This is a YouTube video titled "Fully Understanding Your Organisation with John McAnulty" containing a monologue or talk by John McAnulty recorded in May 2023. John discusses his experience implementing treasury solutions and managing organizational change at Richmond, emphasizing the importance of diplomacy, empathy, and project management in driving financial technology adoption across multiple regions and teams.
So when I joined Richmond, the first step I had to do, because I was on my own, I had to recruit a team. And from 2000 to 2004, maybe a bit later, 2006, we really worked with our operations to introduce best practice treasury solutions. We, we put in a global netting system, we put in a global cash pool system, we started trading foreign exchange online, et cetera. We put in payment factories. So I think an awful lot of it was common sense in that these tools were becoming available. The technology was relatively straightforward to introduce. You just had to, to manage the politics, I would say, of having all these Amazons who had historically been very independent. We had to show the benefits of automating these processes to the Maison CFOs and the regional CFOs to get them on board, to show the significant advantages of bringing this technology in. The treasury organization needs to understand every single step of that financial movement. So you need curiosity around the organization. I definitely think you need diplomacy, you need to have all the change management skills. You need to be a good project manager. I think a strong word that we use in Richmond is empathy. So I think you need to understand both sides of the coin at all times. What is the impact of what you're doing having on the Greek? What is it having on your colleagues? I remember very early on having to go to Geneva and meeting with up to 20 people in meeting rooms of quite skeptical, I would say, CFO of Maisons and having to explain to them the benefits of what we were trying to do. And I think that's where the strategy side of my career came into play. You keep the presentation relatively straightforward. You have to consult, you have to get buy in. I think you have to show the operational benefits and the financial benefits, but you do have to engage the idea that it was all smooth sailing. I wouldn't want to give that, but I think what I've experienced over the years, if you provide a common sense argument to something, you know, we have very bright people around us in the, you know, in all our organizations and they would accept it.
