A Treasury Career in Asia with Christian Zeidler

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals.

About their treasury careers.

Each and every week I talk to them about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show.

In this week's show, delighted to be joined by Christian Zeidler, the VP head of Department Global treasury front office at Robert Bosch now the Bosch Group. Everyone knows it. Bosch is a leading global supplier of technology and services divided into four business sectors. You've got mobility solutions, industrial technology, consumer goods, energy and building technology. The group itself offers innovative solutions for Smart Homes, Industry 4.0 and Connected Mobility. But as with the show, each and every week I'll get Christian to go through that a little bit later on in the show. We're going to rewind things, go back to the beginning of his very successful treasury career a few years ago now and how he first discovered the world of finance, treasury coming through banking into treasury and travel the world with treasury as well. So that's, that's part of the story that I want to bring out as well. Enough from me. Let's get on with the show. Christian, take us back if you like how you first got started in the world of finance and Treasury. Over to you, sir.

Thank you very much, Mike. I'm delighted to be here in the show. Happy to share my views on career development and views about the industry. I started off back in 1988 after my graduation and military service in a very traditional way of starting into business, which was by the way of starting an apprenticeship in Deutsche bank in Germany in Dusseldorf, my hometown, where I grew up. Why did I choose banking? I mean those days it was still a reliable job profile and a prosperous industry and I was kind of attracted by the world of banking, although I had no clue where I would end up after my apprenticeship. I started off studying business administration also as well in my hometown. And at that juncture I already thought about what will happen in the next and the following step because I didn't want to start as a trainee after my graduation from university. So I decided to do both at the same time. That was an opportunity given by my employer at that time to continue as a full term employee on a student basis in various functions and faculties in the bank. So I did private banking, I did branch service, I did housing loans, credit risk management. I spent a year and a half in the main branch doing this. So therefore I had the opportunity to view in real time what is happening in the business world and at the same time spending time in university and to further my study. That was actually a very good move, which I only discovered later on because after my graduation, the bank tried to keep me in my home branch. But I always had this kind of internationalization in me. I wanted to go overseas, abroad, see the world in terms of banking. I mean, it was very prosperous at that time. Deutsche bank was a very good employer, a very German employer at that time. I was given the opportunity to move on to the head office, to the corporate banking department, where we did a lot of interesting things about a global account management design, about electronic banking and a lot of projects which were right under the divisional board member at that time. So moving on from a tiny branch was a big step for me at these days and a very different working environment. I really got thrilled because it was a change of location, it was a change of property job profile, it was a change toward internationalization. I really felt good and I think this is going to work. Then my supervisor, he said, yeah, in Deutsche bank we have this international program where we send people overseas for a year to a branch and basically can be. They can work there in various departments, whether it is CI, corporate banking, wealth management, brokerage, custody, et cetera. And since I was given the choice, I chose to opt for Australia. Deutsche bank had a branch over there as well. To make it short, it didn't materialize. Things changed and, you know, change settled in very, very quickly. A couple of weeks after I was given the opportunity to choose the branch, I was given the opportunity to choose within two days whether I would like to go to Singapore because they had a change over there and they needed someone fairly quickly. And that was really an undiscovered world for me. The decision process sounds very funny because the HR manager said, well, if you don't know anything about Singapore, which I didn't know about at that time, I said, go to the local bookstore, get yourself, say, a Lonely Planet. And then you let me know on Monday morning whether you want to be in Singapore four months down the line. And I said, yes, but cannot be that bad for a year. It's corporate banking, it's home turf. Sounds exciting. Singapore is a gate to Asia, which I have never explored before during my travels. And then in 1995, in December, I sat on the plane to Singapore and this was basically the second step in my career.

We ourselves, we used to have a very busy office in Singapore and. And then the markets, you know, not too similar to actually looking at the timings on here suddenly took a big dive and we're like, well right, we're decamping back to the uk, back to Europe. And then that was way before actually the US and we really took it off. But that was sort of a frontier in some ways. There was a lot of development going on and, and then you at late stage you had the Asian financial crisis. What was it like being out there? You know, coming from the Western, you know, with a Western set of values, moving to the Far East. What was it like?

In the beginning I didn't realize what was going on around me. I mean I had seminars about culture and how Asians work and so on. This is all in the books. I mean and I was lucky because when I landed in Singapore, the as prices was not there yet. I had a good time. I had a very professional German manager who I still keep in touch with these days. So one year was really enjoyable. I can embrace the culture, I could embrace the business, I can build up my, my knowledge and expertise about international banking, advise clients. There are a lot of client interactions because a lot of German and European companies wanted to go to Asia, needed advice and then Deutsche bank was basically the first entry point. Things changed because I didn't really complete my year and return back to Germany because the bank expanded over there. I enjoyed working very much in this dynamic environment and I was given the opportunity to stay on for another two years in any of the Southeast Asian branches. So when it happened to be in Kuala Lumpur. So I got a transfer to Kuala Lumpur back in October, November 96 as a one and single German relationship manager for corporate banking. The second German in the branch, the branch manager was the German. The rest was all local employees. That was so exciting. And then in the midst of my tenor there, the Asian crisis hit me and I was only, I mean I was a young employee, I was like in my late 20s. And then hell broke loose. Markets started to tumble, clients had problems. Credit risk management wanted to get all the credit engagement under full coverage. People started to move on, resign. We had to reduce staff. And that was a bit early in the career as you had planned it. But it was very healthy in terms of what I could experience. I hosted for example the German president for lunch because they were like traveling those days and my bosses were not available. And I mean you have a different exposure because you are basically representing to some extent the organization via being a German. Although Deutsche bank transferred during that time from a fellow German organization to Anglo Saxon dominated. But that's a different story.

Yeah, so Then from there you'd gone through that. Because I want to get into your consultancy and then bring us more up to date with getting into the core treasury career that you've had in a number of different ways. But I don't want to run out of time because I know there's some good stuff. Talk us through, then the return, if you like, to we're in Malaysia, talk us through the next stages.

Well, I tired a little bit because career progress was impossible during the crisis here. I had the ambition to go back to Germany. I mean, there were a couple of developments. The euro came up, there was.cop industry sounds very exciting. So I decided for myself to go back to Germany. It didn't happen with Deutsche bank because I thought a tenor of more than 10 years is enough at that stage. And I spoke to a lot of senior people and friends and they advised me, hey, if you want to do something more exciting, leave the bank adventure somewhere else. I moved back to Germany, joined a consultant company, Ernst and Young, later Gemini. They consulted in the financial services business. That was a perfect match. I mean, if you are professional and you go into a consultancy, I thought that was a really cool move. Consultancy is completely different than corporate banking and a relationship manager. I was on the road most of the time. My then fiancee, she didn't appreciate that very much. So I only continued two years in the consultancy business as well for personal reasons. I looked for a job. I was based in Munich at that time, beginning of the 2000s and there are a couple of good Dex companies and I joined Siemens at that time that we were looking to expand in very prosperous industry, which was communications. So when we had mobile phones and networks and stuff, they were expanding, so they needed to build up the team or reinforce a team in mergers and acquisitions and in strategies or I joined them. I had a good experience in terms of, you know, how to look at financial models and so on. I worked with a strategy consultancy company. So perfect match. And yeah, beginning of 2000, I joined ZMesh and that was good journey as well. So from banking via consultancy into an industrial business.

So talk us through because we went directly into treasury per se, which is different. Some of our other guests, some that have come in early stage and then Treasury. Treasury, Treasury. Whereas you've done a much wider field and then become more of their specialist skill set and everything else, but you really knew the group. Can you talk us through what that's been like for you?

Yeah, indeed. I didn't design and pursue a Treasury career when I started and Even in those days, in the early 2000s, I never had in mind that if I would end up being in Treasury, I wanted to apply my skills in finance. Finance is exciting. After working in strategy and mergers and acquisition, I had the feeling it would make sense to join an operative business unit. As a commercial guy, there were lots of opportunities in Siemens and I moved on with a person that I worked in M and A together, and he's still in Siemens. And he took me along and I got the responsibility for operative business. For regional business, I was in charge for north and South Americas doing sales to mobile operators. At that time, there was a lot of travel exports that had, of course, advantages and disadvantages, but it was the full scope of a commercial manager, from creating offers to negotiations to steering their own organization, controlling budgeting. Project lead. Super dynamic. Yeah. And the business was booming. And I had a very good technical colleague who I spent most of the time traveling and shaping the region with. And that was something that created a lot of satisfaction. And that was not banking anymore. That was real business. And we had about sales of about 18 million euros. It was a lot of money. I got into my first managerial role at that time as well. A lot of progress, a lot of excitement, a little too much traveling. I saw a lot of Latin American countries, North America, because the clients were there and kind of exciting and interestful at the same time.

And would you recommend that as a route? Other treasury professionals, we do a lot of work with guys called Treasury 101 with. And we'll put that link in the show Notes where people can get the ebook about when you start your treasury career and develop it, which you did, you went straight into finance and you had this breadth. And then you then came into treasury at a later stage with Bosch, but you had this breadth of finance expertise. What then made you. This was 2008. And you then were like, oh, treasury, that's the place for me. Which is quite an unusual move in a way.

Yeah, you're right. And that is basically perhaps due to the time. At that time, because treasury was not a job that was advertised and where you had training courses or even academic courses, et cetera. At that time, I really happened to be in or found myself in Treasury. I had no intention to pursue a career as a treasurer because it simply did not exist in a way that exists today. My belief is it is very important that you build up a very good base of your experiences, of your knowledge, of your faculties that you have seen, because it will always come back in Treasury.

Yeah.

Whether it is commercial management, whether it is M and A, whether it is banking. Big time. Yeah. Now there's another field which I was not so exposed to in my career development, which is data and it.

Yeah.

So, as I said, I happen to found myself in treasury because Siemens communication business went a bit up. I mean, they went into a joint venture with Nokia, they sold their mobile phone business, it sort of shrank. Career opportunities were not there and I was keeping in touch with a lot of people. I was writing an application at that time and I got in touch with someone in Bosch for business development and I thought, hey, wow, business development, technical exposure, commercial exposure, that would be the right job for me. And then I was invited for an interview and I sat in the interview and the interview was interrupted after 15 minutes when the HR manager said, oh, I apologize. I think we had a miscommunication in terms of the job profile. We think the job that you are applying for is not suitable for you. We think you are channel tenant. We will recommend you internally for jobs in a different higher level. And so I got in touch with my future boss, the head of finance in Bosch, and another interview with the head of strategy, because I also did a lot of strategy in my career. And it just happened that the head of finance needed someone to run the regional treasury in Asia Pacific in a location which is. Was Shanghai. Yeah. It was a coincidence. Yeah. I mean, I had exposure to Asia. I got married to an Asian lady. We had intentions to move back to Asia over the last few years. The job was exciting. Bosch is a brilliant company and there was growth.

Yeah.

And it's much nicer to manage growth in regions such as Asia Pacific rather than to manage restructuring in other parts of the world. So, long story short, I signed up for the job. It was something like I was not able to have transpar because I could not have these usual look and see trips to Shanghai. But I made a few phone calls to friends who used to work in Shanghai or still in Shanghai. The company put me in touch with employees and I said, well, Shanghai is not bad. My wife speaks Chinese, so. And there were actually no barriers.

Yeah.

And so we packed up in 2009 after a short while at Bosch headquarters for some onboarding work for six months, where I work with the core treasury people and got to know business people from Asia Pacific here and there. We landed in Shanghai in April 2009. And what was that like?

Because it must have changed. I remember myself going out there quite a lot as well, back when we had Singapore and Then you were then coming back out there in the start of another decade, if you like. And Singapore, Shanghai and everything else, what was that like?

The pace of development is something completely different in Asia compared to other regions of the world, especially Europe. Shanghai was bustling in terms of growth. We set up a lot of illegal entities. They needed financing, they needed cash management systems, et cetera. So I grew the team. Initially, we were 2. In the end, we were like 10 plus. We had, in the end of the day, like 150 subsidiaries in the region, roughly 20, 25 billion sales revenue. I mean, that all needs to be supported. Yeah. And finance is a clear support role, and treasury is a support role. So you need to make sure that you spur the growth. You make growth as easy as possible with less risk, with concepts, methodologies, in terms of currency management, payment execution, make it easy. And definitely China is not the first destination that you would think of where you would make things easier, given the fairly strict regulatory environment and so on.

I want to ask. You'd gone out there. This comes back to the sort of finance and Treasury. Did you find you as a finance practitioner, not a Treasury specialist, when you were approaching things from a wider perspective, if you like, because of your finance background? You know, maybe then you talk to guys that were more specialist, treasury guys that come up. Did you look at things differently, you know, particularly within the region?

As I said, I had the advantage that I've worked in banking for a number of years, so it's just going onto the other side. I mean, terminology is the same. Okay. There's different IT systems, et cetera, but it's not so complicated to understand what drives treasury when you develop stuff or when you develop the business. So therefore, I had very little challenges to basically not to talk about the right things, not to look at it from the right perspective. Actually, there's no right perspective, but from a perspective of a commercial guy. And I remember that when we were like writing board approvals for setting up new businesses and so on, people in Bosch are kind of strict and they said, well, you are supposed to comment from a Treasury perspective, but not from a commercial perspective. You also comment to whether that it makes sense to do a setup of a legal entity. You need to comment what you need to do, what kind of resources, what is framework, like how to set this up. So therefore, there I got into a little friction sometime where I stepped across the unwritten lines that existed. So. And that I needed to find out.

And then you'd done a number of years in Asia Pacific and Then you made the move back or talk us through or bring us more up to date, if you will.

Yeah, in fact, these were like nine years in Asia, or rather 10 years in Asia because I spent two years in Shanghai and then another eight years in Singapore running the full fledged Asia Treasury. That was a different challenge from only managing, let's say initially the China business in terms of growth, managing growth, then the process are basically the same. I found it very enriching to be in this cultural diversity. If you have regional entities in Japan, in Korea, in the different countries of Southeast Asia, in China. I found myself that I learned a lot to see things and business from. From different perspectives. They are from different cultural backgrounds as well. I mean, the Germans, they have their own behavior, their own values, and they differ from Korean and then Chinese and Japanese people. So that was a key learning. I enjoyed this very much. And from the feedback that I got, it was not so bad because otherwise my boss would have called me back to Germany or fired me sooner or later. But in the end of the day, it was about eight years over there, which is a fairly long time, to be honest, because usually when people go overseas from their home country, they go there for the purpose of developing international views and so on. Usually for most of them they spend three to five years maximum. And for me it was extended, extended time. I think finance and treasury people are scarce in our organization. We have more engineers and controllers, which is not bad, but we had a scarce manpower and my boss felt comfortable and I was comfortable, and so therefore it ended up to be that extended period. The same issue basically came up when my predecessor in global treasury reached retirement age. So at that time the CFO caught up and said, well, who should we choose to succeed and what options do we have? And then I was given the message that were not many and that it's time to return back to Germany. And I found that exciting because the treasury role in Asia was, in terms of scope compared to my current role, completely different in scope.

Yeah.

And so there's. Well, we can talk about whether it's global or regional responsibility, but now I'm responsible for bank strategy, for example, for FX management, for asset management and external capital markets transaction. Yeah, so we didn't have this as a concept in Asia because squash is sort of centralized in that way. Also, I must admit a steep learning curve in the beginning and still a learning curve which is good. And without a learning curve, I think I would not recommend anyone to go into a job if you feel that your learning curve flatten out.

We've all been through some challenging years more recently and everything else, but we know the name Robert Bosch as a group and everything else. Can you just give us a quick overview of the group and where it's going in terms and then. So then we can relate that to treasury because we've all got through Covid and everything else. But just talk us through what you guys do now and what it's looking like for you going forward.

Bosch is the leading automotive supplier in terms of any part in the cars, whether it's from brakes, spark plugs, engine control, etc. Now the autonomous driving and the more sophisticated products and then moving into electromobility as well. And it's a sort of conglomerate because as you said in the beginning, we also have division that focus on non mobility, which is, which is equally important, such as power tools, Bosch Siemens home appliances, industrial application under the brand of Bosch Rex through a variety of businesses. How it relates to Treasury. I mean treasury is a sort of a niche faculty in the company. In my case, since I'm responsible for the market oriented functions such as credit asset management, we work a lot with outside partners, we work on, with the data from finance planning, we work on the basis of structuring credit facilities, structuring liquidity structures, managing the central exposure. So it's a bit distance from the operative business because in the end of the deal you deal with aggregated numbers. You have basically a Treasury overlay in the group and of course it develops quite quickly and the very fast paced industry you need to think about what kind of system landscape you use. Introducing new systems and landscapes and management system usually takes a long time. So a lot of forward thinking is required and that's constant change and transformation, whether it is from the pure treasury setup or whether it is an impulse from external markets, which we have seen in the past more than we wanted.

And you know, treasury terms. We've been through these challenging times and very volatile times at the moment. How are you guys very much focused on the front office? How are you looking at that? This isn't a confidential thing about the group, it's more how are you dealing with that? You know, I was talking to a number of treasurers at the moment, they're like, wow, yeah, we've been, we're really proving our worth in Treasury. How are you finding it?

As I said, treasury is basically a niche, does not get very much attention in normal times when you sail across waters, but when there's a storm popping up, it gets very busy in the CFOs and in the treasurer's department.

Yeah.

Because then crisis management comes down to managing vital functions. It started off then in 2020 or 2019 when Covid hit us and we were thinking about, hey, what's happening in the world? How long can we support? What is our burn rate? We basically had thoughts that usually happen in startup companies just on a bigger scale. And we were sitting together and cracking our heads and asking ourselves, how long can the money last, what we need to do. I mean we are lucky as a group. We have a very conservative balance sheet structure and we have a number of resources. When in business or from a company of about 80 billion euro sales has some difficulties because of external effect. It's the same in terms of managing the situation. Then you really know what it means to execute teamwork and to be precise in what you do in terms of doing the right things. And the good thing is in our treasury group, I feel there's a lot of glue between the employees and the colleagues. So they know how they work. I mean most of them have been there for, for a long period of time, their experience and this is very much valued and exactly. In that crisis it is a big advantage if you can rely on each and everyone's expertise and you know, who can do what best and that you have a clear vision that there are not too, too many decision makers.

Yeah.

As treasury we are close to the finance president and to the CFO and that helped us a lot.

And with treasury and the team and everything else, you know, I've got this treasury career corner live in London coming up soon and we, you know, the team, the three treasurers I'm talking to rather about the session and one of the key things we were talking about was how pre Covid and I don't want to get into flexible working per se, but it was like, no, we don't do flexible working. Thanks very much. Now people do, you know, gonna. But it was just the sort of. There's a difference. You know, the post Covid people are looking for slightly different things as team members of things. How do you now manage that yourself in this new kind of world, these new ways of working at things?

It was quite a drastic change, to be honest. Yeah, I mean pre Covid everyone was used to come to the office at 8:00, 8:30, people were all there and until evening and nobody questioned that status quo.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden we were asked to stay at home and take our equipment home. I mean nobody dared to take equipment from our Campus. Yeah, we need to think about, you know, how to approve this. The facility guys were like checking each and every monitor and laptop that was taken off campus and so on. And then we were also, from a legal perspective, forced to stay at home and to go into short term working arrangements. And we need to think about who can work at home, who has the facilities, how does it work, is the communication system stable, how do you work with signature processes, et cetera.

Yeah.

And there was a period of great uncertainty and it was like discovering a new world in terms of the working environment and especially when you work on, in vital functions such as payment and fx, et cetera.

Yeah.

You tend to be reliant on your, on your desk infrastructure and that the best infrastructure had to be both. And nowadays nobody questions this anymore. I mean, there are potentially some people, they would say, why do I need to go to the office at all? It works.

Yeah.

But interestingly, and I was talking about the glue amongst the team members, once we had this restriction abolished about, you know, just have to have 30% of manpower in the office, et cetera, and distant walking and keep distance, etc. People tend to move back in without being asked. I mean, they just like to work alongside each other physically in the office. When this was possible, people, people came back to the office. This was different in other departments, but I observed this in treasury. There were a lot of us quite happy to come back to the office. And now we've gone into our kind of a routine where we, amongst the teams that are in my department, they organize themselves, they say, well, we come to office Mondays and Thursdays. The other say, well, Mondays and Tuesdays or the whole week. I mean if, if they're tired of working in their basement at home, it's very flexible. And in our case this worked.

And it's weird, it's, it's sort of. Again, I joke with people that five years ago someone said, flexible working, get out of my office. And you know, there was no need for it. And we went, been through this transition. But what is interesting to me now is this new way of working. And it's more because people, just as you allude to there, people want to be together, they want that social thing. There are times, yeah, you want to just work from home. You know, I do the podcast, you know, separate to the office because you, you know, sound quality. But I can't wait to get back in the office, see those guys collaborate and everything else. Yeah, it's very different, isn't it? It's really changed.

Yeah. But the interesting thing, it can work.

Yeah.

I mean, initially three years ago we thought, but perhaps this couldn't work in this distributed working environment. So a new culture has evolved and people have adapted. And I believe that individuals are acceptable to changes in a way. Some of them are perhaps a bit more reluctant than others. But we know how to change and we know how to deal with change. And as long as there's not a clear directive from, I don't know, the political party or from whoever, I mean, we internally in Bosch promote flexibility and that can be arranged on an apartment basis or department level. And I find this very positive. Yeah, I mean there are people that, you know, they have moved out from Stuttgart and moved back to northern Germany and said, well, I'm back to the office and sit down maybe once or twice a year if there's something to discuss in the referee. I think that's not really suitable and not really fair to the peers. You have also to deal with exceptions when it comes to change.

Okay, we're coming towards the end of the show today as we do and we like to give the top tips. So we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can look at, you know, look at yourself and connect, which would be great to, you know, expand the network. If you're giving some takeaway tips, you know, you're sort of stepping back. You've heard a couple of these podcasts yourself, direct to them, maybe the more junior stuff, what they should be thinking about you. You've obviously traveled the world with your treasury, so taking it wherever you want to go and you've got that. And then maybe a bit further on in your career. What are the top tips you would say to the listeners today that they should think about and take with them?

You have to start off with being curious and to curious and to explore. And that is the starting point. And then if you have this intrinsic motivation, you are willing to learn, you need to absorb and it's like a sponge, for example.

Yeah.

And then it depends on your individual setup. For example, I was interested to go overseas and to work on international base. Maybe some of them are more curious about detailed introverted faculties, for example. But if you, if you are curious and willing to learn, you can progress and don't follow a model.

Yeah.

Or let's say a long term career model. You can have an objective, but I think in our environment you need to maintain the flexibility to change, change your direction very quickly if you choose to work in a corporate environment is something different compared Whether you work on your own, I guess, or start off as an influencer or whatsoever. But in a company, you have to create and maintain purpose and stay relevant for the company. And whatever you do, get as much training as possible. I mean, we have always tight budgets and so on, but make yourself known and offer to volunteer. Yeah, this is, this is a main thing that I look out for in applications and in cvs.

Yeah.

I mean, how diverse a young graduate has come across in the studies phase.

Yeah.

And important, I think, is also wherever you are, maintain peer exchange. I've experienced this in Asia. It's very popular there to meet peers and to exchange views. Maybe less here in Germany, but also in the us it's relevant. Talk to your mates, talk to your university people, talk to your practitioners that you meet on events in banks and so forth. This is how you stay relevant. This is how you can expand your horizon and basically can contribute to the. To the development of a company. And you need to evolve and encourage and execute change all the time. Yeah. Sometimes faster, sometimes shorter, sometimes like.

Amazing takeaway, sir. We obviously caught up recently at a conference. It was great to see you. Looking forward to seeing you again in the future. And thanks today and people will be. I know that you'll be inundated with connection requests, so get, get ready for that as well. Thanks for your time.

Very much appreciate the opportunity to have a chat with you over here in this podcast. Thank you, Mike.

Thanks.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe, depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there, you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And as see you can, can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce. Every week it'd be amazing. Just take, say, 20 seconds, leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait to see you soon.