Imagine you could sit down for half an hour with someone who’s already reached the position in their career that you’d like to reach.
Would you jump at the opportunity?
Or would you say;
“No thanks, your job’s too different from mine”?
I recently heard someone say that most treasury professionals do not care what Treasurers at Fortune 100 companies are doing.
Instead, they want to hear from people facing exactly the same challenges they are.
I understand that part of the argument…
If you’re a Treasury Analyst working in a relatively small team, hearing someone explain how they manage global treasury operations across 50 countries might not immediately help you when you’re reconciling cash balances at 9am on a Tuesday morning.
But does that mean there’s nothing you can learn from them?
Absolutely NOT.
If you’re attending a treasury conference, listening to a webinar or coming to one of our events, I assume you’re probably there for a couple of reasons.
You want to learn.
You want to meet people.
And hopefully, you want to develop your career.
So why would you only want to hear from people doing exactly the same job as you?
I’ve recorded more than 440 episodes of the Treasury Career Corner podcast and spoken to over 500 treasury professionals.
They’ve all had different careers.
Some started in banking. Some started in accounting. Some fell into corporate treasury almost by accident.
I’ve interviewed people who’ve worked in businesses drowning in debt and spent their time negotiating with banks.
I’ve spoken to others who’ve joined incredibly cash-rich businesses and faced a completely different set of problems.
They might all eventually have “Treasurer” written on their LinkedIn profile, but their experiences are completely different.
That’s what makes hearing from them SO useful.
You listen to someone who’s further along in their career and can find out how they got there, what they would’ve done differently, and what you could steal from their experience and apply to your own career.
Because interestingly, the stories that get the biggest reaction at our live events aren’t usually:
“Here’s everything I did brilliantly.”
It’s the missteps. The wrong turns. The job that didn’t work out or the project that went off course.
And, most importantly, what they did next.
Those are the moments when I see people in the audience really lean in.
Now, that doesn’t mean I think everyone should only listen to Global Treasurers.
Far from it.
Sometimes you need someone who understands exactly where you are today.
It’s actually why we’ve changed our own events.
We introduced Ask the Treasurer, so Treasury Analysts and Treasury Managers can sit down with experienced Treasury professionals and ask them in small-group situations:
-
“When you were at my level, what did you do?”
-
“What helped you make the next move?”
-
“What would you do differently?”
And our roundtables give senior treasury professionals the chance to sit with peers facing similar challenges.
There’s value in both.
But I don’t agree with the idea that because someone works in a Fortune 100, a FTSE 100 company, or another global multinational, their experience becomes irrelevant to someone in a smaller treasury team.
Of course you’re not going to take Amazon’s treasury set-up and replicate it at your company on Monday morning…
That’s not the point.
But you might hear one thing they’ve done…
One decision, mistake, or approach to their career that you’d never considered.
And that one thing might be incredibly useful.
I’ve been fortunate enough to watch some treasury professionals go from their first major treasury role all the way through to becoming Global Treasurers.
I’ve even placed some of them at several different stages along the way.
And if I were starting my treasury career today, I’d want to hear from those people.
Because you don’t always learn the most from the person sitting next to you…
Sometimes it’s worth listening to the career journey from a treasury professional who’s already at the destination you would like to go to as well.
Best regards,
Mike
