Building Resilient Treasury Teams: How to Lead Across Cultures and Industries with Garry Murphy

Foreign 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 build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next. Let's get on with the show. In this week's show, I'm joined by Gary Murphy, Group VP, Treasury Director at Sodexo. Founded in Marseille in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, Sodexo is a global leader in sustainable food and valued experiences every moment in life. Learn, work, heal and play. The group stands out for its independence, founding family shareholding and responsible business model. The key two activities are food and facilities management services. I'm going to get Gary to explain a bit about more. More about Sodexo later on in the show. We're going to go back to the beginning, Gary, if you would. The first start in finance and then Treasury. Talk us through how you first started. Over to you, sir.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Yeah. I'm from Ireland, I live in Dublin and I did my college degree here. I did a business degree and I hadn't really studied accounting, but I went down the accounting path I took. I was. I went through a program with Coopers and Lybrand at the time and was sponsored to do a Master's. I did that for a year and then went into. By the time I came back, Cooper's had become PricewaterhouseCoopers. We were the first year of PwC and I worked in the asset management practice for about three years, which is really interesting. Great time. It's a nice kind of almost an extension from college because you're with a group, a young intake, and it's a good social activity, but you have a good kind of camaraderie with all your peer group. I knew I probably wouldn't stay in practice. I had always been looking probably to move more into banking. I did my three years there and moved into one of the bigger banks in Dublin, into an internal audit role, first for a few months, but then I quickly transitioned into a corporate banking role, which was a big change. It was you're dealing with clients, a portfolio of large corporates, you're now trying to sell the bank's products. But you're also, I think the big thing for me was you're now doing full credit assessments of these entities, of these customers, writing credit applications, presenting them to credit committees and really getting into the nuts and bolts of the financial metrics of a company and what makes it tick and starting to understand really cash flow and EBITDA and working capital and all of those kind of great things that we look at in treasury now, but really trying to understand them, the bank's perspective. So did that for three years and then made a move into Ulster Bank. So very similar role but Ulster bank was part of the Royal bank of Scotland Group at the time, so it was the Irish arm of it effectively but moved on to a team of much larger corporate PLCs and semi state bodies. And that was really interesting because obviously being part of ORBS was a much bigger banking group and so had access to much more different platforms. We were able to sell DCM so like bonds and US private placement, but also much more advanced levels of cash management, cash pooling, much bigger kind of FX dealing rooms, just a lot more products that you're able to sell to more, more sophisticated client base.

So just jump in there Gary. And I've had this a number of times less so in the uk, but more in Ireland and Europe and across. That's a good place to start because you get to know the other side of the table. So you get to know the banking side of the table. To treasurers like yourself, do you think that's a. Would you recommend people do that? Because also there's that balance between sales and actually helping treasurers thing. What was it like for you?

Yeah, no, for me, I would say yeah. I really enjoyed my time in banking. You really learn your trade. I think everyone colleagues I still talk to, we recall standing outside the room before credit committee. It's probably the worst exam you're ever going to face in your life. You're in facing very senior executives in the bank who will ask you the most difficult questions and you have to be prepared and you really learn to be to really know your information about your client. But I think absolutely you deal a lot with CFOs and treasurers and you get to understand. I think we can talk about it a bit later. When I actually transitioned into treasurer myself, I realized I didn't actually know a lot about what the treasurers do. But you learn a lot about kind of what the company does and what's important and what's important to the CFO about Treasury. Whereas I think you're probably not as familiar maybe with the daily operational, albeit in some cases if you're managing their cash pooling and their banking and that sort of stuff you'll have a good familiarity with. But definitely I would recommend, yeah, like a corporate banking role, you get a really good base level of training and understanding of the bank's products, what goes on in industry in terms of banks. So understanding what a debt capital markets team is, you're not going to get that anywhere else, really. And understanding why banks make decisions the way they do, really helpful. Then when you're sitting on the other side of the table because you can really understand because as a treasurer, you're dealing with relationship managers, relationship directors. And if you've been one of those, you understand the pressure they're under or why they're asking for certain things. And that can make the. You want certainly in my role now, I want mutually beneficial relationships. We want to be a happy customer, but we want happy bankers as well, to a point.

So just on the. And that you talk about the levers, if you like, that they're looking for the levers, but the CFO leave us for the treasurer. Reflecting on that. You obviously have those relationships now when you talk to your banks, you're saying you guys want this because you know it, you've lived and breathed it. What would you say are the key things? I know we'll talk about it later on, but the key things that you think that are they looking for visibility on cash or just what is it? What they particularly.

I think banks are all looking for different things. Right. So banks will want to sell whatever they're good at and banks will realize we're good at this area, we're not so good at this area. So your job as a treasurer is very much to say, okay, understand what ticks the boxes for that bank. They should have probably more of this type of business. Maybe they're good on cash management, but they're not so good at dcm. Other banks, maybe less, don't have a cash management platform. So you have to split your business to make sure that it's spread fairly among your bank pool. I think from a banker, when you're looking at a cfo, when I think about it, he wants strategic advice from his treasurer, but he also just wants comfort and safety and knowledge that everything's okay. You know what I mean? That the treasurer has a coverage safe out hands, everything's safe and I don't need to worry about anything. Or if we do that, my treasurer is going to tell me and come with a plan and we'll fix it. And so from the banker's perspective, it's about having that close relationship with the treasurer to understand what are the key things that are important. And every company is different. Like every people always say to me, what's it like to Work in Treasury. I say it's working in treasury in one company is very different to working in another company to the next company. There's different things that are important in different companies depending on the type of business you're in.

Yeah. And so then you were making the transition, weren't you? So do you want to talk through. Yeah, yeah.

Around 2011 or so, obviously in the midst of the great financial crisis, maybe banking, it wasn't the most popular place to work. Maybe. Let me put it like that.

Yeah.

I had a really good set of clients. We weren't. None of them were distressed or anything like that, but I just felt it was time to look and see was there opportunities to work on the corporate side so to move into industry. And I was in touch with a prospective client of mine, which was Paddy Power, which is the online gaming and bookmaking company. And they were looking for somebody to head up their treasury function. And I met them and we talked about it. I recall looking at the job description and being quite clear with the head of finance at the time, I know how to do about 10% of what's on your list here. But we got on and he said, look, let's give it a go. It was, as I said before, it was a bit of a baptism of fire when I started. I recall walking into a room full of bank reconciliations that needed to be signed that had no one had looked at for kind of six months. There was lots of stuff that you just weren't expecting to have to deal with. But it was really interesting, a really super exciting place to work. It was a. Almost like a. I won't say a startup, but a tech company that really growing really fast and was becoming a kind of a big PLC and was trying to deal with those kind of growing pains around kind of corporate governance and how do we. Policies and how do we. But how do we keep the kind of secret sauce that makes the company a really cool place to work? And it was a good time to be in Treasury. We said we put in place a Treasury policy for the first time. We moved off Excel and put a Treasury management system in place. We put hedge accounting in place. We did lots of quite interesting things and it was a great place to work, but really cash generative company, so spend a lot of time managing investments. But I guess after three years, like we had no debt and we had no sign of ever needing any debt. And as a treasurer I was okay. I've come from a banking background, I'm a debt guy. I need to Maybe move to a company that has debt. So I moved to an Irish company, the Irish Dairy Board. It's now called Ornua, which is a. A kind of a derived Irish word which means new gold. Which basically this is a cooperative that's owned by all of the dairy producing cooperatives in Ireland. So they produce. All of those cooperatives produce premium butter and cheese products that the Irish Dairy Board then sells internationally to well over 100 countries globally. So it's one body for the Irish dairy industry that sort of sells those products. So kerrygold butter would be the main product that they would sell largely into the us, Germany, different places into the uk. Huge amount of cheddar cheese goes into the UK and so really interesting place because a huge amount of foreign exchange to deal with and really complicated foreign exchange and working capital and cash like because stock and debtors and creditors, it's a huge. You'll have huge swings and massive seasonality in the business in terms of the production cycle and everything. So really trying to get to understand that and put a financing structure in place. It took us a few years but to put a financing structure in place that could really cope with those stresses, had receivables financing in place. We put in a stock financing program which was quite innovative at the time and it took a long time to get because you had it, you had procurement, you had logistics, warehousing. Everybody needed to be involved in the product or in the project. We had reverse factoring to support the dairy cooperatives in the region and in the country. So you had to really marry all of those together. And it was quite an integrated form of financing and just it's a cooperative so it was a really nice place to work and I really enjoyed my time there. It was a very kind of a family. People really bought into the company. It was a really good culture, so a really good time.

That's great because I was actually going to ask the you'd had a very corporate culture, a paddy power really where's the cash? Make sure this is it and everything else. You then gone to this cooperative where perhaps different culture more. How did you feel you were doing stuff for the greater good or what was the ethos?

I think I know when I started in Ornua, I realized after two or three months I was running way too fast and that the team wasn't really with me. I didn't understand why I was going so fast and a great team, but they'd been there for many years and if I was trying to make changes like in Padi power. We used to try fail, but if you're going to fail fast. We went through things really quickly where it was not the approach in Oronua. And to be honest, I got to much prefer the Ornua approach. Let's take our time. Let's really think about it. Think of all the angles and it's a kind of maybe a balance of. Between the two.

Yeah.

Bring new initiatives, but appreciate that as a way of doing it. And that's. And once you have, that's where you get the buy in that people understand why you're making changes that you're making. No one's threatened by it and you're bringing everybody on board. Like a kind of that sort of family culture, I think. So that's. It was a big difference. Absolutely.

And then you did. So you were there six years and then you joined Sodexo, which you can explain who they are. But also as you joined Sodexo, you're at an interesting point because you were merging two treasury teams quite early on. Boom. Talk us through the move and everything else.

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, as you said at the outset, Sidex is a French company, but it's actually this massive global company. It has over 420,000 staff. When I joined we were in about 85 countries. We've actually, since I've joined, we've disposed down of a lot of very smaller countries. So we're about 45 countries with no real impact on our overall revenues as such. It's more. More simplified and it's primarily a food services company, does facilities management also. And again, at the time that I started, we had a benefit and a vouchers business which we call benefit and rewards and also a personal home care services business. So there was split over three or four different business lines. French headquartered company and I was hired basically a few years before I joined. They'd moved the treasury team to Dublin. They'd moved what we call the group funding team. So it was the main team that looks after bond issuances, syndicated financing, all of the external financing activities of the group, but then also the internal financing, cash pooling, intercompany lending, any support for mergers and acquisitions. All of that managed through one team. So that was a Paris based team, it was moved to Dublin and then they created a separate team in Dublin called the European Treasury Centre. So for, as you can imagine, France is a big market for Sodexo because it's its home country, but also UK and Ireland and also what we call Continental Europe. So all of the other kind of 15 or 20 countries in Europe that we operate in, all of the treasury functions of those countries were all moved to Dublin and housed together in one function function and the role that I was brought in to do was to basically bring those together as one group treasury function. I report to the group CFO in Paris. So we, our group treasury function is here in Dublin. And so we are with that group funding team. We're managing all of the external financing of the group and we're the kind of the go to point for everyone in Sodexo that as I say either has cash or needs cash, needs to talk to us. And then we also have the European treasury center here which does the more day to day payments, cash positioning, cash forecasting for all of the countries in Europe starting to move now into Asia Pacific and to assist countries there. And then we separately then have other treasury teams in different regions. So we have a team in North America, we have a team in Brazil, we have a team in India and they don't report to me as such. They'll each report to their regional cfo. But they were the ultimate treasury team but. And they follow the same strategy and we work very closely with them on a daily basis.

And I talked there about you merging these two treasury teams. You did a really easy time like feedback things like Covid coming along and you having to like that was tongue echo because it was like you were managing emerging teams, significant change. And then Covid was there as well. So what was that like?

Yeah, no, it's. It was probably six months before I met my boss in person and he said I didn't know if you were tall or short because we'd only ever seen each other.

It was about this big.

Yeah. And no, the two teams were all were sitting together if you like. It's just they had two different managers and. But it's. And they still operate as two different teams but they operate very closely together now because if you like I'm directing everything that they're doing. So it's. And we have a much better way of sharing information. I think it was more the COVID point because everyone was at home. But to be fair I got to know everyone very quickly, get to understand what they're, what they do. Had to hand over very quickly because if you like, the two people I was replacing were both moving back to France, had to really try and download a lot of information. And Sodexo is quite a complicated business and has a lot of history of different complicated transactions. That have happened. So you really, you need to, especially in treasury, you need to get to the reason those transactions were put in place. What the history is, is why they're there. And then also I think what was difficult was to try and then build up a rapport and a relationship with all of my peer group who are to be fair, a lot based in Paris. So you'll have kind of the central functions like tax and M and A and investor relations but Also the region CFOs that all report to the group CFO now they're all based in countries I wasn't any different if I'd have been in Paris and not Covid still could be the same in the end it's fine. Yeah, I think it's. For me it's all about relationships and I since the flight restrictions and everything have been lifted with COVID it's amazing to even think back now that all happened. But I go to Paris every month and I try and spend two or three days with everybody. That's to me that's really important that you spend face time and really build a relationship with people.

And you talked about then Paddy power, we're talking about technology. You went in that time you went from Excel to onto a system and things. I know that you've also done this the role with technology at Sodexo and things. You've used different treasury management systems forecasting how have you improve the treasury operations when you got to Sodexa, what was in place or how's it gone through?

Yeah, we've always had a Treasury management system in place. Quite a good one that we're very happy with. It's for us it's been more about how do we use it and how do we deploy it. And I think that's the kind of perennial problem like treasury management providers will are naturally always going to invest in their system and have new products. But it's as a Treasury team, it's actually having the bandwidth to be able to catch up with that and to spend time and integrate those systems and to make sure. My mantra is ultimately want to make sure we're doing the same thing the same way everywhere. There'll always be local nuances in particular geographies as to why we do things a certain way. But on balance we should be using the same system. We should be using it the same way so that we can support each other and that's the most efficient way to do it. No, I think we've done a lot with our treasury management system in terms of integrating it more in terms of getting better reporting out of it, better forecasting, liquidity, planning, all of those kind of key things. But there's always, it will never stop. There's always more things that we have to do and challenges, challenges that we'll face. But it's about, we're trying, what we're trying to do by grouping more and more people together in the treasury center is actually build that kind of knowledge base. And so that. And people talk a lot about artificial intelligence now. We use it a little bit. Not I see a lot. There's a lot of treasury guys out there at the moment really getting stuck into it. From our perspective, from my perspective, it's about making sure that I would say to treasury analysts, you probably have your morning's work, which is your daily processes, reconciliations, whatever it is, getting your payments ready, doing all, all that sort of basic stuff. As your career develops, you want to spend less time. Intelligence. Now we use it a little bit. Not I see a lot. There's a lot of treasury guys out there at the moment really getting stuck into it. From our perspective, from my perspective, it's about making sure that I would say to treasury analysts, you probably have your morning's work, which is your daily processes, reconciliations, whatever it is, getting your payments ready, doing all that sort of basic stuff. As your career develops, you want to spend less time doing that. So you want to try and automate that. Take time in the afternoon to automate that. Because what I want this team to become is very much a value added team. So it's not that we're, okay, we need to get the day job done and do all of that, but we need to reduce the amount of time we spend doing that and use systems and software to help us do that so that we can really add value. And that has a twin objective because it's efficient, but it also helps people grow their own career. So they're now doing more exciting jobs than they were kind of two years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

That's really important to me.

And one of the things I, I was looking at my notes again when we spoke before, you talked about actionable reporting rather than just data for its own sake, like, except just going like crazy, how did you put it there that you just said about junior guys, but also AI coming along. It was like, we can do this, we can do this. And we've done it with our salary survey, where I'm diving into these grids, I'm thinking, actually, does anyone care? They want to know where Do I stack up in my salary? Where do I go? Here? They want to see some of the data, but they don't need to see all of the data. We give it to everyone. But it's. So in your situation as a treasurer, where do you draw the line? What's actionable reporting? What's excessive, if you like.

Yeah, it's true. And I try and call it out when I see it. People just sending reports for the sake of it. And I'm like, is anyone really reading this? Do they get any benefit from it? What's the point? And I do think it's human nature to sometimes a little bit, if you're tired or whatever, it's Monday morning, you go, oh, I can send out this report. I always do. I know how to do it. You're almost. It's cognitive. You're almost asleep doing it. It's automatic. We have to challenge ourselves and say, is anyone getting any benefit from that? What's the rationale for it? I report to the group CFO when I have time with him. Like, we run through 50 topics in a short space of time. He doesn't have time for me to explain. 50 pages.

Let's go to number three. Let's go back on that.

Yeah, we've got to get through things really quickly. And that's what I mean by actionable data. Say, look, this is telling me this. That's what we need to worry about and really to. So that even at the level of people who are generating the reports that they start to realize, look, I can get AI to generate a report. Actually, what's really important is not that I send a report to somebody is actually that I send it with some commentary and that I think about it and I say, hey, I've. I'm the one looking at this every week and I. I've noticed a trend or I see something happening that's value add. Like, that's. But it's about giving people the time to be able to do that and a mandate and say, look, it's your job to comment on this. It's your job to notice things and to shout out when you see it and don't be afraid. You know what I mean? So that's. For me, that's really important.

And what do you see maybe as some of the touches on it, the biggest challenges, opportunities for treasury professionals at the moment? What are the things that you're. Maybe on your Monday meeting, not with the cfo, but with you and the team, or things. What are you thinking, guys? This Focus on this for the week, quarter, year. What are the key things you're thinking?

A couple of things, I'd say. I think obviously we, as treasurers, we need to be obsessed with cash and we need to realize that maybe not everyone else in the group is. And so it's about how we drive that message. So that's a challenge because people, if you keep banging the door all the time, eventually the message will go through, but then also people will get boredy as well, you know what I mean? So it's about having that right message and trying to find that right balance that you say, how do we make a difference and how do we get people to understand what the key things are? I think that's definitely one challenge. I think probably like any treasury team, like there's 12 of us here, staff and just people management. And I don't mean. I don't mean recruitment or anything like that. Making sure that people are like I touched on before, that they feel like they have a career and that there's a. That there's a. There's somewhere for them to grow too. So they can see, okay, I'm doing this now, but actually in 12 months and 24 months and 36 months, this is. And so that they feel involved and they can see, okay, when I produce this report, it actually, it goes to the cfo and he's making this decision. So that's the act, that's the role I've played, as opposed to people maybe being a little bit in the dark and not really understanding what they're doing. So that's a challenge, is to try and get people to understand how they fit into the big picture and the key role that treasury plays in the group. As I said before, technology. But I think for me, technology, like the technology is there and the technology will always be being developed quite quickly. It's about scraping out the time to be able to catch up with that technology and to apply it to our own business needs. That's a challenge because we've a list of 20 or 30 projects that we want to do here, but we're always struggling to get to them. Do you know what I mean? Because we've got to do the day job and the only answer is to make the day job less time consuming. But it's. You've got to take the time to then invest in making the day job less time consuming. So you've got to be disciplined about. It's the cycle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's interesting, just going back to your point, There about a Treasury. When I've looked at a lot of the previous podcasts we're on 350 plus. One of the key things that come out is treasurers like yourself becoming more people leaders that are the most successful people said what makes a more successful treasurer? And I've written articles about it about. And again I quoted it recently that it's not about you anymore, it's about them. It's about going to your team. And when I. So I'll go back a couple of years ago I was interviewed, I was giving a session rather for some of the top US treasurers. So I'm chatting away to them and they were saying that we need to mentor my team. We need to do this. What do I need to do? How do I need. These are the top reasons people leave from our salary survey. Not being work life balance, not being led, not being having clear career path. I went through these are the top reasons. And they were like, okay. And I said, look, go and have a coffee with a member of your team and said, how's your work life balance? Where do you see yourself in 12 months, 24 months? What can I do as a leader to help you? You literally sit across the table with them, not just come from the top down as you sit across with them. And they were like, oh. And I said, yeah, 80% of your problems will go away because our survey says that. And they were like, oh, yeah. And it sounds like you've already got that going as well.

Yeah, I try to. I won't say we're perfect, but I'm live to the challenge. That work life balance you touched on. Like, we try and have a pretty good work life balance here. I always say to people, you don't need to come and tell me that it's your kids Christmas play and you won't be in anymore. Like just go do it.

Yeah.

Equally, if we need to do something at 8pm on a Friday evening and it's really urgent, like we, we just do it. But we're a team, we know when to pull together and. But we're not. I'm not a clock watcher, but that's not how we operate. Touched on it. You have to have, you have to be. I'm always thinking about where's next for each of the team. What do they, what can they do? Because that's the specific nature of Treasury. It's different to a lot of other finance functions where somebody can work in consolidation and then go and work in a region or go and work in FP and A probably treasury is relatively specialized. We want. People will either go moving up or I'm moving out. And so you have to have a way up for them. It upsets me sometimes people will leave, good people that you've put a lot of time into. On balance, I go, do you know what? I didn't have a better opportunity for them here. And so go. They might see them again in four or five years, they might come back, you know what I mean? I'm sad to lose people, but I'm happy for them if it's the right move. And then, yeah, as a leader, like my job, I'll be honest, I don't know how to do the daily treasury for France or I don't know that the daily activities. It's my job to make, to facilitate whatever the team needs. Do you know what I mean? And to be a champion for them and to say, look, treasury needs this, we need investment in this type of project. We need this team to move, we need. And it's my job to get those things done and to shine a light on stuff and say, strategically, this is where we need to go and to influence others so that treasury becomes. It moves up to the top of the list in terms of activities that we need to do.

And if someone were listening and just reflecting back on your earlier career, your younger self, if you, like you were in corporate banking, what piece of advice would you give yourself to that is, if someone is in corporate bank and they want to make that move into treasury, is that something you still see people doing or what do people need to do to set themselves up for success in that way?

Yeah, I think it's funny, I enjoy mentoring people. I talk to people all the time. Sometimes you have to make a sideways move. And I think people oftentimes. And because I come from a banking background, I know people are relatively, or they used to be relatively well paid in banks and they'd go and say, oh, if I move into that role in treasury, you have to take a bit of a kickback in salary and I'm not so happy to do that. I'd say, you need to, if it's what you want to do, you need to be brave and go and do it. You know what I mean? If that's what you're interested in doing. So take the plunge. I think challenge yourself. I think the best bit of advice I ever got from anybody, and I can still remember him as a lovely older guy, but he was one of my first or second days on the job in the bank. And he said, look, look, don't panic. He goes, two things that you said, there's nothing that can't be learned that happens in this building. You know what I mean? You don't need to be a rocket scientist. You learn it, so don't let it. Don't panic. And he said, and then don't worry. In three months you'll be better than you were today. In six months, you'll be better again. So just have that kind of confidence in yourself to say, okay, I don't actually know how to do all this stuff, but I can learn and I can challenge myself. I enjoy mentoring people. I talk to people all the time. Sometimes you have to make a sideways move. And I think people oftentimes. And because I come from a banking background, I know people are relatively, or they used to be relatively well paid in banks, and they'd go and say, oh, if I move into that role in treasury, you have to take a bit of a kickback in salary. And I'm not so happy to do that. I'd say, you need to. If it's what you want to do, you need to. And that's what I look for in people, is the attitude. Do you know what I mean? If they have positive attitude, can they. Will they fit in? Will they be helpful? Will they roll up their sleeves and say, look, I don't know how to do this, or it's actually, it's not my job, but you're struggling, I'll help you. It's that kind of attitude. I don't. We support people to go through different treasury qualifications and all that sort of stu better their career. But for me, that's not the fundamental. It's the attitude. It's the person. It's how they feel and think about things. And when the chips are down, can you look at that person and say, that person's going to help me and that's what you want. And not somebody who'd be like, oh, that's beneath me, or I don't want to.

I don't do that.

That's not for me. You know what I mean? We don't want people like that.

So it's funny, usually we wrap up. I put you. I'll put your LinkedIn details and be.

Brave and go and do it. You know what I mean? If that's what you're interested in doing. So to take the plunge, I think challenge yourself. I think the best bit of advice I ever got from anybody, and I can still remember him as a Lovely older guy, but he was my. One of my first or second days on the job in the bank. And he said, look, don't panic. He goes, two things that he said, there's nothing that can't be learned that happens in this building. You know what I mean?

Show notes. But I feel like you've already given one of the great pieces of advice from that guy that you first met. But any other, as I say, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes, but any other takeaways or lessons from your treasury career that, that you think other treasury folk with the junior senior should listen to or apply themselves?

I think I would say I've been very lucky throughout my career. All of my managers and bosses that I've worked for have all been really helpful and supportive of me in their own ways. Everyone is a different character. And I think the advice I'd give is it's important to have a good relationship with your line manager and have an honest relationship with them and to understand maybe where they're coming from and to build up that you don't need to be a rocket scientist. You'll learn it, so don't let it it. Don't panic. And he said, and don't worry, in three months you'll be better than you were today. In six months you'll be better again. So just have that kind of confidence in yourself to say, okay, I don't actually know how to do all this stuff, but I can learn when I can challenge myself. And that's what I look for in people is the attitude. You know what I mean? If they have positive attitude rapport. Because I just think it's really important to be honest with people and to say, look, this is my development and needs, or this is my objective. This is where I want to go with my career. Or this is how I need you to support me. Because appreciate you could be working for someone who has 10 or 15 direct reports and has a boss and has lots of other things to do. So for me, it's about having that good relationship with them and also becoming that kind of trusted advisor, doing the stuff that maybe nobody else wants to do or making difficult calls. But being pro. Can they, Will they fit in? Will they be helpful? Will they roll up their sleeves and say, look, I don't know how to do this act of being helpful, being a dependable person. I think that just worth it. It's worth its weight in gold in terms of your relationship not just with your own line manager, but with all this Hurt. It's actually, it's not my job, but you're struggling, I'll help you. It's that kind of attitude I don't understand. We support people to go through different treasury qualifications and all that sort of stuff to better their career. But for me that's not the fundamental, it's the attitude, it's the person, it's how they feel and think about things. And when the chip of your peer group and then with everybody that's part of your team, that you be coma the trusted person and people say, okay, that person's reliable, that's the person's dependable. That's the main bit of advice I'd say is just don't be afraid, roll up the sleeves and get stuck in. And every company, every Treasury I've worked for is entirely different. And so you need to come with a kind of a, okay, I don't know how to do this but I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to work with it and maybe we'll change it. Can you look at that person and say, that person's going to help me and that's what you want and maybe we won't but let me see what it is first.

And just taking that just one step further. You talked about being a trusted advisor maybe to the CFO yourself. How do you said that They've got different drugs.

Not somebody who'd be like, oh that's beneath me or I don't want to.

I don't do that.

That's not for me. You know what I mean? We don't want people like that.

So it's funny, usually we wrap up, I put you, I'll put your LinkedIn details in the showers. Maybe then you as the treasurer, you're doing the day to day managing the team and making sure that works, show notes. But I feel like you've already given one of the great pieces of advice from that guy that you first met. If there are other treasures listening and they're thinking how do, what are you, how do you manage your relationship with your cfo? Not, not one to one, but more in general. So without confidentially, what do you, what are they looking for? You've been through this.

Yeah. I think you need to understand what's important for them. Okay, and what are they? And I said at the start they're looking for stability. When I think if I was the cfo, I'd say I'm looked my treasurer just, I want to make sure we don't run out of Money or I want to make sure we don't have any exposures. I want to make sure.

But any other. As I say, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes, but any other takeaways or lessons from your treasury career that. But do you think other treasury folk with the junior senior should listen to or apply themselves?

I think I would say I've been very lucky throughout my career. All of my managers and bosses that I've worked, he's across everything fine. And I think always, and it's always in life, I think it's helpful to have gone through some kind of a war or a battle together, do you know what I mean? So that person can, your line manager, your CFO can look and say, actually, you know what, we got through that together and I trust that. Do you know what I mean? But to have had some big hurdle to get over and say we made it and actually when the heat was really on, that person delivered. Because then you become that kind of trusted advisor. I think you've got to keep. You've got to build on that and keep delivering and maintain that trust. But you've earned that trust then. And you might have slightly different objectives, but I think once you become more and more trusted, you can then start to introduce your own objectives and explain you have a better platform to be able to say, look, this may not be important to you, but it's important to us. We've got to do this. And I think once you've built that kind of trusted relationship, then you'll have a much better platform to be able to get those things done and equally understanding. Exactly. Starting to learn which for have all been really helpful and supportive of me in their own ways. Everyone is a different character. And I think the advice I'd give is it's important to have a good relationship with your line manager and have an honest relationship with them and to understand maybe where they're coming from and to build up that rapport. Because I just think it's really important to be honest with people and to say, look, this is. These are my. This is my person. Why different things are important to them and why they're not.

Yeah. So being the trusted advisor to see.

If my development and needs or this is my objective, this is where I want to go and with my career.

So.

Yeah, exactly. Really important.

Amazing, Gary. Thank you very much, sir.

Or this is how I need you to support me. Because appreciate you could be working for someone who has.

Looking forward to seeing you in Dublin. I'll be over in 2025 and thank you very much for today.

Has 10 or 15 direct reports and has a boss and has lots of other things to do. So thanks Mike.

Cheers. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode just as much as I did, recording it with another amazing guest. And feel free to sign up through wherever you get your podcast through Spotify, Apple podcast wherever it is and keep on listening. Thank you very much for your support.

Support. For me it's about having that good relationship with them and also becoming that kind of trusted adv.

Now before you move on, I wanted to let you know how you stay ahead in the treasury world. So you'll see in our show advisors.

Doing the stuff that maybe nobody else wants to do or making difficult calls but being proactive, being helpful, being a dependable person. I think that just worth it.

It's worth who notes how you can sign up for our Treasury Recruitment newsletter. It'll give you immediate access to our 2025 safe treasury salary trends white paper.

If it's weight and gold in terms of your relationship not just with your own line manager but with all in.

There, we've got assessment of things coming from the salary survey but we actually go back over the past 20 years. We look at some of the insights there. We then also can give you some.

Strategic your peer group and then with everybody that's part of your team that should be coma career advice.

We give you bonuses like access to CV and resume templates, things to basically help you with your treasury career. If you go there we'll put it in the show notes but it's you go to our newsletter on our website as well as the newsletter you might be looking for your next role if you are. Well that's what we do and we do it best. So reach out to us if you.

Want to a trusted person and people say okay that person's reliable, that's person's dependable. That's the main bit of advice I'd say is just don't be afraid, roll up the sleeves and get stuck in.

And and every US roles you go to joe@treasuryrecruitment.com for European roles you go to Katie treasuryrecruitment.com the UK and more senior positions company.

Every Treasury I've worked for is entirely different and so you need to come with the kind of a come to.

Me mike treasuryrecruitment.com or go to the website treasure recruitment.com Feel free to connect with us in person. We're going to be doing a number of Upcoming events and conferences throughout. 20.

Okay. I, I don't know how to do this but I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to work with it and maybe we'll change it.

25 Got more news coming your way about. Yeah, some exciting plans we've got as well. So give us a call, drop us an email, thanks for your support. We'll see you at the next event. Until next week. Any thanks?

Maybe we won't but let me see what it is first.

And just taking that just one step further, you talked about being a trusted advisor maybe to the CFO yourself. How do you said that they've got different drivers maybe than you as the treasurer. You're doing the day to day managing the team and making sure that works. If there are other treasurers listening and they're thinking, how do, what are you, how do you manage your relationship with your cfo? Not one to one, but more in general. So without confidentially, what do you, what are they looking for? You've been through this.

Yeah. I think you need to understand what's important for them. Okay. And what are they. And I said at the start they're looking for stability. When I think if I was the cfo, I'd say I'm looking my treasurer. I, and just I want to make sure we don't run out of money. I want to make sure we don't have any exposures. I want to make sure he's across everything fine. And I think always, and it's always in life, I think it's helpful to have gone through some kind of a, like a war or a battle like together. Do you know what I mean? So that person can, your line manager, your CFO can look and say actually you know what, we got through that together and I trust that person now. Do you know what I mean? But to have had some big hurdle to get over and say we made it and actually when the heat was really on, that person delivered because then you become that kind of trusted advisor. I think you've got to keep, you've got to build on that and keep delivering and maintain that trust. But you've earned that trust then. And you might have slightly different objectives, but I think once you become more and more trusted, you can then start to introduce your own objectives and explain you have a better platform to be able to say, look, this may not be important to you, but it's important to us. We've got to do this. And I think once you've built that kind of trusted relationship Then you'll have a much better platform to be able to get those things done and equally understanding. Exactly. Starting to learn with that person why different things are important to them and why they're not.

Yeah. So being the trusted advisor, the cfo.

Yeah, exactly. Really important.

Amazing, Gary. Thank you very much, sir. Looking forward to seeing you in Dublin. I'll be over in 2025. And thank you very much for today.

Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. Cheers. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode just as much as I did, recording it with another amazing guest. And feel free to sign up through wherever you get your podcast through, Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever it is, and keep on listening. Thank you very much for your support. Now, before you move on, I wanted to let you know how you can stay ahead in the treasury world. So you'll see in our Show Notes how you can sign up for our Treasury Recruitment newsletter. It'll give you immediate access to our 2025 Treasury Salary Trends white paper. In there, we've got assessment of things coming from the salary survey, but we actually go back over the past 20 years. We look at some of the insights there. We then also can give you some strategic career advice. We give you bonuses, like access to CV and resume templates, things to basically help you with your treasury career. If you go there, we'll put it in the Show Notes, but it's. You go to our newsletter on our website. Website as well as the newsletter you might be looking for your next role. If you are. Well, that's what we do and we do it best. So reach out to us if you want to. For the US roles, you go to joe@treasuryrecruitment.com For European roles, you go to katie. Treasuryrecruitment.com the UK and more senior positions come to me mike@treasuryrecruitment.com or go to the website treasure recruitment.com Feel free to connect with us in person. We're going to be doing a number of upcoming events and conferences throughout 2020.