How to Build a Career in a Dynamic Workplace with Christian Schmahl

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 treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now, and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. And this week's show, I'm joined by Christian Schmal, the Director of treasury at Delivery Hero. Delivery hero starts in 2011. They've been transforming the way people order food. So 600,000 restaurant partners, 25,000 employees. I'll get Christian to explain a bit more about the company, but basically amazing. 30 brands, 40 countries, headquartered in Berlin. So that's where I'm actually talking to Christian today. He's based over there. Christian, as always, it's your show. Let's talk about you and your career today. How did you first ever discover finance and then actually Treasury Go back to you, sir.

Hi. So, first of all, thanks for having me and having the opportunity. Talking here. Yeah. How did I come to Treasury? It was actually one of these late evening shifts that I had in my first position at Groupon, and it was one late evening again, where I was asked by the designated EMEA treasury lead if I want to join the treasury team. And it was 10 in the evening, we had just our pizza session and I turned to him and I said, yeah, sure, let's do that. And as soon as he left the door, I honestly had to Google what's actually treasury, because it was my first work experience. I just came from university and I was not really. I was hired as an accountant for that, for Groupon, and that's how it all started.

And you started there, but you'd already had a passion, you know, so you decided finance was your career and that's what you studied. And then when you joined Groupon, you developed into Treasury. Was that right? You've always had a passion for maths and that you do economics and things?

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, this is what my study and my focus during university was on. And I liked numbers, but I even more liked cash. So I thought that's an interesting opportunity, being interested in money. Treasury is the right place to be, I guess.

And then you joined Groupon. Most of the listeners, a lot of the listeners will have heard of it, particularly in the US and things is massive globally as well. Maybe you could just explain what Groupon does or. And your path through there, because that's where you really developed your treasury career or the early stages of it.

Yeah, I mean, also Groupon is. And was those days a platform business was Once designated as by the Forbes magazine as the fastest growing company ever, I had the opportunity to start my treasury career in a very fast growing and very dynamic surrounding and environment. I also had because the company was pretty young those days, I started in 2010. So that was really also the beginning of that company, more or less, you could call it a tech startup those days. And I had the opportunity to build a Treasury together with my manager just those days from the green field. And I think this is an opportunity that I had and I later on my career should show that I will have it a second time in my life. I think that's a great thing to be able to build a Treasury from a, from a green field and really start from the scratch, understanding what the business needs and then developing a strategy and a vision based on that.

But when you first started you obviously were an analyst and things like that and joining that greenfield sort of site. So you weren't leading that way. But you know, how did your career go from there?

When I started, the reason why this designated treasury lead actually came to my desk that evening was because there was no real departments and no treasury in that sense those days, I mean the very, very early days of that, of that tech startup. But I was the one who just started to collect all the cash balances from all the subsidiaries within emea. And that was kind of treasury linked task, if you want to call it that way from. I mean again there was no treasury structures or anything like that. And that was basically the reason why he to my desk. Otherwise it could have been any other desk as well. And that made me becoming one of the treasury analysts, as you said at the very early days of Groupon. Kind of a coincidence if you want to call it that way. And it gave a stem to the rest of my career as it looked like.

And I know that we've talked about this with your current role at DeliveryHero and Things, but obviously technology and you were new to treasury but you embraced that. So talk us through what the sort of technology surrounding or you know, were they big on tech within Groupon or what was the background?

I think that when we talk about technology and technology in finance and Treasury, I think this is or at minimum should be a big thing for every Treasurer. We will talk about it probably later a bit more detailed but I think this is not different from a tech company to any other. I think treasury is developing with technology. The environment, the technological environment within treasury is changing and you have to go with the flow and with the technology and its Developments. So I wouldn't say that this should be. Maybe it is sometimes, but it should not be dependent. If you work for a fast growing tech company or if you work for what some people call the old industry, or let's say, you know, more established companies, technology gives great opportunities, I think, to, in general to businesses, to finance and to treasury. And you should use these opportunities in order to improve your processes with the.

Flow of cash coming in. We talked about this before the show that, you know, obviously cash is king and everything else. With Groupon growing massively at the time, that accelerated growth, as it were, as you were going through that, what was it like working in treasury then? Was it literally everyday craziness or was it very controlled? What was the ethos there?

I never use the word that it's crazy or disorganized or whatsoever. I use the term. It's very dynamic. Yeah, I think when you, when you work in such a growth environment, and that counts for both for Groupon, for Delivery Hero, your environment naturally is very dynamic. It's impacted from external as well as internal factors. And this is also one of the challenges that I'm facing in my positions. But it's a positive challenge. I mean, you have to be very flexible and follow the development of your company. At the same time, I think as a success factor for building such a Treasury Department, for such companies, you have to have a clear vision and strategy and to build your trust, Treasury Department, you need to be, you need to have a vision, you need to be disciplined and stick to your vision. At the same time, you need to have the flexibility in order to react on where the company goes, which is pretty much normal again and such fast growing and also relatively young companies that find their way through the market.

So for someone listening today, you started as treasury analyst in 2010. Seven years later you were the treasury manager again. Treasury analyst is listening to this today. What kind of vision did you have in mind or at that stage, were you driven and saying, right, I need to get qualifications or what were you thinking? Right, this is going to be key to my success here. If I want to get to the treasury manager role, this is what I have to do, this is what I have to deliver. Again, this is to give some of the listeners today, they're sitting there as treasury analyst and some of them have said to me, when we listen to your podcast, Mike, to get tips about how to improve myself and get my career on the career ladder, what would you say you did there that worked?

I think I have to say that like when I was, when I was starting as an analyst did I had this kind of master plan in mind of where I want to develop, what I want to do next, what is the, you know, some people are talking about a five year career or life plan or whatsoever. To be honest, in my first seven years, especially at Groupon, whenever I tried to make a plan, be it professional wise or private wise, I think the next year when I kind of developed that plan, if you want to call it, I found myself in a different country where I lived when I made it, this plan, to be honest. So what I learned is, I mean especially when I was young, I was flexible also from a private perspective. So I did kind of, I went with the flow. I mean I was definitely working in a very like interesting environment that gave a lot of opportunities to me. So you know, I started in Berlin and then, then like a finance hub had been established at Groupon in Switzerland. I had the chance to go there, I went there and I saw that, you know, it was there the first time. I had also a Groupon same as delivery hero in Berlin. Very international work environments in these tech companies, which is just great. But also in Switzerland I worked with people from all around the world. It was finance experts that were sitting in the middle of Switzerland all together. And I just went there and I thought, okay, I don't know how long I'm going to stay here. I mean, I'm leaving Berlin, which is like my hometown and it's a nice interesting city. And I went to Switzerland, a very interesting and great country as well. But I did not really plan to be or stay there for how long, I didn't know. So I basically said, okay, let me go there, let me have a look, let me see how things develop there. Is that all interesting that I see there? And if yes, I would stay. If no, I will go back again. This is when you are in your mid, late 20s or something like that, you probably are very flexible and if you want then take the opportunities and discover such things. Another thing for me personally, I always thought that actually I wanted to go back to university and maybe do a master studies, which I never did. I did a bit of studying meanwhile, but I never did. Then basically my master studies, even though that was always the plan, I thought I will go to Groupon, I will work there for two, three years to get a bit of work experience after my bachelor and then do the master. That was the real so called master plan. But it never worked out because the opportunities that I found were always so interesting that I thought, I think this is worth to stay another year, another two years to see what's happening. And this is probably what I would recommend young analysts to analyze also their personal situation, where do they stand in the company, where is their company developing to and does it offer to you interesting opportunities? Because it's the period of your life where a lot of decisions are made. And if you are in an interesting environment, then take it, analyze it, take the right decisions and go with the flow as well. If the flow would have told me go back to university, I would have.

Gone to university, into Zurich as, as well. And you, you know, how did you sort of get. Assimilate yourself with. With the environment? How did you, did you get involved in sports out there? Again? I'm thinking that some of the guys listening today, they might be thinking, you know, should I make a move overseas? Hang on, I'm going to leave all my friendship groups and everything else. It's a brave decision to, you know, up sticks, boom, get on the plane, move yourself. How did you deal with that?

You're right. It is right. And I, I think you myself, a lot of people have made this experience. It is went to Switzerland. You said it sports. When I was younger I played basketball a lot and I went to the local team there in order to get in contact with people, just with local people. In addition, I think it depends also a bit. Where do you go? I mean, you mentioned Zurich. It was not exactly Zurich where I went, but Schaffhausen, which is a smaller town, like an hour away from Zurich. But if you go to other, let's say these well known expat hubs, Zurich is probably one, but also Singapore, for example, you find maybe at different environment than in Schaffhausen, you will find a lot of people that are also from abroad, from all around the world. And there is expert groups that find together. So there is chances to meet people, be it local people. When you go to local sport clubs or things like that, or whatever you want to do, or a dance club or whatever you want to do. But you also find probably also in your company a lot of people that are also from all around the world. Like in Switzerland, for example, as I said, there were people that came from all around. We all had quote unquote, the same problem, right? So the colleagues also didn't have private contact. So we grouped together and I really met like super interesting and great people during the time where I still have friend relationships with them up until today. And I think these things I would not worry about, especially when you are young and you try it, you will find a way this or the other way, your colleagues or sport clubs or whatsoever. And to be honest, when I say you are young and you are flexible, it is also not a big thing to say. You try it for whatever is the period of time, half a year, nine months, be 12 months. And if you decide, look, I tried it, but it's not really working and you decide to go back, go back, you know, what did you lose? You. You. You definitely gained a very valuable experience for your life. Not only, but as well, professional wise, but also for you as a. As a young personality.

You talk about going back. That leads us nicely to. Then you headed back to Berlin, you know, with this role. So how did you make the move from Groupon to Delivery Hero? How did that come about?

I mean, I stayed for seven years at Groupon and I mean, I still would say there had been also interesting opportunities within Groupon was still a very interesting development. And I started together with the colleagues there to really build up a treasury. And it had been built and there were a lot of interesting and great colleagues in Chicago, in London, in Switzerland. And there could have been opportunities for me probably as well that are interesting, like learning and developing the career. But it's also after seven years for me personally that's different from person to person. But I mean, seven years in such a young company, that's quite a time, believe it or not. I mean, I was, I think I was one of the like longest with the company at Groupon those days with my seven years. And for me it was about time to change. I had contact to DeliveryHero before here and there a bit. And look, I mean I had a great opportunity and very interesting offer from. From Delivery Hero. And it's a. It's a great and interesting and growing company. And also now I can definitely say it was the right decision to take the step, but it was also, it's my hometown and it's also ber where I think in general, even if it wouldn't be my hometown, it's a very interesting city when it comes about development of young tech companies, et cetera, et cetera. There are a few that are relatively sizable nowadays and the tendency is better. We are not talking about Silicon Valley or anything, but the tendency of Berlin developing as one of the tech hubs probably within Europe. There are a few interesting ones, but Berlin I would say is one of them. So it was relatively easy for me to take a decision decision to take that step Back home, back to another very like fast growing and developing company which is located in a very interesting city. So you know, it's kind of obvious that this decision was not too difficult to make.

So you made the move. So you joined DeliveryHero again. I outlined it briefly to the people listening today, but they don't know the company necessarily as you do. So can you perhaps explain the group, the dynamic? And again one of the things we'll focus on is how you organize yourselves globally. I know that you're, you've got the central headquarters in Berlin but you've got regional headquarters across Asia, PAC and across. So maybe explain for the listeners today if you would, you know the group and stuff.

So I mean the business itself, it basically started with being a platform business to bring great restaurants partner together with clients who are sitting at home and are just hungry and would like to order an amazing pizza or a sushi or whatever they would like to have in that moment. So this is the, this is the origin business model, being a platform business, bringing customers and restaurants together. In the meantime, the business concept is kind of spreading and widening a bit so we have new verticals as we call it with our Dmart concept where you basically can order other goods and stuff and get it delivered I guess at the moment below 16 minutes or anything close to that. And our kitchen concepts which is also again food related but where there's not really like the restaurant partner behind it but the kitchen partner that prepares amazing food for you and gets delivered to your house door. We are present mentioned 40 markets. I guess it's getting close to 50 and maybe while we are talking it's getting 51 or 52 because like the, as I said, you know, it's a very dynamic, a very growth driven business at the moment with great development. And that's about how the business basically.

Works and how are you organized treasury wise. So I know we discussed this before the show. So you know, have you got regional hubs or how do you work it all out? Is it all, you know, you guys leading it from Bevin or you know, how do you work it out?

Delivery here actually grows. I mean there's a lot of organic growth of course, but there's also a lot of growth. A big portion is M and A driven. I think over the past years you can and could see it in the press. There are smaller mid size and even for our terms, relatively big M and A activity. When I joined, bit more than three and a half years ago, we actually had a kind of an approach to get as much transparency and knowledge. What did we actually buy? What is growing out there to central now that we have a very good idea. I mean, do you ever come to 100% here? I don't know. But we have enough knowledge and transparency and understanding of the group at the moment. From the process that we have started to centralize various functions and departments. But always of course, the local structures kept and stayed out there since a bit. We see that we now are able to regionalize the structure. So we have a hub in the Middle east, we have a hub in Singapore for our APEC region and we have a hub in Montevideo, Uruguay for our LATAM business. And Europe is mainly covered out of Berlin. We also have, I would call it kind of a sub regional hub for the Nordics and we have a big business in Greece as well that's also a little bit covering Southeast Europe. That's basically the structure when it comes about Treasury. We have, we have a team here in Berlin. We are eight people here at the moment. We have started to build teams within the hubs that I have mentioned. So there is like general regional hubs that get built up since I would say say approximately one and a half to two years more and more step by step. And there is finance hubs, of course, and there's also a Treasury function there. So I will not have like huge teams out there. Is it maybe three to four max or two people per region? That depends a little bit on the, on the setup in the specific region. But that's how we are set up. We have a central hub here in Berlin, we have small treasury hub in APEC at the moment in Latam, and we are building one in the Middle East.

And talking about yourselves, you've got this, as I say, very kindly, Christian, actually it's the only person ever to complete all of the questions I have before the session. So he very kindly gave me so much information. It was great. So really got an understanding for you and your team and you've got this one team approach. Can you perhaps explain about what that, you know, say it relates to vision and strategy for you guys as a group. What does that mean? What does one team approach mean?

I think that, I mean nowadays I think distance can be bridged by technology. I mean, look at the two of us. You sit in London, I sit in Berlin, but you could also sit in la. Okay, there's a bit of a time difference which sometimes makes it a little bit challenging. But in general, I sometimes say also to the team members, yes, there is Oceans between us. But technology can bridge it easily. But that's just one thing. And I think that's the base that you have, that you have the technology to, to. To group together. But there is something that is even more important. I think that this is what I learned in the, in the past and I had the chance basically to start my career in an operational subsidiary. I worked in a regional or supra regional headqu. That was the time in Switzerland. And now I have the chance to work in a central headquarters. So you can say I went through all the three stages, right? From local, regional and central. And that also gave me the chance to see, to have it from the eye of all of these perspectives. Right? So when you work for a local company and you, you know, you get all these requests and report requirements and whatsoever and guidance guidelines from your regional or from your central headquarter. I have had that. I had the same getting the instructions and whatsoever from central headquarter when I was working in the region headquarters. And that gives me a good understanding of, you know, when I reach out to local colleagues or to regional colleagues, how that gets addressed there and how they see it and how they understand these things. I think when we want to work together, because we have, for one group, we have one treasury vision and strategy. And it's key that your teams out there, I mean, it's also for the, for the central team, you know, within my team, we talk about the vision and the strategy and it's important that everybody is aligned, understands it and agrees with it. I mean, it's not me who's saying, hey, this is the path we go. You know, we, we align it all together and then we go that path together. And. But that also counts for the colleagues that sit in Montevideo or that sit in Singapore, that we have a one vision approach and a one team approach. I never want to hear that someone in the treasury team says, they say this, they think this one. There is no they, you know, this is not an external party or whatsoever. It is, it is your treasury team.

It's an US approach.

Absolutely. That's a good way to say it's an US approach and not a day approach or whatsoever. Maybe an example on how I try to build this. I mean, I think when you have such a setup, it's pretty much standard that you maybe have frequent calls with the teams the team leads together and whatsoever. What I do in addition is, and I think that's interesting for the participants and supportive for what I want to achieve with one global team, one US approach is when we run projects, I'm trying to set the teams in kind of an intercontinental project setup so that we have sometimes people from two or three continents together working on one project. It's a little bit challenging between our friends and colleagues in LATAM and in APEC because the time difference is just huge. But at least in Europe you have the advantage, if you want to say that sometimes also a disadvantage, I think that you are in the middle and you can actually run projects with the LATAM and APEC colleagues. Again, the point here is like these intercontinental projects I think is a great way to bring people together, to bring experiences together and to have also the buy in from also the regional hubs towards these projects and towards your vision and strategy that you go to. Because if you just dictate it from central to somewhere and the people don't feel it, how should they carry it? With 100% passion.

And surely wouldn't it be easier to do so Asia pac, do one project, Europe, do one project, Singapore, do one project and then just roll it out sort of thing. Would that not be, not be easier? It sounds. What have you seen as the real advantage of doing that intercontinental approach?

I think in general, again, I think the advantage of the intercontinental approach is to really bring the people together. Because otherwise you have a team that works more or less isolated, with a frequent call once a week or every two weeks with central or whatsoever and then that's it, that's your connection where you report sometimes or you talk about what happened week and what's going to happen next week, that's very much standard. But if you really work on a project on a day to day basis together, again technically not a challenge at all. Sometimes a little bit the time difference and not always crossing holidays or whatsoever. But I think this really, really brings the teams and the people way closer together. If they go through, you know, a project that, that is sometimes, you know, it's not always super smooth. There's also challenges, hurdles to come to overcome. And if you do this together, then these two people, let's say for example a person in Berlin and a person in Uruguay, they go through this together. They are really one team, same as if they would sit in Berlin. Honestly, I do not see my Berlin colleagues at the moment because we all work remote, right? It's basically there's actually almost no difference anymore between how I work together with my LATAM colleagues and my Berlin colleagues because it's all remote mode. Again, the time zones, that's one thing. But this is Organizable, I would say.

And you talk about your colleagues there. You know, when you're looking at the people aspect, obviously, you know, we're the treasury recruitment company. We, we focus on all of the talent things and about the people aspect, what are you looking for in the people that you, you bring on when you're recruiting or when you're, you know, sort of taking someone on, you know, they're perhaps developing through the company? What are you looking for in those people? Is it the qualifications or is it it an ethos or attitude? What are you, what's, what's key to you?

I think the basis is probably the qualification. I mean, you, you, you, you should have, you, you asked me before, you know, I studied business administration, so I liked numbers, right. And I liked money. So this is kind of there, there's a, there's a qualification part, but I think this is base. But what is more important for me when I am interviewing people, it depends a little bit on the position, of course, that I interview for. If I, for example, interview a management position, then important that identify like that this person has this shares the same vision and strategy for what does it actually mean to build an amazing treasury experience for delivery hero. So the vision of that person, of what a great Treasury Department means, needs to fit, right? And also like me, for example, we go for, you know, we go for like centralized and regionalized approach. We have a streamlined core business bank partnership approach and the one treasury management system approach so that we, and that we automate processes, et cetera, et cetera. So I would say if that manager, for example, does not share this kind of, you know, to, to, to centralize standardized processes and automate processes. If that doesn't match, then it wouldn't make sense, right? Because I need people that create this amazing treasury experience in their region, for example, or supporting here at Central. So, so the same vision and the same idea of what an efficient and amazing treasury means. I think that's even more important when I look at analyst positions, for example. Yes, knowledge as well. But there, it's even more important that there is that people are interested and maybe if you want to call it even, passionate about Treasury. Look at me. You know, you remember what we said at the beginning, this late evening in 2010, when the gentleman came to me and asked me if I want to join the Treasury Department at Groupon. I said, yeah, let's do it. But I had to Google it, right? Because I had no clue what it is, but I was interested and I was kind of passionate about it. So I had everything that I needed to develop myself and to develop a career and the knowledge within treasury, even though I didn't even know what it means when you asked me the first time, you know. But again, of course I studied business administration. I knew about numbers and I knew how to, how to work with an Excel table and putting numbers together and building reports and things like that. Yeah, this is what I needed as an analyst at the very beginning, but that's it. More important was being interesting, interested in this type of field and being also a bit passionate about it, if you want to call it that way.

I produce a series of interview videos trying to coach junior candidates in particular and maybe not just junior candidates, junior through to treasury managers. This might be the first or second job or something like that. When someone comes to you, as well as that sort of qualification, what else makes someone a standout candidate? What is the thing that you walk in the interview room or you walk out that interview room, go, that person should get the job. What is it you're looking for? Again, this is for the listeners today. They're thinking, oh, I've got a job interview next week. I need to listen to Christian's advice and keep that in the front of my mind. What do they need to do?

Again, I think if I would have an open position now and I do an interview again differentiating between manager and analyst level, it's about like the company that I apply for is that, I mean it's about the business model, it's about the company. Is that something that sounds interesting to me. It's also then that can be very different. For example, if you apply at a company like DeliveryHero, you need to know that you go into a very dynamic environment, into a very fast growing company with all its pros and all its challenges in such an environment. Right. But there's also other type of jobs and companies that are more stable with all the advantages and challenges that such an environment brings with it, I think. But again, if you come back and if you go to delivery hero, you need to be aware what company you apply for and if that is something that you are interested in and that you think you can be like, create passion about it and be 100% with your brain and your heart in it. I think that is, that is very important because you spend a lot of time there and it should be interesting and it should challenge you what you are doing there. Because it's not, you know, of course you can say it's just a job, but again It's a lot of time that you invest and especially when you are young, it's also, you know, one of your first career and it kind of builds the way of your further career. So think about it. If you can work for such a company with passion and if you, if you adopt also the vision and the strategy that specific Treasury Department is having.

Looking at the future for yourselves and you as a company and a corporate and things like that. If people are looking at the future, what do you see coming through or what are you guys planning for? You know, is it. I know that I looked at some of the notes. Obviously there's real time processes and you know, making sure the money's in the right place and everything else. Or what are the key challenges, challenges you're seeing in the future? Is it, you know, bots coming in or what are the key things for you guys?

I think that that counts for us at DeliveryHero, but that counts in general. The job environment is changing and it's developing with technology. I think I think about myself from time to time. You know, I'm, I'm 35 now, 36. I doubt that I will go into retirement except I win the lottery tomorrow with the same technology that I have available today or that we are using today because there's already a lot available that is not too much in use at the moment. But you know, I mean look at the, at the development. When my parents were my age, like talking about computers or laptops and all of these things was at the very early stage, if at all. And if you then. And if you see the exponential development of technology over the last years and what's, what's about to come in the future, you can bet that you, that I will not go into retirement with the same technology that's out there today. Right. For my team, our average age in the team is somewhere early 30. So we all have another, I don't know, in Germany, kind of another 35 years to go. That's a bit. Right. And there's a lot of time for further development of technology and I think it's important to adopt to that, to see it as a chance and not as a risk because it's coming anyway and it's something that at the moment we can create and build on and get our experience. So like within our team, we are open minded for that. We are looking into things. We just recently activated a small robot within treasury that builds our daily cash report. Not to also of course to save the 15 minutes every day to build this Report. But also just to understand what does all of that mean? I mean what does this robotic mean? You go to conferences, you hear about it, you maybe attend presentation and then you hear about it and whatever. But there's also a recommendation out there, you know, just like try it, just test it with a very small thing. I mean our daily cash report, you know, now there's every day an email that gets sent out to our finance management and it ends with regards your robot. And we save 15 minutes every day. So I prefer to spend that 15 minutes with my colleague at the coffee machine talking about whatever rather than building this same report every day. So we just, we just did it in generally operationally I see say like processes will develop real time towards real time. Right. I always said in the past because also this for, for us as a company and treasury at DeliveryHero, our focus is on automating processes. Right? How else can you, can you handle such, such an amazing growth? I mean we have approximately 100% growth rates in revenues year over year. This is amazing, right? But how to cover all of that? Do you want to like hire additional FTEs 100% year over year? I think this is then challenging to. Towards profitability. I guess so. The path to go is automation. And I always was talking the last two years about automation, automation, automation, but now I'm actually talking about real time automation. And this is what technology provides already. Right.

And what's the danger? What I mean by that is you're getting all these technologies coming at you, you're getting all these different ideas and things like that. Where should people not waste their time? Where should treasurers think? Actually this is a good use of my time because there are so many. You're probably getting emails, you're getting banks, you're getting different technology developers saying take our system or do this or do this. Where do you keep your focus or what do people need to avoid doing, would you say?

I just can answer that from my specific point of view and environment. You are right. There is a lot out there. There's a lot of new technology developments out there and whatsoever. And will all of them be the thing of the coming years? Probably not. Some of them definitely yes. Which one? I don't know, to be honest. I. What we at Delivery Hero are doing in general is a step by step approach. So we develop step by step. We never jump from 0 to 100 or even beyond. We go from a 0 to 20 to 50 to 60 to 80 to 100. And this gives us the time to also Understand and identify what type of technology is covering, our next step towards process improvement, process automation, et cetera. What is actually the technology that helps us. As I said, we looked a little bit into the robotic, we looking in other payment reconciliation and reporting real time technologies that allow us to not only have automated reports every day, but also to have them on real time. I always say I want my CFO to have an app on his mobile device that just shows him the real time cash balance of the group on demand, you know, whenever he wants. And it's not about only this idea, it is. And then you, when you have this kind of vision of the app, there's a lot of things, a lot of steps that you need to implement and go to achieve that vision of the app. You know, it's just the app that's just like a point of orientation. This is how we go along. And there are technologies that we look further into and there are technologies that we, where we do not see any, any like value, at least at the level of development where we are at the moment within our department, maybe also as a company and as a finance organization. But maybe this is a different situation in two years time. As I said the last few years I was talking about automation and now I see what's happening and where we are and where we stand. Now I'm talking about real time automation and this, this is how I, how I also develop my strategy. Same as with life, you like a five year strategy. That's very difficult to say, especially in agile and dynamic environment and as in a company like DeliveryHero.

Yeah. Who can plan five years in front? Who knows? So as we approach the end of today's show, we'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. You can connect to people or they can connect to you if you feel it's right to have them in your network. And things as we do every week, we'll try and sort of summarize maybe your top tips. You know, that might be for treasury analysts, managers at the junior levels, what they should be thinking about, but also maybe for your peers as well, other treasurers. What are the things that you think about and you're in a dinner party conversation and someone said, well, what tip would you give me from my treasury team or something like that. What are the tips you would say as we wrap up today's show?

I would say, I mean with respect to what we have talked about here, with respect to how to build and develop a career, I think the way I see it is I'm always focused on organic growth. I think that a career takes time and same as I described the process steps for my department. I also me personally, I don't go from zero to a hundred. I develop my skills, my experience organically, step by step, year over year. But also we talked about it going like for example going abroad which doesn't mean you can only develop a career when you go abroad. That's not true. I mean I did it, others did it, but it's not necessarily like, it's not a rule. But if you have opportunities, be it within your city or going to, going abroad, especially when you are free, flexible and young, just take it and, and you know, this is nothing that is, that is necessarily forever. Take it, discover it. Is it good for you, continue, Is it not good for you? Maybe go back or do something different. If you are in Singapore and you don't want to go back to Berlin, go to New York. You know, there's a lot of, especially when you are in a very flexible life situation. I said if you are young it doesn't actually matter on your age. It's your life situation. If you are flexible and you like to experience things, take the opportunity and you can also always go back, you know.

Yeah. And again, any other tips for you know, other people about, you know, what they should be focusing on in their treasuries that you've, you've, you know, the mistakes you've made and now you think actually you know, this is, this is a way not to make those mistakes but the future.

Yeah, I think in general, I mean as you, as you see my, my career and my experience has been developed in fast growing tech companies so I basically can only talk about that one. But maybe to have it at the wider scope is what we just a few minutes talked about. I think within Treasury a job description and the required knowledge of a treasurer will develop over the next years with the development of technology it all gets more and more technical. I can see that every day. And again it is something where like you can maybe try to push back or avoid this new technology tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and maybe within the next two or three, I don't know about five years but it is a fact I guess that you cannot push this back and avoid it when you, when you think a little bit more mid long term. So I think being open minded for technology and the development and seeing it as a chance rather than a risk, a robot does not take my job away. But my job is just changing in the future and I think actually in a very interesting way. So take it as a chance and opportunity and be aware that you don't have a chance to fight against it. It will come and business standards and treasury standards will change and develop over the time anyways, take it as a chance and have fun implementing such new technologies to your treasury process.

Excellent. Well, that's great, isn't it? So take a chance on making a move overseas and take a chance on implementing technology. So I think that'll probably be the headline for this episode. So take a chance. So, Christian, thank you for today. It's been great to talk to you. And I think people get lots of value. So, you know, thank you very much. I think you've done a brilliant job. I look forward to lots of people connecting with you. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you very much for the interesting opportunity. Thanks.