Smith is part of a long line of distinguished executives who rose through the ranks of GM's New York?? 1/2 based treasury. GM has long been considered a model, if not the model, of how to structure a dynamic treasury operation that attracts top finance people and rewards them at a young age with diverse experiences they can use to take their careers to the next level. Even at a time when the automaker has seen its debt ratings tumble and is struggling under the weight of healthcare obligations and mounting competitive pressures, its treasury is still producing some of the best finance executives any Fortune 1000 company could ever need. The list of treasury alums includes six of the automaker's last eight CEOs, including current Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. Just as impressive are those who have gone on to run other finance departments or whole companies, including E. Stanley O'Neal, Merrill Lynch & Co.'s chairman and CEO; John Finnegan, chairman and CEO of The Chubb Corp.; James Gelly, CFO and SVP at Rockwell Automation Inc.; and Charles Golden, CFO and EVP at Eli Lilly and Co.

Long central to the GM treasury approach has been a rotational program that requires individuals to assume high levels of responsibility early in their careers. "Once [new treasury employees] come here they're rotated through a number of assignments," says Walter Borst, GM's treasurer since 2003. "They have new assignments on average every one and a half years, two to three assignments as an analyst, two to three as managers and a couple as a director."

A LITTLE BITE OF EVERYTHING

Many of those early assignments are typical treasury functions, such as working in cash or risk management, debt issuance or banking relations. But GM's treasury department also prides itself on a range of strategic functions to which its top treasury employees are exposed that are not typical of a large treasury. These include such areas as mergers and acquisitions, pension and healthcare funding, and new business activities. "GM is an exceptional training ground," says Jeff Wallace, a partner at the Treasury Alliance Group LLC, a Chicago-based consulting firm. "Given [the company's] size and financial needs, the treasury people have almost investment banking experience regarding the breadth of the deals they have seen."

Frequent moves make it tough to get too comfortable in any one job. Just ask Mark Greenquist, now CFO of Symbol Technologies Inc., a $1.7 billion company in Holtsville, N.Y., specializing in business data capture and mobility products. During 15 years with GM, Greenquist spent half his time in the New York headquarters and the rest in various positions in Europe, including two years in the treasury of Saab Automobile AB–in which GM owned a 50% stake at the time–and another two years at its GM Poland subsidiary. "One of the things you didn't necessarily have to have was previous experience in a position for them to move you to that," says Greenquist. Among his most valuable assignments was investor relations, where he had to face rating agencies and the analyst community. "What ends up happening is GM is such a big organization and mature and so disciplined, that when you parachute into a new company you have strong opinions of the way things should look," says Greenquist. "It's very useful: Been there, done that."

Like all good programs, GM treasury's is not static. Recently, it has fine-tuned its approach to recruiting. Taking a cue from investment bank practices, it holds an annual two-day session called "super weekend," bringing the 60 or so most promising candidates from separate MBA recruitment efforts to New York for two days of meetings and case study assignments. Senior treasury officials spend the entire time weighing candidates to make a final cut, with offers ready to go by Monday. Fast-rising employees tend to remain in treasury for about six to seven years, at which point they move on to other parts of the company or to other companies. "We're hiring hard-charging people who see themselves as CFO or treasurer one day," says Michael Lukas, one of two assistant treasurers at GM. "If you're smart, as you move up the ranks you're learning about the operations and making contacts. We make cars. Treasury is not the product."

AMONG THE ELITE

GM isn't alone in creating a top training ground for treasury employees. While IBM Corp.'s treasury is led today by working capital management maven Jesse Greene, it has seen many of its treasury alums go on to bigger roles outside the company, including Jeffrey Serkes, former IBM treasurer and now CFO of Allegheny Energy Inc. Mario Calastri, also an IBM graduate, is now assistant treasurer at Tyco International under treasurer and GM alum Martina Hund-Mejean. "Relative to other treasuries [IBM] has such interesting problems and is so much more sophisticated, that its treasury is more thought out," says James Hodge, a former assistant treasurer at IBM and AT&T Corp. and now a senior consultant at Treasury Strategies Inc. "It is truly international, with finances worldwide, and the other piece is that between the credit corp and the finance business, a significant amount of assets are leases and loans. So it's a $35 billion finance company inside a $100 billion company."

Other high-tech companies also rank among the best in terms of treasury training experiences, including Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp. These companies tend to be early adopters of technology and rely on the treasury function to monitor and maintain earnings momentum, more so than at other companies.

In the case of Microsoft, treasury has the enviable task of managing a stash of $34.5 billion in cash on a daily basis, something few companies can claim. But George Zinn, Microsoft's corporate vice president and treasurer, argues that the experience is much broader, with one-third of treasury personnel involved with credit and collections, where they work closely with customers and see the revenue cycle from order to cash. Treasury is careful to invest time in its employees, he says, with detailed job ladders and training programs that, when combined with unique on-the-job experiences, have made for a winning formula. "The great thing from the employee's perspective is they are exposed to things they would never be able to do except on Wall Street–like manage a several billion dollar portfolio and negotiate with any number of investment bankers and CFOs at a relatively early stage in [their] career," says Zinn. "The best thing about coming to work is the next interesting and fun thing to work on and [that mindset] helps us figure out who we want to invest more on very quickly."