Treasury Management Association of Chicago

Director, Treasury - International

byale@itw.com

Job Description:

I work for Illinois Tool Works Inc (ITW) a $14.9 billion multinational manufacturer of a diversified range of value added industrial products and equipment with 825 business units in 52 countries. The Company is highly decentralized and applies the 80/20 principle in its business processes.

I started with ITW in August 1995 as Manager, Treasury Systems. The title was a bit strange, as at the time the Treasury Department had very little in the way of automated systems and was fairly manual intensive. At that time sales were $4.0 billion with 290 units in 34 countries. One of the most exciting things about working for ITW for the last 13 years is seeing the profitable growth from acquisitions and how successful ITW has been in its acquisition strategy and its decentralized model. As I had no previous experience in this area the challenges of being involved in the due diligence process and Treasury integration of so many different companies has been one of the most interesting parts of my job. Treasury operations in a highly decentralized global company creates many interesting challenges from overseeing the large number of bank accounts, liquidity management, maintaining strong internal controls and administration of multiple bank systems.

I remember when I first started and received the account analysis from our largest US bank. It was several inches thick and heavy and I thought, wow how could this be for only one month? I learned very quickly how to navigate and work to get things done the ITW way. Working in a lean Corporate office has given me the opportunity to have direct exposure to a wide variety of Treasury initiatives and projects. I have been fortunate to meet and work with many smart and motivated people in my office and from different parts of the world. Traveling to business units in different countries and seeing the operations that produce the thousands of different products we sell is always exciting and interesting as it brings you closer to identifying with the goals of the business units. I have been Director, Treasury International for almost four years.

My boss is Felix Rodriguez , Vice President & Treasurer and a long time member of TMAC. Felix and I have worked together for the past eight years and I have learned many valuable things from him over the years enabling me to do my job better. My current responsibilities cover International Treasury Management outside of The Americas including debt and investment management, pooling, netting, liquidity management, FX, Bank RFP's and dividend repatriation. I am happy to say I truly enjoy what I do as I work with great people and everyday brings new opportunities along with new challenges that enable me to continue to learn and work on solutions to Treasury issues and contribute to the success of ITW.

Getting to Know You:

I was born and raised in Whitestone, Queens in New York City. My father worked for CIT Corporation in the Credit Management field and my mother was a public school secretary. I have one older brother who lives in New Jersey. I have many fond memories of growing up in NY.

Whitestone was a typical Italian/Jewish neighborhood and my friends and I did a lot of hanging out on the local playgrounds and in pizzerias eating great NY pizza (which I still consider to be the best in the world), real NY bagels and huge deli sandwiches. Of all things I miss about NY it's the food. As a kid I grew up watching the Yankees, Knicks and NY Jets. At that time I did not know what a Bear, Cub or a Bull was and that one day in my future I would live here and be a supporter of these great Chicago Sports teams.

I attended Bayside High School and then went on to attend college at St John's University. When I was deciding what I should major in, my parent's gave me some advice. My father dealt with a lot of accountants in his field and two of my uncles were accountants. My parents advised me that in accounting you could always make a good living and that accountants were always employable. At the time this made good sense to me, so I followed their advice. I graduated in 1984 and my first job was in public accounting in the audit department of Coopers & Lybrand where I worked two years followed by three years at two medium sized public accounting firms. I gained a lot of valuable experience during these years performing audits of companies in many different industries. The hours were long and I learned what the word "overtime" really meant. In my first year in audit I learned how to prepare flowcharts by hand (kind of like the game Spirograph before PowerPoint existed), did lots of testing of internal controls, learned what doing physical inventories at odd hours was like, learned what the words tic and tie meant and got good at using colored pencils and adding machines tapes.

I met my husband Norman two years after college. We lived in NY for three years and relocated to Chicago in 1990 due to his job change. I had never been anywhere in the Midwest and all I knew about Chicago was that it was cold and snowy and they had the Sears Tower and Michigan Ave. We drove from NY in February and arrived in Schaumburg to a foot of snow on the ground. I decided to go to work in the private sector and worked in the Corporate Accounting Department of a $400 mm public company called UNR Industries. UNR was a manufacturing company making steel tube, shopping carts, cellular towers and sinks. I worked in their small Corporate office which did not have a Treasury function.

After one year the CFO asked me if I would be interested in moving from the Accounting Department to start up a Treasury Function to develop more formal Treasury processes and controls to support future growth. It sounded like a great opportunity to try something new and expand my knowledge base. Not knowing anything about Phoenix Hecht lockbox float studies, account analysis, controlled disbursement, Blue Book Bank pricing or letters of credit, I planted my roots in the Treasury Management area and never looked back. Working in that capacity for four years I discovered I truly enjoyed working in the Treasury field and wanted to expand my experience and have more responsibility in a larger more diverse company which brought me to my next job with Illinois Tool Works Inc. In 1996 I became a Certified Cash Manager and later became a CTP.

My husband works for A T & T in IT and we have two daughters ages 13 and 17. As anyone who has teenagers knows life is never dull and always full of wonderful, fun and stressful times. My oldest just received her driver's license and is applying to college which is an exciting time. (The driving part makes me so nervous) My youngest is in JH and is involved with the cheerleading team so she runs around the house jumping and practicing cheers.

Neighborhood News:
I live in Hoffman Estates located in the Northwest suburbs. It is right next to Schaumburg where many large corporations are located. We have lived in our house for 13 years and have brought up our kids here. Hoffman Estates is very centrally located and offers many things for families. We have probably the largest choice of shopping and restaurants in the region. There are many nice parks and park district recreational facilities. We have a state of the art indoor ice skating rink facility which the Chicago Wolves use as their practice facility. Hoffman Estates has a great outdoor aquatic center which is walking distance from my house.

Down Time:

At this stage in my life with a demanding job and two teenagers I don't have too much free time but when I do I enjoy eating out, relaxing at home watching a good movie or reading magazines, shopping, spending time with my family, traveling back east to visit family and getting as much R and R as possible on the weekends. I try to attend high school football and basketball games where my daughter performs on the varsity flags team. For the past couple of months I have been busy helping my daughter wade through the college application process.

Back to Business:

I have been a member of TMAC for 15 years and I consider it a truly outstanding organization. The benefits I have received from TMAC are many, ranging from the quality educational sessions, Windy City Summit conference, a great network of treasury professionals to share ideas with and meetings that are always fun and interesting with good food and drink. I have made many good friends over the years and enjoy meeting the younger newer members who I can share experiences and ideas with.

Joining TMAC:

In 1993 when I first started out in the Treasury function I attended a bank function and was seated next to a former member who told me about TMAC and its educational and networking benefits. She encouraged me to apply for membership and I still remember my first meeting which was the first "New Member Orientation Meeting". I was very impressed with what TMAC had to offer and how the officers made the new members feel very comfortable and I knew then it was a quality organization that I was proud to be a part of.

Illinois Tool Works Inc