How to Diversify Your Skills as a Treasurer with Anthony Buchanan

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 this week's show. Delighted to be joined by a very old friend and drinking partner, Mr. Anthony Buchanan. This the treasurer at Asahi Breweries Europe. Established in April 2017, Asahi Breweries are the European wing of Asahi Group Holdings, Traditional Japanese producer of beer, whiskey, wide range of fruit products with rich history tracing back to 1889. You see we got a lot of that from. From the website and things. Fifteen breweries, the oldest one dating back 1615. But I'll get Anthony at the end later on the show to describe a bit more out of sight because they're a great group and everything else, but suffice to say we love their. That's 43 million hectare litres of beer every year. That's mental. 9,000 professionals rather across the world. But let's start back at the beginning for Anthony and his career. I'm going to get you to discuss it, mate, because you know it so much better than me. Take us back to the beginning and how you first got your sort of introduction to finance and then treasury and then bring us back. I know we were actually friends back then and I've helped Anthony throughout his career, so we've been mates for many, many years. So over to you, sir.

Thanks, mate, that's a nice introduction. Yes, and always happy to be supporting the brands, of course, and catching up.

Try our hardest.

Chilled beer. Wow. Early career going back quite a few years now. So even by university days, I worked at an investment bank over my summer holidays. I was lucky enough to experience the back and the middle office side of things. A bank which was mainly, well, it was purely focused on foreign exchange trading pre Euro, so that was an interesting time and it became interested in that finance related world and treasury and so on. Spoke to the MD and the banks were starting to struggle a little bit and I was just finished my degree, wondering what to do and it was a toss up between ma go traveling or try and find a job. And he said, actually go traveling, take the advantage now. Great advice. But by the time I actually got back, the banks were really struggling, so. So with the economics degree and some experience in the bank, I was actually quite lucky to find a role in a US org business. So back in the day, sort of talking mid-90s, there wasn't many treasuries based in the UK at that point. So started the stepping stones of moving through the different areas in the sort of back office credit side of things. And then looked for an opportunity to move to London and joined what was Granmet and rapidly became Diageo, which gave me the opportunity to move into the front office side of things. More on the trading side, looking at some of the M and A deals and experience in foreign exchange as well.

As debt and in terms of products, you were obviously started. So Phillips Petroleum, you started big numbers I'm assuming, or sort of oil and gas.

Yes, sizable. But we were talking cargo ships of oil. So it was interesting sizes when you've just come out of university. But in today's world actually sort of four or five million dollars worth of shipments is probably not the size that we're used to on trading side.

But still, you know, sort of you come out of a uni relatively fresh and you suddenly got responsibility or interaction with that. Followed by Grand Met and again for people that don't know Grand Metropolitan, which became Diageo drinks business. There's a theme going on there, but.

It does become a theme after that. But it was that one and then yes. So Granmet, then Diageo, which is made up of Guinness and Granmet, so a large spirits and lager based at that time, but has broadened its portfolio. Then had a couple of years at Hewlett Packard in the treasury consulting world and then decided actually preferred it in the drinks world to move to Sab Mellah back in 2006 and had various roles moving through different areas of treasury from regional treasurer in the Americas which although based in the uk I was traveling out across Latam and North America and then took over Europe to see the different interaction. Now our US business or Latin American business was a huge growth engine for the group throwing off loads of cash whilst Europe was struggling stagnated markets, problems with unemployment and not strong economic growth. So you had these different extremes where people we were unable to get cash out of countries and trying to think of ways of doing that tax efficiently. And then on the flip side is how will we funding our various businesses, keeping them afloat, looking at debt, capital structures to ensure we maintain that business, keep it moving forward with the right investment in Capex and so on. And then after, well just over a decade the ABI stepped in to take it over. I stayed with them for a very short period to help on a few projects in the world of procurement actually. So that was an interesting one to see. I'd been working in Procurement at S and B Muller with the treasurer's hat on. But looking at procurement from that angle and working capital Commodity Risk did a six month contract with ABI and then the opportunity came to move to Asahi Breweries and look after the Central European business which has now expanded. And we actually had, at that time we had a business in Korea as well. So it's interesting to get again different extremes between the Korean operating model and treasury related issues to Central Europe and now more Western Europe as well with Pyronian Grolsch on board.

And so what I want to do is I want to jump around but try and make it in a logical order perhaps with your background because as said before the show to Anthony, that we got sort of an interesting mix of listenership, if you like, on the show. So Europe and UK tends to be more again, you guys listening treasury managers trying to work your way up through to in the us a lot more sort of treasurers and wanting to hear some war stories maybe from answer, which I want to bring out as well. But when you made those original moves at Diageo, when you were growing your career, start in 97, you finished there 04, you made those moves. But you know, how did you make those moves? Was it just a very aspirational environment or were you always pushing for the next thing? I know yourself on a personal level, but how would you say that you sort of grew into your treasury through your treasury spurs, as it were.

When I first joined I went into the middle office. I'd been studying ACC exams, acca, sorry. And I was looking at various areas of treasury accounting in the world of Grandma remembered the merger between the two businesses that gave me the opportunity to get into the front office after quite a short period of time. So normally after that I was looking at sort of three year cycles and it was a very, and I'm sure still is quite an aspirational environment where they are pushing you to push yourself and expect you to be looking for that next move and growing yourself and looking for new opportunities. So what's always in the front office, you start with the basics of cash management, then broaden into foreign exchange and then some of the big deals come up and you can start helping with those and then moving towards the debt portfolio. That gave me the opportunity to sort of every two to three years either expand the role or change it. So I moved from cash management to FX risk management and then with that came the opportunity to take over the whole, what was classed as market and execution team. So the whole Front office trading and we are talking a long time ago. But we also had the opportunity to have discretionary trades, which was a small portfolio which we used to get approval every six months to continue with this. But also ensured the team was very focused on the markets. We had huge volume. Lots of this was all done on telephone to ensure the guys were focused on what was happening. We also had this discretionary book where we were taking positions in the market and that kept the guys focused, kept us all developing ourselves and looking at new opportunities. So by the end of it, I was starting to look at sort of pension risk within the group and different areas of focus and there was different avenues of opportunity even within Diageo. But then this chance came from Hewlett Packard to look at this EMEA based Treasury consulting role.

But before you made that move, Diageo was one of the top treasury places to be. I know a lot of the ex treasurers like yourself, you know, moved on to different places. Peter, Matt, Antonio did lots of different people, you know, and I'm, I got to meet all these guys early in my career, all you guys earlier in my career. So these. Sorry, I'm going back here to the beginning of my career. I got introduced to everyone in the team. Hi, this is Diageo team. And I met this group of talented treasury professionals. I thought I just want to sit on everyone's coattails here.

You know, I'm not sure what everyone clusters as talented, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I placed Peter Russell, I placed him as the head of the Global Treasury Tribal X and he's been on the show before. Matt Antonio made some other great moves. You yourself, you know, you've got this great career. All these people were sitting together, working together and you know, there was so many other good guys and I was just like, whoa, is this. And then I was meeting other treasury teams going, oh, okay, they're not quite as, as you say, they weren't market leading, they weren't. What, what caused that?

Well, I mean, I mean it's learning from other individuals. So you named some great guys there. Then you've got Peter Buxton who then went up his own business. He had a guy called Ian Simpson, had an mba and then we had quant Adrian who you could actually learn off. And these guys were rocket scientists when you get these, these. So when you were looking at the company position, the modeling we could do our own Monte Carlo simulation is to look at different ways of hedging that risk. We had board approval to be trading options, selling and Buying at that point, as well as lots of different ideas from a sort of tax effectiveness, from debt creation, capital structures. You have very strong teams which gave the younger members the opportunity to learn and understand a very broad spectrum of market exposure. And yeah, I think it's certainly helped my CV over the years. I still keep in touch with many of those guys you mentioned because everyone's moved around and we still will share ideas and discuss about different opportunities and what we're seeing now. I mean, I think the market has materially changed, what with accounting standards and so on and I just think a more conservative approach to risk. I think we have had to see some changes in the world of treasury, but back in the day it was yeah, it's not like the heyday of the banks, but we were pretty out there at the time. Given the opportunity to look at different ways of managing risk for the corporate.

As you say, you drifted away from drinks for just a short while.

Yeah, had to test it.

Yeah, just. Just to test it out. And joined hp. What was that like? So that was sort of a very different role because you've been markets execution and then were more treasury consulting. Was that sort of rounding out some of the experience, did you find?

It was. I mean it gave me an opportunity and again to meet a great bunch of guys, so. And some who are still in the world of finance to this day. So yeah, working with the team had more in depth accounting analysis, which was an area I certainly needed to strengthen. I think I was moved or when they read my cv, they liked my foreign exchange background and that trading side. So for some of these M and A deals which HP was very interested in expansion and looking and even spinning off some parts of the business, which probably happened the bigger ones before I joined, but then using those funds to reinvest it gave me an opportunity to broaden my skill set more in the world of consulting rather than just of front office trading and get a better understanding of the bigger business HP and therefore hopefully develop more a commercial awareness rather than just be Treasury. It's all about the money and the currency risk and in this day and age, working capital and commodities to actually see how the business joined some of those negotiations when we were trying to put together pricing packages for say large supermarkets, how are we going to price and we're producing stuff in China to sell into our European business to then sell to a UK business. How do we manage those FX flows as a commercial agreement and work with people actually some of who I knew on the other side in other Corporates in Treasury. So we'd sit with the sales guys, trying to hash together some of these opportunities, as you say.

I knew they split it between the operational side and the consulting side, but they called consulting, as you say, sort of the other business streams. Basically, it was everything out of options in some ways and, you know, a good role, sort of. You did it a couple of years and it sort of rounded out some of that experience before the move to sab. Back to sab. What was that like? Sort of. And what triggered that move?

Actually, it was meeting up with a mate of mine who worked in the bank who said he'd just spoken to a beer business who was setting up in Woking. Oh. And it happened to be down the road from me. So, yeah, window start. Yeah. And for me that diagnosis. Great. And it was hq. So to get a decision done, it was pretty quick. HP gave me the broad consultancy interests, but all the decisions when you get to a certain level were made in the us. So it didn't mean if we went out to Palo Alto a few times. And it was always great to meet the team, but it sometimes created the delay and that could be frustrating. So to then have an opportunity to move to another HQ down the road, a bit of travel, probably sooner than I would have planned to move, but when the opportunity is there, you've got to go for it. And so, yeah, I went through the interview process, was lucky enough to get the regional role, looking after the Americas, started the 2006, the journey there.

And again, SAB men of South African breweries, you know, and things explain the sort of, the growth, if you were from, you know, what was it there? What size was SAB then?

So there was four of us. So when I joined, I was number three. So we had the treasurer, assistant treasurer who had come in and as contracted to support and we had the pa, looked after the team and. But also interacted and knew the business a bit better and some of the people around the group. And then, yeah, I came in probably a week or two before the head of debt joined as well. So we went from two to four and then when I eventually left a decade later, it was a team of 60, so rapid expansion.

So talk us through if you maybe, maybe pick out some of the highlights for you, the SAB stuff, you know, there were, you know, when I looked through your CV resume, there were some achievements there and things like that, but you guys were exceptionally sort of focused on different, as you said earlier, on different markets. And what was amazing was Latin America was One region and it had all these twists and dials and then you went to another and it was like, oh, totally different set, control board something. Was that one of the things you took from it?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the bigger picture for treasury as a whole, we went from a totally decentralized team and that's how the business had been run. So they had expanded rapidly through M and A. Soon as South Africa opened up, they headed to the UK to set up business here to help with the M and A dream and had just been going around and picking up these businesses, but just let them run themselves. Brew locally to sell locally was the big motto. But then certain teams did deserve to be centralized and actually learnings could be made around the group. So David Mallett, who's the treasury, came on board to start that at this sort of focus of trying to centralize Treasury. And I just came in at the right time as the regional treasurer Americas to help with that agenda and look to work with the local teams. Now it was somewhat frowned upon in Latin America to have some guy flying out of the UK to come and tell them what needs to be done and so on. So, yeah, there was a huge amount of relationship building once you got there and were able to explain here to help basically that all these businesses had currency risk from importing the raw materials to make the various beers, from packaging exposures. They had commodity risk and so on there to explain that. Trying to help stabilize some of your volatility and help with the numbers, looking at centralized cash. Yeah, and you build up relationships with the FDs. And then, yeah, rather than. That's one of the FDs originally called me, the policeman from the UK is then you start demonstrating, okay, I can add some value to your business and therefore help your bottom line. And that, yeah, it just generated that. You then get to know other parts of the business and then gave me the opportunity to work with the team in Europe. And by that stage, the treasury had been totally centralized for Europe into the Woking office with a single cash pool structure, single bank cash pool, multi currency. All the risk management was run out of Woking for the European business. So you were there as their sole individual for any treasury issues. You'd go there and sit there with the FDS and talk through all the cash, talk through currency, look at the various exposures, work with them so that they felt comfortable when they were looking at their budget numbers and preparing for the year, that they did have the necessary support and policies that were put in place to manage these risks. Were actually helping them. And then the group obviously was then carrying on with the centralization of treasury. But we started doing regional sensors. So we had one eventually set up in Colombia where I used to travel a lot to. Then we had South Africa set up Hong Kong. And then the final stepping stone was actually some work I'd been doing with our Swiss business and where we had set up our procurement team looking at commodity risks for the group. And eventually after a year plus of discussions the agreement was yes, we'll look to centralize the what we class as treasury risk or financial risk with impurement. But the deal was that they wanted the team locally based in Switzerland. So that gave me the opportunity to move abroad with the family and relocate out to Switzerland for a few years to work in procurement. Although reporting into treasury to look at the various commodity related risks, embedded effects within supplier agreements, working capital opportunities through supply chain. And that was a globally centralized business.

And how big I know this because we've talked about it over a beer and stuff like that. How big a portion with this procurement and some of the aluminium and some of the numbers and some of the commodities. You know again for people listening in, I know that that shifted the needle but explain that to the listeners with.

The whole sport of the team. So there was treasury, the broader team. So I could rely on the woking basis. There was basically three of us based in Switzerland. So I had two traders, one on metals and packaging, the other one grains. We would look to try and branch into other areas when we had time. But they had like a. It was a $7 billion exposure of the sort of spend that they had under management with impurement of which was obviously thrown off fx. So I was working with them to ensure we contract risk was visible. Because sometimes these contracts were priced in local currency. But when you actually dig into the contract you realize the catalog is based in euros of dollars and just refixing at a month end. And the local business might think oh, I've only got tech Crowder exposures. But suddenly their prices go up by 5% because their currency is devalued and they didn't realize they had an underlying risk. And then so it was working on that. We went through the Fosters acquisition. So I had some working capital focus. We needed to generate cash to maintain the credit rating. And therefore being based in procurement, I could sit with suppliers to discuss the working capital opportunities using that time a bank platform in Europe. Then we set up in Latin America. Actually the Colombian team in Latin America had already set up and built Orion system which was expanded into Peru and then Central America. We did other working capital tools. Australia had one and this was all helping the sort of cash generation requirements for the business and having this sort of centralized opportunity. I was there face to face with procurement so when they're having those negotiations with key suppliers, they could drag me into the room to be sitting opposite my counterpart or a finance representative. And that's the thing I've always said with working capital, yet two procurement teams going head to head, they don't always understand the value of money. When you've got two finance people saying look, I can offer you this tool, it's going to offer you a discount rate of X if you're interested, does that look attractive compared to you going to your standard bank facilities? Then you can have a decent discussion negotiation, whether it's the local CFO or treasurer and often that ended up with a quick result. Best one, I think it took me a procurement lead an hour to negotiate some very workable payment terms and offering the supplier some very early cash settlements through supply chain financing. And it was a one hour call and it was done and contract was signed a week or two later. Probably the biggest success. Yeah, that was.

And then Asahi sab 60 people to zero everywhere.

Yeah, start it all again. So I had the six month opportunity being based in Switzerland, working with abi, looking at some key projects but it was always a set period of time. So part of that I wanted my family had relocated back to the UK and I wanted to be relocated having obviously worked with some of the Central European team. The Asahi Breweries Europe is actually the old SAB Miller. Well it was originally the Central European businesses which were sold as a group which Asahi stepped in. They had already bought prior GROSS in the UK business and that was Asahi Europe Ltd. And then they looked to expand a year or so later and picked up the rest of the business but kept them managed separately. So I happen to know the CFO or the individual who was to become the CFO and had the discussion and said yeah, I'm keen to work. Our headquarters are actually in Prague but having just moved the family, the discussion was about location. So the agreement was with we could be based here actually. Of course if you think about treasury, your key suppliers are the banks, they're all based in London. So there's no point me being over in Prague. My key contacts are up in London. And then on the flip side of that, to be able to sit down with the CFO and other team members, I just Commute out to Prague every month or so to be with everybody and catch up and when required. Yeah, projects are kicking off, you might go more frequently, but it's an easy hop to get out there, so. Well, it used to be an easy hop.

And when we've had some discussions, I've been incredibly impressed with the. The differentness of the SAI and their openness to some of the ideas you've had. As a treasurer, I know that Anthony had the beer and said, oh, yeah, I got involved in this idea about reward structure. I got in, I'm like, what, you're the treasurer? No, no, no, stay with what you know, buddy. Oh, and then I'm doing this and then Asahi asked us about this. It's a very different kind of company, you know, maybe you could describe it for the listeners.

Yeah, I mean. And I think, well, there's two different angles there. There's the Asahi Group, which we are a part of, and there was obviously a slight concern about how much freedom, having worked for a business where I had to go elsewhere to get agreement for everything, how much freedom would I be allowed to set up, like you said, start a new Treasury? We had nothing systems, no people, start from scratch, build everything. We had elements of the old SAB Miller cash pool structure, but that's the only thing we kept. We had no system to tie into and therefore how much freedom would I be able to recreate, put new policies in place, model it for the new business? So there's no point using SAB Miller policies when we had a massive global exposure, when I'm now more focused on Central Europe and the FX risk and different commodities and so on. The Japanese team were very flexible to actually let us move ahead to what we had some restrictions around debt, which was fair enough. Having just raised 10 billion euros themselves for the two acquisitions, they were a bit nervous about us going off and doing our own thing. So that was controls around that and actually we were throwing off a lot of cash and that wasn't the issue. And then from a group perspective with the new board, yeah, I think they like to see people demonstrate diverse skills, possibly. And I'm always interested to do more than just treasury because I think it helps with your cv. So you've got the areas of working with tax procurement, looking at supply chain from a financial point of view. But yeah, I've had the opportunity to work on some quite large HR projects which. Looking at certain parts within hr, which we're looking to implement this year and hopefully go live next year. So, yeah, it Gives me opportunity to work with different teams. And in that particular project they did drawing in some people from marketing and other parts of the business, which gave me a great opportunity to meet people outside of my normal remit. I'm generally overlapping with other finance people. So having to chat to people about the business, about marketing, you get a totally different view. It's really interesting to have that insight into what they see in the business, what they're trying to achieve and need to achieve as far as the right product in front of the right people through the right channel and the sort of struggles they have with that and the wins. So it's nice. And Asahi Breweries has been very good at giving people opportunities to not just stay in their standard sort of bracketed finance or treasury role to potentially expand into different areas and not expand. I then move into hr. It's just get involved in different projects.

No, exactly. And with yourself and going back to your looking at the core treasury area, as it were, what have you seen more recently and what are you seeing as the key challenges coming up for Treasury? And you talk there about probably a wider treasury role than perhaps most treasurers I actually speak to, which is an interesting thing for me that when the two of us sit down, we talk about one area. It's like I'm sometimes sitting with four treasurers. I might have an interview over the phone with the treasurer and they'll talk about one particular issue for their company or one particular area they're focusing on. Over the next 12 months you've got a wider remit, just a wider role. What are the key things that you see sort of coming down the line, as it were.

Interesting time. We probably have a slightly different view or simpler view a few months back where I mean it was focus on pre Covid. It was systems. Our currencies weren't particularly volatile. We were looking at capital structures for the group focusing on expanding working capital opportunities and going beyond just supply chain finance into should we revisit receivables or is it still too expensive and that that can go market by market. So like our check business is totally focused on sales to pubs and you're not going to get a strong receivables program trying to pass on that risk to a bank so you can dig into the markets and find the right areas. Looking to expand our commodity risk management piece and there's some new areas we've just taken on Grolsch and Peroni. So it's like getting that integrated on the standard sort of cash management platform. Everything Plugged into our treasury system, sort of the whole digitalization piece, which we're a small team, so we've got quite large remits on sort of cash, commodities, currency, working capital involvement and supporting tax capital structure type areas. But we've got three people in the front office and three in the back middle office. We're heavily reliant on systems and the integration of those systems to prevent keying errors and so on. We're going through an upgrade at the moment, but it was also seeing what, how could we expand that and that maybe work broader into say accounts payables? Are there better ways to manage in this to reduce sort of the cost of managing quite a large bank infrastructure? And then if you put that now it's obviously I used to travel quite a lot, which I don't obviously at the moment and maybe going forward I won't need to because the use of again systems that could actually help us save the planet a little bit. We have had a very strong focus on sustainability for quite a period of time and I think this period, although an utter nightmare from a human point of view, has made us focus on actually do we need to travel, can we more sustainable ways of thinking, of working and thinking. So we've got some great energy programs in the likes of Poland, so our breweries should be carbon neutral from energy use by the end of this year. I think they're 50% already carbon neutral. So looking to expand those type of projects, can we do things with packaging that be more environmentally friendly? So from a Treasury focus, how do we support that agenda going forward as well as ensuring the business is still okay with COVID Where our major market is pubs, there's not many pubs open. I mean they are opening up in central Europe, but it's certainly not everywhere. And there's obviously some risks of pubs getting closed again and hospitality in general.

So we're not far off the end of the show today and I know that I could chat Anthony and we do in the pub regularly ad infinitum. I love the chat about treasury, love about the development of it. Just before we come to the three tips for people, as we always do each week, just the sort of all encompassing question for you. Where do you see treasury sort of adding value, just sort of springboards perhaps from that. And you talk there about. Because you got that much wider view on treasury than many, many of the Treasurers and the Treasury Departments I talk to on a regular basis. Where do you see sort of treasury evolving to? If you know, sorry, we didn't ask the question before, but where do you see it going? Is it, you know, that getting more involved in procurement, getting more involved in the business or getting more. All of the above or where do you see the sort of pushing the value envelope?

Well, I mean, talk about the obvious stuff that's just done nowadays, cash and fx, totally commoditized. I think as long as you can get your forecast numbers accurate and that's some really CLE stuff and receivables nowadays, that is not adding value anymore. It reduces volatility and helps the business provide certainty, which helps. But I think the areas which, I mean, we've been focusing for a while, working with procurement and working capital, the commodity side of the world. In our market, obviously we're quite heavy on grains. We need various packaging from aluminium for the cans. Then you've got diesel exposures for distribution. I think that's Treasuries in general, I think, are becoming more focused on commodity risk and move beyond fx. I think then once you work in more closely procurement, you can look at the working capital opportunities. So how do you help your suppliers, which at the same time helps yourself and sort of helps ensure that these businesses, especially in tricky times like now, that our suppliers are staying afloat as well and ensuring they're getting the cash they need. And so can we accelerate payment terms through various tools? I mean, I think longer term in the future, I think certain areas will become more automated. We're looking more and more at bots and how do we use those more in sort of back office and could there be areas of treasury that could take over? So you can then think more strategic. Getting much closer to the business is always key. Sitting down with the FDS to understand their focus, priorities, how we can help provide some support. I also think Treasuries will become broader and therefore possibly more interesting in their area of focus. It's no longer just cash and FX and debt. I think there's other areas we can support and with the need to support sustainability, there's a lot of areas that treasury can add value. And I go beyond just the green bond, which is a way of helping cheap financing, because you're going to build something or maybe something good, do some good, but I mean, you've already sitting on the cash. What else can you do? Can you help with sort of the recycling agenda to. If we're looking to. If we have plastic, which we're trying to move away from pet, can we use our pet, can we find ways managing. Manage that risk and recycling aluminium and then procurement's actually done some really clever stuff, working with some of our suppliers to have them relocate one of their production sites to be much closer to us. So they're not shifting large quantities of empty cans to a brewery. So he's trying to. And how can treasury support. To ensure. So we worked with that business on another supply chain financing opportunity to ensure that they could get their cash to help with their build and so on. I think there's more than the standard cash and financial risk management now. There's bigger picture stuff to help with.

Yeah, exactly the question. And you sort of. It's starting to move that way. And I think finally, you know, treasurers are being understood for the role they do that much more, you know, with people like yourself taking it forward. And so going back to you, we'll put Anthony's LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if it's right for you to connect to him, him to connect to you, potentially connect after the show and you've enjoyed it and things like that. But he's done for some of his perhaps top tips, you know, and that can be, you know, top tips. People looking at your background thinking, I want to be like that and things like that. So you can be treasury related, they can be related to you. You know, someone looks at it and says, actually I want a background like Anthony.

What.

What would you tell them? And. And that could be the progression of your career, you know, through grammar. You know, I know it. You know, as I say, we sort of grown up side by side. Says, I started Treasure Recruitment, you were in Treasure Boom. And you know, side by side all the way through to now and the future. Treasury and. Or in treasury terms, what would you, what are the sort of tips you would give to people if they're listening today?

Well, obviously the studies is key, especially the earlier years as you build up your knowledge on treasury to then get the class from studies. And it doesn't have to just be the act that there are other studies SEMA are quite like, or maybe getting both. I'm seeing more and more treasury specialists getting treasury exams and a formal accounting exam as well to broaden their horizon because maybe they want to be a CFO at the end of it, or rather than the treasurer. So putting those stepping stones in place as you develop your knowledge of the basics in treasury. And although I talk about FX being quite commoditized, you still need to understand it. And most corporates will have some sort of currency exposure, whether it's supplier base or sales based. And so to be able to provide that level of support and to therefore also be able to question banks rather than just taking their advice and feeding it through to actually understand what they're telling you. I think having that deeper knowledge in certain key areas of treasury is key. I think looking for the opportunity to move roles, to grow that experience every three years as you get older, it does slow down. So there's not so many stepping stones when you get to the sort of deputy treasurer, treasurer type role. But yeah, having that opportunity to move around the different areas of Treasuries and so whether that's working in a smaller treasury team, but therefore have the broader opportunity or a big treasury team where you actually go and sit and run the FX portfolio or run the short term debt and then the longer term debt portfolio certainly helps broaden your knowledge. International experience, I think is very interesting. Having demonstrated that you're willing to support the business and move abroad now, whether it's either just traveling and commuting a bit. Well, I wouldn't say I was commuting to Latin America, but I was traveling a fair bit out to latam to support all the various businesses and meet the FDS and the local teams or actually relocating does give you an interesting insight. Different ways of working and then also I think the key that's helped me over the years is having the opportunity to work in lots of different types of projects way beyond just the areas of Treasury. So again, more involved in finance, looking at the commercial side is the stuff we can help out. Looking at budget rates and how do we set those to ensure that it does provide the business some certainty when they're planning without just hedging everything and therefore creating a whole heap of cost and forward points and so on. Working with the tax teams and to support the effectiveness and efficiencies and working with procurement. And I think there's strong overlaps with all these teams nowadays, which helps you broaden your knowledge and understanding of the business you're operating in and that should come through with the different projects you can put in your cv.

I think you actually, I know that you leverage that load more so probably than any of the other treasurers I speak to on a regular basis. And I would say that, you know, if you're listening today and you are one of those treasurers at a more senior level, this is what Anthony has done so massively, effectively. So when we have a conversation, it's like we're an hour in, we're having a second point and we're like. And you're talking about, oh, I've done this project and this is going on. And then I'm talking to these guys, I'm like. And it's like you're sort of getting all these spinning plates, whereas I'm talking to some guys and they're like, as you said, they're just doing. Spinning a couple, bring them together. It's amazing.

Maybe I get bored too quickly and therefore looking for new interesting areas. I mean, let's be honest, if you can show some interests and show that you can bring something to the table, people always need more resource. Yeah. So they're generally keen to get you involved, just because that's another set of hands to help out to manage the project. So it does. If you show that level of interest, you do then often get the opportunity to support. I mean, the extreme one is the HR project, which got the opportunity to work in. Yeah. Working with procurement or tac. There's a strong enough overlap. We can hope that the treasury team can bring this to the table and hopefully that will help.

And I would generally say, you know, just a reflection of that. Maybe get bored too quick. I was just hanging on to that. I think that would. It would. Would divert away and would be, you know, a negative thing if you didn't add so much value all across the piece. And every single one of these things add value, add cash and you do. And I think, you know, so it's not just, oh, you know, bit wanderlust and stuff like that. It's quite the opposite. It's very directed.

I mean, that was a bit flippant, maybe, that. So, yeah, you've got to close out what you're doing, otherwise you get a bad track record behind you. And then, yeah, the track record helps. Even to the point that when I catch up with the Japanese team and talking about stuff in Australia, they're happy to sort of listen and it's like totally separate business. They've only just acquired it and I'm sort of saying, oh, well, we've done this. Do you think it'll work over there? We could look for a global platform and they're happy to have the conversation to sort of think broader. Can we do a global solution rather than lots of regional solutions?

So. Exactly. You're looking at adding value all the time, which I think is your mindset, and it definitely helps. So, sir, it's been amazing as I knew it would be. Well, now we're just heading out of lockdown, so. Thank you. Beers to arrive soon.

It's a pleasure look forward to it.

Catching up.

Nice and chill. Priory.

Yeah, can't wait. Anthony, thank you for today. We'll put Anthony's LinkedIn profile in the show notes so you connect with him. Look at his profile. It's amazing. Some great stuff. He's also will actually perhaps put some links to some of the presentations given as well. You know, done stuff for Euro finance and some of the ACT stuff which has been brilliant as well. So have a look in there. Fantastic today. Thank you very much, sir. Thanks for your time.

Cheers, Mike. It's great to catch up and, yeah, thanks for your time.

Pleasure.