Building Longevity in Treasury with Rando Bruns

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. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Rando Bruins, the group treasurer at Merck KGAA Germany. Had to get that right because we were talking before the show, Rando and I, about making sure it's the right company and then we're there. So we've done it. So founded in 1668 in Darmstadt in Germany, Merck is the world's oldest pharmaceutical, chemical company. Vibrant science and tech company they believe in science is a force for good in terms of numbers of people. You've got 58,000 employees in over 66 countries finding solutions to some of today's toughest challenges. But as always, I'm going to get Rando to explain that a bit later in the show. What we are going to do is we're going to go through from his early career, we're going to talk a bit about how he went to the dark side in banking. But it's all right, he came back to the bright side, came back to Treasury. So we dragged him kicking and screaming. So enough from me as always. Randa, take us back if you would, to the start of your career, Finance and Treasury. Over to you, sir.

All right, thanks, Mike, thanks for having me. Actually, I think my past was already started very, very early. When kids, they wanted to become a policeman or fireman, cowboy, whatever. I wanted to work in a bank. No kidding. When I was five, six years old, I wanted to work in a bank. I like numbers, I like counting, I like to go with my piggy bank to the bank and count the money myself and so on. So I always had that dream, banking something I wanted and that's actually what I did. So I left school rather early and was 16, 17, I started an apprenticeship in banking, very classical way, did this and then I worked after the apprenticeship a few years in banking, did my compulsory service, things like that. And the trigger for me was I went back to night school and did my higher examination and banking. And that's a point where I learned learning can be fun, you know, if you really like what you're doing. And then I decided that's what I want to do. I want to go to university. I quit at the bank, I went back one year back to school to get my so called high school diploma. In business and then I went to university. So I was always working in banking at that time. Obviously also when I was studying in Germany, when I was studying in the uk, when I went to the US later for my master, also working for an American bank. And after 10 years of banking, after my master's, I decided maybe there's something else. And I wanted to see the other side. It was 1997, then I joined, when I was coming back to Germany, gm, so Opel in Germany and I started in Treasury.

And before you did that, just that 10 years in banking again, you and I talked about this a little bit before. But what did that give you in your treasury back pocket? Was it that you knew what the bankers were wanting, the other side of the table? How was that?

Yeah, I mean you learn how a bank works, what's important, policies you can just get a feeling for. You deal with customers, you deal with the bank organization. So I think it's a solid basis, whatever I did, the very solid basis I had, and a good understanding also how banks react and what they do and why they do what they do. So I think that's very good also to have that understanding. If you work for corporate.

And you said then you came into treasury, was it just that it was the first role and treasury sounded interesting or what happened?

Yeah, no, deliberately I also had some offers from banks, for example, I had offers at different companies and I decided to go for a Treasury role in the end. I also had another financing, but this was most appealing to me and I also wanted, deliberately wanted to go to a US company at that point in time. Coming from the US I was particularly interested in GM and also in the automotive industry.

And why was that such a passion for you? Just because you'd seen it and you liked it?

Well, yeah, I mean I would have liked to stay in the US but due to my Visa, I had to leave it for two years at a two year home country role in my Visa. And I thought the idea was working for gm, you know, this brings you back to the US or somewhere else in the world, which in the end didn't work out and I changed the company. But also the automotive industry was very interesting in the mid-90s or so. Growing and a lot of perspective and so on. So I think it was a good starting point for me.

And tell us about Opel, you know, because I know as an old brand and things like that. What was it like when you got there, treasury terms and things like that?

Well, obviously in 1997, mid of the 90s treasury was completely different than what it is today. So this was about cash management, this was about some risk management. We were embedded in the European, we had a European treasury center. You had to deal with them about payments, leasing, all kinds of aspects, different things. I had a steep learning curve obviously from that perspective. But treasury itself was very much improving, I would say single processes within treasury and see what technology and what comes there like cash poolings and things what we did at that point in time. So it was a little bit narrower than today I would say in terms of products you work with and the relationships we had to banks. So quite different.

Do you think it was back in those days? And again, that's when I first started in treasury recruitment. And you know, some of the things and the questions I would ask treasury professionals then were, as you said, they've sort of evolved because there was a lot of more manual process. Everyone talks now about automation but you know, back in those days it was just like, you know, I've got, you know, my youngest is a 10 year old son and he saw this thing the other day and he said, what does that button fax mean? I went right. That was when we sent pieces of paper and it was electronic pieces of paper. And he was like what? It's just like just his brain melted.

Our system, at least in was Excel and paper. So when we had a deal with a bank, there was a slip of paper here to fill out and give it to accounting and they do something with it and so on and so on. This is the beginning. Yeah, very different.

So it started to evolve and you did some years there and then what happened? Talk us through.

Well, as I said, I think my idea was to go somewhere in the world again. And at least at the point at gm this was not the reality for finance people. It was one way there were Americans going to Europe or wherever also in the finance area. But from a European perspective, in this US company, to really move around, at least in my field, treasury and so on, it's very difficult. So I had to realize that I advanced within the organization there. But at one point I was asking myself, is it what I want? Where would I be in 10 years and what is it? And then I got offered a job at a small cap at a listed company in Germany in special machine building on a holding level where I was responsible for finance as well as investor relations. And this investor relations part was completely new to me. So I was responsible for financing structures and whatever we had in the group, but also the investor relations that appealed to me and was also logistically close by. I didn't have to change. I was living and so on. I give that a go, and it was a good move. So I did this for two and a half years. Had a very steep learning curve in terms of IR and understanding the company as a whole and what to do and what not to do and dealing with the board and so on. So very interesting. Also very challenging. One of the best times for the company. So I had to also to sell a lot of bad news to the market. It's also an experience. And then I was asked to move from there to a subsidiary to become cfo. And the company there was in a particularly bad situation, I would say. So it was after September 11th, special machine building. The company went dry. No new orders. We were not sure whether it would make it. And they were looking for a cfo. Apparently it was so bad they couldn't find more experience from somewhere else outside or. So at least they were asking me, and I slept the night, and then I said I'd do it. Going there. But I think this was by far the toughest assignment I had in my life so far. So going there, one of my first tasks was to fire 25% of the people. And I think that was my toughest day I had so far. I was relatively young.

I was going to say this was young management position, like get rid of a quarter of the staff.

I was mid-30s, somewhere around mid-30s. And I had to talk to all the people myself in person, tell them, you know, you're fired in the end. So that was a very tough day. And it was a tough time. I mean, I had a. I had a financing bank behind me that could pull the plug any minute. We had restructuring consultants in there. I had to call vendors every week myself to negotiate how much are we able to pay that week on a weekly basis. And also the new tasks I had, I was accounting, controlling, procurement, hr, everything that comes along with it.

Yeah.

At a very steep learning curve. Let's put it this way.

Just tell me briefly. You. You know, again, there might be other people listening that have, you know, thrown into that situation where you're having to let people go. And obviously that was a tough thing to do. You know what. Any thoughts on that? That, you know, how. How to do it? You know, and there's. There's never an easy way, but how would.

Yeah, I think everybody has. Has a different style. I think what helped me is I try to be myself, so I try to be fair. I Try to be transparent. It's this kind of trust building to people you have to work with, being a banks, consultant, employees, colleagues, whatever. I think that's something everybody has to find his or her way. That's me, and that's how I do it, and that's why I do. And you try to explain what's going on as much as you can. I think that's one thing. And a situation like this, I think it's also personality type. You need to have some stress resilience, otherwise it would kill you. Luckily, I don't know where that comes from. I have that. So no matter what's going on, I can have a good night's sleep. If you're not able to do this, I would not advise taking on that type of jobs. As I said, it was also pretty stressful and we made it in the end. So we had a turnaround like the profitability and so on. Not an experience I need again. But it was highly, highly valuable for me because it changed my perspective in terms of, let's say, drastic measures. Whenever you. I'm in a management position, hey, people don't think about drastic measures. Drastic measure is if you have to fire your highly acknowledged colleague, if you don't pay your vendors, if you think about how can I pay my payroll and so on and so on, then you think about drastic measures and what to do. But this helps in terms of perspective and it helped me also in terms of banking. When I deal with banks, I read with banks, I know how they react and how they are if things turn sour, if it gets really windy out there. And that's what I always have back in my mind when I'm negotiating, when I'm reading contracts and so on. I always look at it from that angle, I think. And that helped me a lot to understand what's going on then and what are the mechanisms when things like that arise. So it helped me a lot during my career to have that.

Then we're going to move from that because then you joined Merck. KGA will come into that and you can explain about the company and stuff. Before we do, I was just going to mention. So one of our previous podcasts was with Philip Sasse, the vice president of treasury at Unilever. And he was. And we talked about the fact he'd been that business, you know, for many, many years. And I said, you know, why join a big business? You know, lots of people move around and things like that. So, you know, when I ask you this question and, you know, as Always I know somebody know the answer because Rando and I have known each other for many years. But what then led to you joining Merck? And you know, you know, we had these big mega companies and mega corporates, conglomerates what tempted you and then you've been there for many years. So I wanted to sort of frame it in that. If you would. If you would.

So, yeah, I think first of all, the company I was working for in the end was rather small, very international, rather small. I was looking for this global international environment and I was looking for more perspective. Obviously it was too small for me, too narrow in terms of where my future is. And that's what attracted me basically at Merck and also was going back to treasury because that's banking. Treasury part was where my heart is, so to speak. Very good experience to have done accounting yourself and controlling and procurement and so on. Helps me a lot to understand where people in organization are coming from. You know, this understanding, I think that's a very high value. But my heart is somewhere else. So my heart is really this banking, treasury thing. That's me. And there was this role and they were looking for a successor for someone who was going to retire. And they had an interesting story. They wanted to build something and that was. That attracted me a lot. Yeah. So. And I'm there Now in my 17th year, so something must be good.

Exactly. Tell us about the group said that the, you know, as you said, there are different companies out there and things like that. Tell us about Merck, the part you work for or who you guys are. Just so that for the clarification for the listeners today.

Yeah, yeah, you mentioned already it's the oldest pharmaceutical chemical company in the world. We are 300, more than 350 years old. And it's. So basically Merck, we have three different types of businesses. Everybody knows us from our healthcare business. So pharma products, products you don't want to use. It's cancer, multiple sclerosis, things like this, or fertility and so on. But we have a very big life science business. Actually now it's the biggest business we have, life science. So obviously we are one of the. We're benefiting a little bit from COVID but we have a strong growth retractory there in terms of. We are supplier of the pharma industry of products they need for producing drugs or developing drugs. And the last business, the electronics business, we are, for example, a world leader in liquid crystals. So every iPad, TV, whatever, very high likelihood that our liquid crystals are in there. We're very big in semiconductor chemicals markets that are growing. So it's a diverse business. What MOG is coming from and what's maybe a little bit special about us is we are public and private at the same time. This KGaA, that's what it means in the end, we're stock listed, we're in the darks and 30% of our stock is stock listed and 70% is not still family owned. So it's in the 13th generation of the family. We have roughly 200, a little bit less than 200 family owners, so to speak. And obviously they have a big influence on the company. It made it for 13 generations and they want to make it for the next 13 generations, so to speak. So there's a lot of governance that comes along with it and guardrails for the company and how the company operates.

And do you see that, as you know, from your perspective within treasury, you know, is that you know, and you talk to other treasurers on a regular basis and we meet up at various conferences. Do you find that, that when you're talking to them, you have a different ethos? You know, when you're talking, say the global treasurer of another pharma company and whereas yourself, you say, yeah, but we make our decisions slightly differently or yeah, what, what's that?

It's also about culture and about how we operate. So when you talk to the people who run the family affairs, they will tell you, well, we have been elected in this position for two reasons, profitable growth, because the family is growing biologically bigger from generation to generation and to hand our heritage over to the next generation. The second is very important. So in terms of guardrails and risk taking, what is it? And in terms of perspective, long term thinking. So that's the reason why we have three businesses and three businesses that are independent from each other. So it's a diversification within the company, but it's also long term thinking. So when we make investments, when we go into some fields, the question is, understand that how is it in 10 years, how is it maybe in 20 years and should we invest now? So obviously we are stock listed and the quarter is important for us, but 10 years is at least equally important in the one quarter we're talking about. So I think we have more long term thinking than others for that reason. And at the same time we cannot be taken over. It gives the whole thing a little bit, let's say, freedom to operate those guardrails. And it's a different culture. Whether you work for the shareholder, you don't know or whether you work for people you meet, you shake hands, you talk to, you know, personally, it's a little bit different. So it's an interesting. It's a different culture.

Yeah, well, it's a very interesting one because when I did the research before the show and things, I listened to another podcast called how to Take over the World and this guy, this podcast are very good. He, what he talks about, he does biographies on different families, you know, things and people like Napoleon and Caesar, but one of the ones. And actually there's a lot of cross with the Rothschilds, you know, and then people talk about this banking family, you know, things. But they goes, it goes right back to their history and not dissimilarly, a lot of the fact that because it's a family business and there's that ethos around it that the decisions are made for exactly as you point out there, for the 10 years and 20 years, not for the 20 week forecast, you know, it's very different.

And also it's about the heritage and I would say the genes of a company, as you said, Merck survived the French Revolution.

Yes.

The French German War, two World wars, whatnot. So why is that? It has always been about science. It started as a pharmacy and it's always about science. And that's where we are one of our common Z science and tech companies. That's the genes. We love to develop new things, we love to be market leading, we love to be foursome. But we do not compete by price. It's not us, you know, this generics business, it's maybe in pharma people can do better than we are. We always have this technology thing in there.

Let's drill down into the treasury piece for a moment. So 17 years, you know, do you just lock the office and not let them take you out because you love it so much? What is it? I mean again, you know, joking said, how come a role like that has kept you engaged? But also 17 years there, what's happened?

Well, obviously a lot of things change. A lot of things happened. When I started in 2005, the whole Treasury Department was consisted of eight people. Finance or treasury was very much decentralized throughout the group. Our treasury system was Excel and Paper. That was it. I mean that was, it was very, very basic. I mean today the main treasury function I have a little more than the pure treasury, but the main treasury function we have roughly 40 people globally in different locations. We're in Uruguay, we're in the Philippines, regional Treasury centers, we're in Darmstadt and Excel still.

Excel and Paper still work very well for you.

Highly automated. We are highly centralized. We are one of the most centralized Treasury. When we compare ourselves with peers, what we have built over that and why is that? I believe I had the luck, I earned it, whatever. I had the freedom to build that. So within Merck, I had the opportunity and the freedom to build this. There were investments within treasury and we were showing that we're adding value. And at the same time, I had the luck to work in a company that were growing tremendously. So when I started, we had, I think something like 7 billion in sales. Nowadays we are roughly at 20 in this 16, 17 years. And now we have beginning of 2022 and we say by 2025, we will be at 25. So we're growing and at the same time, obviously not only organically but also inorganically. So we have lots of acquisitions, integrations, things to do, and you have to build that and those structures. And I had the freedom, so I had good managers with CFO I could work with all the time. And there were those investments made because we could show that we add value thing.

And with that value proposition from you as a treasurer, when you're saying we need this new system, you know, I joke there about sort of resilience of systems and some of the stuff. And you, you talk very much that you embrace those things. And I know you've spoken about that at various, you know, conferences and everything else. What's your value proposition? What I mean by that is you go in and is like, look, we need this because, you know, these are the top three reasons. You know, again, so there'll be listeners today and they're thinking the same thing, but they, they're way behind you in technology terms and things like that. How do you sell it? You know what it was seat and what's your pitch?

Well, I think the general thinking we have is you can make your business case and in the end you have a number and you say, hey, this is what it costs and this is a financial gain. In terms of euros, we went a little bit different about this. We were always thinking, and I'm always thinking when it comes to the core treasury processes and processes, and if you have a good process, then you will have benefits and you can try maybe to evaluate those benefits. In the beginning, we didn't even, because we said the benefit will be so huge, we don't want to make up some whatever number. Number we don't know, but it will be big. So this process, thinking that's very much embedded in whatever we do. And this process thinking is not about what's the treasury process. We started very early to think in end to end processes, what does it mean to accounting, what does it mean to shared service, what does it mean to the business, what does it mean to it and so on. To really think about the company as a whole and the process as a whole. If you can't show that benefit and then later maybe at some point you have to translate it also if you want to make some investment in terms of Euros. But whatever we do, we have this process thinking in mind and not so much is it a financial gain, you have to make that case.

And where does that come from? Is that just embedded in the group that actually by doing this there are a couple of companies just do good or just do this, but some companies maybe pay lip service to it. Is that just the ethos? If you come in and you measure that when you look at someone that maybe we talked about hiring people, is that a key thing you find?

I think it's maybe not the most. That's also very treasury specific because we started this journey very early, as I said when we started that journey and it's still something we are suffering off. And our core processes is we have a completely heterogeneous ERP landscape. I wouldn't say completely migrating, doing whatever, but we have something like 30 to 40 different ERP systems within the group. If you want to introduce a lean process in this group, ERP will kill you. And I see many corporates where they try to do something, because typically you end up with where I do the largest 50 entities, I have the 8020 rule, whatever. Our processes are typically all 100% processes. Every entity in the group uses this process, no matter what ERP system they had. So we decided very early in 2005, 2006 actually, when I started very early to go system wise for a system or for systems that are externally hosted, that are web based and that are relatively easy to connect to ERP systems, whatever it is, or even you can enter manually, whatever it is, this ERP independence. And that allowed us to get a very high degree of centralization and global processes very early, whereas other functions were really struggling. We didn't right from the beginning when we started building this. So we're far ahead than others in this. And this allowed us also with experience to create a lot of unique processes where we are with only a few people, we manage the foreign exchange with the entire group, we have intercompany Payment process. Every entity of the group is using this. We have a large extent already, external payments within there, but also this risk management approach, very, very centralized, high benefit to the entire organization because in many countries there's no treasury, nobody does anything, everything is automated and we centralize as well. And this is a beauty. And once you have established this then it starts rolling. You can see hey, that's really cool what they're doing, this is something we should support and what they're doing and then becomes kind of self fulfilling and you get all rolling and you ask for something and you have proven it's a huge benefit to the organization and then you have more buy in and.

What'S your treasury ethos and what I mean by that. So someone we talked before and we'll move into this as well about bringing someone on board and as you said, Randall and I spoke before about, you know, if you're bringing someone into your team and they've just been within their local company and not really looked internationally and things like that, you know, they've not got that worldly view sort of thing. So that's obviously something that you think is key, is that just. Does that permeate throughout treasury itself or you know, where does that come from?

I think in my, in our role because we have such a global function, very important for us. So that's, that's, that's an entry for me. If I look for people by the way, it's very difficult to get people. At least it takes me a long time.

Never does you just come to us, that's it, you know, like he needs to call me a bit more but you know, come back to that later in the show after.

Yeah, so it takes quite some time. But what I'm looking for is really somebody. Well first I think what you need is you need a good foundation, let's say you went to a good university, whatever. So I think. But that's. Then a lot of people have that. But what makes you different is this experience, work experience, practical treasury experience, being after your studies, for example, some experience or during the studies, internships have seen different things in the banking world. You've seen the corporate world, you have maybe been at consultants have done different things and certainly also the cultural thing, you study abroad, work abroad for a certain period of time, have this cultural understanding and all this then comes together with good communication skills. But in general what I'm looking for in people is this highly motivated, intrinsic, motivated people that want to contribute and want to change things. Want to contribute, want to work on projects, lead them and they can identify very much with what they're doing. So this self driven people because that's also part of my management style. So I would call it a long leash, whatever it is. So it's their idea, it's their project, it's their recognition and I try to support as much as I can. But those kind of people I'm looking.

For, so you get those people on board and I was just making some notes here that if you're perhaps getting someone who's more experienced to come in and join the team and things like rotating through what are you looking for from those guys? You know, we got the entry level but what is it again? Is it that they've been at the other international groups that they've embraced that or is it, you know, because we've got this technology bias. What are you looking for in those?

Well, I think it really depends on the role in my function. For example, I have also my it's within treasury so that supports my entire itree landscape. Obviously there you look for people and we have changed a little bit. We were coming from people coming out of treasury and have IT affinity and work on that. I think now we're leaning more towards people coming from it and maybe have an affinity to also work with treasury topics. So those people are difficult to find. And typically those people, they like to do it. I think it's not realistic to have this person later on do corporate funding, financing, whatever. That's different. When you look at really at core treasury people, there are people who say hey, I like to do treasury and good at it and I only want to do Treasury. So that's the one, let's say pot of people that are out there which can be very good if you have a very specific position. What I typically try to do, I try to develop my people within my team. So I try to give those positions to different people from inside my team. And the question there is how do I get those people then and how do I develop them? And we started very early. We started in 2006. Seven we started our own treasury trainee program. So we're looking for graduates going through this program one year treasury, one year outside of treasury, see different functions, have worked abroad and so on. And typically those fill those positions and they can advance within treasury and at some points treasury is then too small, they will advance somewhere else in the organization being in finance or the business. I have many examples of this and that's where I get the people from. So my actually my Main hiring, core of the main hiring pool is from this trainee programs. Because the people I need, I don't typically don't get in the market. And I want people that are broad, that are looking at different aspects and have a good understanding that's in a trainee program deliberately, they spend six months in business controlling and they spend some time in accounting and they go to a subsidiary somewhere in the world and things like this. So they're very round in terms of not understanding treasury but also finance. And that's my thinking. So I like to develop people and my thinking is how can I develop them for the organization, not only for treasury, but for the overall finance organization.

So we've talked about your team and everything else and the challenges that are coming towards Treasury. Obviously we've been through a few challenging years now. We were talking about remote working home and all that stuff. And I didn't want to deep dive in that because that's been done so many times. However, looking at the future for you guys within your treasury team and yourself as a treasurer, what are the things that are on your horizon? What do you think about that's coming over the horizon? Sometimes I talk to people that saying their CFO uses their treasurer, if you like, as a little bit of a forward scout, if you like, saying, look, Rando, can you go look at this? Can you assess this for me? And things like that. Where do you see the key challenges coming up for treasury as we move forward?

It's clearly technology. That's number one, digitalization. That's what I see in terms of. I mean, we work, for example, already for quite some time now with big data, with AI. But you have to be more, become more, let's say digital, native, whatever you would call it. But these are the technologies and they will change processes. Treasury processes a lot and also markets a lot. And you have to be familiar with it. And in my role, for example, I wouldn't say I'm struggling with it or so, but, you know, I spent quite some time to see what's going on there and I will never be the expert in it, so I'm useless at a computer or so I will never be the absolute expert at that one. But for me it's important. Am I able to ask the right questions and am I able to understand what's the benefit and what's the risk and things like this? And this will become more and more important. So this technology part and it part.

Yeah, okay. We're not quite at the end of the show, but we're not far off. As always with my guests, we will put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. So if it's useful to have someone in your network, you can connect to Rando and things like that and vice versa. But we wrap up every show each week with some of the top tips, you know, so that might be, again, if you're a listener today, you might be in the early stage of your career. So, you know, I think you've already got some great stuff there anyway, which definitely listen to that, but also, you know, middle stages of your career or even other treasurers, you know, so what sort of, you know, advice would you give to those listeners today who are thinking, you know, crumbs, I'd like a, you know, career the same as yourself, you know, what would you say?

Well, besides the thing I mentioned, like, good basis and so on, it's truly the international experience, working in a global, international environment that is very important. And also having seen something outside of treasury, having had different roles and then maybe come back at some point in time, this is very, very important nowadays to really look at end to end processes, to understand the company as a whole. I think that that's why you bring in value to the table and that's why you appreciate it on board level to have that view and not just the single treasury view. And that would be my main advice. Whatever you do and for other treasurers.

Out there, you know, that's good for the guys coming into it and learning and things like that. Again, we're getting back to that real world view now and starting to see people in real life and things like that. You know, what, what sort of, you know, not war stories, but what are the things you think, you know, you, you're sitting there with a coffee and saying, they're saying, oh, I think this is what we need to focus on. What are you thinking is, you know, the, the key thing father IT and.

Digitalization, the key thing to focus on, it's the core processes. If you, if you don't have, if you haven't set that up, you cannot talk about funding and risk management or whatever, but the core processes, the basis. And then I'm back to technology. That's where everything that, that's really the foundation. And if you're stuck there, you will spend a lot of time on fixing things. We at Merck, we don't have for the last 10 years. It's really about, let's say, what's my FAQ exposure? How do I measure this? What's liquidity Planner? We don't have all those issues because we have, we have invented really smart processes to avoid a lot of those. If you don't do this, you get stuck in those simple things.

So if you use the processes, the problems go away, they solve themselves.

At least you spend far less time on those.

Yeah, the value add problems and things. Amazing. Thank you, sir. Great advice there, you know. So get your international experience. Don't be afraid to go for wider roles than just treasure. Go out treasure with. They'll have you back at any time you want, so that's good. And focus on the processes. Great advice. We'll put Rando's details in the show notes you can connect to him if need be or not or whatever. Sir, amazing to chat to you and as I said earlier, can't wait to see you in the well when we can travel around a bit more. Be great to see you, sir. Yes, thank you, sir.

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 you can probably 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.