Finding New Routes into Treasury with Frank Waechter

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've 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.

This week's show joined by Frank Wachter, the Global Director of Treasury and Insurance at Puma Group. Now I hope I've said his name right, he's a lovely German guy and so my English pronunciation is terrible but Frank is the Director of Treasury and Insurance to say at Puma. Founded in 1948, they're one of the world's leading sports brands and you should know them. Headquartered over in Germany as a German multinational, they design, manufacture athletic casual sportswear and I have a number of the goods and I love them. So it's great, great. The group has actually been a public company way back since 1986, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and recently joined the tax actually. So you can maybe talk us through that a little bit and that that process. Amazing company, great guy to talk to. I had an amazing pre podcast call with Frank, but as always I'm going to hand the show over to you sir. So take us back to the beginning Wood and how you first discovered the world of world treasury because you came into it slightly differently from a consulting type background to then and grew from there. So back to you sir.

Hey Mike, thank you for the introduction, thank you for the kind words. Good morning everybody, this is Frank speaking. So as you said earlier, I came in through consultancy. I would phrase it a little bit differently saying I'm one of those guys who is a treasurer by accident and with that you have those careers like mine are quite popular in that regard. So I came in. Firstly the first touch points were when I did a bank traineeship in the early days or two years traineeship which after that I wouldn't like to continue going into the bank just because of already at that time because of the sales pressure. So selling product to private or corporates, that was not my job, was not my top type. So I decided to go for studies and after studies I joined a consultancy. And within the consultancy I joined initially a different segment, but within this segment there was a time where there was not too much of projects and then they tried to find some other projects for me and then were reminded hey, this guy has a bank traineeship, he has a bank apprenticeship, why don't we put him to the relatively new group of corporate treasury at that Time in the consultancy Corporate treasury was at least in Germany, a relatively young group with a couple of people, a handful of people who do wanted to let's say develop that market and with a banking background they thought hey, that would be a good idea to put me on that. And you typically at that time did a consultant project in the blue chip companies at that time. So I had a long assignment with Siemens, the big industry group in Germany because they were the ones who firstly developed a, what we call it today, a corporate treasury function while everybody else has a bank department thing in that regard. So that's how. And then I did the consultant jobs consultant project with these guys in KPMG at that time. BearingPoint has that they have, they have a renaming in Bearing Point after a while but. But I did these, these projects with KPMG for quite a while and after that, quite a while means for me six, seven years and after that I joined then let's say from the other side I joined the profession of being a corporate treasurer at that time.

And with that, Frank, you sort of. That again. We spoke about this before the show. What did consultancy give you in your sort of back pocket, as it were, that you've kept with you now? And you know, we talk about sometimes in different shows we talk about how people having checklists and things. The great thing for you, as you said before was that it sort of gave you a view of different treasuries and some best practices, if you like, that you were trying to instill and recommend to your clients. You know, how was that sort of. How did that help you when you made your, as you say, you that sort of move into corporate.

First of all, as I mentioned before, I said Corporate treasury at that time was a kind of a young discipline, was a young project with a couple of also corporates. And that being part of a consultancy gave me the opportunity to be part of great companies who are developing that function and not only one. So I get a bit of an idea how they are doing that, how the other companies are doing that. So that gave me a perfect intro and a little bit of a benchmarking peer possibility in that regard. So that was what was the one thing and I think the second topic and that is astonishingly also present now. It made me think that this building up something, building up the function, developing the function into something that kept with me, stayed with me not only during the consultancy but also when, when I hit the corporate ground, let's say when it came to the first assignments with companies where I Also was hired because hey I had the kind of a proof of concept that. That we have to develop that we are able to develop things and build something up. That was a let's say red line through the whole career in building things up.

And so then you transitioned as you say from consultancy into a practical treasury role sort of starting middle office and then grew into the eventually your group treasurer role maybe to talk us through that company if you would and talk us through that.

That was a pharmaceutical company with also like pharmaceutical companies are very often pharmaceutical company in the west of Germany and this pharmaceutical company at that time was already a very, a very international. International exercise, a very international presence because their products were based. They are doing, they are doing basically. They are still doing basically painkillers and that was a company who was very much relying on research that regard and develop their own let's say heavy painkillers. I'm not talking about the paracetamols and aspirates in that regard. And with that having a very specialized product portfolio that were very very internationally and then they have started to build up a Treasury function at that time already but then wanted to develop also first of all a mid office function for a. They saw that they need a system support. So typically mid office functions are often established when you're setting up a system and your it doesn't want to do it because it's such a specialized treasury system so that the treasury department themselves have to take a little bit more care of their systems. Secondly also to control the numbers in that regard. To control, to control also liquidity planning and this stuff. That was a reason for me going into that role. I found it relatively easy because when you're doing for a while, when you're for a while in consultancy on the one side you think you have seen everything but on the other side when it comes to the day to day operation you think hey you are a greenhorn. And with that the mid office function gave me first of all it has to be established newly and then with a quickly started system implementation which was then the new backbone of the whole treasury function that gave me a perfect introduction into that what. What what we are doing. And obviously that was not so bad because with this pharmaceutical company after a three years role in in mid office I was promoted to be their group treasurer at that time already which I then also did for the following three years. So it it the mid office things give you a great introduction into that without being bothered with day to day payments, day to day cash management and and where you have a lot of operational stuff but mid office is that and you're quite often a in particular when it comes to new projects, new initiative, you're quite often a sparing partner of the group treasurer for new things you want to implement either because you want to service your companies and subsidiaries better and need a system or you want to control your risk better and need a report and an approach. So quite often these guys in these mid office guys or let's say sparing partners for their group treasurers and that's why what made it so interesting and it gave me a very, very quick learning experience after a relatively short time. I was very deep into the topics in that regard.

And then you joined 10 years ago now the headed up treasury for Puma. Talk us through that because you've sort of built up the function from what was not a startup but you know the you know, sort of grew Treasury. At Puma you maybe talk us through the early days if you and you know everyone knows the brand, it's a great brand and everyone's out there and things like that. But you've done some really interesting sort of progressions throughout the role over the 10 years. You know sometimes you say to people you know they've been in a role say three years and do. But you've been 10 years but you've done some incredible stuff. So talk us through that if you would.

That was really a very interesting journey and that was quite, quite visible already when when we got in contact, when I got in contact with PUMA that they, that they at that time are looking for someone who is building up that function. It started already at that time with a funny name of the few people who were there because this department was named bank department a bank Apteilung in German and that was of course well they are doing a bit of a cash management. They have done a bit of a cash management for the headquarters they have done to taken care of in that regard. They have started with the first cash pool for a euro company but that was all So I quickly recognize before joining that this will be. That this will be a full journey of building up a group treasury function from scratch. And then there was a second aspect as well that that also from they've chosen that newly with the function to. To bring also the insurance topic into this role because the idea was that insurers and banks are kind of similar speaking the same language and of course the risk management part which is always embedded into a Treasury function is also a very important point risk management cycle is also a very important point in insurance. So it gave me two things at that time. On the first side, I can build up something which was already at that time quite a red line in my career. So it gave me the perfect opportunity to build this function up. At that time when I joined Puma was a two point something billion company. There's a quite unique opportunity to build such a function so fundamentally up for a relatively big company. And that's why I joined in that regard.

And I often sort of ask people for their checklists and stuff. And you'd had this great sort of consulting then corporate and you then joined this great company. But there was some not easy transitions. That's the wrong way to put it. But there was a natural progression because you were centralizing fx then you sort of, you, you actually, and I know we spoke about this before because ESG is, you know, everything at the moment. Everyone's going on environmental, blah blah, blah. You did this way back when you knew this five, six years ago. So then can you talk us maybe through those couple of things and, and then spin offs and things. Incredible stuff.

When you're building such a function, you're just, you're starting, you're starting with early topics. I said hey, there have been a couple of cash pools already available, but you only euro cash pool. So I've built a full cash pool system. So I started first of all centralization of cash to make it available. So that was one of the first projects. And then secondly we were after centralization cash and putting a hand on the dollar which have been very heterogeneously distributed in the group and putting them into the group Treasury's responsibility. We started in putting a hand on ethics management. So currency risks, centralizing currency risk and fully embedding that also into the function and hiring a new risk manager from a bank. So that is also kind of a nice centralization function. And after that we have started with one initiative and that is what you just mentioned about. We have started with one initiative because we were already at that time the financing was not in the forefront in the beginning. But we saw that our suppliers needed a bit of a help in that regard. If you go into a value chain of a typical sport industry company, the value chain of a typical of a company like Puma is that of course PUMA is doing the design and functional specification and then products are being developed and manufactured. And this development already is the entry point for external suppliers, external companies who are manufacturing well for example sports shoes and who are already embedded into the development and then bringing that into a kind of a mass production. So there is a very close relationship in one part of the supply chain where you're working very, very closely with your suppliers. And after suppliers deliver the finished product towards Puma, it is that with Puma to distribute and do the marketing and selling. In that regard, having said all that, it is clear that we are quite dependent from our suppliers. We need them and that is that. And I said also that this is not only just throwing functional specifics over to them and please do that, but this is a real cooperative approach. So we have to help them in particular at that time, because Puma, a growth company at that time already, so we need to go our suppliers, go the extra miles free, some production capacities for us because we are growing. So that was a cooperative approach. And we then said, hey, let's make that available, let's make a financing available, supply chain financing available for them already at that time in 2015, there was the idea, hey, people start to look at how these products also the production is outsourced, how these products are produced, are the workers with our suppliers, do they work in a safe environment, are they paid fairly, and so on and so forth. And this hygienic factor today, we put them under, when we talk about esg, we put them typically under the social aspects. These hygienic factors have been very high on the agenda already since years. At that time, because of in particular, customers do expect their branded products to be absolutely fair in that regard. So branded products, customer expects it as a kind of a hygienic factor. I don't want to pay a shoe for Puma. I don't want to give my little boy a T shirt from Puma which is manufactured by kids in Asia. So that was very high on the agenda already. And before that it was a kind of in and out decision. So you're compliant on that regard, that supplier is fulfilling the requirements, does a fee pair, takes care of security topics, takes care of waste water management and so on and so forth. But it was an in or out decision. If you, if you have that, you're in and if not, you're out. And we wanted to combine the possibility to offer them something by offering them incentives because at that time we already saw that our suppliers that there are quite heterogeneous. There are a couple of suppliers who are already further down the road when it comes to ESG topics and we want to give them a kind of an incentive for that. And the incentive consists of cheaper funding rates in this ESG linked supply chain financing program. So the best rated suppliers when it comes to ESG topics, they get the cheapest rates. And then we have a normal rate on, let's say the good average rated suppliers and we have a little bit of a malus, a little bit of a more expensive rates for those who are below the average. And then again, if you are too much below the average, you may not even use this program. So we want to give an incentive on saying, hey, we saw that you're going the extra mile in that regard. We appreciate that and we want to give you something. And that was already in 2015 where we designed the program and then went live in 2016. That was an early stage, so we were really quite innovative in that regard. But we thought from our sustainability DNA and from, from the way how we as a brand must talk honestly to our customers, we knew that we need a program where we also give that to our suppliers and where we show to our supplier how important that is.

And then, you know, from there, so you've done the esg which, you know, you predated everyone and you know, everyone's getting into it now. You're like, well yeah, yeah, we've done that five years ago. And I get over yourselves. But then you did, you know, a number of other things and you know, we'll touch on Covid, we've got to, you know, but I don't want to linger on that too much. Talk us through, you know, the past few years and how you guys dealt with that, you know, how did you get through? Because obviously, you know, it was a big factor, a big impact on, on yourselves, but you cope with it, you know, talk us through that if you would briefly.

In this eleven, almost ten and a half year journey with Puma, there were two, two, two major events. After all these, let's say treasury initiatives, treasury project I touched upon before. There was a major event in 2018 when we had a spin off from our major shareholder. Until 2018, Puma was a part of the Kering Group, was a sports lifestyle part of the Kering group. And in 2018 Kering decided to disinvest regard and provide parts of their shares, a major part of their shares towards their shareholders. So they have done a payment in kind, dividend payment in kind and let's say distributed shares they hold in Puma towards their shareholders. And this consisted a change of control event in that regard. All of a sudden a majority holding of caring before 86% dropped below the 50% and that consisted change of control. And with that change of control, all of a sudden topics like financing for the group, topics like with whom we are dealing in ethics management. It was no longer possible to deal with the in house bank of Kering. But we have to deal, have to place our ethics deals with external banks or to rewrite every every insurance contract. That was one of these once in a lifetime project treasurer could have because you have to, let's say, check and reinvent things completely new. And that was even more drastic, I have to say, than Covid later in that regard. How have we dealt with that? I immediately recognized, well, you can hire consultant by consultant by consultant in that regard. But over the time already, so 2018, I was with the company already for six, seven years. Over time we developed a team of people who were with the company even for five, six years and who were progressing very nicely. So I don't want to. And everybody was somehow passionate about hey, that's a cool project, I want to be part of that. And I was afraid of then hiring a couple of consultants and let's say take this interesting project away from these guys and what we have done then and what we have developed then said, hey, let's do the following. Let's find someone who is doing our daily job, cash management, daily hedging routines and so on and so forth. Let's find people who are doing this for us and we guide them through the daily jobs, but then have much more resources to concentrate on this exciting project. We have implemented that by looking around in the organization and hiring people from the Puma organization who are not necessarily treasurers in their local subsidiaries, but who have a common with whom we have dealt already on a daily basis, on an operational basis. So we have identified a couple of people and said hey, do you want to do a job swap? Do you want to come to Herzl and help us on our daily business? So it is a bit more treasury related. It's not only cash management, but you have to do a bit more in Treasury. But you see how headquarters are working, you see what our daily business is. You may be part of an interesting journey. So we hired from our subsidiaries, hired people, brought them here to Herzl. So then at the end of the day we ended up with an Argentinian coming here, with an Indian coming here and may have contemplated my main resources to this project. And that was an amazing journey. My people were happy that they have well that the project was in our hands and we can really make it happen. And also the other Colleagues from abroad, they were happy. That's interesting what's happening there. They do an interesting journey. Of course, they helped us also on the project and that was really an amazing. Which, which helped very much to, to give a good, A good mood for the team.

And Frank, you, you touched on the fact that you, you're, you know, you're not, you're not in a central location. You know, if you're in London or if you're in.

Yeah, not too far away from that.

Exactly. You know, you and I talked and it's great. You've got massive attraction with the brand and everything else. And yeah, that's great. But that only goes so far. How do you, you know, attract staff? You know, how do you attract people to obviously working with a treasure like yourself, you know, you know, without blowing too much smoke up your behind. But, you know, they, they want to come and get some amazing treasury experience. But you and I talked about this before the show, that you know, what you do with, you know, your team and everything else. There's yourselves and a couple of other big corporates near you, but that's it, you know, so how do you go about that? And you know, I know that people listening today, some of my listeners and some of the guys I'm talking to, literally, I go, oh, how do we attract people? You know, I'm dealing with a couple of clients in Colorado and they're like, oh, how do we attract people? And I said, well, look, you've got to sell yourselves. And they're like, oh, well, you know, it's a. Otherwise people won't join you. So how do you do it?

So there are a couple of things you can obviously do. As you said, Herzogen Aurach, or the short form Herzog. The little city where we are based in the southern part of Germany is a very small city with only 25,000 inhabitants. Ironically, we have three big companies where Puma is the smallest. One, our main competitor is sitting next door Adidas. And then we have also Schaeffler, who is in the automobile supplier space that regardless, we have first of all amazing companies in this little. Headquartered in this little company in this little town. Two Ducks Company, two Dax, 40 companies headquartered in Herzl. That is quite unique in Germany. But still it's herzl. Still it's 25,000 people. Still, when you go out after 10, it's quiet. So what we are doing to attract people is first of all, of course, it's a corporate culture sport. Manufacturers do have an interesting product just from the outside view, a bit more sexy. And to tell sports style to sell sporting goods than to sell painkillers for severe illnesses in that regard. So first of all, the product is somehow sexy. Corporate culture is then also very much based on young people. So the average age within Puma here in headquarters is 36 years. So you will find a lot of young people, a lot of international presence. So there has to be a corporate culture which where people were coming from the outside saying, hey, that's. Well, it's hard to. But what I see here, that's cool. We have a nice canteen, we have a very nice building. So you have to create the company, have to create a very nice surrounding. Of course, when you're looking outside the window, there is a football, you can play football, tennis, basketball, volleyball. So that looks very nice and amazing for such a little city. So you have to create in that regard a good corporate culture. And the second topic is you have to also show those in your recruiting, you have to show the people, hey, what we're doing is an interesting thing. And there we are going back also to the journey. Hey, we have done that, we have done that. And when you are here, you can really influence things and be part of that journey. So this storytelling about the journey is also part of the recruiting strategy. Please, if you want to part of that journey, join us in that regard. And that is very much paying off on the other side. And that is a very typical thing with corporates like us. Hey, we are today a 5.2 billion company. In 2020, 21 will be above 6 billion. We are still not a super big company. So. And treasury is and stays a very, very, very specific function, a very expert function. And you have to also then encourage and show the people, hey, maybe we will not have so many peers in the company with whom we are. We can talk through treasury topics. Maybe there are not so many sparing partners in the company with whom we can talk that through. And therefore you have to be also available by networking. And networking is more than only LinkedIn. So networking is deep. Part of it's more than LinkedIn.

How dare you.

That's cool.

I'm jumping in there because I think a lot of people, you know, I said to the guys that I work with that they sort of, you know, we talk about and they, I grew up pre LinkedIn, which is great for me actually. And I sort of try and impart to them that, look, you can never move a relationship forward by sending a LinkedIn message. You know, it's never Gonna.

Yeah.

And you know, and now as we return to this real world of connecting with people and seeing them face to face, I know that you've been involved in, you know, various different finance forums and meeting people. Why? Why is that so important to you? Did you know, sorry I jumped in there but I think you and I had had our pre. And I'm so impressed, you know, that's why I was thrilled to be doing this.

Two reasons for that. One is obvious. You're selling your story. That's the obvious thing. You're selling your story, you're being active. And at the end of the day, if someone applies with PUMA treasury, what are people doing? Well, they are first of all googling with Puma and then surfing around a little bit on our webpage and whatever you can read with that. And then they start to Google with whom they meet. It would be a good idea if you then pop up in Google and if there's something happening with your hey, there's a name Frank from Puma and what has he done? What is what he is passionate about? And it would be good if you get some hits there and how do you get some hits? If you start also to be active in these forums. But there is also another aspect in that regard and the other aspect is well, if you bring your people to the forums, if you bring also not only as attendees so that they can listen, which is a kind of a training for them also. But if you bring them also onto the panels as a speaker in that is also kind of how you develop your people. So all of a sudden your people have to tell the story what they have done what we have done when we did the spin off, what we have done to establish that ESG linked supply chain financing. So people start also to tell their story and feel appreciated. So obviously they're sitting someone in the room who is interested that regard. And that is also kind of a topic how we develop people and how we get this network and missing peer contact to talk through treasury topic which.

Are up to date going back to, you know, company and. And people doing the research and everything else. And if they did their research they would you recently and there's yourself and a number of other guests actually I've got who are coming on the. Because they've expanded the DAX and everything else. Can you explain? You know again, some guys will, you know, in Europe. Yeah, totally know that. Yeah. And understand. But why is that important to you guys or what difference will that make, do you think? You know, as a treasurer you know, with, with these changes sort of thing.

Well, first of all, with the increase of DAX participants from 30 to 40, which resulted in Puma being one of the 10 who has been added to the, to the blue chip index of publicly noted, publicly listed companies, it creates, first of all, an audience, because all of a sudden this is a company whom we are listening, who is one of the bigger ones in Germany. So this created an audience. It is obviously also a proof of while we have obviously been somehow successful in that regard, makes people proud in that regard, but also on the other side, while you have to be careful what you are saying, you have to be careful what we are doing. So it is also imposing certain new requirements to you where you have to be more careful or where you have to extend your reporting and deliver and deliver different results. For us, it's a perfect proof of, hey, we have done a great journey as a company. And hey, we have also our little contribution is obviously that we made our group as resilient and as professional when it comes to cash management topics, ethics topics and so on and so forth, so that we can really make the journey happen and continue the journey.

You and I were starting to go back to conferences, thank goodness, and, you know, everyone's conference, but now, oh, actually I want to be at conference. I want to be meeting my clients, want to be meeting my candidates. And it's lovely to see you guys. But, you know, treasury, you've survived pandemic, we've come out the other side. What are you seeing as the new things coming down the line that you, as a treasurer, sometimes your CFO might be saying, oh, can you look at this? Can you consider this? What are the chief things that you think we've got crypto coming along, we've got everything. What are the key things you're seeing as a treasurer that you think people need to be thinking about, if you like?

Well, first of all, in treasury, one thing was amazing in that regard, which is more coming from the risk management area. So if you would have asked me before, COVID 19, is there a situation where all of our stores are closed on a worldwide basis? I would have thrown you out. I would have said, go away with your theoretical stuff, go away with your. How should that happen that all stores on the whole world are closed, but in 2020, in April, May, we had a situation where basically 85% of our stores have been closed in the world. We have around 800, more than 800 stores worldwide in every corner of the world, and 80% of them have Been just closed and not only our own stores but also the stores of our customers. And that was maybe that caused a rethinking in risk management, in liquidity management. Obviously you have to live with a couple of months, no sales and are you able to survive that? So that is a tremendous scenario which came in newly because you can't close the factory. Okay, you have costs which are running on and how long could you survive that? And that was a tremendous impact on that regard. And all of a sudden also all these commitment fees we are paying for unused credit lines, okay, that's not a commitment fee, that's an insurance, that's a life insurance for surviving those incidents. That was a major change in that regard. And in this regard we have also increased our financing lines. We did a Bridge Financing 2020 and then refinanced already a couple of months after to a normalized structure in that regard. But, but that was a tremendous change in that regard.

If you were to give some, some great reflections. I love guests like yourself because it's sort of, you know, I ask you a question, then we get two or three great tips that people would like sort of. I know that they'll be scribbling things down as soon as they get to the office and things. But if you reflect back on yourself and someone looks at your LinkedIn profile as we say and says do you know what? I want to have a career just like Frank. You know, what sort of tips would you give to those guys as they come up and or anyone else listening today? These are the things they should be thinking about in Treasury. What are your sort of wrap up tips for the day, as it were?

Well, I do have a couple of. Let me start with a tip which is going back to that. What you are doing when you are in treasury, what you are doing in your own group, in your own company, you might have the feeling that there is no one around who is doing financing. There is no one around than you. There's no one around who is doing maybe insurances or currency management. But nevertheless you have to take care that whatever you do has a business link. Whatever you do with whatever you do, you can support the business in that regard. So that is this business partnering has to be in your mind because at the end of the day I'm not selling a shoe. Maybe it's better that I'm not selling a shoe. But I'm not selling a shoe, I'm not selling a shirt. I don't make money, I only cost money. And even if I save Banking fees or if I save interest or whatever is, but it is only money saved. With money saved you cannot pay a salary. So you have to support the business and you have to pay business partner within your organization. And that is one of the main topics which you have to achieve because only if you are business partnering, you are a well accepted partner in your own company and you will get more and more involved also into strategic discussions within your company. And that is what we want to have, we want to be part of the show. Second tip is what we already touched upon a little bit when we said, hey, you have to maintain a network. You have to maintain a network because treasurers, like other experts in a company typically don't have too many people here in the company who are sparing Spartan. So where do you get the sparing's partner from? Well, you can of course hire consultants and there might be good reasons to do so in some project, but one or the other consultant could be probably not hired. When you have a good network and when you're regularly, very regularly or in exchange with peers, is it only a phone call or you meet at the conferences in that regard? But this is really so that you see that what are my peers doing? What are peers in other industries doing? And that is a very important function. So you have to really take care that you have a good network. And the network not only consists of LinkedIn contacts or people you meet on the conference, you can also team up with associations. So we are active members and not only me, but also people from my team are active members in the Treasurers association of Germany. And we are contributing quite often with some inputs where we are publishing some tips and so on and so forth. And that is giving you again a network and also kind of peer contact. And it makes fun to talk with experienced people about problems you have on a daily plate.

Brilliant. Wow. I mean I knew, I knew this, I knew this session would be great and it is. People will be so many takeaways. It's like a little bit of a checklist if you like, as we've gone through, you know, you gave oh and tips for this and do this and do this and just very, very grateful for your time. So I can't wait to see you in the real world. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and remains for me to say, you know Frank, all the best now. And it sounds like things are going rather well for yourself, sir. So keep up the great work and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Thank you very much. And thanks for the, for the nice and lively interview. Enjoyed it very much.

Pleasure, sir.

Cheers. Bye bye. 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 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 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 guest and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait.

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