Leadership Q&A: The Power of Diverse Experience

David Blansfield: How did you become treasurer? What was your career path?

Catherine Lesjak: I came up through treasury. I joined Hewlett-Packard right out of business school in treasury, and I was in treasury for twelve years. But our CFO at the time basically told me that if I wanted to be considered for the treasurer role, I'd need to have a broader set of experiences. And so eight years ago, I became the controller for our channels business -- which managed sales and distribution for printers and PCs -- and after serving in that role I became VP of finance for our software business unit before becoming treasurer three years ago.

I think my experience is instructive. The number-one thing that's changed for finance executives is the need to have broad-based experiences. They can all be in finance, but they need to be across a variety of different financial positions -- in different businesses, or in a cost center and a profit center, or in a corporate function. Different sets of experiences really set you up to be able to take on a much more senior, broader financial role. I think that's absolutely critical.

DB: How are you trying to facilitate career growth for your staff?

CL: I try to encourage people to do whatever they can, take as broad a role or as many different roles within treasury or outside of treasury as possible. If they want to specialize in treasury, they may have to leave the company in order to get a different set of experiences within treasury, or to take advantage of a promotional opportunity. I encourage them to do that and help them to do that. If they've moved on to a good position at another company, when we have an opening down the road, we keep an eye out for them in the hopes of bringing them back in.