I want to be a CFO? Do I want to be Head of IR? What is it that I want? And once I identified that pillar, so for me it’s. Be a CFO. So achieving treasury success isn’t my idea of success.

Mary: It’s becoming a CFO and what am I doing to get there and how am I relaying that message to my leaders and to others so that they’re also thinking about my career path in the journey that I’m striving for. So I don’t know if that’s the answer you were looking for. Necessarily, but yeah, I’m successful in some regards.

Mary: Liz will get me if I don’t repeat that.

Robert: And getting the CTP right

Mary: and getting the CTP. I have to say that considering that I hadn’t studied leading up to that exam. I just thought to myself, if I fail, I fail. Right. I was expecting to fail because I had not studied and I knew that it was like a practical sort of exam.

Mary: And I have a few friends out there in very high places and they said, make sure you study the quizzes right. So they kind of gave me a heads up. I just didn’t have the luxury of time. And I have to say opening that paper and seeing that I missed it. But at 295 out of 300, I was like, ah, are you kidding?

Mary: I have to do it again. Even if I don’t ever come back to treasury, I have to do it again.

Mike: Now I know I’m not a friend in a high place except for sitting up in this high chair. Yeah. But I can get your discount on the exam, so there you go. That’s it. And I get it for you guys as well. It’s already paid for.

Mary: , I was that anxious when I opened that paper. I, that’s okay. I covered it. Scheduled it. Okay. Fair enough. That’s it, you know, anything to try and pay for the best. Robert:  over to you. Yeah, I also, I would say I still feel very far from the finish line. Not just in my career, but even on like the two or three projects I’m working on this week.

Robert: But, for me, every, you know, every time a light bulb, you know, flashes a little bit every time, I connect the dot, learn something about tax, learn something about controllership. Uh, and then now I think one of the more rewarding parts of my career and where. Feels like success now is when you help somebody else do it.

Robert: Um, you know, go learn some. I like this cycle of go learn, teach learn, and try to have my team go do the same. Right? Go learn something about ir business development, bring it back and teach us what you learn. So I think that, you know, just trying to connect the dots, feels a little bit more like success every day.

Robert: But I would agree. I don’t feel like I’ve hit that point quite yet.

Mike: And again, one of the, I do these weekly videos now. Do a weekly video, do a weekly newsletter. And I was made to do them by my business coach. And I was like, really? Do you want to hear this stuff? And she was like, yeah.

Mike: Because you talk to treasurers every week and this is all you’ve done for 25 years and you know, I’m passionate with, I was passionate with her and telling her about, this is what we have to do. These guys are amazing at doing this stuff. And the weird thing was, it’s ridiculously successful.

Mike: Like we get 200, we’ve got a quarter of a million impression. A quarter of people hearing about your success stories, so people are interested in it now. The most successful treasurer is, one of the things we recently talked about was the 30 day wins, the quarter wins, and actually then the half year and yearly wins, and I know I’m going on about it, but actually a couple of my clients have started to do it with their teams, not just for themselves, but actually their team members and saying, right guys, what are you going to achieve this month?

Mike: And the. Oh yeah, great. And he said, brilliant. What are you going to do this quarter? They are like, no one’s asked us that. What? What do you mean? He said, and he said, I know, what are you going to do this half year? What are you going to do this year? And actually this is one of the things when people, we do our salary survey as well, and people said, oh, the reason people leave is salary. Its not, I said, the reason people leave is that sixth on the list.

Mike: The number one thing is about work life balance. Number two thing is about does their boss care? And I said, you know this with a massive group of some of the top treasurers in the US and they were like, well, you know, but you are doing yourself out of a job. I know, I said, but people will move jobs when it’s the right time to move.

Mike: Not just because, you know, people aren’t moving because of salary. That’s the weird thing when we talk about it as well. Now I know you’ve got some great takeaways and the bar is open as well, so we’ll go to Mary’s takeaways. First of all. I will put them up on the screen for you if you need to see them as well.

Mike: There you go.

Mary: I think I covered many of ’em. Know your career objectives. Don’t be afraid to work across the aisle. You know, go into those other areas. Have those meetings, have those tough discussions, learn from those discussions and have those key takeaways. Um, put the imposter syndrome to bed.

Mary: It’s something that I’ve suffered with in various different roles. When you’re given that role and that title goal for it, embrace it, feel it, and don’t let yourself hold you back. And then of course, seeking that sponsor or advocate. Get yourself a sponsor. Get yourself a mentor.

Mary: Someone that will advocate for you and put you, talk about you in the room when you are not present. That I think is one of the, I put that last and it’s the key takeaway for me. You want yourself a sponsor, you want yourself a good mentor. And you mentioned it earlier, Mike, of the young lady that coached herself.

Mary: Do those things. Develop yourself. Put the time and energy into what it is that you want and your ideas of success.

Mike: Fantastic. So Robert: .

Robert: Yeah, I, so I put four down. First one’s, be adaptive and embrace change. Right. I think having a very, kind of a loose attachment to the way we do things in our day-to-day job is important.

Robert: I mentioned we’re not using aI for a treasury use case, but I don’t want to be last. So I think, you know, try, trying to figure things out and learn along the way is very important. Second, focusing on what matters. I ask myself and my team all the time, like, does this actually matter?

Robert: And everything does. We don’t really. Better time on something that doesn’t matter at all. But I really try to look for what does my board care about? What does my CFO care about? What does my treasurer care about? And am I spending most of my day on those things? Kind of the general 80 20 rule.

Robert: Don’t have a zero sum mentality. You know, I be a partner both within treasury and outside of treasury. Celebrate wins together. I like to be hopefully one of the first people to. You know, congratulate someone when they have one of their big wins. Because I know a lot of people will be the same to me.

Robert: And then storytelling is everything I mentioned. Presentation skills and being able to kind of tell the story, right. Whether that’s to your team, to your board. I think, you know, it’s easy to get lost in the expertise of treasury, it’s very easy to be very technical, but being able to st take a step back and know your audience.

Robert: I think, what’s the term with it? What’s in it for them? I always think with it know, exactly who your audience is and how they’re going to be able to digest the information you’re trying to tell them.

Mike: So mine. So

Mike: networking with purpose, what does that mean? So what that doesn’t mean, and actually I did this in Texas. We were giving our session in Houston, had some really good guys there and. I said to the audience, and I’ll say it to you guys when we go to the bar in a minute, I know it’s a recurring thing, but I said to the guys, I said, you have to walk away with five connections.

Mike: But they can’t just be, oh, connect to me on LinkedIn will you. Just connect, connect. That’s not a connection. What I said it to do is go up to the people and actually say, right, who are you? What do you do and what have you achieved? Just think of one thing that you’ve. Changed your company in the past six months, or you know, we’ve implemented this new system.

Mike: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And two, well, probably 30 seconds after I let everyone go at it. I said, you’ve got to make at least five connections. The room, and it was actually, um, Bridget from Redbridge. She was like, oh my God, you need to say that every time. And I said, why? She said, listen to that room, and you literally couldn’t hear yourself.

Mike: So when we get to the bar, make some connections. That’s the way you’re going to grow your treasury careers. That’s how you’re going to develop and everything else. Now the major thing about that was that then one of the guys came up to me afterwards went, I’ve got seven Mike. I thought, what? He said, I’m an introvert.

Mike: I hate this stuff. I said, yeah, but you came here. He went, I know, but I’ve made seven connections. To him that was a win. And actually we’ve connected since then as well and it wasn’t just click on LinkedIn and everything else. So that was one of the key things. Um, this ability, pay it forward, use your stuff.

Mike: The other thing I would say for you guys, we drop down to the bottom. Sharing wins isn’t bragging when you do your LinkedIn profile. Again, one of our, my recent posts was I was asked by a lady, who actually, she just said, Mike, when should I look for a job? And I went, first answer yesterday, the second answer today.

Mike: And she said, what do you mean I’m, you know what? She said, I’m going to start. I said, look, start investing in yourself. I said, what if on your LinkedIn profile you were to put some of the achievements, great treasurer, amazing lady. And I said, look, just update every so often, what you’ve achieved this month.

Mike: Put it on there because she’s done some amazing stuff. And I said, what if then people came looking for you, they came knocking on your door for the next opportunity. She went, that’d be incredible. Then I don’t have to, you know, go out there, get out of my comfort zone. And already she, we are six months in.

Mike: She’s already had two approaches. And why? Because she’s telling people what she achieves a treasurer at and you guys are great at this stuff, so embrace it. Right? The final bit, obviously. So we’re going to et cetera, ETC or whatever. So follow us. There will be either, I was going to say probably, there you go.

Mike: Set around the corner. Follow us all. Do come and join us. The drinks are free. Paid for, . Hands up sponsors, please. There you go. Go get your drinks tickets from those guys. Thanks very much. And I give a big round of applause for these incredible treasurers.

Mike: Today’s episode of the Treasury Career Corner was brought to you with the support of our partners’ as TradeWeb. If you’re looking for a smarter way to manage your short -term investments, then TradeWeb’s independent portal gives you access to a full range of investment products, integrated analytics, and a simple, centralized platform built specifically for treasury professionals just like you. If you head over treasury recruitment .com forward slash partners, you can find out much, much more, and we’ll be able to connect you with the right person at TradeWeb for both you and your business needs. Many thanks for supporting the show. And don’t forget, if you’ve listened to today’s episode, you’ve enjoyed it, give us a quick rating on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you listen to your show. And as an additional bonus, if you are CTP qualified, you can actually get CTP credits. Yeah, you just do a short quiz, we’ll mark it for you, we’ll send it to you, and will send the CTP credits as well just by listening to a podcast whether you’re walking your dog at the gym on your commute thanks very much for your support and we’re here to help you thanks very much