Building a State-of-the-Art Corporate Treasury From Scratch

Have a quick listen to Julien and I talking about him and his Treasury career. Here's a little extract.

We also, from a Treasury perspective, issued a contingent bond at that time, $200 million. The clear message was we want to go through the pandemic, likelihood of 99.9%. Okay. That was our aim at the time. And we did very successful. So that was 2020. And you can also think that interrupted a bit the implementation of our new strategy at that time. So we had to refocus. Our work on liquidity, especially on liquidity and our cash flow. And then I would say late '20, early '21, we could continue on implementing our strategy so that now I would say 7 years later, we have a state-of-the-art corporate treasury in place. Super proud of my team, what we have accomplished as a team. And when I also compare ourselves with other stock-listed companies, we are very well positioned.

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 treasurers about how they built 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 Julien Mouet, the now head of corporate treasury at TUV Rheinland Group. Now, TÜV Rheinland, for those people that don't know it, I didn't know myself until I did my research, is a world-leading independent testing service company. We've been going for over 145 years, employing over 20,000 people around the world. Yeah, pretty big company, generates an annual turnover of almost €2 billion. Now, I know that Julian's recently come in as the group treasurer there just a few months ago. What I'll do is get Julian to talk through his background, he'll perhaps give a bit more explanation of what TÜV are about and everything else. Now, I was going I was going to say to you again, Julian, tell us about your career today and how you got started. I actually had played a part in this because I originally moved Julian from DHL and Deutsche Post to a company, little-known company called Johnson Controls. And we interviewed Mark van den Bendijk in one of our previous episodes. So if people are interested in that, you can hear a bit more about Johnson Controls and everything else. And we'll put some links in there. But as I say every week, it's enough about me, enough of my wittering on. Let's get into talking to Julian. Junot, talk me through, if you would, your career today, how you got your start in Treasury, and maybe from university dates up to now, and let's talk about the future of Treasury, if you would. So over to you, where did you first start?

Sure, Mike. First of all, thank you for inviting me to the podcast. So it's a real pleasure to participate to the podcast. I know that's something that you have introduced, I think, a couple of years ago. I'm pleased to provide my input. You and me, we know each other since, I think, 2003, as you just mentioned. So I think we are a long-standing relationship. You're an important partner to me in my professional pleasure to, to participate to your podcast. Yeah, coming back to me, I'm 42 years old, 2 children, living in Cologne. I started actually my career in Treasury, but before that, obviously, I was studying. I had, as a young man, basically, I had a couple of interests in life. One of them was music, and the other one was always interesting about everything which was happening around me. I was reading a lot of newspaper, so that was actually, or that were my 2 main interests in life. I, to be honest, after my A-level, I tried, really tried to, to become a professional in music. So playing the piano.

What instrument? So you were, so you're a piano player, were you?

I'm a piano player and I also play the flute. And after the A-level, I told myself, hey, that's a great hobby. Let's try to make it my job, to do my job. So I will try to dedicate one year after the A-level preparing myself to enter into a high school of music in Germany. And actually, it didn't work out at the end of this one year. I said, okay, what should I do? Should I try another year with the risk of failing again, or should I be more conservative and pragmatic and work out my second interest, second passion, which is basically what's happening around me, economics, newspaper? So I was basically, okay, let's start studying economics. I started studying economics in France where I did basically my bachelor's, and after my bachelor's, I decided basically to start working. I was, as a young man, also very keen to become independent. I wanted to earn my own money. So I decided to join the job market at an early stage, just after the bachelor. Then I started looking for a job, and to be honest, it was really coincidence. There was a job opening for Sanofi-Aventis. That's a pharmaceutical company. They were looking for a treasury guy. And then I would say, okay, treasury, why not? I've never studied anything in treasury in the university. Treasury was not part of what I've done in university. So it's really a coincidence. And I said, okay, let's try it. Let's try it out. It sounds interesting. Sanofi-Aventis is a big, large company, international a French company. It's also, it was at that time a merger from Rhône-Poulenc, a French company, and Hoechst, a German company. Also from that perspective, fits out very much my profile. My father's French, my mother is German. I say, why not? And that's how I started in Treasury, to be honest. So it was really a coincidence.

Happy accident.

And an accident, pardon. And then basically I've never left Treasury since then. And that was in, I think, 2000, 2001. I started in Sanofi Aventis in a, I would say, typical cash management role, managing the daily liquidity of the group and a bit managing the bank relationship on the day-to-day of the group. It was pretty interesting. It was my first experience. I stood there something like 2 and a half years before basically moving on. I think it was the right time to move on from a, from a content perspective. I've seen, I worked around the job and I was happy basically to, to take up the next opportunity, which was Deutsche Post in Germany. In that move, I also moved from one country to the other one, basically from France to Germany. At that time, I met my wife who is German. So, I didn't move only job, but also moved my private and personal life. Exactly. So, it was a big change.

What was the shift or what did the shift feel like to you, a French-based treasury to a German-based treasury? Did they approach treasury differently or was it exactly the same and just a different country? Or how did that affect you? And what was the difference from Deutsche Post or Aventis to Deutsche Post? What was their approaches?

Aventis and Deutsche Post are both national companies. These are two multinational companies with a very strong, I would say, American culture for both. Even though Aventis is, I would say, a French company, which is the result of a merger between a German and French company, you have been dealing, I have been dealing with a lot of international people, English-speaking people. So it was not necessarily a pure French culture and a pure French atmosphere. So it was at that time already international. So was Deutsche Post at that time when I started. So to be honest, there was not a big culture shock or culture differences within the company when moving from Sanofi Aventis to Deutsche Post.

Well, talk us through the roles at Deutsche Post and your progression there, because you did some, you joined and then you progressed within the group before then eventually joining Johnson Controls and came out again. But talk us through the roles that you'd had and how how you, because you started as a contributor and then became, if you like, a manager. And I was actually recently, we did our Treasury Career Corner live event in Luxembourg. And one of the guys afterwards, another Julian actually, I mentioned him as well. He said to me, one of the key questions he wished he'd asked, which he should have done was how do you make that move from, or manage that move from being a contributor and running and doing your job How do you successfully then become a manager? What did a number of the panel members? So, it's a question I'm going to try and ask a little bit more on the podcast, and so I'll ask you as well. How did you make that transition as you progressed and things?

Yeah, sure. So, I really, as you just mentioned, I started as an analyst, as a contributor at Deutsche Post in 2004, and I was basically focusing on, at that time, cash flow forecasting and liquidity planning, more looking at, I would say, the long-term planning, whether the short-term cash management have been so done so far at, at Sanofi Aventis. So it was basically, uh, I would say an extension or further development of my skills in the area of liquidity and cash management. Company Deutsche Post at that time was very interesting because 2004, basically when I joined, which is actually just after or the year after they acquired two big multinational companies, which was at that time DHL And Danzas, Deutsche Post AG at that time was a domestic company, obviously, in the mail business. So the challenge here was integrating two multinational companies into Deutsche Post AG, but at the same time, basically optimizing processes, i.e., setting up and putting new processes within Deutsche Post, because Deutsche Post was not an international company. Deutsche Post was not equipped at that time to, from a people and from a process standpoint, to integrate these two companies. So it was an integration initiative, but also were a big optimization initiative at the same time. Deutsche Post at that time hired quite some people from the external market to make it happen. And I was one of them, basically. And that was very interesting because it was 2004 and the following years were very interesting years for me because I had the opportunity to set up an entirely new treasury department together with Daniel Robrecht, who was my, basically my boss at that time, the group treasurer from DHL, and also leading basically integration initiatives. So I've been learning a lot, or I did learn a lot during that period. So Deutsche Post was, for my, in my career, key. Very rapidly, basically, I moved from a, as you just mentioned, from a contributor to manager role, then basically leading what we call at that time operations and controlling. So I was basically the guy that set up guidelines for the group. I was also controlling that basically the group was acting these guidelines. So there was a, I would say, governance function, a controlling function, a reporting function. I was also responsible for, I would say, typically operations, means systems, processes within corporate treasury. So with a direct interaction with IT. So it was also a very interesting role. So it allowed me at that time also to further grow within the treasury area from a content perspective. From a management perspective, sure, it was my first management experience at that time. Danny, at that time, just gave me the chance, say, okay, you're a good guy, you were performing, you're dedicated, you care about what you're doing, and you have the potential to move to a manager role. And obviously, yes, the first month, 3 years were, were challenging to me. What, what allowed me to become a good manager also from that perspective, obviously, was training, okay, that formal training, how to behave as a manager, what is a manager, but also a lot of reflection and a lot of thoughts with myself, okay, what does it mean being a manager? What is the difference between a leader and a manager? Actually, no, I rather want to be a leader than a manager, right? At the end, it doesn't matter whether you have direct reports, straight-line reporting. What it means and what it matters is that you're capable through your leadership to attract people, to inspire people. So, just little things like don't speak about the "I," don't use the word "I," but rather use the word "we," right? You're part of a team, right? And you're not just succeeding in your career without the team. So, the team is more important than actually the manager, and I don't see myself as a manager, but I see rather myself as a, as a leader.

So, Julian, we've got people sitting at home now who have— they've just heard your part of the story where you said you were questioning yourself, you're going home at night, you know, how do I lead these people rather than just manage them and things like that? What are the tips you would perhaps give them? They're sitting there going, oh yeah, that resonates with me, I really understand that. But you as a leader versus a manager, what are the what advice would you give them? Only needs to be a couple of pieces because we're going to then move on. And as you then took on more senior leadership roles and things like that, but what are the tips you would give to those guys?

Yeah, the first tip I would give to these guys is basically, as a leader, you're not the only one that, that knows everything, and you're the one that basically instructs and dictates to your people what they have to do. And you're not the one that alone tells your people where they have to go. So you have to integrate your people into, I would say, the decision-making process. So when you set the strategy for the group, you have to include your people in, in, in setting that. So that's the first tip I would give. The second one is basically within the group, you have to be capable to, to set up and to allow a certain, or to define a certain number of rules, right? And to separate the right culture. And one of the key cultures you have to install within the group is an open communication. So you have to allow an open communication between you and the people, but You also have to accept that your people have no communication to you, and that includes basically, I would say, a kind of 360-degree feedback culture. So that's very important. And the third tip I would here suggest to the people, to the young people that would like to become a manager or a leader, is basically you also have, as a leader, you need to be inspiring. You have to have the capacity also to tell to your people when they've done good things, to reward them, not only go back to your people when things go wrong, but you also go back to them when things go well. So, Goosing as a motto would be the third tip I would provide to young people.

So you did in total, what, 6 years at Deutsche Post DHL, and then you got this phone call from this random treasury recruiter out of the blue and said, hey, let's move you to Berkshire. I think that's how you say it. So I approached you back in those days about a role, Johnson Controls, you weren't necessarily looking for a move, but what attracted you to Johnson Controls and how come you made a move? And I know the reasons, but let's tell the listeners a little bit about that, if you would.

Yeah, it was around 2009, I think. I was something like 6 years already with the company, with Deutsche Post DHL. I've gone through a lot of interesting positions, a lot of interesting projects. I felt very comfortable on all the areas concerning pure, I would say, corporate treasury functions. That's a typical back, middle, and front office. But I was basically missing at that time, I would say, more the business support part, right? The treasury being in contact with the local finance director, with procurement, with sales, with the different, I would say, functions within the corporations in order to support and advise them how to manage financial risk. So really, I would say the linked to the business that I was basically missing. Well, I was more into, so far, operating into, I would say, the technical corporate treasury functions. I wanted to move aside and go to the business. But that, that was basically the profile of the job at Johnson Controls at that time that you came up with, right, Mike Richards, at that time? And that was a determining argument to me to take up this opportunity. At that time, also Deutsche Post changed a bit, I would say, the culture. When I started 2003-4, Deutsche Post was operating a bit like a startup, a lot of changes, a lot of activity, a lot of projects, great hands-on mentality. 6, 7 years later, Deutsche Post, all the structure, the processes, the systems have been implemented, and then Deutsche Post was more, I would say, in a stable environment and then operating like a huge multinational company, €50 billion plus turnover, where from a sudden the decision-making processes were much longer than it was during the, I would say, the ramp-up and the project phase. So I was getting into more into a day-to-day kind routine job, and I felt it was time to take the new challenge. Johnson Controls, always a great multinational company, American company, and I think that that was at that time the right move to pursue my career.

And your role itself, you weren't at the central treasury team that was based in Belgium, you were actually out in the business and working as a sort of central treasurer. If you like, senior manager treasurer, where the businesses were coming to you, which was— so it was a bit of a different role to just day-to-day corporate treasury and maybe operational treasury. This was operational, this was consultancy, this was advising the business. How did you make that transition? But why was that great to you? Because it was a great position at the time as well.

It was a great position, and it was the right fit at that time and the right next move. So as you just mentioned, yeah, I want to go out to the business. I want to learn more and to learn also outside the treasury area. So that, that was my primary focus. And obviously that was a different job, right? Here you're a consultant, so you're not sitting in your ivory tower, but you're, you're on the field. You're speaking with the business people. So you have to build up a great network. Obviously that, that's the strength of your role and it's how you are successful in your job is having the right and a big network. Understanding the business. Again, you need to know how at that time our car seat is being built, right? From the raw material to the finished good. So you have to do to understand the business, you have to understand how a seat is engineered, you have to understand how procurement is operating, what is the relationship we have with our customers. So you have to have a good understanding of the business. And that was also something that was very, also very interesting to me. I'm a treasurer. I mean, I believe I'm a, I'm a born treasurer. I'm certainly retired as a treasurer, but I'm also very curious and I'm also very interested into technical design, into production design. So it helped me to get a better understanding of the business. But also realizing that if, as a treasurer, you can only do a good job if you do understand the business.

[Speaker:RAOUL PAL] I was going to say, how did you then— because treasury, a lot of the time, can be operating a system where a lot of finance money is swept into treasury managers and everything else. But you were very much, as you say, on the front line and things. But how did you convince the different business partners, the different parts of the subgroups and things like that, subsidiary groups, to actually pick up the phone and call you? How did you convince them that you were the person that could help them? What was the process you went through? Because there'll be other, again, other listeners who are in a similar situation and, oh yeah, I need to do that, and getting them on side. What was the process you went through there?

Yeah, I mean, before, I mean, what, what are the mistakes you may, you may do is basically, hey, I'm a treasurer and I have the mandate from the CFO to manage risk, to manage cash. No, that, that doesn't help you and it will not allow you to, to go through and have a good collaboration and buy-in from the business. So now you have to go there on a consultancy and collaboration basis, and you have to also to prove yourself that you are adding value, that you through your support and consulting can minimize the impact on financial risk on their EBIT and operating margin. So you have to prove yourself that you are adding value to the organization, and actually you are. So it's really a matter of doing a good job and and demonstrated that you can help, that you're not only someone from corporate that's just there to provide governance and request for reporting and for dictating basically the business what they have to do. You really have to build up strong collaborations with them. So that's one of the key things I'm taking out of that experience. So get out of your corporate ivory tower and go into the business and make sure you build up a good collaboration with the business.

You help those guys. And then you, so you started in 2010 and you made then the progression within that role and then through to the spinoff and it became Adyen and things. Perhaps just give us a quick run through, because you went from senior manager, director of treasury at Johnson Controls, but then became the EMEA treasurer. Give us a quick whistle-stop tour of that, just an overview, because I wanted to get into a bit more about your future, your current role and the future and things. But give us a quick talk through how it evolved over the, what was 9, 9 very successful years.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah.

Starting as a manager, senior manager in a business advisory role. So I was advising basically the automotive business unit of Johnson Controls within the region EMEA. So again, very interesting. So I was basically the interface between the business and I would say corporate treasury, supporting business, identifying their risk, managing their risk, so in contact with a lot of departments, as I just mentioned, procurement, sales, engineering, tax, legal, and so on and so forth. So very interesting. So consultancy role. Then, Obviously, I was very engaged, very interested. I grew pretty rapidly in my role. And then as things happening, right, when, when you care, when you committed, when you delivers, this opportunity comes up. And I was basically, I moved from a senior manager to director in September 2013, and I get some additional responsibility from the side. And I was also involved into asset management with a couple of pension funds in Europe. I had Johnson Controls at that time. So I moved into this area. So I got a direct report. So I had here again, some management and leadership role to play. So that was their, I would say, their natural evolution within my role. I didn't change a lot, I would say, my job profile. I just got some additional responsibilities, a new title. It was rewarding my job and my performance. Then came 2016, right, which was an interesting year. Again, Johnson Controls has been a great experience to me. 2016, Johnson Controls decided to spin off its automotive business. Was at that time a multinational company operating into cooling, heating systems, auto batteries, but also car seatings. And so they stayed one of their car seating activities. And at that time, the corporate treasurer of Johnson Controls and the assistant treasurer at that time called me and said, hey, would you be interested in taking over the role of treasurer EMEA for the new spin-off company, which is called ADN PSE? And I said, oh, great, great opportunity. And I was very keen in accepting that new role. And then from a sudden, Starting July 2016, I was heading Treasury in EMEA as an executive director. So again, great move, great opportunity that I actually immediately embraced at that time. Very interesting also because it was a big spinoff. Basically in terms of turnover, it was with less than half of the turnover of Johns Hopkins at that time that had been spun off. So it was a big company that, that was basically, that has been created through the NPSE, a big exercise how to see how processes, people, system basically have been, had to be separated, duplicated on one hand side. And on the other side, you had to build up a new treasury team for the new co. So interesting exercise to do the spinoff, being interesting to be part of a new company with a kind of a startup mentality. So everybody was very excited to, to be on their own, be capable to set up their own project processes. So it was a very exciting atmosphere in the months after the spinoff. And that was basically my last experience before joining TÜV Rheinland AG. So motivation for me to move on from Adient-Johnson Controls to TÜV Rheinland was basically taking up the next step of my career. So I was at Adient basically the treasurer for EMEA. Different headhunter at that time was not you, Mike Richards.

No, so I wouldn't—

I would have expected you, you would call me. So yeah, someone else called me. It's a German headhunter. Hey, I've got a good job for you. Group treasurer at TÜV Rheinland. And I said, oh, why not? And I started discussion like that. And actually the job was very interesting. Location was great also because I'm based now in Cologne, which is the city I'm living in. And is now for me taking up the taking up the next gear, which is basically being the group treasurer of a multinational company. As you just mentioned at the beginning, I think one of the top 10 testing and certification companies worldwide. So it's a new chapter that just started a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago.

And then with the group itself, what are the challenges for treasury? Because when we spoke before, you said that you've been brought at a time when there's a sort of cultural change within the corporate structure and you're changing, evolving the business sort of thing and making yourself fit for the future. Talk us through that a little bit and the positive ethos that that's bringing with it.

Yeah, basically TUV arrived and started maybe 3 years ago a transformation exercise where it was all about centralizing functions, optimizing processes, moving functions into low-cost countries. So it's all about becoming more efficient, reducing costs, and increasing operating margin. So the group has started 3 years ago a couple of initiatives. And basically I've been hired to, to bring the treasury function within TÜV Rheinland into the next step, where today treasury is managed pretty much centrally with exception maybe towards cash and liquidity management, but it's basically setting up a new treasury role and setting up a treasury department comparable to, I would say, Fortune 500 companies. So that's where TÜV Rheinland is now. Is what TÜV Rheinland is heading to. Very exciting to me because I got the chance to set up the right treasury department with the right processes and with the right systems. So I got a lot of freedom in my role, and I'm looking forward to this exciting time ahead of me.

And with the looking to that future, where do you see— you talk about some of the systems coming through, and that's been a big key feature of your experience, if you like. What do you want to do? Do you want to get everything into systems, straight-through processing, do you see that as the future? Or I talk to people about automation and things, and the summary of a lot of that conversation is, yes, there's all these bots, yes, there's AI, but they're not actually replacing people. They're just making, I think, treasury jobs a lot more interesting.

[Speaker:FRANÇOIS_ROCHE] There are two elements from my perspective. First element is really the process and technology element, and that's something obviously the interesting part of the treasury role, and that's where I'm going to focus on. So it's typically in terms of cash and liquidity management, but also in terms of risk management, centralizing all these areas to the center through a system, through automation, through standard processes. But also in terms of payments and collections, setting the right policies and the right standards also for payments and collections, both being supported by technology and by standardization. So that's the first part. And this is something I'll be focusing on. TÜV Rheinland today has a couple of systems in place. They have InhouseCash from SAP, they have SIPCO from SLG, they have a couple of other applications. So they do have a couple of applications, but these applications do not communicate to each other. These applications are not being deployed worldwide, and these applications do not communicate to each other very well. So there will be a focus on that. The other focus is, I would say, or the other aspect of the treasury role is basically focusing on corporate finance and business support aspect, which is still at, I would say, an early stage.

Here.

So when we speak about capital structure, capital allocation, bank relationship, so this will be the area I'll be focusing on supporting the CFOs. But I'll also be focusing on not only to the external world, but also to the internal world, to the intel world at Two Finance, is enforcing these consultancy and business support roles. So that these are the key areas I'll be focusing on. So you have on one hand side, I would say, the process and technology side, but also on the other side is I would call them the corporate finance and business support side.

Management is obviously, and leadership, as we talked about there, you manage these various teams in these roles, you're into this new team as it were and everything else.

What are you like as a boss?

What are your, we've talked about your keys to leadership success, but how do you see yourself each day? They might be listening to this podcast at a later stage, but what would you say is your, how do you coach those guys and how do you perhaps recruit them? When you're looking at people, What is it you're looking for?

And maybe the first word is don't be afraid of hiring someone that is potentially better than you are, right? So that may be the first, one of the first or key aspects when you're hiring people, you have to look at. The second aspect is also diversity. Do not hire people that are like you. You, your team, you're stronger if you have diversity, right, in your team. So you have to have people that have different strengths that are complementary. And the more eyes look into one aspect through the more angles, the better it is. Okay. So I think that would be, from my perspective, the two aspects that I'd be focusing on. I'm looking, maybe the third one, I'm looking for someone who is authentic. So don't try to play a role that you, or play the role of a person you're not, right? Be authentic, be yourself. That's also very important. Obviously, When doing an interview, you should not be focusing on your weakness. You should be focusing on your strengths, but also be— it's okay also to admit you have some weaknesses. So be yourself with your strengths, but also with your weaknesses. They would be the 3 main areas I'd be focusing on as a manager and a recruiter.

And as we approach the end of today's show, as we always do, and what we will do is put Julien's LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if it's useful to be as part of his network and he feels the same, then feel free to connect with Julianne on, as I say, from the show notes. But the one question I ask everyone at the end of each show as a summary sort of point is they look back at your profile and they say, do you know what, a great career. Okay, you can keep up with your music career, but you decided that Treasury was right for you, which— and Treasury is very grateful to have you. But joking aside, you actually think, right, Mike, come up from that finance degree, come up into Treasury, became the Treasurer at ADN, then became now this most recent role as Group Treasurer at TUV and things. Someone else says, actually, that's the sort of route I want to take. I see Treasury as that being of interest. What would be the one piece of summary advice that we give to the listeners, as I said, at whatever level they might be, to say, yeah, this is what you need to do to have a very similar career? What would you say?

I would say don't be too much pushy, walk before you run. So you should not force your career. Obviously, you may have a career path in your mind, but don't force it. That has to be natural. So you need to focus on your job, care about your job, care about your colleagues, do a good job, deliver what you're supposed to deliver, and the opportunity will naturally come to you. So if you're committed, if you're curious, if you engage, you see opportunity coming up. Okay. And when opportunity comes up, just take them. So that, that will be my advice. Don't be pushy. Don't be too rushed. Opportunity will come up naturally.

Excellent piece of final advice for today's show. So be curious, take your time. It's going to come to you as well. But when it does come to you, make sure to recognize and take that opportunity. I think we'll put some of those maybe as bullet points as well. Julian, as always, it's been great to catch up with you and thank you very much for your time today. Look forward to hopefully catching up with you when I'm next in Germany, or you'll maybe be passing through London, so it'd be great to see you. All that remains for me is to say thank you very much for your time today. Many thanks.

Thank you, Mike. It was a pleasure.

So anyone that has just listened to that really great podcast with Julian, he is still the head of Corporate Treasury Finance and Accounting at TUV, but I will get him to bring us the story up to date. He was one of my early guests. I was very grateful. Thank you very much, sir. But it was back in 2019. A couple of things have happened. We've got 7 years of the podcast gone by, but you just stepped into that role as the head of corporate treasury there. Looking back, what did you expect in that role? Was there anything you underestimated? What's it been like for you? Let's go back to that time if we Rupert, over to you.

Thank you for having me, Mike. Yeah, 7 years ago last time we discussed in this format, a lot of things happened. And indeed, at that time when you reached out to me, I was just starting my new role as head of corporate treasury at TÜV. I was pretty excited about the new challenge. I joined TÜV because they were offering me a global role. TÜV was a, I would say, multinational company, but a decent size. So with a big challenge ahead of me, which was basically to build up a new treasury. From a people, process, system, governance standpoint. And in the following months, we as a team set up a new strategy. So we initially said, okay, we need 3 to 4 years to build up our, I would say, state-of-the-art corporate treasury for a $3 billion, at that time $2 billion international company covering and touching all the area of treasury when it comes to corporate finance, liquidity management, cash management, risk management, bank relationship management, contingent liabilities. So we covered it all. And the good thing is that we were starting pretty much from scratch. TVE at that time was starting to set up a clear central governance and a strong holding, and treasury was basically part of it. And it was my role and I was hired for this basically. So we set up a strategy until the summer 2019. We presented to the board and the board was super excited. It's okay, we endorse, we approve it. Please move ahead and go ahead. At that time I was I was building up my team, a team of 5 people, and we were just the implementation of the new strategy. Then we started with basically the most important thing that we thought at that time, which was building up a liquidity pillar to the group and with a revolving credit facility together with 6 core banks. So we review basically our bank relationship management at that time, set up a first transaction, which then become cornerstone of the liquidity for the group. And then we approach towards the end of 2019 and we start getting information moving up from our colleagues from China. So the pandemic, you know, breaking out and then January arrived and then from a sudden we just realized, we as a corporation, but I would say the entire economy and the entire world, that would be something big hitting us, hitting the economy. And it did. And in the spring 2020, nobody really knew how things would go on. And there was a lot of discussion also at the board. And as you just realized that, yeah, that may have a vital effect also on our company.

Let me ask you on that. How did that then flow to Treasury as well? How do you guys cope?

Yeah, it's very interesting. And maybe a couple of words on the testing, inspection, and certifications market, which is a very interesting market. So TV was founded 24 years ago, right? And in the middle of the European industrialization, that time there were a lot of incidents where steam boilers were exploding and society decided to create a testing, controlling body to ensure these borders were safe for people and environment. That's the, the history of TÜV. And since then we have accompanied the industry and help making it safer again for people and, and environment. So we are in pretty much in all industry and in all region of the world doing this test and certification against quality, security, And also IEC standards. And you're entirely right. I mean, we have 26,000 engineers worldwide. These engineers go to the customer, right? They test technical installation. They also do a lot of testing in laboratories, but a lot of our engineers are on site with the customers. Now with the pandemic and the consequence of the pandemic where we all had to stay at home, so the remote testing was something very important at that time also and key. So we were capable and our engineers were capable to do a lot of testing remotely as far as it could be. So we had a hit on our top line, but because of our broad diversification, geographical diversification, also in terms of industry, we were capable to compensate when one market, one country went down, we were other way up. Bottom line, we suffered from the pandemic, but we're capable to adjust our cost. And as just mentioned, we also, from a treasury perspective, issued a contingent bond at that time, $200 million. The clear message was we want to go through the pandemic, likelihood of 99.9%.

10%.

Okay. That was our aim at the time, and we did very successful. So that was 2020, and you can also think that interrupted a bit the implementation of our new strategy at that time. So we had to refocus our work on liquidity, especially on liquidity and our cash flow. And then I would say late '20, early '21, we could continue on implementing our strategy so that now I would say 7 years later, we have state-of-the-art corporate treasury in place. Super proud of my team, what we have accomplished as a team. And I would also compare ourselves with other stock-listed companies. We are very well positioned.

Yeah.

Yes.

And let's look at you for a moment and focusing on you as a treasurer. If you compare yourself professionally to where you were fresh to that role and everything else, what's been the biggest shift for you and how you now approach your role as treasurer? You obviously had expectations of coming into that role.

I'm 7 years older. It was a very interesting period. I look into the time before my time at Jose Coutras, which was and still is a very dynamic corporation with, I would say, high-skilled professionals. So my learning curve during that time was very stiff. I must admit that during my time at TÜV, my curve hasn't flattened. I'm very happy about the experience I've had over the last 7 years. So it's an experience that's a I would say as a group treasurer at that time, I had regional responsibilities at Johnson Controls. At the end, with this global relationship, the responsibility always increased, the contact or the exposure towards the board, top executive is bigger, the impact in my role also larger, more measurable. I would say with this global role, I also increased the level of my responsibilities, which is exactly what I anticipated to— that is what I wanted basically, to have more impact. In the entire corporation. That was my key takeaway, I would say, during these 7 years.

And you talk there about technology you brought in over that period of time. What has changed most in day-to-day operations, if you like, for you guys? You were coming in, you're bringing the technology, got through COVID and things like that. How have you found your treasury now operates day-to-day, or what have been the biggest shifts?

I think as a corporate treasurer today, you should have streamlined standardized processes in place with really end-to-end processes. You shouldn't spend too much time on transactional stuff because the level of automation, the quality of the system, the application we have today and how they're integrated to each other, where we are today compared to 10 years ago or 20 years ago, we made a huge step ahead, capable to focus on added value, business advisory, de-risking your balance sheet in China, getting cash out of Argentina, Bolivia. How are you going to finance your working capital in Saudi Arabia today? And, and now the next step is obviously AI. This is— everybody is speaking about AI. Reason, because AI is disruptive today, and AI will bring— it's a mega trend that will also change or improve our lives going forward. It's something we should adopt and we should embrace. And I think most of us touching this area and trying to promote it into its organization, it's critical to me. And we have launched a couple of initiatives on AI and we try to identify what are the pain points we have, where do we see the biggest added value on AI. Number one, it's we implemented a treasury bot. So basically the entire finance organization abroad is calling treasury and say, hey, how do I do this? How can I put my forecast in the system? So we implement a treasury bot, which is a 24/7, the first level of support to the entire organization so that we can filter out these daily basic requests coming from the organization. That's number one. Number two is this cash flow forecast. We have hundreds of finance people every month trying to, based on their best guess, update their cash flow forecast. A lot of efforts with average outcome. So here, definitely AI can help us. Get a lot of this manual work out with an outcome which would be at least as good as these hundreds of controllers and finance people trying to input every month their forecast. Financial market is a lot of data, currency correlations, inflation, and all this is actually a good training data for an AI to try to predict and react on currency movement. We, together with bank, we're trying to manage part of our risk management through an AI engine. With mixed results so far. Let's see how it goes on. The last pillar we're looking at, it's when it comes to analysis reporting. We as a treasurer need to report on a regular basis to our top executive on treasury KPIs, cash flows. We spend a lot of work in analyzing data. We spend a lot of work in reporting data. And that's where we think also that AI can help us a lot. So this is the mega trend we should be focusing on. But we should be focusing on how can it help us removing the pains? How can it help us being more efficient? You need to first recognize the main pain points and then focus on these first.

You've explained that very well, but you make the AI and some of those things that you've done automation-wise and things sound very simple and very— it's obviously been very straightforward. When you look to that, what has proved more challenging than perhaps you planned for, or what should other treasurers, if they're listening today and they're saying, think that sounds great, we should do that. What should other people look out for? Or what were the things that you realize in hindsight, which is a good thing that they should have done or you should have done, or actually guys, don't do this. We tried this, it's not going to give us value. Let's look at the added value. Where have you found that most?

On the bots. Bots is not something new. When you're doing online shopping and you have a question on your order, you go through a bot. So it's not something new. It's not something which is totally exotic. They're on the market, providers, there are tools. So it's actually basic of AI. It's just a brain that helps you look into a set of data documents and summarize and answer the question you may have. Basic AI, and I would say everybody can set it up on its organization. Yeah. So that's number one. Number two is cash flow forecast, predictive forecast that I mentioned. Then here we are, we are not struggling, but we have a very pragmatic and progressive approach because when you look into cash flow forecast, you based on what data do I need, do I want to predict my forecast? Is it based on the direct method? So on your account statements, cash out, cash in, or is it based on the indirect method, i.e., forecasting your P&L and part of your balance sheet? And the question is, what is the purpose you want to have? Is it you want to have a short-term prediction of cash flow? You want to have a long-term strategic cash flow planning? And what is the quality of your data? And then you just realize, yeah, on the paper it works very well. And clearly direct cash flow method, the best way to make a prediction on cash flow because it's real cash out, out and cash in, but then you just realize, yeah, but how much data do I have? And what is the quality of the data I have? Do I really have sufficient data available? Do I have enough granularity on my data? I have cash flow balances on a daily basis. Yes. I may have movements, but then trying to qualify these movements and say, okay, this is a cash outflow for CapEx, this is a cash flow outflow for, for OpEx, this is a tax payment. So really categorizing the cash flow on your actual data and having sufficient historical data so that you have sufficient training data for the AI. AI is, that's the challenge. So we're making a lot of work now today, clean up our actual data so that, yeah, that the AI have high quality of data to do a proper predicted forecast because we made a use case and we just realized that the outcome was not the one that we expected.

Yeah.

It's always the same things if you don't have If good quality data coming in, you want to get a good output.

Yeah.

And in our last conversation, which people would have heard, and again, I was reflecting on and listening back to parts of it today, last week, you and I spoke about the difference between being a manager and then becoming a leader, if you like. One of the other points you made said you shouldn't be afraid of hiring people that are better than yourself. Obviously that hasn't changed. You will still want to hire those really A players and things. But has your approach to hiring or team design, has that evolved or what's happened over that time?

I must admit that I'm in a very lucky situation that I got a very stable team. So the team I hired 7 years ago or 6 years ago is still the same. So I'm very blessed and very happy about this.

I know I'm happy with you as a boss.

It's something I've tried to promote within my organization, but also broadly, the difference of being a leader versus a manager. It is basically acting as a humble manager. You naturally impose yourself as a leader, so you don't need to overplay it. Humble in your role as a manager. And I rarely speak about myself as I, but I usually use the word we. So we, we have accomplished, not I have accomplished. That's also something which is super important. Empathy towards your team is open communication, is listening, active listener. So take the time to listen to your team, to spend time with your team and speak about personal things also. That's very important. Even our agenda. Might be very full and very busy, you need to take the time to have this high-quality listening time with your team. Yeah.

Where do you see treasury going next? We, you've touched on AI, which is great. Is there other areas that you think treasury professionals should be paying attention to if they're, that they might not be thinking about?

Treasury itself, if I look at the function, treasury has been very stable over the last 10 to 20 years. I've been in treasury since 2001, I think, if I'm not mistaken. On the one hand side, a lot of things happened, especially on the technology side, on the awareness of the board of the criticality to focus on cash and other area of responsibility of treasury. Clearly that I see this and I've experienced this over the last 20 to 25 years. On the other hand side, when you see, look into the actors on the market, when you're going into a bond, right, or issuing a bond, you're still dealing with the same financial institution. There have been some piloting for some kind of e-bonds, right? So trying to bring also the bond market into the next area, but it's still in the piloting phase. We're still doing or issuing bonds today, same way we did it 10 or 20 years ago. So a lot of things have, hasn't changed, right? So within Treasury. So on one side, we all say where you see Treasury in 5 to 10 years, but we still have a very constant that I can observe within Treasury. No, I think to me it's continuing focusing on technology. AI is going to help us further improve, remaining lean or become even leaner and more efficient in the future. And it has always been part of our culture within treasury. So we'll continue on that path, but I don't see a revolution within treasury, to be honest, not in the next 5 to 10 years. Now to the treasury people and the young treasury professionals, what they should be focusing on, from my standpoint is really a couple of things. The first thing is, as the environment is very volatile, we are just jumping from one crisis to the other. You need to stay tuned. And that's what I'm trying to do for years and decades. What I'm trying to tell my team is, look at the euro-dollar rate, the 5-year euro mid-swap rate every day. Be on the top of the market. Read newspaper like The Economist, the weekly Economist newspaper in the UK, brilliant paper, right? If you're looking for a German-speaking paper, just read Frankfurter Allgemeine, you have a high-quality financial and economic section in these papers. Stay on the top of it. Listen regularly nowadays because the US administration is keeping us busy. A podcast, The Rest is Politics. This one, and then The Rest is Politics. I can also recommend this one. So it's moderated by Katie Kay and Anthony Scaramucci. She's a journalist. He's the former press secretary of Donald Trump in 2016, and he was kicked out after 10 days. They give also very interesting insights into US politics and economy. Stay tuned. So this is super important, especially when the, your surrounding is evolving so rapidly. And so we need to understand what's happening around us in terms of macro. And then the skill, when you look into the skills, yeah, I would say you have the function skills. And I think again, AI is something young professional, you need to understand the basic of AI. I would say on the inter and intra-professional personal skills or the art and science skills, it's resilience. Yeah, work on your resilience, on your adaptability, because this will become one of the key skill sets you need to bring with you in the coming years. You're capable to adapt yourself because the world is changing at a very rapid pace. So even the Treasury is pretty stable, the surrounding is changing. So that's why Treasury needs to adapt itself in this changing world. That would be my advice to a young Treasury professional.

And we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can still connect to you as well. But when I look back on the last show, your advice was at that time not to rush your career, stay curious, and then let opportunities come to you naturally. Some really great advice there. Does that advice still hold true or is there anything you would add or change based on your experiences since then over the past 6, 7 years?

I think this advice is still true today.

Go for it.

As corporate treasury organizations are rather small, right? If you feel as a young professional after a certain time you are limited in the current organization you are staying in, don't be afraid in moving into another organization because the opportunity sometimes will not be necessarily in-house, but within another company in another organization. Yeah. So that would be my additional advice.

Be open to other ideas as well.

Exactly. If you feel in the existing organization you're stuck, you're not coming forward, call me asking whether there is another opportunity in another company.

We'll definitely have that advice.

And we actually, I gave this in one of my recent videos where I do the weekly newsletter and it was feedback I got from a candidate who was worried about his promotion. And I just said, as I said to him on the phone, I said, you're not a rock.

What? What?

And I said, you're not a rock, you can move, you're not stuck there. It's like a rock just stays there until it's moved by other forces. You're not, you can get up and move. And he's, oh yeah, I suppose you're right.

Julian, thank you very much, sir.

Great to have you on the show. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to seeing you in real life one day soon.

We'll do it earlier, promise. Thanks.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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