How Speedcast’s Kimber Davis Built a Treasury Career — and Transformed a Global Operation

Rida Khan:
Hi everyone and welcome to Treasury Trailblazers, a special mini series from Trovata’s FinTech Corner. I’m your host, Ria Khan. I lead marketing here at Trovata. And while I’m usually behind the scenes connecting with our customers and shaping how we tell their stories, I’m really excited to bring those conversations to life for the podcast so that others can learn from them. So this series is going to be all about diving into the journeys of Treasury leaders, the challenges they’ve faced, the wins they’ve celebrated, how they’re shaping the future of Treasury. And today I’m joined by Kimber Davis, Senior Treasury Manager at Speedcast.

Kimber Davis:
I’m happy to be here.

Kimber, very welcome. So glad to have you here. Happy to have you. There is so much I’m excited to talk to you about from your big automation wins to your awesome career growth story. But first, maybe let’s just set the stage. Can you tell us a little bit about Speedcast and what you do there?

Kimber Davis:
Speedcast is a global telecommunications company. So we provide communication solutions all over the world, usually in somewhat remote locations. So it can get very interesting. It also means we have a very large global footprint, which is very interesting from the treasury perspective. So I’m excited to get into that as well.

Rida Khan:
We love complexity in treasury. So before we jump into what you’re doing today, I really want to talk about your treasury origin story because it’s an interesting one. Can you share how you first got into treasury and what drew you into the field?

Kimber Davis: 
I mean, depends on how far back you want to go. When I first went to college, I actually did not major in finance or business at all. It was education. And then I worked as an educational director at a history museum. So quite the 180 in my career. I ended up going back to school after being part of a leadership program that really inspired me and went into accounting.

So this was s big change for me, guess where I’m from, it’s a small town. Finance and accounting is not something that generally, you know, young teenagers or young adults are familiar with or encouraged to get into. So it has been really eye-opening this journey. So I did go back for accounting, got a bachelor’s degree in accounting from UCF and then started as an intern here at Speedcast back in 2017. Yeah. So it’s been eight years at Speedcast. From there was an accounting associate, senior accountant. And then, there was an opportunity to move over to Treasury because we were getting a brand new, vice president of Treasury here based out of the U.S. So I was very unfamiliar with Treasury, but I was interested. I found it to be fascinating.

And so I made the switch over to treasury that started out as a treasury analyst, then as a senior analyst manager and now as a senior manager. So I’ve been very blessed in my career here at Speedcast. A lot of rapid growth, but it’s been exciting and very rewarding.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I mean, I’ll admit it. I stalked your LinkedIn and it looks like you’ve had five, count them five, at your current organization. That is like a legendary story, right? That’s the dream. Like that’s what everyone’s trying to accomplish. And it’s not easy. I think about like my fourth promotion at Trovata and I know that that’s hard. That’s very hard. So just tell us, you know, what helped you stand out along the way? Like

How do people recreate this and what they’re doing today? How do they learn from your win?

Kimber Davis:
So a few different things. I have been throughout my career at Speedcast, been very blessed to have really great managers. So managers that are invested in their people growing, learning, putting them in positions to have a lot of eyes on them, right? You need that exposure. And really Speedcast itself has been growing and evolving at the same time.

And so there’s just been a lot of opportunities for someone who is wanting those opportunities, right, to make those moves, get a little bit more experience in different areas. I think that also when it comes to treasury specifically, my background in accounting really did help a lot. understanding kind of how the sausage is made, right, and not just seeing the numbers as they come out, but understanding all those underlying aspects as well has helped me do well in treasury.

Rida Khan:
Are you still working with any of the same people that you started with when you were an accounting intern?

Kimber Davis:
One of my employees, Marcio, is in Brazil and he has been at Speedcast for, I think it’s like 15 years. So yes, yes, there are a few people, but it has been, there’s been a lot of changes. So I would say most of the people are no longer at Speedcast. There’s been office location changes, remote, things like that. Headquarters has changed.

So it’s been interesting and I’ve got to meet a lot of really great people. has been.

Rida Khan:
Makes sense with a time of rapid growth. And like you said, right, your career is growing at the same time speedcast is growing. And that’s just a great situation to be in. I know you recently led a treasury digital transformation, you know, at your current role. Can you kind of walk us through like walking into that treasury department, what you first saw and what made you think, all right, we’ve got to change something here.

Kimber Davis:
Yeah. So the reason that I was asked to actually come onto the treasury team is because there was a need for kind of a larger treasury transformation. And that was due to, at the time, Speedcast was going through a period of rapid acquisitions. So we were gaining a lot of new entities in new countries, lots of bank accounts. I think at the time we had like over 250 bank accounts in something like 46 countries with, I think it was like 40 or 45 different banks.

So it was a lot. So they needed some help in the Treasury Department, as you can imagine, just keeping up with the changes as they’re happening, organizing all that information, keeping a bank account master file updated. Just that, which should sound simple, that in itself was kind of a feat. It required kind of constant attention.

We were changing bank account signers, making sure that we had the right coverage, making sure that we had the inputters and the approvers for all of these banking portals. So it was a lot to just manage that small aspect of what treasury is, right? And then of course, at the time we had no consolidation tool. So imagine we are relying on sometimes just country level people updating bank account balances.

And sometimes they don’t get updated that often or as frequently as they should. Even when we do have bank portal access, we have 40 banks. Downloading reports from all those banks where we can, and then those reports look totally different. Of course, getting all of that information into something usable, I mean, would take, it could take hours to just do something like a daily cash report.

And then even, when we did have the balances, we also needed to report on the movements of those balances. So then going back and pulling transaction reports where we were able to, it was a lot just to try to tell an accurate story. And frankly, I’m just, I’m kind of tired just remembering what it was like at the time.

I now look back and I think, wow, so they brought me over from accounting because they needed somebody to, who was comfortable with data, right, and pulling reports. And that was really, that was a large part of my job for a while, just making sure that we had all the information and we could report on it accurately.

Rida Khan:
When you think about, you know, the breakdown of time on the team, and also I would be curious how big is the team that’s doing all this back when you guys were still very manual. What is that breakdown of time between just being in these spreadsheets, like you mentioned, aggregating this data very painfully to actually doing some of those parts of the job that maybe are more enjoyable, like doing some final analysis or recommending action?

Kimber Davis:
At the time, especially for like analyst level employees, it was up to 80 % of their job, just pulling reports, consolidating information, forecasting. It was very, very manual. So we had, At the time, about six employees, 7 employees spread out in all the regions all over the world.

A lot of, I would say at least three or four of those employees were spending the majority of their time just pulling information, putting it into spreadsheets, consolidating entity level spreadsheets into regional level spreadsheets into global spreadsheets. And again, it was just a very, very manual process.

Rida Khan:
So you knew that you needed a change, right? It was very painful as you mentioned. You said you’re tired just talking about it. How do you start that conversation? Because I’ll be honest, what we hear from a lot of treasurers is, well, getting buy-in is really hard.

Getting budget is really hard. How am I going to go ask my CFO for this? We have a million other competing priorities. So in a way, in this role, I feel like it’s almost brave to go kick off that conversation.

So hoping there’s something people can learn from just, you how did you spark this conversation at Speedcast?

Kimber Davis:
So at the time when I was brought on, I think the alarm bells had already been sound. Rapid acquisition, rapid growth, and it was quickly, I think, getting kind of out of hand. So what happened was a new VP of treasury was brought on in the US, name is Colin Grover, and he was fantastic about communicating the need for more tools, better tools, so that Treasury can kind of take their heads out of the books, right? And start working towards more strategic goals, other things that Treasurers and Treasury, people in Treasury should also be focusing on.

Improvements in the company, efficiencies, just a trove of other things that Treasury can do if we are not spending all of our time on bank portals, pulling transactions, and looking at thousands of lines of data every day. So again, I was lucky to be brought on at that time when I think that alarm had already been sounded.

Yeah, some like minded individuals in the organization. We’re all rallying around. All right, it’s time to do something about this. And this is the right time.

Rida Khan:
So obviously, it sounds like everyone is very busy, right? And it sounds like a lot of folks are probably a little used to the status quo at this point, like doing this. You mentioned like 80 % of their jobs. For some, when you’re actually in there and you’re you’ve decided you’re gonna make a change, you’re looking at software and now maybe you’re in the late stage evaluation phase or the actual implementation phase, there’s a bit of a cultural shift that has to happen in-house, right? In training and reorienting. While, like you mentioned, you all were very, very busy. So any standouts or highlights from that part of the process?

Rida Khan:
I think it was very obvious that we needed to evolve past the spreadsheets. But as you said, that people can get comfortable in the spreadsheets and the way that things are going. So at the time, we were looking at different solutions and Trovata was the one that we engaged with and kind of took it from there. I will say that because we had so many of the accounts, we did at some point do a bank account rationalization project.

Just because again, rapid growth, had a lot of overlap in some places. So we were able to, think, reduce the bank accounts by about 16%. Still over 200 bank accounts though. So not a huge amount was reduced at the time. again, so we engaged with Trovata. And I think because we had so many different banking partners and they all kind of move at their own speed, they all have their own levels of you know, technology and things like that.

It did take some time to get the feeds up and running. But once we did and we were able to get the team in Trovata to see what it looked like, it wasn’t that hard to get the buy-in, honestly. And in fact, we went from, I mean, There was some process where we were engaging GL accountants to do cash flow reporting for us because we just had so many bank accounts and entities.

We didn’t have the manpower to do that ourselves. And so once we got into Trovata and had all this information available to us. could tell, I don’t know, There was probably 20 accountants all over the world that were engaged in this process. We could tell them that we no longer needed them to do it. And so That freed up hours for them as well every week. And so there was kind of knockdown effects.

With this software that I think we’ve been able to really share with the rest of the company how invaluable this automation has been. And additionally, I think we’ve done some other things where we now have bank account reconciliation through this consolidation tool. So it’s helping to kind of auto-certify bank accounts, again, saving not just treasury time, but also the accountants time.

We’re able to very quickly answer questions from our AP team, our AR team about transactions from yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, whenever, and can send them, you know, within 10 minutes, not even sometimes whatever they need to know.

Getting the initial buy-in [for Trovata] might’ve been a little hard, but once we got rolling, I think that the tool kind of spoke for itself and, and the way that it benefited not just treasury, although we are saving tons of time ourselves, but also other areas of the business. So it’s been transformational for us. We do much less in spreadsheets. You know, we can’t ever get as ready from spreadsheets completely, but we’re able to do much less and do things so much faster. And for example, the daily cash report that used to take maybe hours depending on the movements prior day can take like 30 minutes now.

Maybe, I mean, if you really want to dig into the transactions, it can take you 30 minutes. But it’s, you know, that’s every day. So think about that every week, every month. So it’s, it’s. Well, again, it may have been hard initially, but I think now everyone is well aware of the benefits and, we’re actually, our team now is a bit smaller. A large part of that is because we have been able to have this efficiency, right? Where we’re not asking people to spend 30, 40 hours a week looking at thousands of lines of data and spreadsheets.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, hey, we love to hear that about Trovata. and for those listening, I promise I didn’t pay Kimber to say all that.

Kimber Davis:
I know. I was thinking, This is going to sound like a Trovata pitch, but it’s true. It is very true. I am a Trovata fan for sure.

Rida Khan:
It’s very kind of you and we’re a fan of yours as well. With your background being so interesting, accounting, finance generally, I feel like you were maybe in a really unique position to understand the needs of other departments and orchestrate this implementation in a way that would actually drive a lot of value across the entire org. Do you feel like your previous experiences helped you in that regard?

Kimber Davis:
100%. So I did, as we discussed earlier, spend four-ish years, in the accounting field. Time is getting away from me, four or five years in accounting. So I understood the processes. I was actually one of those accountants that was doing the treasury cashflow actuals and forecasting to help the treasury team before I was even on the treasury team.

But again, I understand having great relationships with people across the company in all departments of finance. There are many, right? Some people don’t understand that about finance. It’s just kind of finance, but underneath finance, there’s so many different people that work really hard to make the whole finance organization work as a team. So understanding who those individuals are, what they do, understanding our ERP system front to back because I was involved in our ERP implementation because we did change ERP systems through this period of rapid growth, which was a whole other story, very interesting.

But again, just understanding how everything works at a very low level can definitely help you with the bigger picture, understanding the best way to go about doing things, talking to the right people.

Rida Khan:
Those relationships within the company are absolutely invaluable. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, some of you, you know, I have been at Trovata for over four years now and joined as a mid-level manager, now leading the department. And that work in the beginning is what helps me now. So I think that’s such a universal truth that is important for a lot of leaders to understand, right? Like if you can’t sub in for your direct reports or do the jobs of others on your team, how are you really going to understand how to drive efficiency?

Because you don’t really know how things are working, right, if you’re not able to do that.

Kimber Davis:
100%.

Rida Khan:
You know, everything you shared here was awesome. One question I have to ask just to remain relatively neutral. Trovata is not the only platform that claims to do all this data aggregation and connectivity really well. Was there a particular reason, you know, maybe during the sales process or when you were doing your internal evaluation, why you decided to go with us?

Kimber Davis:
I think that we just saw the value, right? It was, I guess I’ve heard of Trovata as being a “treasury management system light”, very kind of a unique position because we’re not a billion dollar plus company, right? But we do operate in a lot of locations.

So it just seemed like the right fit for us between having no system at all, working in spreadsheets and having one of the kind of bigger, more robust treasury management systems. Plus we needed a solution fast and we felt that Trovata would kind of give us immediate return for the work that we would put into putting the software together or putting all of our big accounts in the software. So we needed something quick and we needed something that would kind of fit with our, you know, we generally think of ourselves as a mid-level company.

Trovata was just the right fit and I think we would all kind of agree that we made the right choice.

Rida Khan:
One last question here on digital transformation. I think it’s easy to work in silos, especially at a big organization. But one of the things that’s so powerful about the finance organization in general is cash is really at the heart of every business. So when that organization starts doing really well, I mean, it becomes pretty obvious that there are going to be great ripple effects for the entire company.

Can you talk about any feedback you’ve gotten outside of the org or any impacts that you’re really proud of that you know extended company-wide?

Kimber Davis:
Yeah, so I love that you kind of brought that up. The fact that cash touches every part of the company, right? From initial contact to customer evaluating a project, understanding, you know, country level, even considerations.

When we talk about expanding our business, they reach out to the treasury, right? To understand country level considerations. You know, what is the FX rate? What is the process of getting cash out of the country?

There’s so many things that treasury touches, again, invoicing all the way to collecting, all the way to vendor management. We are involved in a lot of those processes. And of course, at the end of the day, treasury, we’re gonna manage the cash. And so we benefit from improvements in all of those areas of the company.

And so we want to be involved. We want to be able to provide information about, you know, working capital and how that is improving or not improving and where we need to make those changes so that it’s all working the way that it should. Treasury can go far beyond day-to-day cash management, especially when you don’t have to spend so much time with your day-to-day cash management, right?

So just providing a lot of value in other areas of the business. And it’s part of what I really enjoy about Treasury because we are working with not only all the other areas of finance, but we’re talking to sales, we’re talking to supply chain. And it’s a great way to understand your business at an even higher level, you know, than just like looking at transaction flows.

Also, talking to people who are actually out in the field, right? Because treasury, we’re at a desk, you know, every day, but talking to those people who are out and talking to the customers and understanding the business even better, it’s really exciting and I enjoy it quite a lot.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, and I think that’s a really important point to you that a lot of treasurers can learn from is, like you said, it’s really easy to just be chained to the desk and do your thing every day and clock out. But that business context will tell you a lot more than maybe just that one transaction line item, right? And I’m sure there are moments where you might be looking at something like, “why did this cost so much?” Or “how did we end up in this situation?” And then you go have the conversation. It’s like, okay, I get it now!

Okay, let’s turn to something a little bit more fun related to what’s up next for you. You’re pursuing an MBA. Congratulations.

That is super, super exciting. I don’t know how common of a path that is for Treasury. So would love to just hear more from you on what was the why and would you recommend that path to others?

Kimber Davis:
Yeah, thank you so much. So I’m actually graduating next weekend.

Rida Khan:
Oh my god, congratulations! next weekend. That’s awesome.

Kimber Davis:
Thank you very much. I still have two finals to go. So, but I’m graduating next weekend. I’m very excited. I will say, as an former accountant, a recovering accountant is what I like to tell people. There’s usually two paths, right? CPA or MBA. There’s other options, of course, but for a long time, I was kind of between the two. And then when I moved over to Treasury, it was a more natural path to do the MBA, of course. At the same time, I also did get my CTP, which has been fantastic as well.

But I do think for a Treasury professional, an MBA is absolutely a great path. I’ve met so many people in my program, not only just the program itself, but I’ve met some people in my program who are very impressive, wonderful professionals who have taught me a lot about, you know, different aspects. I’m one of only two people in my MBA cohort who work in finance. And so again, being exposed to their day-to-day jobs, the way that they think about business, their priorities, things like that has been fantastic.

And then also, of course, with the actual content of the program, you’re getting kind of a big-picture view, you’re becoming more well-rounded, you’re getting information about marketing, legal, supply chain. And again, as we kind of discussed earlier, treasury touches a lot of those areas naturally so understanding a little bit more about how they work and think, I think is, is just invaluable.

And, also getting a little outside of your comfort zone, right? I am comfortable in finance. I’m comfortable with accounting, but taking a, you know, master’s level marketing course is not something maybe I thought I was going to do, but it is, I think great to, get outside of your comfort zone. Take a risk, maybe not knowing everything.

Rida Khan:
I think when we get really comfortable in our careers, we’re used to kind of being subject matter experts. Getting outside of your comfort zone and getting into a more of a student role again is always good. I’m a huge proponent of always learning, always getting better. There is always so much more to learn.

And so why not be kind of the best version of you can get, right?

Kimber Davis:
So, MBA for sure, it’s been a wonderful, wonderful experience.

Rida Khan:
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us while you’ve got two finals coming up. You’re a hero. I love that you did that. You must be feeling very confident, which doesn’t surprise me. But yeah, no, that’s awesome.

Really, really sweet too that you took a marketing master’s course. Like, maybe I need to consult with you on what Trovata should be doing. Apply some of your learnings. But no, that’s amazing, right? I think what you’re talking about too is getting that business operator perspective which is something that’s invaluable no matter what area of the business that you touch. I think that’s what really differentiates, just a standard fair employee to a transformational leader is being able to say, it’s not just about me. It’s not just about my function.

It’s not just about my team. There’s a whole business here and ultimately the decisions that we make need to drive value for the entire organization. So I think. That’s the perspective that maybe the MBA really, really drives home.

Kimber Davis:
100%. You know, there’s some people who I think have a mindset of competing priorities or, you know, limited resources within a company. And yeah, I don’t like thinking that way. I think that we all have the same priorities, right? And it’s the health of the company. So getting into understanding more of what everybody really does and why they do it again is I think fantastic, like you said, for the bigger picture.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, and you had mentioned, you love to keep growing in your job every day, which is very impressive while you’re doing all this. And then you love to network as well. You’ve got your CTP.

What are the ways, if there are treasury folks out there that are thinking, all right, I want to improve, this story is really inspiring me. I want to be better at my job. I want to bring new ideas to the table. How do you recommend they go about doing that?

Kimber Davis:
I will say I do think that treasury as a profession is evolving or has kind of recently been evolving. And there may not still be a lot of resources out there. You know, if you want to find resources for accounting, there are plenty of places you can go to do so right. But treasury finding that material that can be helpful and giving you the answers that you need.

I found it can be difficult. It’s kind of understanding where to look. I think that the AFP website, Association for Finance Procurement website has a wealth of knowledge and getting to be a part of that organization and maybe even going to the conferences is inspiring one and also a great source of knowledge for people in the treasury profession, where again, I don’t think that there is necessarily readily available information.

I do think that as treasurers and treasury professionals, we also have kind of a duty to educate people in finance, people in broader organizations, even down to teenagers who are wondering what they should do with their lives about what treasury professionals do and how rewarding a career can be. Spreading the word of treasury is very, is one of my passions. I sound like a treasury nerd right now.

But yeah, finding the resources that are available and AFP is definitely one of them. And I do admire the organization for their passion for growing the treasury profession.

Rida Khan:
And you don’t just go to AFP, you spoke with us last year at the National AFP Conference. I think you mentioned to the team that you’re going to speak again this year with maybe one of your banks.

Kimber Davis:
That’s right. That’s right. I was very happy to be asked by Trovata last year and I was asked to speak this year again with one of our, actually our biggest relationship bank. So I’m very lucky in that aspect. Again, I’m passionate about the treasury profession and I think more people should see it as a very viable career path. And it’s already full of just great individuals, bright, growing individuals and I’m excited to see where the whole career, profession, I should say, kind of goes from here.

Rida Khan:
I think that should be really, really inspiring to your peers because you’re out here, you’re doing the podcast, you’re doing the conferences, you’re getting your MBA. I think a lot of the time it can be a career that maybe sometimes it’s more introverted folks lean towards or it’s a little nerve wracking to get away from the numbers and the things you know and the facts and the spreadsheets.

But without people coming out here and spreading the good word around treasury, you know, we’re going to deal with a talent shortage in this space. And I think, you know, according to some recent reports, we’re already seeing some of that in the accounting and treasury field.

So this work that you’re doing and your peers are doing to really talk about your experience in a way that others can learn from is exactly what this space needs as we need younger, more technical folks joining.

Kimber Davis:
Like we said about sometimes people in finance or treasury professions can be very numbers focused. And of course, understanding the fundamentals, right of finance and all of that is key. But part of, you know, growing and turning into more of a leader is, is, I think, putting yourself out there. I’m not necessarily I’m actually

You may not believe this, but I am terrified of public speaking. I used to be a very shaky, sweaty public speaker. Because again, I was kind of the accounting person. I didn’t present, right? Was crunching numbers.

Putting yourself in those uncomfortable positions, while maybe it’s a little bit scary or painful, you find I think that you can do a lot more than you think you can do, right? And every time you put yourself in that position, you are growing and learning and just getting better.

And I think connecting with other treasury professionals is so important because usually treasury departments are quite small, you know, when you’re a practitioner and understanding that there are so many people out there that are in the same position as you, right?

A lot of people I don’t think start in treasury. They come there from a different route. And so connecting with other treasury professionals who are probably going through the same issues as you are, or also can’t find information about some obscure treasury topic, that I think is really important as well.

Rida Khan:
I know we’ve seen that a lot too with just how tight knit this space is and how so many treasures know each other, know, catch up for coffee, call each other during times of crisis. And that’s one of the reasons that Trovata actually started a Slack community. And we’ll, we’ll paste the link in the show notes of this episode for anyone that wants to join, but we’ve seen it time and time again, when we’re talking to clients, when we’re at conferences, and we just thought.

All right, why don’t we bring a modern way to the table for treasurers to continue having these conversations? Because like you said, they’re already doing it and it’s such a valuable part of the job, especially with a very, very small space. There’s only so many treasurers in the world. There’s only so many companies that are large enough to necessitate having a treasurer. So it’s an interesting niche. And I think there’s power in numbers and power in people coming together and sharing their experiences.

Kimber Davis:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got on the Trovata Slack channel before and it is very awesome to see other people and get to ask questions like, is the process for getting cash out of Pakistan? And somebody can answer it, right? Because that’s not knowledge that a lot of people have when your company comes to you and asks you some questions like that, having that resource.

Being able to find those people who can actually answer it is huge. I’ve been in the position many times where I’ve tried to look online. There’s just nothing really available for, again, what can be very niche questions. But there are other treasurers out there who are asking the same questions or who have been through it and can help and wanna help, right? And that’s what’s great about the treasury community.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, that’s awesome. And I’m glad you’ve found it fun as well being part of that. Let’s close it out on a few, you know, maybe fun questions here.

What’s one misconception about Treasury you wish more people understood better?

Kimber Davis:
I think this might be like a little contradictory from some of things that I’ve said, but a lot of people think that treasury is strictly just cash management. And while that is of course an important part of the job, there are so many other things that treasury can do.

Understanding the strategic things that treasury can do to help a company, we’re not just looking at funding bank accounts, pushing money around and things like that. We can be involved in FX hedging, interest rate hedging, DSO, DPO, all sorts of other aspects of the company that go far beyond just monitoring bank account balances. So that I think is kind of the biggest misconception that I’ve seen about treasury. It’s just that, you watch the bank balances and that is part of it, of course. But there is so much more the Treasury Department can do, so much more they can provide.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s also a good nudge for those that might be out there thinking, I could do more, I could do this. Don’t be afraid to chase those challenges, build your business context and drive value for the team and the organization.

Kimber Davis:
I found also that sometimes the organization may not even know that you can provide this value. So, you know, don’t wait to be asked a certain question because maybe that question, nobody has even thought to ask it before. So if you are seeing something or if you are looking at something and can provide that information, you know, offer it up and see what happens. Definitely thinking outside of the box is always, I think, a great strategy.

Rida Khan:
I totally agree. Any final thoughts, piece of advice or encouragement for your fellow treasury professionals or even, you know, the accounting interns out there that are thinking about doing this in the future?

Kimber Davis:
For people that are maybe at the beginning of their career, get really comfortable with the fundamentals, whatever that may be, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s going to happen. There’s no way around it, but there’s no better way to learn, right? Than to make those mistakes, put your head down, get to work, make a few mistakes, and get better.

I would say for treasury professionals, we touched on this a little bit, but I think it’s important to connect with other treasury professionals. I have been at an AFP conference before, talk to people who are like a one man treasury team, one woman treasury team actually, usually, and they have never connected with anybody else in a treasury position. And so they’re of course, thankful to be at the conference, but we can make those connections ourselves, right? We can go on LinkedIn, reach out to people.

I am very receptive to anyone that wants to nerd out about treasury. I think that having those relationships is really fundamental, again, because sometimes treasury can be a little bit of a lonely place, especially if you are in a much smaller team or a one-person team. Connecting with other treasury professionals is really important.

Rida Khan:
Yeah. Lovely of you to also extend the welcome to those that might want to connect with you. I know you’re on LinkedIn. You’re going to be at the AFP National Conference like we’ve already discussed. And we’re excited to see you there in Boston too this year. It’s always fun catching you in person.

Appreciate you joining us, Kimber, with two finals on the way. Very, very generous with your time. And yeah, this has been such a fun conversation. I think your story, especially just that trajectory at Speedcast is so inspiring. I know, like you said, recovering accountant, recovering accounting intern, which I can’t even imagine the manual data entry. You really, you know, not only stuck it out, but just continued to elevate and raise the bar for yourself. And I think there is so much that folks can learn from that. And I really appreciate you sharing your story today.

Kimber Davis:
Thank you so much, Rida. I’m very happy.

Rida Khan:
And thanks everyone for joining us. Those of you that are listening, follow us on social media at the Trovata LinkedIn and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts to catch more episodes of this Treasury Trailblazer season.