Building a Defensive Treasury Strategy with Dimitris Damdimopoulos

I'm a big advocate of change. I think we can never find ourselves sitting still. If you see yourself sitting still for longer than is comfortable then you're just not doing the best of your abilities and I don't know where that comes from. I probably, you know, put lay a lot of the blame on my mother, she's a very focused individual but that's what kept driving me forward. So when my career in the British army came to an end at that time, a friend gave me a call and he said, look mate, what are you doing? Come to London. The finance industry, banking and corporates are crying out for people like you. And you know, to my, to my credit or discredit, I took him up on that offer. Packed my clothes with a bag full, just enough for the weekend, thought to myself, well if I get lucky I'll stay. If I don't, well, I can move back to Northern Ireland. And it was at that point that, you know, I met with hsbc, the treasury people there and they decided to put a punt on me which I think just to be clear, they don't usually make punks but I think in this case it was a bit of a hedge. So they brought me on board and from there that's really how I got involved into the finance industry. We knew we were under an aggressive takeover. We did everything in our power to try and prevent that to a degree, so I say to a degree because obviously we ended up getting sold. But during that process we were able to build up a very reactive, fast moving and I guess defensive treasury strategy spearheaded by Tom Jack at the time, which was the new group treasurer, Matt Norris who was head of front office. So together with the ideas coming from those two we're able to build up a significant war chest. We expanded our short term debt portfolio and we defended Cadbury's to the best of our ability. Now that was an amazing situation to be in. Not only that fact that I sort of came from a military background. So me, it was very much playing on those emotions that we were defending. You know, this is our place. And Capris was more than a place to work, it was very much culture. You know, we worked together not only within treasury but within the greater finance function. We worked together as a very well oiled machine. So unfortunately the day came, the acquisition did move forward and at that point it just felt, you know, that we'd lost. It wasn't so much that it was anything through what we could have done better. It just felt that, you know, there wasn't it was no longer there. The team had moved into a place where we were now looking at a different model, a different business, a different attitude to moving our way forward. And, you know, for some of us, myself included, it was a story, I thought that had come to its natural conclusion. You've got to be open to change, you've got to take those opportunities, but if you don't take them yourself, what sort of person are you? And I think it was kind of that spirit that I really wanted to reinforce and prove to myself that it was something I could do. I'd seen various friends and colleagues doing over my lifetime and my career and I thought, you know, I want to be one of those people. I want to take this to a new level. And they're sure be anything after this that puts me off, that frightens me. You know, once you've dealt with that challenge, I think others are much easier to face.