Becoming a Group Treasurer at 26 with Markus Kede

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I speak to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next this week's show, I'm joined by Marcus Kader, the director of Group treasury and Insurance at H. Lundbeck, based in Denmark. Now Lundbeck, a global pharmaceutical group that actually specialize in the improving the quality of life for people living with brain diseases. And so they're engaged very much in research, development, manufacturing and you know, around psychiatry and neurology. Lots of tough words at the beginning of a podcast. There you go. But actually I'll get Marcus to explain a bit more about what they do now. It's very interesting podcast today when we go through that. Marcus actually became a group treasurer at one stage at age 26 and you know, as his role as most recent role is expanding outside of treasury as well. So we get into both of those areas. But let me take it back to the beginning if we would. Marcus, you started in Treasury a few years ago now, so perhaps talk us about how you first discovered finance and treasury after leaving university or whatever. Or take me back to there if you would.

Yeah, sure. Thanks Mike. And first of all, thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm very happy to be part of it. Yeah, I think I'm coming into my 10 year anniversary this year actually. I started out in my treasury career back in 2009 just after the financial crisis. A little bit of a special situation I'd say. I actually came into treasury already a little bit before that. So during my studies, my university studies, I tried to find out how to put myself in a little bit better position compared to my peers who also studied. And then I decided to do, to work on the side to both study and work at the same time and had a few different finance jobs, very bas junior high jobs. And then I came into a Nordic Treasury Department which was at least called a Treasury Department. Now afterwards I think I found out that it wasn't really treasury what we were doing, but it was called treasury at least it was basically managing the payments of the Nordic center in that company. But that, that was kind of the first introduction to treasury and I thought it was quite interesting. So when I was closing my graduation for my master studies, I yeah, looked around for different kinds of opportunities and I had a few different options. One of them were at the Treasury Department at a company called Quintet, which is a European worker company. At their Treasury Department. And they came from a situation where they basically had a one man strong Treasury Department back before the financial crisis. And then they went into default in their financing agreement. And I think the board of the company found out that this pressure thing is actually quite important. They decided to step the Treasury Department. So they bought in one senior person and then they also wanted to hire a junior, more junior person, which became me.

Can you just explain? You know, again, not many people know quintet, so perhaps just give a bit more of an explanation because they workwear group and stuff or. But they were owned by private equity, so a real focus on cash, I think. How big are the group? And you know, what was the. When you walked in the door, what was the group, how was it structured?

Yeah, it was owned by a private equity company. It's called IK Investment Partners, Nordic Private Equity. It was a company about a billion euro in revenue, about 3,000 employees. And European based companies, they had sales primarily focused in Europe and then they sourced from Asia. And it was mentioned that they just broke the covenant in their financing agreement as a consequence of the financial crisis. And a big drop in Switzerland's very cyclic. A big drop in the demand for workwear and it was a very big focus on treasury and the treasury area. So it was a very interesting time of. Interesting is maybe not the correct word, but from my personal development at least, it was very interesting time of the company's life, so to say. And being private equity owned, as many other private equity owned companies, it was highly leveraged. And then if things are not progressing as you plan and the figures are not coming in as you plan, quite tough. And that was. It was a very tough period in the company. They wanted to change a lot of things both internally within the company, streamlining ERP systems or changing the supplier setup and a lot of different things which made it quite turbulent as well. So it was a very interesting period to start out as a junior in a Treasury Department. Obviously a very high focus on cash and liquidity and all of the core treasury social aspects.

And how did that affect you? You say, you know, it's a great time to be in there, but how did it affect you personally? And what I mean by that is it's your first job in treasury, real job post uni, and you're in there and what the CFO is coming to your desk every day and saying, right, what's our cash position? How did you deal with that pressure, if you like?

Yeah, so when I started in a quite junior position, I was quite Fortunate having the good pressure, taking me out of his arms, so to say, and spending a lot of time on my development and really educating me in all parts of fishery. And he was very experienced and had been on the bank side before and had really great knowledge and experience. So I had during my first year it was extremely high focus on cash and liquidity specifically, which I spent a lot of time on. And it was basically, as you're saying, in the worst periods it was allocating which payments to pay and which payments to postpone. And that was tough for sure, but it was also extremely high or steep learning curve.

And then he left and you then were promoted to treasurer at age 26. Was that a bit head spinning ish or what?

It was for sure. The story behind it was that he moved, the group treasurer moved after I'd been in company a little bit more than a year. So I had a really steep learning curve during that first year. And then the CFO took the interim position as the group treasurer. So we were a small team of three people. And then we were then only two, two left. And then the CEO having seen good pressure whilst he was looking for a new group treasurer. So he spent I think in total almost a year trying to look for a new good treasure. And during that year I more and more took over the responsibilities of the department. And after about a year I went knocking on the CEO's door, talking a bit about what happened and how the development of finding the, the good treasure went and in a subtle way asking if I wouldn't be a potential candidate for that position. And he had very much appreciated the work I've been doing. And then he said that it was asking a little bit towards my age, I hold if I was about 30. Because he said that all his candidates that he had been looking for, if they came anyone below 30, they would never have even come in the door then. I was at that point 26. I was a little bit lucky because he had once a boss that took a very great chance on him. So he actually became CEO for the first time when he was 30. He had a track record himself of someone putting a chance on him when he was in a young age and felt that he wanted to do the same on me. So I think it was a little bit of a risk and a little bit of chance from his perspective. But I think he, I hope at least he, he thought it was successful in them, but that was definitely tough. But I think, I mean being young and ambitious, working hard, I didn't think so. Much about it at the time. It was for sure high pressure, but I didn't really think about it in that way at the time.

How did you think about it then? You know, how do you handle pressure?

No, it was more, I mean there were a job to be done, was quite tough, long hours, a lot of work to do. But at the same time we did so many things and I was very deeply involved in the business given that liquidity and the treasury area was very high focus within the whole company. I mean, we were in dialogues with the CFO and the CEO on a weekly basis, at least discussing liquidity, discussing how we would manage treasury related things. So it was very interesting. So it was more that aspect of it. I was driven by more than fear of realizing the big responsibility we had.

And you were the group treasurer for what, three years there, is that right?

Yeah.

And then why the move? What happened? You know, you're the treasurer of this group, you know, a lot of pressure. Did it just get to you or what happened?

No, I think it's. I mean at that point I'd been there for five years, had two years before I was promoted and three years as with treasurer. And then the company continued going sideways, you could say we had three refinancing processes during those five years and the company didn't really manage to do the turnaround. That was heated. It was quite close to bankruptcy and we had basically the banks more or less standing with the keys in their hands wondering what to do with the business. For one point it became quite difficult and uncertain period. At the same time as I'd been there for five years, I felt that it was kind of the same going around. It was the same tasks and the same questions and the same atmosphere. So I felt that I wanted to develop my career and do something differently, do something new and get a new opportunity. I was looking for some different opportunities myself at the time. I was approached by a headhunter from Copenhagen. So I'm maybe should have said that initially I'm Swedish and the first company were in Sweden. But then I was contacted by a headhunter from Copenhagen asking if I would be interested to work in Copenhagen in a pharmaceutical company on the Danish stock exchange. And that was a fundamentally different type of company. So going from a private equity owned company that is very short sighted and having quite tough financial problems to a pharmaceutical company by nature being long term, having an owner with a foundation and being a financially stable company, being on the stock exchange compared to being a private company, it was very, very different. But it was a much bigger company. So at the time they had a revenue of about 2.5 billion euros and around 6,000 employees. So a step up, whilst at the same time it's totally different circumstances. At the time I joined Lundbeck, which is the same company as I'm with today, and I joined in a position that were. It was a Treasury apartment of four people at the time and they had one group treasurer and then two specialized persons in the treasury team, one being responsible for cash management and one being responsible for FX and liquidity. And then they hired me as being a cross functional, working across the department, also working with different types of projects and also towards other departments.

I was going to say. So you initially joined as the treasury manager, as you say, across that, reporting directly into the treasurer, I'm assuming, was the plan at that stage when you joined, you'd been a treasurer, not a step down, but a step into that role, but a much bigger company. Were you being brought in saying, right, we want you to be the treasurer one day. Was that their progression or was that not on the cards?

My view were that I want, at that point I wanted to broaden myself a little bit. I aimed for a company, a bigger company with bigger opportunities, let's say. So I think my plan at the time were to maybe do two to three years in the Treasury Department trying to do a good job and then hoping there would open up opportunities maybe potentially outside of Treasury. And at the time, the group treasurer had been there for 13, 14 years and didn't have any plans to move. So I didn't really see that as an opportunity at the time, but more to maybe seek opportunities outside of treasury or the treasury area.

Use it as a stepping stone sort of thing.

Yeah. So then things happen. Quite. So this was back in October 14th when I joined Lundbeck and quite early thereafter. They actually hired their CEO just a couple of months afterwards. And as I said, Bloomberg is a solid company. I was used to very, very quick turnarounds and we had three CEOs and I think four CFOs on the five years I were in quintet. So I was used to these kind of changes. For me it wasn't the big thing, but for them it was quite a very big thing, hiring the CEO. But then the company went into a restructuring process where they actually in August 2015 hired or laid off around 1,000 of their 6,000 employees, reducing from 6,000 to 5,000. And then during that process, I was quite heavily involved in the financing discussions to finance the restructuring process and some Other processes around that, together with the group treasurer's boss, so the vice president of the area. And I felt quite quickly that I had a role also after the refinancing of the restructuring process because obviously, I mean, being new six months into a job and they had a big restructuring process. A big risk is of course that you are the one being laid off again. But it turned out that we decided to restructure the Treasury Department a little bit to lay off the good treasurer. So you had to leave the company. And then we, the remaining three of us in Treasury Department reported all to the vice president. And in that period I also had dialogues with him to, yeah, in the coming years to assume the position as the good treasurer. So I was the second in command or second in line, you could say there were a few episodes or other incidents where one or the other team members in the Treasury Department decided to leave as well. So we needed to hire a new colleague. And then I approached our VP saying that if I am to assume the responsibility of the department within a year or so, which we were discussing, I felt it maybe would be a good timing when we are recruiting someone, that I made the recruitment in a good dialogue. We agreed that I already, a few months after the former group treasurer were laid off, that I resumed the responsibility for the, the Treasury Department. But then I, yeah, I assume the role as good treasurer of the company.

Well, what's it been like since you said very turbulent times from the, you know, the markets, you know, number of CEOs, number CFOs, when that's happening and you're in that treasury role, you know, how do you manage upwards? What are you focusing on as well as getting through that situation? What are the key things? You know, perhaps if there's someone listening today and they're thinking, actually that's the same as us. What are the key tips for success, would you say in dealing in that situation?

I think for me it was to get structure and get predictability and ensure that we had all the basics in control. And it was the same in the previous company in Quintet, where we needed to have the liquidity in control. And then when I assumed the good pressure position in Lundbeck, one of my first focus areas was to streamline all the processes. We did a lot of manual things, we did a lot of time consuming things that were not very value adding. So we spent quite a lot of time initially to update our treasury system, for example, and review basically all the processes we had to identify what actually made both value to the company. And things that basically there were some examples of processes that they did that they had done for several years, but no one questioned who benefited from the processes. And some of them actually discontinued in total. Exactly. So that freed up quite a lot of time so that we were able to turn around a little bit focusing on operational day to day business into more streamlining that part so that we could focus on more tactical and strategic parts of the first.

And when we spoke before the show today, and we had a pretty brief call as well, you talked about how, you know, some Treasuries are very inwardly focused. You know, they look after the cash and everything else. You're very much trying to take treasury into the finance organization. You're really externally focused. I'm not talking external to the company, but you're really trying to get embedded with the other finance and have some really good relationships. How are you doing that? You know, describe that process perhaps again for the listeners who are thinking, oh, that's something we should be doing. How are you going through that?

Yeah, so I think my mindset is quite open. I'm very interested. I think I'm a bit business oriented person as well. I like to understand how the business works and not only the treasury parts, but also the business as a whole and getting involved in things that is not called treasury but also linked to other departments and other areas. I have that holistic mindset. You can say holistic view in how to manage the department and that's also how I'm trying to build my team and in not having specialized people that are only. Not the only, but are really good at specific tasks but more having generalists and people that have a similar mindset of wanting to do more than what is just written in your job description. I think that's a key mentality to have that you are interested in doing more than just what's written in your description.

Yeah, I was going to say. So you're a relatively young group treasurer. You know, I say that because a number of the clients I talk to, you know, the treasurers are in their 40s, 50s and things like that. Does that make a difference to your management style defined when you're coaching and managing people both when you're at quintet and now in this role. Do you find that you're a different kind of treasurer, different kind of manager, if you like?

Yeah, I have for sure involved quite a lot. I believe myself and hope that others can recognize that as well. Putting more emphasis on the soft skills and the leadership skills, the culture and mindset and all those aspects. I think in my early days of my managerial career it was extremely much focused on delivering the tasks and maybe not so much on the. On the soft skills. I assumed that I was viewed as a quiet task manager. I obviously thought a lot about my age myself. But for example, when I became the group treasurer of Quintet at 26, I then became manager of my. My colleague who was at the time around 45 and had 10 years of experience in finance. So I thought quite a lot about that. But I never saw it as a problem externally or from others such that someone questioned me in my leadership role. But it's definitely something that I've been working on and both doing training and courses both internally in the companies I've been and also external to try to develop those skills as well. I think one important part that I've learned during my career is the management style and I'm quite detail oriented person and like to do things in my way and do it myself. That's the whole delegation phase and trusting the team and putting responsibility to teammates is something that I've been working on quite a lot and. And the more responsibility you get then it becomes impossible to do everything yourself and then you're being forced into delegate as well, which is I think a very good thing.

Good thing. And then we. So the listeners, we recently attended and spoke at the Group Treasurers Exchange. We did our treasury career corner live on stage with three other participants. It was great then because I got to meet Marcus and catch up with him and persuaded him to come on the show, which is fantastic. Now you went to that conference. I actually commented that it was very frustrating as sort of an exhibitor stroke someone outside of the conference, that there was no one around and people oh, what? No, it's not that good. No, it's brilliant because everyone was in the sessions and it seemed that they'd got a really good mix of sessions. It's not just a big advert for those guys. But actually I was really impressed and thought, you know, good conference you went to that conference. What was it you were looking for when you were there? What were you as a treasurer? You'd come, it wasn't around the corner, you know, this was based in London and things like that, you'd manage, you know, came all the way across to Sweden. What was it that you were looking for and how do you see yourselves, you know, as a group developing sort of thing. What was it you were seeking to develop as a treasurer?

Yeah, I've actually joined the group Treasures Exchange A few times before when they had their sessions in Germany. Yeah, I knew the concept and the structure a little bit and obviously I tried to attend as much conferences as possible. Hopefully my ambition is always to have at least a couple of new pointers with you back home. And some say, okay, then you spend 10 hours at a conference and you get free things. But it's three things more than if I sat in the office and watched my computer. So I think it's a good thing if you can get some new inspiration. I think the format of the good pressure exchange is quite nice because it's very varying, as you said, it's a good mix between speeches or presentations and roundtable discussions and these one to ones and they also have some, I think they're trying to emphasize on a variety of different topics and different formats during the two days so you don't get tired and bored of just sitting and listening to presentations, for example, which some conferences could be set up like.

And hopefully mine wasn't too boring when you're sitting there. We had quite a good discussion, definitely.

I actually think that was a really, really interesting format and something. I mean, a variety of a new concept that you don't see as much as conferences. I really, really liked it.

It was good, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's funny with ours because I discussed it with the guys that I did it. Jason Spanos from Coke, Matthew Norris from Petrafac and Topi Jogaranta from Retic, and they'd all worked together at Capri, so they sort of came together and they went their different ways sort of thing. And we talked about that. Why I enjoyed that actually, this session over perhaps some of the other bits was usually we're talking to an audience of treasury analysts, managers and it's sort of sharing some of the war stories or some coaching for how to get to number one job. But just like yourself, you're in the number one job. So in a way we couldn't really do that with those guys, you know, with yourself. And we were saying to the audience, look, this isn't to say how to get to the number one jobs. There were lots of other group treasurers in there, but we were trying to sort of tie talk about some of the challenges that they face within talent management and within people and things like that, bringing that to yourself. We touched on it there a little bit as your management style and things like that. What do you see as the future of Treasury? How do you see it developing people and obviously there's technology and everything else. How are you seeing treasury develop, as it were?

Yeah, I see a big challenge going forward both within treasury and Finance as a, as a whole. As you mentioned a little bit before, I've just been leading our global finance strategy project the last half year within Lundbeck, so I've been very, very much spending thoughts around this topic. How finance will evolve, both treasury and Finance as a whole evolve within the next couple of years. And digitization is for sure very interesting and important topic for Finance and Treasury organizations to continue to be on top and continue to be workforce. I think that goes very much hand in hand with digitization and talent development because you need the right people. We need a diversified group, both diversified in terms of gender, in terms of ethnical background and also in terms of skill sets. So I don't think that the best Treasury Department going forward will be consisting of pure hardcore treasury people, but a mix of different kinds of skill sets could be more technical people, obviously finance people, but also people coming in with different mindsets and helping out and supporting the digitalization journey and how to utilize the new tools both in terms of making your departments more efficient, but also to creating more and better insights and being able to take better decisions to help support the business in the right way. I definitely think the talent development and the digitalization goes very much hand in hand.

And when you are looking at talent management, obviously this is a podcast hosted through the treasury recruitment company. So that's our key focus about the people and everything else. When you're looking at, you're looking to recruit, what is it you're looking for from a CV or resume? Is it, are you looking for qualifications or given your background, you know, getting to group treasurer at 26, you perhaps have a different view. Maybe, you know, sometimes I want to see this, this, this and this very long career history with yourself. You perhaps a bit sounds like you're a bit more open minded because you're just looking because of your history, you know, what is it you're looking for, would you say?

I'm not that much looking at experiences, what's written and what you've done. It's more on the mindset and the capabilities. As I said before, I very much like to work with people that have a, you could say ownership mentality that looks at the company as if it were their own, that they do go to work every day and do it as if they were their own company. That mindset is very key and very engaging as well, both for the colleagues you work with and post the partner collaboration as well, of course, having good, skilled, clever people, it doesn't need to be clever in the way that you've done financing process or one side financing process. It's just a mindset and being quick at understanding, grasping new situations, being a problem solver. Some of the best people in my team is the people where you can give them a task. No matter if it's something they did before or something they've never done before. You're confident that they will solve the task. They will find out, they will know who to go to, who to collaborate with and how to solve the task. So you're never worried about if they have the right experience to solve the task, because you know that as a person, they will find a way to.

Solve it, to do it.

And that kind of mentality and capabilities is something that I'm looking for.

You're looking for. Okay, as we wrap up today's show, as always, we'll put your, the link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes so you can connect with Marcus if it's good to have you and the other people in your network, which would be great. But as you look back through your history, obviously it's, you know, not the longest history. It's great, you know, you made this progression, you know, within 10 years and everything else, and people are going to go, wow, that's actually something I want to copy or replicate, if you like. What are the tips that you would perhaps give for those, you know, for some of the listeners at home, you know, the treasure analysts, treasury managers who are going, actually, I want to follow and do that. What would you say? Is it that qualification? Is it about attitude? What are the key things you're looking for?

Sort of thing might be a little bit of repetition, what I've said, but the first and very important aspect is to work hard. I mean, the more you get your fingers into, the more you learn and the more experiences you get and the better you become. Working hard is a very important part of it. And then grasping opportunities as they arise. Always be up for new challenges. Putting yourself out there, making yourself available. If something comes along, just be positive and open, open to do new things. And then the third and last thing I would say is, as I mentioned a few times, having this holistic view, the ownership mentality, really taking ownership of everything you do, not only within your own area, but also helping your colleagues and helping people around you is something that will definitely enable new things to come your way. So if you do it, do it well, new and better things will come.

To you as well do on to others as you would unto yourself sort of thing. And that's not me bashing a Bible, it's more just, you know, an ethos. You know, if you do help those other guys, then it, it pays back really, doesn't it as well pay it forward sort of thing.

Exactly.

Marcus, it's been great today. Lovely to chat to you. As I say guys, if you want to connect with Marcus and it's right to have him in your part of your treasury network, I'm sure you will look at the show notes, connect with Marcus. All the remains for me to say is, Marcus, thank you very much for your time today and I look forward to seeing you for a beer next time. Well, I'm either in the Nordics or you're down in Lond, so it'd be great to see you.

Sounds great. Thanks, Mike, for having me. It's been a blast.

Many thanks.