Building an AI-Driven Treasury Team for the Future | Treasury Careers Podcast

Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: This week’s show you’ll get to hear from Bojan. He is the Vice President Finance and Treasurer at Voltava. But the key thing for him is actually about AI and technology. He’s passionate about it. Tell you what, have a quick listen

Bojan Belejkovski, Vice President Finance & Treasury at Voltava: Now going back to my initial discussions when I was joining the company, one of the things that I asked for is access to AI because I, I know that AI is gonna drive a lot of value in the future.

Bojan Belejkovski: And as we go through, there’s gonna be these changes that, that keep happening. But on the payments, on the forecasting, on, on right now I’m, I’m working on variance analysis, intercompany netting agents, compliance agents, all these tools, last mile solutions that take the process that I have and kind of through different apps and such allow me to be an AI-driven professional in the company.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I just, I’ll just add one thing. The next level in my experience, in my career, in my, my exposure is also being part of an AI team here at Voltava. We have a really visionary team here. Our CEO created these through our CTO obviously, these com- committees where we certain people meet and talk AI and develop AI as well.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I’m the SME for finance, AI SME for finance, and, uh, I also work with obviously the finance team here on this and we’re developing agents models and we have access to it, which is pretty cool. That’s the future.

Mike Richards: Welcome to this week’s Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week, I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let’s get on with the show.

Mike Richards: This week’s show, delighted to be joined by Bojan Beljukovski. There, hope I got it right. Great name, uh, particularly as I try and say it in English. The Vice President, Finance and Treasurer at Boltaba. Boltaba is a global manufacturing and assembly company formed in December 2025 by the acquisition of Android Industries and Avances by Detroit Man- Manufacturing Systems.

Mike Richards: Headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, the company combines expertise in automotive parts, complex module assembly, and supply chain management across 20 global facilities. But I’m gonna go back to the beginning, how Bojan first started his career, how he started in finance, then he got into treasury. We met recently at Kyriba Live in Vegas.

Mike Richards: It was great to actually see him face to face with a beer or two. So the microphone is yours. Over to you, sir. How did it all start?

Bojan Belejkovski: Thanks, Mike. How I started in treasury, I would say by coincidence. My background is in law. Growing up in Macedonia, I was always, kind of always kind of gearing towards the law side of things, something that takes me away from math I got my master’s in international law and Eu- European law, and my goal to was the European Parliament.

Bojan Belejkovski: I was set on fixing, quote-unquote, “The Democratic Deficit in the EU,” which is a, a book that I published in Macedonia. It was my master thesis, and someone approached me and wanted to publish, and I was all about it, so I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” What changed was operations management course that I did at the Wharton School of Business.

Bojan Belejkovski: So something clicked for me, like, throughout the concepts, like just-in-time delivery, the tag time, working with the numbers, the analytical side is something that completely, I guess, consumed me. And around that time I, I applied for a senior treasury analyst position, and I guess a combination of me being curious, having some experience in finance, I actually never did law.

Bojan Belejkovski: I was always something around budgets and numbers and stuff. And then the knowledge of Macedonian language, which is pretty interesting. The company expanded at that time in Macedonia and needed someone who knows the language so we can talk to the team. So I guess it tied to that open position there. I got the job, and I’ve been in treasury since, since then.

Mike Richards: Well, and talk through those roles, I think. So yeah, ’cause your progression, ’cause you’ve got this great progression within finance, from law into… Just give them some steps, ’cause I think it gives a foundation for someone else listening today and going, “Well, okay, you were in law and then…” Walk us through.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I’ve been, when I take a step back and reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m at right now, I worked across multiple industries. So I was in public service, I was in renewables energies, automotive, food and distribution, real estate, gaming, sports and entertainment. I might have missed something. So I guess that made me who I am today, just that exposure.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I started at that one place and applying different concepts in a different world and taking that and growing with that through the treasury world. So I, I was in FP&A before that. I was in a general- Yeah … junior analyst type of rotation role as well. But when I got to be in treasury, when I got my first job as a senior analyst, that was it for me and I loved, honestly, being part of everything that treasury does, starting with-

Mike Richards: But why did treasury light you up so much?

Mike Richards: Why was it different to FP&A or finance?

Bojan Belejkovski: I didn’t like the cash side of things because I, when I, when I entered the space, I was like, “Why are these people looking at the, whatever, the accruals? What does that mean? Like, that has nothing to do with how much cash I have in the account. I actually have to think about how I manage this to get that to work.”

Bojan Belejkovski: And that’s how my brain, I guess, is wired and that’s what interests me. And one thing that really stood out for me is M&A in treasury. I’ve, in some capacity, I’ve always been part of an M&A project, including a pretty famous Takata deal, which is an acquisition of a bankrupt J- Japanese, uh, I wanna say seven or eight billion automotive manufacturer.

Bojan Belejkovski: The unfortunate thing was that the Takata airbags were killing people by exploding while cars were driving, so- My company acquired that, the, the good assets of the company. So that, that was something I enjoyed. And again, I just came off an M&A and I- Yeah … and I, and I enjoy myself being in treasury and part of an M&A process because, yeah- And was

Mike Richards: that Joy- was that Joyce and Safety?

Mike Richards: Is that the one?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. Yeah. So Joyce and Safety, I was at, the company was called Key Safety Systems at the time. We were acquired by a company called Ningbo Joyson, and then we acquired Takata to become Joyson Safety Systems.

Mike Richards: Right.

Bojan Belejkovski: And, and- But then years down the road, DMS, Detroit Manufacturing Systems acquiring Android Advanced, and we became Boltawa.

Bojan Belejkovski: So, um-

Mike Richards: And, and Michigan and around there and things like that, it’s very heavily into automotive and heavy industry. You’ve got Johnson Controls, you’ve got a number of others and things like that. Do you gain the experience there? You obviously, as you said there, you started in as an analyst and then you went up through.

Mike Richards: T- talk us through your progression there and how your treasury experience was growing. And what I wanna know from this is, again, I’m taking the position of a listener and they’re going, “Well, go in. But okay, how did he, how did he grow his treasury career?” ‘Cause they wanna do the same.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yes. So that’s a great question.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I started with the, pretty much the basics you can think about. You go into the treasury space and your treasurer needs help with assembling the 13-week global cash forecast, because it just requires so many inputs from so many different people. So I started with that. I started with your just the vanilla hedges, getting exposure to that, learning how the swaps work, setting up banking operations.

Bojan Belejkovski: Start with, I started with some accounts and some cash management, but then as part of an M&A, we need to move to another global partner, global banking partner, so moving accounts from here to there, you can understand what the banks require from each standpoint. Then I moved on to implement the treasury management system, which is a whole new, a whole new asset for you as on the skill side.

Bojan Belejkovski: From there, I guess, through the M&A processes, I moved to cover insurance as part of treasury. I then evolved to work with FP&A on the direct versus indirect cash reconciliation. Worked with different regions, different partners throughout the organization to, I guess, be more involved and review their cash flows.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I think that’s like… And it’s kind of, I, when I go back and say, well, cash forecasting was big part of it, cash management, learning how the banks work and how the systems work with the banks, learning how ERPs connect to your systems, that’s something that I’ve always worked on and always tried to get more knowledge in that.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I guess it all comes together when, when I became treasurer, then I knew what my team needs to do and when someone is a, is an entry level junior role, they might need to implement credit cards, so they would be running with that or just get the basic set up for a treasury management system set up.

Bojan Belejkovski: They, I, I, I guess I learned and I know the approach on how to do that. Yes.

Mike Richards: And then, and your progression at Joycen, you went from analyst up to treasurer over the course of a number of years. What was that like for you? And any of the things that really stick in your mind, the challenges, if you like, from you growing within one company and it’s like, oh, prog- Was it, or was it natural progression all the way or what happened?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah, so it was a natural progression, I would say. So I joined in 2015 is the, at Joycen as a senior analyst. I became a treasury manager, senior manager, and then treasurer within four and a half years. It was a combination of me growing and learning, but also I was Fortunate, I guess, that my boss, who was the treasurer, had left the company and then the CFO liked what I did, and they offered me the job.

Bojan Belejkovski: Um,

Mike Richards: but yeah- Hang on. Can I just… Hang on, I’ve got to pause you there. He liked what you did. That’s not a natural thing, though, all the time, because sometimes you get, “Actually, I want to recruit my own person in,” or, “I want to recruit someone new.” What were you doing that you felt really earned his trust or their trust?

Bojan Belejkovski: Her trust. Yeah. Her trust. So I… So it’s a combination of being able to really work on variances on cash forecasting with multiple regions being involved, so that was, that was a big thing. The second big thing, I guess, was coming after this pretty complicated M&A during the first year. We had a large… We, we had a pretty difficult debt facility, so I had pretty good command of the credit agreement and understanding of the, the compliance.

Bojan Belejkovski: And also part of the insurance risk management made me think, “What can I do for the company if I explore captive insurance?” And then I guess the CFO was, like, looking at me from a perspective where this is a guy that doesn’t necessarily follow what was being done in the past or just coming with the legacy company did this and this legacy company did that, and this is better than that.

Bojan Belejkovski: It’s more like- It’s okay to do this, but what if we did something that, you know- Yeah … challenges us? And I think that mindset got me into, into that position as well. That, that

Mike Richards: plays- Well, the… I was gonna say, and sorry, and what were the, maybe the… You talked there about the complexity of the acquisition and the M&A.

Mike Richards: What were the toughest moments during those deals, and how did you keep your head?

Bojan Belejkovski: So the toughest moment overall, let me just ask, uh, s- you mean, like, the moment before I got the treasurer position, or just the toughest in, in, in general?

Mike Richards: All, all of the above. It’s all great- All of it … advice for the guys listening.

Bojan Belejkovski: So the tough- If I can go back and say, “Well, this was really tough,” I would say everything that COVID brought us. Like, everything around COVID was pretty challenging. I think, not the… Obviously, I’m not saying here the way most people mean it be- because it just wiped a lot of population. I’m just being very specific, obviously, with just everything hitting treasury at once.

Bojan Belejkovski: But then treasury became… And okay, I was the, in the treasurer position, but interesting enough, during COVID we had a change in CFOs, so I actually had to prove myself again to another person- Yeah … coming in. And then treasury became, I wanna say, mission critical almost overnight. CFOs were looking on us, as treasury professionals, heavily for anything liquidity and scenario modeling and planning, lenders conversations and real-time answers, because all those challenges throughout the globe, I guess.

Bojan Belejkovski: Uh, the semiconductor, for example, and the automotive made us lose our minds. And for me, I’ll just throw one more thing. At the time it was, and it was entirely my choice obviously, but coming to the US with a law degree, it doesn’t, doesn’t do much. So I got myself in an MBA at the University of Illinois at the Urbana Champaign.

Bojan Belejkovski: Pursued the CTP simultaneously, and I was expecting it’s gonna be difficult. No one told me how difficult it really is gonna be. So I went through all the challenges, well, without any issue. But I do remember specific nights, 10, 11 PM, where I had to talk to lenders, but I also had my… And I can vividly remember my investment class required me to submit a model, uh, until midnight, so I was kind of scrambling between both.

Bojan Belejkovski: But challenge-wise, I actually don’t really… I’m not a person that says, “Hey, this is a challenge,” or, “This is an obstacle.” I always look at things as an opportunities. So I’m always looking at, “Oh, I can actually learn from this if I don’t know that.”

Mike Richards: And then talk us through the next move to, yeah, a very diverse company.

Mike Richards: How do I say it? Ilicit? Is that right? Ilicit. Ilicit company. Yeah. It’s quite interesting. I was doing the research. So obviously just one core product, and when I talk about that, multi-billion dollar, multi-industry, sports and entertainment, food and distribution, gaming, real estate- Across holding and business units.

Mike Richards: So, uh, obviously put your feet up, just a bit of a relaxing time. Like, I mean, that sounds so diverse and- Yeah … and fun at the same time, but w- how did you cope in that situation?

Bojan Belejkovski: I actually, uh, I… So going into that, I was lucky enough, and COVID again- Yeah … made this happen, treasury was in demand. Uh, I had, within a week when I decided to leave Joycen, I had four offers from very reputable companies and names out there, and I won’t mention them.

Bojan Belejkovski: All great offers. And I was thinking, “Okay, one is, all these four are gonna give me something, but this one is gonna give me access to-“

Mike Richards: Definitely …

Bojan Belejkovski: a learning opportunity, however you wanna call that, to so many industries at once. And I was like, “Yes, I actually want to take on this challenge.” And I was motivated by the exposure of different industries, what they bring.

Bojan Belejkovski: And it, it was… So I spent four years there, and I joined to build the treasury pretty much from ground up. And then as I was told, “Treasury 1.0 is here, but we need treasury to go to 2.0, and then down the road set the stage for 10.0.”

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: So yeah, that’s it. That was a challenge I knew about and I took it willingly.

Mike Richards: And when you were doing that 2.0 and the centralized UM, you built a centralized treasury function. What were the things that you felt you had to get right, and what were the things that nearly derailed it? What made it tougher?

Bojan Belejkovski: What made it tough is I wanna say the culture shift was a little bit difficult to navigate because people were used to the ways that worked for them, I guess, in the treasury space.

Bojan Belejkovski: So that was really tough, but I then on the other side was able to, uh, w- was given, honestly, the access to, to build things. So the person who I reported to, I guess, at that time was very open to a treasury management system integration, taking it to the next step, implementing modules that automate your, uh, automate your work so you don’t necessarily need 50 people, but you need two people on the team to, to get the job done.

Bojan Belejkovski: So that, that was another way, I guess, of doing things, going from automotive, which is completely different to everything and any- and anything in

Mike Richards: the- Yeah. This is what, that’s what I mean, it’s just so diverse.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah, it is so diverse. And then you approach one day the food and distribution. The following day you might need to tackle sports or entertainment.

Bojan Belejkovski: Everything comes with its own challenges. And I, and I tell my team even now, “It is really easy, guys, when you think about, like, our direct forecast. Think about, like, X, Y, and Z. You already have the programs in the plan-” It is not that difficult to forecast. Go and forecast how many, how many items you’re gonna sell at a stadium.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: You can’t. You don’t know how many people are gonna go. You don’t know if it’s gonna rain outside, and there is gonna be core fans that go and watch a game. So that, going through that and learning, and I guess my approach was like how about I look at sports specifically this past five seasons, how many rainy days were there?

Bojan Belejkovski: How many people actually went? Do I see some correlation between… And, and that’s my analytical mindset, I guess, and, uh-

Mike Richards: Predictive analytics is great.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah, predictive analytics. That’s what I spent a lot of time on.

Mike Richards: And as you built that team, what were you prioritizing maybe with individuals, and what did you say, “Right, we need to get this right, but that can wait,” or, “That, that can come later,” or sort of thing?

Bojan Belejkovski: From a work per- from a workflow perspective, prioritizing honestly the easy wins and the last mile solutions, as I like to call them, and that dr- honestly any- can be anything and everything. If you already have a TMS in place, then what is really the one thing that is gonna… The 80/20 rule. What is really gonna be like- 80/20

Bojan Belejkovski: no, you don’t spend too much time on it, but it’s actually make a lot of differences. And for us was exploring APIs, exploring integrated payable solutions, stuff like that, that, that’s, that, that’s an easy win. And even a small pilot just to test it out and see if it works versus a, a more broad forecasting, let’s call it, I used forecast as an example, a- approach where you kind of combine all the business units, all the entities, however you wanna call that, and then move them in this one integrated system which takes time.

Bojan Belejkovski: So one step at a time, I guess. Easy wins.

Mike Richards: And I know that, you know, one of the things that I looked at was you started to sort of use AI-driven cash flow forecasting, and this was, again, I t- I talked to different treasury professionals, they say, right, quantify not just what money you’ve made, but also what money you’ve saved, or what time you’ve saved.

Mike Richards: What’s been your impact, if you like? And I know that you were taking, talking about here eliminating over 20 hours by per reporting cycle. How did you do that? Again, AI is the front of everyone, you know, tip of everyone’s tongue, and we’ll come onto that in a more recently role. But how did that start, or what happened there?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yep. So great question. Uh, I am not gonna mention names and all that, but, uh, I, one of the, one of the businesses which is pretty complicated at, in my prior job required me to do the forecast, because the, there was not someone here that can do the actual forecast over there i- in, in the way the treasury does it, I guess- Yeah

Bojan Belejkovski: tie all the things to that. I, I did the forecast for them, and it took me about, I wanna say nine-ish hours each reporting cycle, which is every four weeks. The account- That the accounting calendar. And that was a lot of time spent on just forecasting. Mm-hmm. And that’s just a lot of manual processes, heavy lifting that, that’s not necessarily needed.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I implemented, uh, a combination of TMS, API, and ANI- AI analytics to really slash that to, like, 30 minutes per reporting cycle. So like eight, nine hours going to 30 minutes, it, it’s, it’s a win for me. And then you maybe need to spend, like, another 30 minutes to an hour just you’re the judgment layer.

Bojan Belejkovski: You’re not gonna trust AI with the output. And just in a nutshell, I guess that’s how I’ve done it, but it’s a combination of different tools, different tactics. AI was not necessarily, and I would say it’s still not necessarily something that people use to the extent that it provides them the actual meaningful output.

Bojan Belejkovski: Mm-hmm. I guess it’s used to chat with it, not necessarily put it to work, which is what I spend time on actually I’m also studying, but I can talk about the studying at the-

Mike Richards: Well, let’s dive into that in a second then. But just bring us up to date with, so you did that role, and then bring us up to date with the more recent role, and then we’ll dive into this and what you were talking about Kyriba- Yeah

Mike Richards: and some of your passions and things.

Bojan Belejkovski: Sure. So and I’ve used Kyriba, uh, now that you mentioned that, since, like, 11 years ago. So I- Yeah … I kept implementing it. I threw RFPs. I thought it’s, like, the best fit for where I was and whatnot. But Kyriba has different modules, different tools that I’ve used, and then coming into my role right now, one of the things that I talked to my old CFO that actually brought me to Detroit Manufacturing Systems, and my, my, my current CFO who’s here at Ultrava, it, it’s kind of the same thing.

Bojan Belejkovski: We have a TMS, it has the power to do this and that. And if I roll out these modules and combine that with these agentic AI solutions that my team and I are gonna build, we’re gonna have X amount of savings. So right off the bat, I can tell you, like, I did some analysis yesterday, and I’ll go back to the AI piece of it.

Bojan Belejkovski: We think that if we go live, and I think it’s gonna be 5/15 with some AI related work related to the reconciliations, we’re gonna save about seven hours a week from, we’re gonna really kill the manual work.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: Now, going back to my initial discussions when I was joining the company, one of the things that I asked for is access to AI, because I, I know that AI is gonna drive a lot of value in the future.

Bojan Belejkovski: And as we go through, there’s gonna be these changes that, that keep happening. But on the payments, on the forecasting, on, on, right now I’m, I’m working on variance analysis, intercompany netting agents, compliance agents, all these- Tools, last mile solutions that take the process that I have and kind of through different apps and such allow me to be an AI-driven professional in the company.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I just… I’ll just add one thing. The next level in my experience, in my career, in my, my exposure is also being part of an AI team here at Voltava. We have a really visionary team here. Our CEO created these through our CTO obviously. These com- committees where we certain people meet and talk AI and develop AI as well.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I’m the SME for finance- Right … AI SME for finance and, uh, I also work with obviously the finance team here on this and we’re developing agents models and- Mm … we have access to it, which is pretty cool. That’s the future.

Mike Richards: And can you just explain, we touched on it, global manufacturing assembly company, but what sort of things do you do or what…

Mike Richards: Because then how does that then impact treasury sort of to understand a bit more about Voltava and stuff?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yep. So what we do right now is, as a treasury team, we cover your kind of core treasury when you think about working capital improvements, when the forecasting piece of it, payables, banking, debt management, anything that really comes with it.

Bojan Belejkovski: We cover insurance, risk management including commodity risk, uh, analysis, foreign exchange.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I probably missed a l- like 100

Mike Richards: other things. Now is that… But what, for what reason would the company as such, because is this for the assembly of your own machines or is this for the products you do or what sort of the, what the products you guys have?

Bojan Belejkovski: You mean end product that goes to the customer?

Mike Richards: Yeah. Well, the… No, the company itself. So what do Voltava do? Who, you know, if somebody- Oh, yeah … you know, are at a dinner party and someone say, “Oh, Volt, what do they do?” So explain what

Bojan Belejkovski: they are. Yeah. W- Well, Voltava works as a supplier for the large, I guess, la- large OR- OEMs.

Bojan Belejkovski: So think about the customers being Fords, GMs, Chrysler. Yeah. Or, well, I shouldn’t say Chrysler. Stellantis and- Yeah … the powerful companies out there in the automotive space. And does, and we have different product lines, so when you think about dashboards, when you think about tires, and wheels, and different products like that.

Bojan Belejkovski: We also have a company, uh, under in our portfolio that doesn’t specialize in automotive. It actually does something else. So batteries, drones, we’ve also, you know- Yeah … expanded into this area as well.

Mike Richards: Okay. Well, you’ve told us a lot there. You and I obviously met recently at, uh, the Kyriba LIVE conference, and I know that you’ve done a lot of stuff with this.

Mike Richards: You really… What’s the word? Y- you’ve embraced technology, which you’ve seen, which, and you’ve talked about it there, but you’ve got various other bits here that you’ve… Advisory board m- member for an AI organization. You’ve got publications with Treasury 2.0. Talk us through how that, why that lights you up so much, or why you think other treasury professionals should think about it.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah, so one, one thing I live by is never stop learning, and I’ve actually put it in practice. Like, I, and I mentioned my master’s degree, and I mentioned- Yeah … the ability, the inability to really see myself growing if I don’t have a business degree in the US. So getting my MBA, my CTP, and then, and started to learn AI three, four years ago when I, when I honestly found anything online and I just subscribed for that, and I went through it and got the certifications that they offered.

Bojan Belejkovski: I had hundreds of pages in notes on how to even do prompt engineering, different techniques. I mean, this is just very beginning of AI, I guess, and what it used to do, but allowed me to put together a book on, on, on AI, which I published exactly one year ago called Treasury 2.0: The Future-Proofing Finance, uh, Future-Proofing Finance with AI.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I guess- I’ve always been open to, to new things, trying-

Mike Richards: Yeah …

Bojan Belejkovski: challenging myself. And if someone’s thinking about, “Well, how do I start?” And actually this is a question I got, uh, as part of, a part of a speaking s- session about two months ago. “Well, how do I start with AI? I just joined the space.” Talk to AI every single moment you have.

Bojan Belejkovski: Brainstorm ideas, go back and learn and research and, uh, I guess crystallize what you’re thinking about and put it in a function. Put it to work in some area that is gonna allow you to then take that and then tackle the next step.

Mike Richards: Where do you see it sort of generally making a difference at the moment?

Mike Richards: I know it’s all brand new and it’s accelerating as well, but where do you see it making a, a, generally making a difference, and where do you feel it’s not actually, it’s falling short or people are getting it wrong?

Bojan Belejkovski: I would say AI, well, AI is obviously growing so fast. It’s exploding everywhere. In my case, I can give you a specific example.

Bojan Belejkovski: We used to have a process where we have accounts receivables be a function of download reports, put together your aging. It takes time. Yeah. And then understand where it is and how it impacts your, your, your day-to-day liquidity.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: What we’ve done is we’ve implemented an agent. So what the agent does is it uses the data to really provide us, provide us the liquidity position for the day, for the week, for the month, based on the reports that reside in different systems.

Bojan Belejkovski: And then say, “Well, number one, no issues, and you’re getting paid your $1 tomorrow.” Then number two is, “Oh, well, an issue. You actually invoiced for a dollar, you’re getting paid 80 cents, so there must be an issue. Go and check what is going on.”

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I can actually talk to the agent to get some details and get some information from it.

Bojan Belejkovski: So I, I think we’re advancing as, I guess, as in the treasury world, we can put it to use anywhere we want right now. I’ve done that for the accounts receivables agent that I mentioned. I’m right now with support from my IT team, I am, I am building a solution on variance analysis. So I’m gonna have my last week versus this week direct forecast in an agent and say, “Hey agent, where did I fall short?

Bojan Belejkovski: Or where did I maybe over-hedged my risk?”

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: All these, all these are really solutions that exist, and we’re building it and testing it as we speak.

Mike Richards: It’s an interesting one. I’m just scribbling here that- I’ve talked in… I’ve done the podcast now seven and a half years, 450 guests, and I’ve seen it come in.

Mike Richards: But also even when seven and a half years ago I was talking about technology, just general technology itself, that treasurers I’m seeing as very much the translators a lot of the time. The CFOs saying we… And also the route masters, sometimes at that time blockchain was like, “Can you go check it out? See if this is something we need,” or whatever the next thing.

Mike Richards: And Bitcoin and then lots of different crypto and all the different stuffs that, but you guys were having to translate it. But now I’m seeing much more of people within treasury becoming more interpreters, if you like, but they’re also implementers. And actually implementing the technology to make your lives easier.

Mike Richards: ‘Cause you guys are sometimes people constrained and things like that. So hang on, if I use an agent, this is… And I was talking to a treasurer in New York the other day, which I think throws up another issue, that he was saying he knows if they get an agent on board, his own agent, which he’s telling his tech team, he said, “I want my own one because we can teach it the FX stuff.

Mike Richards: We can get the, our junior FX person to really train it and do everything else, and the senior FX person can really supervise this. This will work on steroids 24/7, and we can iterate it and everything else.” The problem was, and this is a question I was gonna ask you, which came up and I said, “Okay, that junior person then loses their job.”

Mike Richards: Or do you redeploy them? What are you gonna, where else are you gonna use and what else? And he said, “Well, either they redeploy themselves or, or they will be out of a job.” So they’ve got to continue to learn. But I was thinking, also I was saying to him, I see this more and more with junior guys coming out of college and things like that, there’s gonna be a gap, that knowledge gap.

Mike Richards: ‘Cause it used to be you came in as a junior treasury assistant and you learned treasury on the job, and you were given coaching by someone like yourself and you learned and learned, just like you did when you were an analyst. Mm-hmm. But it seems that there, there’s becoming a bigger gap there. How are people gonna get into treasury?

Mike Richards: Do you see that as an issue?

Bojan Belejkovski: I would say yes and no. Okay. Yes, because right now there is a lot of emphasis on AI and there is a lot of negative news. I- Yes. Yeah … I, I would say this company fired 5,000 people, this company fired 50,000 people. The CEO of this AI company says the white collar jobs are going away in four years, and th- that creates panic.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. I don’t think, quite honestly, I don’t think we’re there yet. Any- anyone who’s curious enough can get in and start doing something. But the role is changing, though. It’s not gonna be- Yeah … your entry level doing the things that I did when I went into the workforce. They will have to come with something else.

Bojan Belejkovski: They will have to provide an edge. If I hire someone, I can tell you that I’m not gonna look at your core treasury right now. I’m gonna look at your exposure to something outside of it. What that means is, and again, I’ll give you a specific example, we have summer internships, and I just looked at interns for the, from IT.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: The one I actually brought on two weeks ago is a guy who’s coming from IT, who understands finance, but knows how to build something. And I’m not expecting a lot from an intern, but I expect that someone is curious enough to build me a process where my current team doesn’t have to spend 50 hours on, on something.

Bojan Belejkovski: That’s my approach, and I think that’s where the things are gonna go. Even in my prior job, I’ll step back and say I hired someone that knew Power BI. I hired someone that had exposure to, to Kariba in the past, and someone that understands processes. Cash management, all that, it’s fine. You can come with it.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. But if you don’t have the edge, it’s gonna be difficult. And one other thing I’ll add, the junior level positions are gonna change just based on these skills. So I think they’re just gonna, they’re just gonna keep evolving.

Mike Richards: It’s fantastic, and I’ve s- said this before on the podcast, bears repeating. I s- I still need to find out, remember the guy that I talked to.

Mike Richards: There was a candidate I had from Greece. He sent me his CV, which to give him some advice. And then I noticed buried at the bottom of his CV, he said about a Python course he’d gone and studied for in the evenings, and then he’d implemented it in, in his workplace, and then it had saved all these people these jobs and things.

Mike Richards: And I’m going, “Wow.” I said, “Why is it down at the bottom?” He said, “Well, it was just something I did my own study time, ’cause I was bored of doing the cash management like this, and I thought there’s a better way of doing this.” I said, “Right, w- we’ve gotta cut that out.” And he’s like, “What? What?” I said, “No, cut it out and move it to the top.”

Mike Richards: I said, “Literally, this is the- that’s your lead line.” And he was like, “Oh, well, will you…” I said, “I probably won’t be able to get you a job because the market was quiet.” So I said, “You don’t need me. Just put your CV out with these people.” Yeah, he was snapped up within two or three weeks. People were starting to go…

Mike Richards: Said, “Tell your story about why.” And I said, “And people will just love you.” And he was like… I said, “If you want to automate things, and they’ve rolled it out on a global basis, and you’ve saved the global teams 40 hours a week, you’ve paid for yourself.” It’s a

Bojan Belejkovski: no- Exactly. Exactly, and that’s what I’ve done, actually.

Bojan Belejkovski: I mentioned AI. I mentioned AI taking notes, certificates and stuff. After work, what I did for the past four years, and I actually tried learning code, I tried learning Python. I’ve actually built stuff myself. That’s what I was telling my team even yesterday at a meeting. I can actually build a variance analysis.

Bojan Belejkovski: Just give me the a- the API key- Yeah … so I can build the way it should be, the, how it should work. And, uh, I always lead with that these days. And just the other day I had a conversation with, with my CFO, and I told him like, “I don’t think that we’re gonna be in the same, I’ll call them positions, in the future.”

Bojan Belejkovski: Because in the past, controllers used to be CFOs. You’re in controller seat, and you’re gonna be a CFO one day. Then the others don’t stand a chance. That, that, that’s long gone.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: Almost everyone I know that made it to CFO, they come from treasury or FP&A. They have strategic mindset, and they’re able to implement something.

Bojan Belejkovski: When my time comes, hopefully, to have enough experience for someone that thinks that’s enough, then potentially talk about a CFO position, I’m gonna be someone that’s gonna rely on AI. I mean, the world is just changing and you gotta be strategic and deploy your AI resources these days.

Mike Richards: Yeah. And I know that’s been a big focus of what we’ve talked about.

Mike Richards: But other than that, what else do you see as challenges for treasurers coming up, and what else do they need to be thinking about in their sort of, in their day-to-day jobs or, or junior staff or whate- whatever level you might be?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yep. So the, if we summarize this as the future of treasury- Yeah … in my view, I would say one thing is…

Bojan Belejkovski: Well, uh, two things. Number one is digitalization. So building towards something that allows you to build a data lake, a single source of truth. Can be an EMS and ERP, can be a TMS bank and ERP and whatever. Anything that, that, that’s kind of one-stop shop. Because the world goes to real-time visibility, and probably already went.

Bojan Belejkovski: Mm. Automated workflows, decisions that you’re making on a daily basis based on clean data rather than just manually assembled spreadsheets. And one other thing that I’ll add to that is to be consistent, because I see a lot of scrambling between things, and there is, like, different narratives here and there, and th- that’s what’s missing from what I’m seeing right now.

Bojan Belejkovski: So you gotta be consistent. Be where the reality is, I guess. And the teams that, the teams that will win, i- in my opinion, are those that are building the founda- fou- foundations right now so they will be ready for when the adoption accelerates and then hits their organization. So either- That makes sense

Bojan Belejkovski: you’re a entry level or you’re a treasurer, I think this applies to everyone.

Mike Richards: This podcast, as you may have worked out, has no sponsors, has no ads. Nobody pays me to record these episodes. I make it because I love corporate treasury and I want to help treasury professionals just like you. If you’re getting value from this, there’s a couple of things I’d ask.

Mike Richards: Share it with your friends. Tell them about it, how you’ve enjoyed it. If it’s helping you in your treasury career, fantastic. But then maybe connect with me on LinkedIn. Mike Richards, I’m there. You can actually look me up. My URL is actually linkedin.com/mrtreasury, or Mr. Treasury, if you wanna call it that.

Mike Richards: Hit connect, drop me a quick note, say you found me through the podcast on Apple or Spotify. I read every single message, and yes, I will reply. There’s no funnel, no sales pitch, it’s

Bojan Belejkovski: just a chance to say hello, stay in touch, and see what I can do to help. So anyway, let’s get back to the episode.

Mike Richards: And just reflecting back over your career, you’ve given some advice to the audience, but again, if you were to give advice to your younger self or maybe your team, the junior guys, about accelerating their careers, obviously technology, but any other advice for them?

Mike Richards: What, what other career decisions that you’ve had to make along the way that you say, “Yeah, you should do the similar things or not do,” sort of thing?

Bojan Belejkovski: Mm-hmm. Something that I’ve also talked to my team about and, and especially the more entry-level people, and I am saying this all the time, is try to figure out what is the, what is the bottleneck?

Bojan Belejkovski: What is, what is killing the process? What is, what is… Even if you’re not at your organization, kind of think about what the, what the process would be from an old school type of treasury approach versus what it, what it should be, and then see what type of technology solution is the enabler So when your team is not buried in manual reconciliation spreadsheets and stuff, I think the co- the collaboration then resurfaces, the culture strengthens, and people are essentially happier at their jobs because they have they don’t spend so much time on doing the tedious work.

Bojan Belejkovski: You join a, an organization where you’re like, your mind is all, “Well, I’ll work with like 100 spreadsheets and I’ll have to reconcile stuff for someone.” And that’s gonna be go- long gone because- That’s gone,

Mike Richards: yeah …

Bojan Belejkovski: you have time and ability, right? So then even if you’re entry level, you’re gonna be put in a position where you put your mind to work from a strategic standpoint.

Bojan Belejkovski: And I think, and as I said, tech- technology is gonna be an en- enabler in that sense.

Mike Richards: And do you see tre- In your experience, have you seen that treasury, certainly I have, that 20 years ago, when, 20 plus years ago when I started, the treasury, they were o- their own worst enemy. At the time they were like, “Hey, we’re the specialists.

Mike Richards: Look at us. Yeah, we don’t mind being put in the corner because I get a higher wage. Look at me.” And now that, and then over time it was like, “Oh, hang on.” That came and bit them in the behind and they were like, “Oh, hang on. I wanna be mainstream. I wanna be work partner with the business.” And I’ve seen that actually that’s evolved and I think this is a big thing, but how do you see treasury continuing to evolve as a strategic post?

Mike Richards: It sounds like there’s more business partnering, as we’ve already talked about that and covered it, but is that the way you see it going?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. So I kind of cover this in a little bit, but I would say same direction. Yeah. More strategic, less manual. When I reflect on 10, let’s say 10 years ago or 17 years ago-

Mike Richards: Yeah

Bojan Belejkovski: it, it’s really going from being manual, being just like, “Let’s get this file to work and then we take care of the, the, the rest”- Thanks. Yeah … to now being more strategic. One thing that I believe it’s now changing again is the visibility of treasury in, in terms of like how the organization sees the treasury team.

Bojan Belejkovski: Obviously there’s gonna be those that are kinda stuck in the old ways and they go to your controller for treasury stuff, but treasury now is getting more visibility at a C level, across the C level, across- Yeah … the board level. And I think that sh- shift is, has been deliberate because there is there, there was an opportunity.

Bojan Belejkovski: People proved their value in treasury, and I think it’s… O- One, one, one thing I’ll stop there and I’ll say, I’ve always pushed towards getting the- operational baseline automata, so then you can free up capacity and create higher value for the organization. Yeah. Yeah. That’s what, that’s what drives your, what I said, more strategic, less manual type of approach.

Mike Richards: And that’s what, that was a discussion I had with a New York client that as he said, “Well, this, either this junior guy gets more strategic, we’re giving every opportunity to. If he wants to remain at that day-to-day turning a handle, that’s going. The, the- Yeah … he’s gonna get helpers going on board. We’re gonna, and they were gonna provide the tools for him to do it as well.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yep. And there’s just one thing that I’ll mention- Yeah … and I actually love this when, uh, when I talk to my CFO, I, I actually stole this from him. Po- positionless football or positionless soccer, right?

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Bojan Belejkovski: That the team composition changes. So in the past you also had people, someone is gonna do this, and you’re gonna do that, and you’re gonna do this, and they don’t have cross-training.

Bojan Belejkovski: They don’t do anything like that. Now it’s how can you play a right back and then be an attacker five minutes- Yeah … after that? So that is also something that’s changing and what I’m trying to work with my team on. So I’ll just for, for those that, that are interested in this, what I’ve done is I’ve actually divided the team in pillars.

Bojan Belejkovski: So we have your, let’s say, liquidity and forecasting and working capital and accounts receivables and risk management, and I have someone designated to lead these but also be a backup for another one. So they, they get exposed to something on a daily basis, so they can learn the basics and they can maybe one day say, “I actually am better fit for this versus that.”

Bojan Belejkovski: And that’s- That’s gold … how to create the positionless soccer approach or football approach, I

Mike Richards: call it. We’ve got to 42 minutes and this is like gold that is coming out now. This is amazing. As you say, I think it’s a great way to do it. As you say, have a, a main pillar you’re responsible for, but train and cross-train.

Mike Richards: And I’ve heard that from other successful treasurers where they sort of back up. And they’re doing it in rugby as well. It’s not just soccer. It’s okay- Correct … football as a game. But they’re doing it now with the back row players that they’re saying, “Well, yes, you need to be this, but also you need to learn to play on the wing.”

Mike Richards: Mm-hmm. Because that might happen in a game. This is what… And if you don’t, we could fail, and it’s all about the team and things, so.

Bojan Belejkovski: And- Exactly. And funny thing is I, I’m a fan of Juventus. I watch all the games- Yeah, yeah … Juventus plays. They have an American player, Weston McKennie, and he’s the guy that starts on the left, goes on the right, attacks, goes in defense, and I’m always like I’m watching my favorite team and I’m like, “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

Bojan Belejkovski: Positionless player.

Mike Richards: Yeah, which is amazing. But, but we’ll definitely do that over a beer next time I see you. So we, as we wrap up the show, we’re gonna put your LinkedIn details in the show notes, and we do it every week, the takeaways. I had it one time a while ago, someone said, “Oh, are you gonna change that?”

Mike Richards: I went, “We’ve done it for 400 plus episodes.” And people say sometimes it’s their favorite part, the takeaways, and it’s what they have their cup of coffee and they go, “Right. Yeah, I should do this.” So as someone’s having their cup of coffee, what advice would you give as a takeaway if you’re a junior, mid-level, senior?

Mike Richards: What would you say?

Bojan Belejkovski: I would say, and I apologize for be- for being boring, but, uh-

Mike Richards: No,

Bojan Belejkovski: no … never stop learning. Constant learning, it gets compounded over time. It, no matter what it is, it can be a, a professional designation, a certification, can be something you find online and it’s valuable. You think it’s gonna be valuable and it’s gonna strengthen your skills.

Bojan Belejkovski: And even if it’s like 1%, this 1% is gonna unlock a lot of, a lot of opportunities when you start networking with people. And just one other thing is kind of ties to this, I guess go- goes handy, and challenge yourself. Never stop exploring, and put your brain to work in something that you’ve never done.

Bojan Belejkovski: While we talk about it, I just actually found something online three weeks ago called Restructuring and Distressed Investing certification. And I’m like, “Okay, I’ve done a lot of M&A work. I know some of the concepts, but I don’t actually feel that I know a lot, so why don’t I sign up?” Why would then, why would I not allow my CFO to bring me on these projects, and why would they hire third-party consultants if I can actually come in and do that?

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. And then it allow me to grow within the company as well. So I would just use that as an example to kind of further strengthen my message.

Mike Richards: So I think there’s a, that’s great advice for the more juniors and mid-level guys. But if you’re, like me, you and I, we share a stage a lot of the time, we go to these conferences, and th- you’re standing in a room exclusively for treasurers.

Mike Richards: Mm-hmm. If you’re talking to those guys, what advice are you gonna give them? They’ve heard the other bits of the advice. They’ve heard that. But then this is more directed to them as other treasurers. What do you think they should be thinking about or doing maybe for th- themselves and their teams?

Bojan Belejkovski: Well, I would say what I did applies to treasurers as well.

Bojan Belejkovski: If someone told me and I was in the audience, I’m like, “Yeah, actually this guy is in the same position, or gal, is in the same position as me, and they’re challenging themselves. Why wouldn’t I do that? Like, why wouldn’t I want to be in front of all these other guys here? And we’re gonna apply for the same jobs, why don’t I stand out then?”

Bojan Belejkovski: Instead of that. Constant just challenge yourself. And I guess AI adoption, I would also flag that. For all of us in the treasury seat, I think AI is now becoming the norm. So as much as you’re able to implement, that is gonna also drive the value for your organization, for you personally, and it’s gonna allow you to grow regardless of your tenure and where you sit in terms of the industry.

Bojan Belejkovski: It, it’s industry agnostic.

Mike Richards: It’s brilliant. I’m gonna see you at another conference very soon, probably in a few weeks time. And thank you very much, sir. You’ve been brilliant, and yeah, people will enjoy. And I’ll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and people can connect to you as well.

Bojan Belejkovski: Thank you.

Bojan Belejkovski: Yeah. Thank you so much and look forward to catching up.

Mike Richards: Yeah. Thank you, sir.

Bojan Belejkovski: Thank you.

Mike Richards: Thanks for tuning in to another great episode. We really enjoy it. Thank you very much. You make it worthwhile, us recording them with these amazing treasury professionals right the way across the world from the US, across the UK, across Europe.

Mike Richards: And there’s lots more exciting guests to come and lots more live events. We love delivering this content. We get asked now, “Is this what you do? Do you just do content? Do you just do…” No. The reason we do the content is to get to know you guys, to give you back the tips for success, if you like. But we’re here to help you hire someone.

Mike Richards: If you need to recruit, call us, because at our heart, we are a treasury recruitment company. That’s how we pay the bills. That’s how we pay for the podcast, and that’s what we’re passionate about. We hear from you at events and things, “Can we also help you find your next great role? Can we help you hire?”

Mike Richards: The answer is yes. That’s exactly what we do. Yes, we do our Treasury Salary Survey at treasurysalary.com. That helps us know exactly how to benchmark not only your salary, but also when you’re looking to hire, we know exactly what the market is paying wherever you might be, whether it’s the US, UK, or Europe.

Mike Richards: We wanna make sure that we are the best informed, that we’re not just finger in the air. We always know. If you wanna hire the best in treasury, don’t hesitate to contact us. Go onto the website treasuryrecruitment.com, or for the US, you can contact Joe Grabowski. Europe, contact the lovely Katie. For more senior roles and roles across the UK, reach out and contact me, or drop any of us an email, joe@treasuryrecruitment.com, katie@treasuryrecruitment.com, or mike@treasuryrecruitment.com.

Mike Richards: Let us help you make the hiring process as amazingly seamless and easy as our podcasts are to listen to. Thanks for your amazing support, and looking forward to seeing you at either an event or a conference very soon, or just give me a call. Let’s help you find the next role or recruit the next treasury professional.

Mike Richards: All right. Until next week. Many thanks