Exploring the Evolution of Treasury with Irene Atkins

There's a big skill set to learning to become a consultant in whatever chosen field someone does that in. It's not only about having, you know, a very broad selection of knowledge. It's about being able to extract things or extract information out of people. So it's about understanding what you're consulting on. It's about understanding what the appetite and the drive for an organization is. And it's about understanding, understanding what the end goals are and making recommendations and, you know, going back more into the sort of the operational field. It's about then implementing and delivering on those as well. Consultancy. Sometimes you have the advantage of not having to implement and sometimes you're fully involved in an implementation as well. So it's about learning quite a lot of skill sets that are then transferable into new roles. We spent a lot of time on looking at how people were suited to roles, making sure people understood what their roles and responsibilities were, allowing people to feel empowered, so making sure that they were comfortable in their own space, had all the right tools for their job and also the right education and training as well. Because I don't in that 15 years before me it was very, very old school, authoritarian, autocratic, almost type management. Now that isn't my style whatsoever. I'm much more. I, you know, I would prefer people to come up with their own ideas, their own solutions, work about, you know, it's not just risk management, foreign exchange management, the liquidity, the cash management side of the business, the banking activities they perform for stores as well. It really was about how people felt empowered and able to deliver the services and solutions that we needed to for internal and external relationships. I employ on attitude. A lot of the time you get a CV in, you see people's experience, qualifications, etc. You know, you can generally pick out from a CV if they have the technical expertise and then obviously subsequent conversations. I mean, I suppose you do the filter thing, don't you? Have they got the right technical expertise? If not, you know what? Yeah, but I really do employ on attitude. So when it comes to the face to face interviews, I want to see if someone's going to fit into. My organisation is eager to learn, you know, the technical skills. Yes, but they are probably 50% of would you even see someone or not for an interview? It really is attitude because, you know, if they've got the right work ethic, they're keen to learn, they're keen to be involved, they're a good people person and you can generally teach everything else.