Beyond Treasury – Using Your Skills to Drive Results in Operations

The first treasurer I worked for always said, “cash is king” and “you understand a business if you can follow the money.” With these ideas treasury is a great learning ground to develop strong business skills, since your daily work and projects take you to a company’s cash. The areas with cash are where the action takes place. One of the downsides of treasury can be the narrowing of career opportunities within one’s organisation and in the market. My dad has two maxims that have been helpful in my career. The first is, “your career is like an egg”. This means that at the start of your career you are at the bottom of the egg with limited skill and experiences, so there are few opportunities. As you gain experience and skills there are more opportunities and career paths for you as you move up the egg. Finally as you advance in your career and move to the top of the egg there are fewer opportunities since you become very specialised and more expensive.

However, the skills developed from treasury activities such as cash planning, bank account structure building, project financing, liquidity funding, capital moving, debt agreement reviewing, bank relationship managing, and financial reporting provide experiences and knowledge which few of your business peers will possess. This becomes your value proposition to your organisation or the market. There can be ‘life beyond treasury’.

I personally found my experiences around planning projects, executing objectives, developing and managing relationships, selling stories, leading others, and driving change gave me an opportunity to step outside the financial arena with a move to an operational leadership role. This began in the fall of 2012 and still continues today. I cannot thank enough three executives who were willing to provide this opportunity and new challenge for me: GM, JZ, and DC. I am now in my third operational leadership role. I believe the value add I have provided to the operational environment is based on the foundation of understanding cash management, finance, legal agreements, costs of capital, corporate structure, and shareholder expectations. These concepts and transferable skills were all learned in the treasury environment. Moreover, I have learned many new concepts and business practices due to this change. This leads me to my dad’s second quote: “You can have ten years’ experience or ten one-year’s experience.” This highlights the difference between doing the same thing year after year, or being exposed to new challenges, learnings, and opportunities in your current role or career path. It was this reflection that guided me to step outside my area of expertise.

Why move out of treasury?

Why should you consider a move out of treasury? To answer this question, it helps to ask a few other questions first.

1. How many treasurers does your company have in place?
2. How many business units or divisional leaders does your company have in place?
3. Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, or 20 years?
4. Do you have relationships with others in operational leadership roles within your company?
5. Are you willing to relocate?
6. Do you see how your transferable skills can add value to an operation?

After answering these questions, you can begin looking further into the operational role opportunities. What can you gain from an operational leadership role?

• Expand personal understanding of how corporate, treasury, and operations come together in forming a business
• Use your skills learned in treasury in a new way to add value
• Continue learning
• Create broader long-term career options
• Expand your internal and external networks
• Generate cash for the operation 
• Drive structure 
• Move to a new location at home or abroad 

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 There are personal and career benefits that can be gained moving outside of treasury. How do you go about moving from treasury to operations? The first steps are to understand your strengths and how they can help an operation, know what type of activities you gain satisfaction from doing, research the different operations in your organisation, determine the challenges each operation faces, and confirm you are ready for home and work life changes. A new operational role will impact your current routine. You may have to change hours, boss expectations, daily activities, or even move your family.

Once you have a good understanding of the first steps, you can prepare to have intelligent conversations within your organisation or business network. The next actions are to plant the seeds and follow up with contacts who can support or arrange the change to operations. Ideally, your treasury responsibilities will have involved some work with other departments or business units. A place to start the discussion would be with someone you have conducted project work for or whom you have helped in a treasury related transaction. Talk to them about their business needs. See if your research came to the same conclusion. This initial meeting can open the door for further conversation. The other approach can be with your treasury director, treasurer, or CFO. This leader knows you and knows what you have contributed to the team. Moreover, they have knowledge and contacts throughout the organisation who could open doors for the potential operational move. I received my operational leadership opportunity through this method. Three executives knew me and my work results. They were willing to open this door for me, which has led to a great adventure over the last four years.

When you start this discussion process the conversations and changes could happen fast. This is what I found in my situation. Within 45 days of the first meeting with my CFO, I was in a new role in a new country. Such quick actions result if the operational leader has a particular need, believes you can start making improvements, and may even be surprised by your desire to move to operations.

“Never say never”

Therefore, when you start the process you need to be ready for where the options may take you. Discuss the potential change with your family who would be impacted by the change. My wife and I have developed a mantra after going through this change three times, “never say never.” You never know what is available, you never know what opportunities can be presented, and you never know how much you can grow personally and professionally from making the jump. Once you have evaluated the possibilities and have decided it is time to explore a new opportunity, get out there and sell your story. This process may take time. 

When you get the sense an opportunity in operations may be possible, the best way forward is to create an initial plan sight unseen. Start getting down on paper what you know, what you need to learn, what are the concerns, how you might address the issues, what you plan to accomplish in the short term, and whom do you need to build a connection with to ensure your transition success. Your treasury experience is very beneficial here in this exercise. Your previous experience putting together presentations for your treasurer, preparing for a credit facility renewal, setting up a bid for a banking service, or completing an acquisition transaction will provide the skills needed to conduct a successful role transition. I also found Michael Watkins’ book The First 90 Days helpful when starting a new role.

This initial assessment will provide the start of a road map that will guide you during your transition. The document will be used to keep your boss and other management members informed. You will use the material to change plans as you gain information and insight. Refining the plan and executing the milestones set out in your 90-day plan are important. This will create the momentum required to be successful. Again, I stress the importance of your treasury experience. Many of the tasks in a treasury role have time sensitivity or require a due date. Treat your new milestones the same way. Achieving your set milestones will establish your credibility. Build on this moment, refine your plan, execute day to day and you will see there is life beyond treasury.