Cash Is Queen: Klaviyo’s Stef Layne Shares Lessons on Leading 3 IPOs

Rida Khan:
Welcome to Treasury Trailblazers, a mini series from Trovata’s FinTech Corner, where we’re spotlighting the journeys of Treasury leaders who have overcome challenges and achieved awesome ones in their career. I’m your host Rida Khan. I lead up marketing at Trovata. I’ve been at Trovata for over four years now, connecting with our customers, shaping how we tell our stories. And I’m so excited to be bringing those conversations to life here on the podcast for others to learn from.

This episode is going to be really fun because I’m thrilled to be joined by Steph Lane, VP of Treasury, Payroll and Go-To-Market Compensation at Klaviyo. And as if that title isn’t impressive enough, she also happens to be a fitness coach and an entrepreneur. Welcome, Steph.

Stef Layne:
Thanks Rida, I’m so excited to be here.

Rida Khan
So excited to have you here. There’s a lot I want to dig into. Steph brings a really unique perspective. She’s navigated not one, not two, but three IPOs, including Klaviyo’s. So we’ll talk about that for sure. We’ll explore lessons on building resilience during moments of crisis. And then I want to have some fun at the end chatting about the fitness style and how you’re coaching their parallels, how you lead your high performing treasury teams. But first, let’s do it.

Stef Layne:
Awesome, let’s do it.

Rida Khan:
First, can you just set the stage for our listeners and tell us a little bit about Klaviyo and what your role is there?

Stef Layne:
Yeah, sure. Klaviyo is the only CRM platform built specifically for B2C. So we combine marketing services and analytics to enable real-time personalizations, smarter decision-making and seamless growth. What does that really mean? We are the master of the most best email and SMS campaigns that you can send to your customers. So we’re the platform that enables that. At Klaviyo today, I run payroll, go to market compensation and treasury. So I have a really fun team.

We call ourselves the money team because we touch all the money, whether we’re paying our customers, we’re paying our employees, we’re calculating compensation, our partners, or we’re just managing the cash for the company, the money team has your back. So it’s a lot of fun.

Rida Khan:
I love that and I’m gonna come up with a cool naming convention for my team after this. That’s not just the marketing team. And yeah, it sounds like honestly the most important team of the company, because nothing is more important than cash flow. So I love that. Let’s rewind a little bit though. Let’s kind of step back before Klaviyo.

Treasury is a very niche profession, right? How did you get started? And you’ve got this awesome track record of multiple leadership roles in Treasury. What’s kept you doing this?

Stef Layne:
Yeah, so how did it get started? I would say somebody saw something in me that I didn’t see. I was working at an energy company as an administrative assistant to the accounting department. And the treasurer came over and said, why don’t you come work in treasury? And he must have laughed at the look I had on my face, because I had no idea what treasury was at the time.

I was really young, early in my career, but I said, heck yeah, let’s do this. And I jumped over to treasury and I started as the treasury analyst and then just grew from there. I’ve been blessed to work in treasury.

It also brings in a lot of learning opportunities. I, as you know, lead payroll. I knew nothing about payroll when I took on payroll. I’ve been the chief of staff to a CEO and a CFO, and then most recently go to market compensation, which is a whole new learning opportunity to me. So I love ways that’ll broaden my breadth and where I can lead and learn in totally new situations. And I will just say…

I love treasury because cash is queen and without it, a company cannot survive. It is the fundamental of running a solid business. It’s a necessary evil. And if you don’t understand what’s happening with your cash, you’re going to go out of business pretty quickly.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I love that. Cash is queen. It’s a lifeblood of any company and the work that you all do is very important. That does lead me maybe to like my first career question. I know this wasn’t, you know, part of the standard fare for this interview, but just thinking about your experience, you have such a breadth of functions that you’ve been a part of. Like you said, you’ve been literally the right hand to the CEO. And I think a lot of up and comers in their careers are kind of conflicted. Do I want to be a generalist, the Jill of all trades?

Stef Layne:
Yeah.

Rida Khan:
Or do I want to have a niche and really advertise myself in that niche and build out my resume in that way? Do you have any advice for folks that are thinking about making that decision right now?

Stef Layne:
It’s a tough decision to make. I would say… Sheryl Sandberg, many, many years ago with Lean In, talked about your career being a jungle gym. It’s one of the big takeaways I’ve kept by my side because if you think about a jungle gym, you’re climbing up a ladder, you’re at the top, and then you slide back down that ladder.

And maybe that’s like me learning payroll. Like I’m now back at the bottom. And then maybe I jump on a swing and I’m going back and forth and I’m learning and I’m failing and I’m learning and I’m failing, you know, or maybe I’m going to cross the bars and I’m trying to, you know, get to the other side of a really complex challenge.

So whether you’re focused on one thing or, you know, more of a generalist, think of your career as a learning platform and a constant evolution of up, down, back and forth, because it’s really not a straight line to, you know, the leader, regardless of being niche or not.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I love that. And I think the more senior you get in your role in your career, you start to take on this business operator role, regardless of where you sit. And that context of the greater business and what others are doing is so critical. So actually having the experience of having done things before, I mean, it’s like unmatched.

Stef Layne:
I think it makes you, for me personally, it’s been good, but you know, a well-rounded, you know, broad experience keeps me engaged and learning. Um, you know, you also have to decide if you want to manage people or be an IC. A lot of times if you’re in, you know, a very niche specialized career, you’re driving up this expert track and you’re not able to lead a diverse team of different functions. So it just depends. Yeah. What you want to do.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I think that’s great advice. So someone saw something in you and fast forward to today, you’ve now been through three successful IPOs. I mean, that’s like a legendary track record. Can you give us some background on those and what that actually looks like from a treasury lens?

Stef Layne:
Yeah, sure. It’s an absolutely wild ride. It each has been a little bit different. I’m grateful for Klaviyo in particular because they hired a treasury resource well before the IPO was imminent. It gave us ample time to build the team, set up the infrastructure before a large amount of cash was ingested into the business. So it gave us the ability to invest wisely after IPO, diversify our cash and fine tune any free cashflow forecast.

In the early days [leading up to IPO], I would consider treasury as a team that can lean into many different things. Investor presentation, running equity and tax analysis and being part a pair of fresh eyes on external reporting. The folks that are in the weeds of building the 10K and the Ks and the Qs sometimes just need somebody to read it like they don’t know what’s going on and provide feedback. So a lot of times treasury can be your Jill of Many Trades that kind of leads in and offers this fresh eyes perspective.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I love that. What are your most important internal changes or upgrades that you had to lead to get IPO ready, especially being in the rare situation where there was foresight? What were you really excited to get in and say, okay, this is what I’m gonna plan for.

Stef Layne:
I’m going to give you the most important, but not the most fun. That’s setting up the SOX controls and processes to feel confident in your numbers. It’s a necessary evil. But once you are public, the rigor around your financials just quadruples and being prepared for that, well prepared for that is super important across all the finance in the company. Thinking about SOX as an afterthought is going to cause a lot of grief in the future.

Right. So I would say the most important thing is internal controls and then preparing your teams for working under a different environment where everything is being audited and reviewed versus the scrappiness you may have had as a startup.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, cross your T’s, dot your I’s, change the culture. Those are really, really important elements that we need to keep in mind when we’re pure enough for an IPO. So it sounds like obviously, Klaviyo, that’s the dream, right? You’re coming in early, you know it’s gonna happen. I’m sure there’s a lot of treasurers though, and you’ve done this where you’re coming in and it’s like, I’ve got to get this thing in order. They’ve already IPO’d or they’re just right about to, and they just hired me. Like, it feels like two seconds before they’re gonna do this and I’m scrambling. Do you have any advice? I mean, I think that was your situation in your first and second IPO. So what would you say to yourself?

Stef Layne:
I would say be prepared to lean in and offer in a hand where you haven’t been before. You want to be seen as that go-to person to jump in when the team needs help. It’s a great time to learn new skills and areas. Once you get the treasury foundation set, you know, that’s first and foremost, if you’re coming up to an IPO, have a diverse set of partners, understand the implications to any credit facilities you have, understand what’s going to happen with cash flow and the chaos that comes with the IPO, but just also be ready to be known as the person to go to if somebody needs a hand, right?

Once you get your ducks in order, you want to be that person that can lean into anything that needs to happen for the IPO. And there’s a lot that needs to happen.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, no, no easy feat. Is there something that you’re most proud of and that work in particular over your three IPOs where you’re like, wow, I can’t believe I was able to accomplish this and that was just awesome?

Stef Layne:
Yeah, for me it would be equity planning because many tech companies have this run of RSU offerings that have built up by the time you IPO. And what happens on the IPO is those all become real, right?

They’re really nothing until IPO, but as soon as they become real, there’s tax implications. There’s cash implications. There’s trading windows. There’s what’s the stock price going to be on IPO and what’s the stock price going to be three months later.

And, know, do we want to do an ESPP employee stock purchase program? And so I was really able to lean into some of that stuff, which is again, something you don’t barely touch in treasury, but a really cool way to understand how equity works in a company and what the cash implications are and dilution and a lot of fun things. And so I was able to do that at the last two IPOs.

Rida Khan:
That’s awesome. So it sounds like, hey, if you’re a treasurer at a company that’s thinking about going public, make sure you got all your SOX requirements in order and then start thinking about that equity because it could sneak up on you.

Stef Layne:
Yeah. They will. They will. It’ll be a big, big, big number. And yeah, you got to be prepared for it.

Rida Khan:
That’s awesome. One last question on this topic and it’s kind of more of a silly one. Have you gotten to ring the bell?

Stef Layne:
So my most pivotal time in my career, it was a dream for many, many years. And so yes, at Klaviyo in September, I was able to be there for the bell ringing. I’m not a CFO yet, but I was on the trading floor. I had Kramer behind me. Several of our team colleagues and I were able to watch my leadership team ring the bell. And it was a highlight in my career.

Truly, truly a high point. I will say that the prior IPO was during COVID and the company created a way for all employees to ring the bell by tapping on their space bar. So we all rang the bell from home and felt like we were part of the IPO, but there’s nothing like being on the New York Stock Exchange and like feeling the intensity of the trading floor.

Rida Khan:
I love that. Yeah, that’s the adrenaline rush that I’m sure all finance professionals dream of. So awesome that you’ve actually gotten to do that. And also so great that you guys figured out a solution when it was COVID and you maybe didn’t have that luxury at that time. So you’ve got to do it in every way, which is, which is awesome.

So obviously when you join a company that’s about to IPO, that is when times are great, it’s really exciting. The company’s doing really well. But maybe let’s talk about when things aren’t so easy, there’s maybe some volatility and some chaos going around you.

And a lot of treasurers are thinking about that right now, right? With the tariffs, in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of FX volatility, we’ve seen banks collapse.

Can you share a standout crisis moment for you in your last few years and how you handled it?

Stef Layne:
Yeah. This really takes patience, research and readiness at all times, right? Cause the macro environment, as you said, shifts constantly. And a lot of times there are implications for treasury, whether it’s cash, investments, foreign exchange. The probably most pivotal point when this hit us was the SVB crisis.

And I had to move quickly, stealthily and with conviction to reduce our cash exposure from 46 % to 3% on the day of the rumor. And it was an interesting time because I had to make a game day decision without calling the board and like the CFO and just like make the decision, go for it, inform leadership after, you know, and explain the rationale behind it while you’re trying to keep them updated, but you just have to make the decision and go.

And thankfully we did. And everything turned out great for that bank too, which is wonderful. But yeah, that was probably the moment when I was like, okay, this is going to hit us. I need to make a decision. Here’s how much exposure we have. What are my options? Execute and notify the important people as you’re doing it. Cause you just don’t have time to think about it.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, it’s so interesting because we spend a lot of time in corporate, we’re so used to that bureaucracy, right? Like, okay, I’ve got to talk to all my stakeholders, we’re gonna have a few meetings, we’ll have some emails, we’re gonna all make a decision together, then we’ll iterate on the decision, then they’ll finally act on it. And in this scenario, it’s just you, right? And you’ve got to be the hero.

How do you stay calm during this moment and not feel that pressure?

Stef Layne:
You know, you have to remind yourself you’re not a brain surgeon. There’s no patient on the operating table with their lives in your hands, right? We just simply do the best we can do and pivot and solve on the fly. By the way, kudos to brain surgeons because I don’t know how they do it with or anyone in the healthcare space. Us finance folks probably wouldn’t be able to handle that situation, but we just remind ourselves it’s a problem we can solve, stay calm, find a solution and go with conviction. There is no time to waver in some of these. And sometimes there is time to set out a good plan or process, but it’s not brain surgery, right? No one’s gonna get hurt by this. You wanna do the right thing for the company and you do the best you can do.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, and it sounds like you did the right thing.

Stef Layne:
I know, yeah, I got very lucky.

Rida Khan:
You were the hero of the story. I know treasury is extremely tight knit and it’s a small space. It’s a niche space as we’ve talked about. There’s only so many companies that need a treasurer. There’s only so many treasures in the world.

What does the community look like when these moments happen? I’m sure you’ve got friends in this world that aren’t working at your companies. Are you guys just picking up the phone and being like, what are you doing right now?

Stef Layne:
That is what happened. Honestly, it was quite fascinating. My phone was blowing up from anybody that was in my network. “Hey, what are you doing? Hey, what are you doing? What should I do? Steph, I don’t have a bank in the US. Should I move my money abroad?”

You know, like I don’t have a place to put it. What should I do? You know, so there is a tight network. You have to put yourself out there even when you’re busy to build strong networks. It’s really, really important.

You’ll never be an expert at everything, right? And you will need people to bounce ideas off. Part of the challenge during this crisis in particular was a little bit of the guilt I felt that like, gosh, if I move my money, I’m actually contributing to the demise of a bank.

Like I’m one of those people that is going to make this bank crumble. If I take all the money I have there out today, right? But I have to keep my business mindset on and just move. And so several people that reached out to me that day, I just said, “This is what I’m doing. You do you boo.”

I’m getting my money out, right? Because it’s really important for our business to, and thankfully I have another US bank that I can flip the money too. You know, because, because I set the infrastructure in place, I had the diversification office, you know, the opportunity.

Rida Khan:
Yes, yeah. That’s like the hard lesson that so many people learned after this, right? And you were proactive in, you know, taking diversification seriously. But now, I mean, if you tell a treasurer, you’ve got all your money and in one bank, they’ll look at you like you’re crazy, right? So it’s really wild, like how the big historic moments, you know, they kind of shape how the future of our individual careers.

Stef Layne:
Well, yeah, when you’re a startup, there’s not always a lot of banks wanting to even do business with you, right? So you have to be scrappy and find a good partner. And in this situation, SVB was an amazing partner. I still to this day love my relationship managers.

They were so supportive during our whole side up journey. And that’s why it pained me to pull that trigger that day and, and know that, ah, some people’s careers are going to be impacted by this, you know, and like all of these years we spent building this relationship and creating this, you know, it’s all going to change in a flip of a switch, right? So yeah. But it’s important to be ready.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, think that, yeah, it’s important to be ready. But I think the human empathy is nice in the workplace. And it’s nice to admit that you felt that and to remind her that we’re all kind of thinking about each other even though we’re doing our job first,

Stef Layne:
We’re human.

Rida Khan:
That does bring me to a question just based off what you just shared. I mean, the relationship between a treasurer and their banker, there’s really nothing like it, you know, can you talk about that?

There’s so many different ways for treasurers to navigate that relationship, whether it would be the good cop or the bad cop. Are there any lessons that you’ve learned in your career with that critical critical relationship and, and anything you suggest to those listening on on how to actually

Stef Layne:
I would say I’m very transparent. Maybe you can tell that already, but being honest with your bank and having that honest conversation and, and, you know, interaction with them where you can say, “Hey, I don’t have the time to analyze all of my big fees,” right? Like I don’t have the bandwidth. I don’t have the team, but I feel like you’re charging me quite a bit for a wire transfer. Can we look at this? Can we have this conversation? Right. Or, Hey, I saw the fed raised rates today.

All of my money with you should also earn more money because the fed raised the rates, right?
It’s having that conversation. Have goals and objectives. We have to find a way to work together. That’s the best outcome for both of us. And treating them like a partner, not a service provider is incredibly important, right?

Because they are able to enable all the things we want to do. We’re going international right now. I could not do it without my banking partner, obviously, right?

But I can also sit down with them and say, hey, here’s where they want to go. We want to go to this country. It’s very complex HR and finance rules there. How can you support us in this journey? And what should we be thinking about? So very much a thought partnership with all my banking partners.

Rida Khan:
Yeah. And we see that with a lot of our clients and Trovata is invested in by banks. We’re partnering with the leading banks in the world all the time and building different engagements.

One thing we’ve seen time and time again is the nature and thinking is evolving. You know, those reps, they want to be consultative. They want to help and they want to drive value beyond just what they were doing in decades past. So I think pushing them to deliver on driving that value is a great way to keep that balance.

Stef Layne:
They may not be the best provider for certain things, given the evolution of the financial, you know, industry, right? Maybe they’re not the best provider to offer credit card processing. Maybe they are, but there were so many great tech companies out there that are able to plug and play much easier than a bank in some situations. So I have to educate them and be like, “Hey, have you looked at what so-and-so’s doing?” Because they have great technology that’s solving a problem that would take us months to deploy with you.

Right. And so understand that for me, it’s a no-brainer. Going that way, but I’m going to be very transparent with you because you don’t have the functionality and the speed that I need at the moment. But they learn that too. Then they go, okay, I’m going to go check out that company and see how we can, you know, you know, emulate their success.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, or partner with them and resell their platform or integrate or whatever it might be. I mean, we’re seeing that. It’s really interesting, right? They’re getting it from their clients. And then we’re also seeing that too, where they’re coming to technology vendors and saying, all right, how do we work together to drive the most value for our clients?

Stef Layne:
Yeah, these are the pain points. What can we do together to fix, you know, to fix them? Yeah.

Rida Khan:
Yeah. Well, even though banking is extremely exciting, I love to switch gears to something just a little bit more fun. I mentioned that you were a fitness coach and entrepreneur at the beginning of this, but I didn’t provide further detail beyond that.

I’m sure everyone’s curious what that entails and how you started doing that. How do you stay sane juggling all those things? Can you give a little bit of background on that?

Stef Layne:
Yeah. So during COVID, when people were baking sourdough bread, I was like, I want to be a personal trainer. I want to find a way I can motivate people during a dark time, when we were all trapped inside. And so the gym that I was a part of was doing outdoor fitness trainings. Right. And so I could learn how to teach and coach and be outside with a group of people and motivate them.

So I got my certification, started to coach. Then ultimately my husband and I, about seven months ago, opened our own gym in our town. So it’s called the Fifth Element Fitness and it’s a full gym with a wellness area with infrared saunas and such. And so he’s busy growing that business while I work my full-time job to fund it. But it is really neat to have a community-focused piece of my life that isn’t just the numbers for a business.

And staying balanced through that is working out, honestly, because it’s the one way that I can kind of release the stress and keep myself sane.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, I love that. And that is a much more productive COVID journey than a lot of us who are in our sweatpants throughout that era. Yeah, I’m actually going through a personal training journey on my end too. Just not as a trainer, as the trainee. But I think one of the things that we talk about all the time is just motivation. I think that’s the biggest challenge. I think that’s why a lot of people end up doing personal training because maybe they’re struggling with that inherent motivation and they need that accountability partner to really see the gains that they want to make.

What are the parallels in how you coach your clients on the fitness end and then how you lead your global teams in a treasury context?

Stef Layne:
Yeah. so progress over perfection, I would say, it takes a lot of patience to see progress in fitness, right? You set a goal and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes some times there to get there. I would say the same is true for building a strong team. Right. You have to be able to give and get feedback. You have to push them hard at times and you have to stretch them often to support one another. So I would say progress over perfection.

and you know, we try to fail fast in our business, and avoid being slow because we’re trying to be perfect. But I would say that we, number one, number two would be, proper form matters. I personally can give you a three pound weight and they get the hardest base of curl you’ve ever done. If you do it right. And you’re, and you’re, you’re, you know, flexing that muscle and focusing on the right area. You don’t need that 50 pound weight, right? and so. You know, on the business side.

Rida Khan:
I love that.

Stef Layne:
Taking the time to do things the right way, even if you have to pause for a minute and reset, is more important than just getting it done. Just getting through the workout, just getting through the project. And then last but not least would be rest and recovery. I think your physical body needs rest after a hard workout and, and I think your brain does too, right? When you’re in that complex Excel model, you’re tagging your transaction instead of a new tool.

Rida Khan:
Yeah.

Stef Layne:
Sometimes you need to stop, take a breath from the spreadsheet and create space for some rest, avoid burnout and just allow your body to recover both physically and mentally.

Rida Khan:
I love that. And I couldn’t agree more on the, the last point. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of where like the, whole idea of sprints came from, right? Is like, can’t sprint forever. And I think we all understand that at work as well. And that’s why you grind it out in a project for X amount of weeks. And then you take a break and then you address your next sprint and you, and you, know, kind of organize your work in that way. So I just love that analogy to fitness as well.

Stef Layne:
Yeah, that’s a good point to sprint. I never really made that a, we do sprint in some of the hit trainings, like physically actually sprint, which as an adult, you probably haven’t done very often, you know, when you’re like, dead. But, but yeah, it’s a, it’s a way. Yeah. I love that. That’s a good parallel.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, chances are if I’m sprinting, it’s from danger. But we’re trying to change that. We’re trying to change that. Well, I love that. know, definitely check out Steph’s Gym if you’re in our area. It sounds like it’s an awesome place to go. Let’s close it out here with like a little bit of a lightning round. You just go through some fun questions and quick answers. So just to start, what’s one tool or system that you really believe keeps your team running smoothly across borders?

Stef Layne:
Besides Microsoft Excel, like, we use a lot of Google sheets and, I think I would say zoom, you know, I mean, given my team is all remote and we can’t be together in person, the ability to look at each other in the eyes when we’re having a conversation keeps a little bit of a human aspect to our relationships. I think that gets lost in Slack and email messages. And so the ability to look at each other,

Rida Khan:
I mean…

Stef Layne:
in the eyes. I will also say I’m very, very optimistic that Trovata that we’re in the early launches stages of will help us standardize and get all of our global banking information in one spot. So we’re really excited about that improvement. And hopefully that’ll be the tool on the cash side that gives us the visibility in one spot.

Rida Khan:
And I promise I didn’t pay stuff to say that,

Stef Layne:
No, you did not, but we are very excited. We don’t get a lot of technology in treasury. So to be able to get the budget to do something like this and get us out of Excel, we’re just super jazzed about it. So we’re really optimistic. It’s going to be a great outcome.

Rida Khan:
Yeah.Great, you just queued up my next lightning round question just from your answer. This is like the number one thing I hear from treasurers, right? Is I cannot get a budget. I don’t have a budget. I’m scared to ask my CFO for budget. What is like a really quick piece of advice you would give to treasurers that are feeling that

Stef (27:38.19)
you

Stef (27:52.526)
Well, it’s funny because they think we’re all Scrooge McDuck swimming around in like gold coins, right? And that you’re the crusher if you have all of the cash, right? We actually do have the cash, but we have no budget usually. so, you know, building a strong business case, helping, helping them understand the why behind you need something and being persistent. Cause you will get no a lot and you need to push. Even when it comes to like hiring the right people on your team at the right level, right?

To be able to build a strong team, you have to sometimes pay for the talent and get the right person on board. And so don’t take no for an answer. Keep pushing. And if the answer is still no, then to find other ways, but be ready to have the conversation and it will be tough, but necessary.

Rida Khan:
Yeah. And I think that point about the team and the talent is so important too, because, you know, we’re already dealing with a little bit of a talent shortage in treasury. Not that many new folks are entering into this field. And I think one of the reasons for that is because a lot of companies are still stuck in the grind of doing things and not that old way. And with treasury technology, you know, like Travata or like whatever else it kind of gives these teams.

Rida Khan:
The ability to do a little bit less of that, know, Excel grind and a little bit more of that. All right, I’m going to visualize my data. I’m going to get this presentation ready. Now I’m going to make a decision based on my analysis. And I feel like I feel like it’s going to be important to attract talent, especially in the younger generations.

Stef Layne:
Well, yeah. And in a world of AI and ML and whatever other acronym you can think of, we shouldn’t be cutting and pasting from spreadsheets anymore. Right. Maybe when I started my career, yes, we were cutting and pasting and, actually had, I actually used to print out the financial statements on paper for the whole team when I was that accounting administrator and that, and put them in binders. And now I think about, my gosh, myself printing, hole punching, getting a paper cut… Putting it in a binder and handing it to the chief accounting officer when today it’s like, boom, there. Right. So we can use our time so much more wisely if we could click a couple of buttons to get to the right data, right? Get the right analysis in front of us.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, that’s Trovata’s new tagline, no more paper cuts. Cash is queen. Yeah, well, we’ll be stealing that as well. I’ll send you a check for that too. All right, we’re having too much fun. Back to the Light Ring round. I think you might have, you might have answered this already, honestly, but what’s one misconception about treasury leadership that you’d love to bust? And maybe you’ve spoken about this from the buy-in perspective and getting the budget, but what about

Stef Layne:
I love it! Cash is clean, no more paper cuts.

Okay, okay. Okay.

Stef Layne:
Yeah.

Rida Khan:
that finance analyst who’s like thinking about entering Treasury and is just not sure if it’s for them.

Stef Layne:
Yeah.

It’s the best. Like, let’s be honest, right? is the cash. Like I always tell people, like, imagine your checkbook, which you may or may not know what a checkbook is. It’s this paperback. Imagine your bank account with a couple more zeros after it. Right. Like how cool to be able to see all of the cash coming in now, coming, me. How cool to see all the cash coming in and going out. Right. Are we paying our vendors as we agreed? Are we paying them smartly?

Rida Khan:
Mm-hmm.

Stef Layne:
Are we collecting from our customers quickly? Is that cash coming in? I mean, it is like to me, the most important piece of a business, right? But at the end of the day, it’s really your checkbook, right? Or your line of credit or your car payment or mortgage payment or rent payment that needs to go out that you really need to understand because guess what? If you don’t pay those things, you’re homeless, right? And so, you know, if you love the idea of…

Rida Khan:
Yeah.

Stef Layne:
Quick thinking around cash coming in, coming out and really influencing one of the areas that gets reported in the financials, but isn’t seen as sexy as revenue growth, then free cash flow, know, it, treasury is a great career, I would say. Yeah.

Rida Khan:
We love free cash flow. I think it’s great. I think it’s awesome. But yeah, that’s a great answer. And I think what’s really interesting about that too is you’re making that analogy to personal finance. And that was kind of one of the reasons that Travato was founded is because you’re looking at personal finance and how people are managing things for their home or for their family. And it’s like, you’ve got these fun apps, you’ve got Mint back in the day, you’ve got Empower.

Stef Layne:
Yeah.

Rida Khan:
there’s all this technology out there to make it easy for you. And then you think like, okay, why does a massive company with hundreds of bank accounts across dozens of banks, you know, tens of dozens of entities or whatever it is, why do they have to do that in spreadsheets? Cause it’s objectively harder. So I think that that whole sentiment is exactly why we’re seeing this rapid uptake in treasury technology development is because there’s a, there’s a of finally an understanding of “this really should be as good as consumer tech.”

Stef Layne:
Absolutely. And treasury, sometimes the no news is good news for the CFO, right? So the other thing I think about being a treasurer is you can sell your wins really good. Like, hey, I made the company X amount of interest. Like, hey, I funded that headcount. You didn’t want to give me, you know, but also like being able to do your own thing and not, you know, having to necessarily be on point at all times with, know, kind of being in the background if you choose to.

So yeah, it just depends what type of person you are, but Treasury is, I obviously highly promote it for everybody.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, and there’s a style of treasury for everyone. I feel like that’s what I just heard your answer, which is which is beautiful. One last lightning round question here and you can take it whatever direction you want to go in. What’s a book, maybe a workout, maybe a resource that keeps you sharp because you’re someone who’s a hustler. It’s clear by your career. What what’s keeping you sharp? What’s keeping your brain engaged?

Stef Layne:
That’s a tough one for me because I actually, think it is working out, which sounds pretty cliche, but like I work out every day at 5 a.m., whether it’s hit or strength or stretching, it really keeps me focused. I noticed now that the days I don’t work out in the morning, like today I’m doing it later today. Like, I just feel a little bit off. Like, I feel like I’m not as sharp. So regardless of what the workout is, it’s, it’s before you dive into the day job.

It’s challenging your body in a different way that I feel like sets the tone for me to like then be able to use my brain. Right. I love Spotify. I’m not going to lie. Like music is my jam. And so during a workout while I’m working, know, whatever, whatever the case may be, that keeps me going a lot to different genres of music, depending on my mood. So I would say that’s the other thing that kind of keeps me going.

Rida Khan:
I love that. All dopamine generators, right? Whether it’s working out or music. And I think really the discipline factor. mean, you’re so proud of yourself when you’ve got a routine, you stick to it and you get a win in right at the beginning of the day. Like starting your day with a win is how you set the tone, I think for the rest of

Stef Layne:
Yes.

Stef Layne:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Rida Khan:
Awesome stuff. I’m too much fun, but we I know I’ve got to be mindful of your time here. Where can folks who loved hearing from you, where can they follow your work or connect with you?

Stef Layne:
Thank you. Gosh, I don’t host my own podcast yet. I haven’t done my own TED talk yet. So for now, I would say LinkedIn. I love to connect with people. I love to attend, you know, industry events that can provide valuable new insights. And yeah, so I would just say LinkedIn at this time.

Rida Khan:
Yeah, that’s perfect. Any final thoughts? The objective of this podcast is to drive value for Treasury, help them find community, help them learn lessons from those that have done this before. Any final thoughts or pieces of advice you’d want to leave those folks with?

Stef Layne:
Take a day by day, stay positive, keep your network tight and just go get it. Like go get it done.

Rida Khan:
Go get it. And on that concise note, Steph, thank you so much for joining us. Your story and your advice are going to resonate with so many folks out there. And I had such a great time talking with you and to our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. Subscribe to FinTech Corner anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow Travata on LinkedIn to keep up with our next episode.

Stef Layne:
Okay.

Stef (36:08.494)
Yeah.

Stef Layne:
Lovely meeting you, Rida. Thank you.

Rida Khan:
Lovely meeting you as well. Thanks, Stef. Bye.