Treasury Management Association of Chicago

Will Steinke
wsteinke@plsfinancial.com

PLS Financial Services
Treasury and Insurance Manager

Job Description:

I work for PLS Financial Services, a $200 million alternative financial services company. PLS manages more than 300 financial service centers in Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, New York, Texas and Wisconsin. The majority of our customers are unbanked, meaning they don't have checking or savings accounts.

I started with PLS in January 2006, initially as a contractor and senior real estate accountant, though I did initially interview for their Treasury Manager position. They had a pressing need for someone to handle their real estate accounting because no one had done it for six months. In July 2006, I was hired on and in November 2006, I finally got the Treasury management position, though I was still doing the real estate accounting. Along the way, I picked up the property and liability responsibility because that hadn't been kept up for nine months.

In 2006 and 2007, I worked heavy hours to straighten out the real estate accounts of our 15 real estate companies, including a reorganization and realignment of the division. Meanwhile, my Treasury staff and I were trying to keep up with the 25% growth in store locations, each needing two accounts and multiple banking services, while seeking new sources of financing.

In 2007, I also picked up the workers' compensation insurance for all our companies. I had to coordinate payroll audits, policy renewals and compliance for our 12 policies.

Finally, in 2008 I turned over the real estate accounting to our Controller's group. I happily trained my replacement. Also, in July of 2008 I negotiated a consolidation of our worker's comp policies into a single one, which cut our costs by 45%.

Currently, my treasury department has two very good people. We deposit 2500 checks per month, most remotely. We oversee 500 accounts in 14 banks, including the security administration for accessing those accounts. We are still opening six new accounts per month.

Getting to know you:

I grew up in the Bucks County area northeast of Philadelphia, PA. My mom was a nurse and my dad was an economics professor at Community College of Philadelphia. I chose money over blood. I earned a BBA in Finance, Investments and Banking from Wisconsin and an MBA from Penn State.

I started my cash management career at the Options Clearing Corporation, where I was a senior analyst with the responsibility of investing upwards of $2 billion of customer funds. I took the very first CCM exam in 1986 and earned the permanent CCM designation in 1992.

Along the way, I met Deborah Dimond and married her in 1992. Deb teaches Communication Theory and Public Speaking at Joliet Junior College. Besides teaching, she is a jewelry designer and Renaissance Faire fanatic (Rennie). She designs and makes complete Ren Faire costumes and contracts out her skills to make costumes for others. This past season she also worked at the Faire for a jewelry retailer.

Down time:

I co-founded three successive and successful investment clubs (partnerships). With the exception of the inception years, we beat the S&P (14 of 17 years). My co-founder and I did 90% of the stock analyses which were presented to the stock selection committee.

Back to business and joining TMAC:

I have been attending the Windy City Summits since the mid 80's, but didn't join TMAC until 2004. However, I didn't become involved and dropped out. I rejoined in 2008 and decided I would become involved and am currently on the membership committee.

I have since discovered what TMAC can offer and hope to work at bringing more treasury professionals in our organization.