The Bottom Line: Treasurer Says 'One Day You Will Know Less'
September 14, 2006
Elizabeth Johns

This article originally appeared in AFP Exchange magazine. Earn CTP Recert Credits Now you can take the AFP Exchange CTP Quiz online! RECENT NEWS ARTICLES BY TOPIC Bank Relationship Management Corporate Finance Financial Accounting & Reporting Payment Resources for Treasury Risk Management Sarbanes-Oxley Treasury Management Career Services

'The Bottom Line' column appears monthly on the last page of Exchange magazine.  This excerpt is from the October 2006 edition.

For this "Women in Finance" issue of Exchange, someone asked whether young women would have more career success as specialists or generalists. Years ago, Ann Richards had the answer.

Certainly the most colorful of women in finance, Richards may be best remembered for having given the opening speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in which she said "Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels." Whatever your politics, you will recognize Richards as a beautiful and gutsy woman who eventually became governor of Texas.

When I was introduced to Richards, she was state treasurer of Texas, overseeing a large financial operation. To humanize the function, she wrote a weekly newspaper column exploring financial topics.

In those days, single-country mutual funds were a relatively new concept, and I had managed to position myself to receive the early fund prospectuses at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It was long enough ago that they were still released on paper. Taking the route of specialist, I managed to parlay this information into a little publishing business and, well, invitations from some really dreadful international bankers.

In a reversal of roles, I received a call from Richards and found myself being interviewed by her about country funds for the column she was writing.

That old newspaper clipping is painful to read. The earnest, young financial writer explains to the great Richards how currency fluctuations in country funds might necessarily cause a bit of risk. Richards listened patiently while I spouted off about exchange rates. Her one comment, spoken with great kindness, and which does not appear in the text, was "One day you will know less."

I've thought about the statement many times, such as when the bright young women in my office declare that they will be doing things differently, that they don't have time to wait six months for a promotion. "One day you will know less" is even a statement I have made to a protégé.

Things have changed since Richards was state treasurer. International funds that were once exotic are long since commonplace. The SEC releases documents electronically. No one thinks twice about women in finance.

Instead of knowing a single subject, my peers are fond of discussing the many things that may happen next. Looking ahead, uncertainty abounds, but so does possibility. We are less concrete in our views, yet I think we are happier for it. Writing a mentor recently, I was able to condense a year's outlook into two words: Luck everywhere.

Ann Richards was right. As we shed our specialist titles and become generalists, we do, in effect, come to know less because we leave our cubes and step into the void. And that is exactly why business becomes fun with time—each negotiation a little more complex, each business relationship more nuanced.

Nevertheless, for all her wisdom, Ann Richards was wrong about one thing, and that's the bit about dancing backwards in high heels. When I look around at the smart young women I have met through AFP, whether they are specialists or generalists, one thing is certainly clear. They are definitely facing forward.

Note: Ann Richards was also a speaker at the AFP Annual Conference in 2003.

Elizabeth Johns is AFP's managing director of communications. Send comments to exchange@afponline.org.

Copyright © 2006 Association for Financial Professionals. All Rights Reserved.