Avoiding a Dead-End Career

In one of my first treasury positions for a corporate I was regarded as an expert. Despite the company was a heavy machinery producer and I had recently graduated with a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. I had to accept that just because I did choose a financial career made me an expert in a field no one in management and succession planning understood properly. Being a treasurer therefore became a dead-end career path so I left.

Is this the treasurer's domain?
Fancy but outside of the main building

Another reason why many treasurers remain in treasury most of their careers, I believe, is that the step outside of treasury requires deep understanding of doing "ordinary" business. This means understanding business model generation, product development, marketing and sales etc. Or in other words being a business leader.

The crisis changed the way we regard treasury and the treasurers' role. During the crisis I met with treasurers finding themselves in the spotlight and confused over the expectations that they should explain how the business model needed to change from the financial crisis. We did discuss this at length in the Peer Group and I decided to make a survey to CEOs and board members asking them of their expectations on the treasurer. Basically it boiled down to that all the basic stuff (risk management, cash management and funding) was a given for treasury to manage. But a good treasurer should also participate actively in growing the top and bottom line. He or she should work together with the business unit to meet customers, suppliers and develop the company’s offerings and find cheaper ways to operate the basic business using the treasury skill sets. The treasurer was expected to increase competition and margins. These new expectations position the treasurer a as Business Leader instead of an expert. And it is much easier to make a career as a Business Leader. An expert usually remains in his or hers field.

I tell my two daughters that there are only two main skills you need to have: sales and communication. If you do not have the ability to communicate your worth and value adds you can not sell it. And then all your other skills are basically useless and you are dependent on someone else to promote you and your products. This I believe is true for treasurers as well. The basic skills of a Business Leader are communication and sales.