How to Evolve Your Treasury Team with George Dessing

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've built their careers, where they are now, and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next in this week's show. Delighted to be joined by George Dessing, the Executive Vice President, treasury and Risk at Waters Kluer. Now, Walters Klua, if you don't know, is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals across a wide range of sectors. I'll get George to explain it a bit more, but suffice to say, headquartered in the Netherlands, company serves customers over 180 countries, operations in 40 countries and employs 18,000 plus people worldwide. Massively successful company. But I'll get George to describe it a bit more because what I want to do, we'll dive into George's background, although, as I said and we joked about before that, before the show, he's in some ways a recruiter's nightmare because he's been with Waters Clear for many, many years. 23 years, in fact, as repeat business goes, it's not. But actually we've met at conferences and things like that, but we sort of connected more recently over a Treasury Today article which talked about people and how you retain people and what's it been like throughout the COVID crisis and things like that. I thought was so interesting, I reached out to George. We've reconnected and, well, I'm thrilled that he's on today's show. But what we're going to do, 23 years at Wolters Kluwer, obviously doing exactly the same job day after day. No, it's totally different. And we will explore that a little bit as he's grown throughout his role there, some of his views on people and everything else. As always, enough talk from me. George, perhaps take us back to the very dim, distant past and before your first coffee of this morning, and how you originally got started in finance and then discovered the world of Treasury. So over to you, sir.

Hey, Mike, thanks for having me on the show.

Pleasure.

Yeah. Let me give you a snapshot. I was anticipating a little bit this question from yours and I need to bring you back literally to my first currency trades. That was actually when I was working on my first job, which I was a waiter on the beach surfing people and I was exchanging Deutsche Marks with Dutch guilders. And the good thing about that trade, because I live and still working in the Netherlands, was that I actually was the receiver of the Dutch Guilder, but there was a 10% difference between the two. So I was already my own bank in those days because the Germans were paying me one on one against the Deutsche Mark. So that was great trade. But anyway, seriously, you know, I started my career at my university in Tilburg, then worked for Filmnet, which was a paid television company these days. Had a couple of days worked in a Belgium coordination center. And then actually how it always goes. I was recruited in a pub for Walt skewer more than 20 years ago after they did their large acquisition on the other side of the ocean. They bought CCH and they thought that they need some extra support in that treasury function. At that moment treasury in worldsclux was around four people, relatively decentralized. And you could say there we made quite a change. Right now, worlds clear multinational, cross disciplinary treasury team, over 35 people of which roughly 13 people are working within treasury, have three treasury hubs in the US, Ireland and then the Netherlands. We went through quite a change these days. But probably we'll talk more about that in this.

I was going to say when you first discovered treasury at Nethold, obviously this is back in 94, so more manual processes, a very basic operation to then and then as you say, getting the job in a pub, which is a good sign. But talk us through what was treasury like back in those days to then Wolters Klu, why it attracted you and then the progression of and the evolution of treasury, if you will.

Yeah, it does remind me that actually the change of Walt's Kluwer is actually comparable how the function changed. So let me first explain a little bit what happened with Walt's Kluwer. Yeah, we see more and more regulation coming our way. I think every treasury is experiencing that day in, day out. And I say that to my team. That's our economic hatch, more rules and regulations. That's good for us, that's good for Worlds Blu, that's our business. So that's the hedge that we are dealing with every day. And then secondly we see a shift in customer needs. Folks want to have better outcomes at lower cost. It's sounding so Dutch, but that's what it is. And then thirdly, we're getting new and new technologies coming our way, cloud, mobile, open platforms. And that's also relevant for us. So if we bring it back to Treasury, I think over those years when I was first starting with my career, I think there's one thing that really changed is that the function or the profession became much more mature. It's much more integrated it's more embedded with different disciplines and that's what you see. The second piece is that I think liquidity is becoming even more key. Companies don't go bankrupt if they don't make any profits. They don't go bust if they don't have any liquidity. We all experienced in 2008, 2009 financial crisis, so I think we definitely, as treasury people, have obtained their board seats on a regular basis. So that's a great thing. And then finally more digitalized. You know, it is definitely one of the enablers for every treasurer. I always say treasury is a nexus of money, but certainly also information. And if you want to keep that manageable, you need to have a good IT landscape around you.

And with the growth and development of treasury, let's just focus in on that, if we would. So you joined the group 23 years ago. What was treasury like then through to now? And the reason I sort of want to sort of explore that is how you now utilize. You talked there about technology utilize, then the people set up and how it's evolved. So it's more the evolution as you've seen from that first day, you know, day after the pub meeting, you know, what's it been like? You've progress. You started originally as assistant treasurer and you progressed your career and again people listening, thinking, oh, I'd like to do that, but what steps have you taken personally in that evolution sort of thing?

Right. Well, I think there are a couple of things that were relevant and crucial at that moment. Clearly, what you said, it was more traditional in the old days. It was more about cash management. That's what it is. And if you think about treasury, always define it in three blocks. You have the main piece, which is the cash management, and second layer is the treasury. And finally you have the corporate finance. Those three were much scattered at those days. And I was getting the opportunity within multlue at a relatively young age to centralize that all in one treasury hub at that moment. And with that, treasury was there, so focusing on financial risks and then progressing along with the career, I was getting more things to do and that was actually also focusing and allowing myself to focus on operational risks. And then at least the next function came along and it was actually insurance or risk management. So from the financial risk, it became more operational, operational risk, and slowly it also migrated to non IT business continuity management, which was an extra dimension for my career, and then out of business continuity management, which was focusing on the physical risk of the organization. Also real estate came along in the treasury mix and for the mindset, you know we are truly a global company to your point in the introduction and we have over plus minus 230 locations worldwide. So you see slowly from financial risk, operational risk, physical risk and going all the way back to to what treasury actually in my definition is nowadays which is a much more integrated function than the old traditional cash management role. That award was there in the early days.

Can you just again for the listeners, as I said earlier in the show, as you said, explain what Wolters Klua do just because then that and then how that impacts on treasury because you're truly global company. But again some of the people might be going on Wikipedia or checking out on the web but maybe from you and how you manage the treasury for the group.

Yeah, right. Well as you said in the intro, you know it's a global company. It's a global provider of professional information software solutions and services for clinicians, accountants, doctors, tax advisors, bankers. So we help professionals, that's what we do. It's not nice to read. It's need to know information for our customers. Definitely not something for Sunday afternoon. This is their daily bread and butter. We have a couple of blockbuster products like Uptodate for the health space, CCH for the tax advisors and one Summax for the financial industry. Typical global company. You could say that we made quite a transformation in the last 180 years, especially in the most recent ones where for the mindset maybe 15 years ago we were 75% of our revenues was still print. Nowadays it's less than 10%. So you can literally say that we became all the way from a traditional publisher to nowadays a digital content and service provider. So pure tech company. And that has been quite a change whereby at the end of the day also from a Treasury's perspective that change also is one of the reasons why actually I'm still around at the end of the day if there is something dynamic and something to to learn from the organization then I think it's always interesting for Treasure to stay around.

With that transition from traditional print to tech. And it sounds like in some ways it's a different company you're working for now, which has obviously kept you engaged and everything else. Again, what's the evolution? What has treasury had to do to evolve with the group?

Yeah, well the last thing as a Treasury should do is of course is sitting in some sort of an ivory tower in the organization and look how it is progressing. I think if there is one thing that is required these days is that it should Be integrated and it should be closely to the, to the rest of the business. We need to effectively communicate with multiple teams and we need to harvest those, those connections. It's directly pointing to one of our main strategy is that we want to grow our business and that's crucial for the treasury to supporting there on the liquidity front simply by providing the daily liquidity but also in case of certain M and A activity. So I think adding value is the first one that a treasurer should think about. And then secondly is the network role that you have as a treasurer. Sit close to your business. At the end of the day it's driving the operational agility within the organization coming from the head office. And the last thing what yourself or your team needs to do is you cannot earn it behind your screen. You need to get out, you need to interact and then you can provide actually the added value to the organization.

And treasury traditionally, as you say was certainly when I started in Treasury Group 20 plus years ago was very ivory towered. A lot of people like oh yeah, if I do this specialist function, I'll get 10% more salaries. So they were very focused on that. But over time it's become much more as you say, business integrated and helping the teams and things. We spoke about this before the show briefly that you've this joined up thinking collaboration, how do you, how do you get out to the business just like oh can I come meet you and things or is it driven by business need? How do you do it?

The collaboration is driven by the basics that I assume every financial professional is looking for. And at the end of the day we strive to make the organization safer, more streamlined and more efficient. Drive to operational and financial agility. And I think treasury can do that in three ways. First of all, we are certain knowledge center on all kinds of activity that you can expect from the treasury function or how we define it in a simple way is we want to be the internal bank for the group. So we are the knowledge center. And with that we also have an idea how we can save certain costs for the business units. We are an enabler for cost savings. And thirdly, I think we strive to be having a certain alignment between the financial terms and conditions to have one set of rules, one roadmap that actually within the organization is known. With that we become the strategic partner sitting closely our internal customers which are the business units are for us and make it as simple as possible. That's what we try to do by being more connected. You want to know what the challenges might be for them a little bit ahead before it actually becomes a fire drill. That's what we try to do.

You're there at the end of the phone to be there to help them straight away.

Exactly.

And we talked again before the show and I joked there in the intro that as a repeat custom goes, damn you, you look after your team and they're all very happy and things like that. How do you do that? You've got a team now of 30 across the different disciplines. Maybe describe that if you would. But also, how do you keep them engaged, you know, throughout this lockdown, throughout working from home and all this weird times, how have you focused on that and what have you done to keep people. Is it Zoom calls every week with a, you know, happy hour, which everyone goes on about, and I think everyone is just bored their brains with that now. What do you do?

Yeah, I think, you know, the multiple ways how you can tackle this, this most volatile time, you know, there is a lot of things that you need to do, and I think we all need to look a little bit in the mirror what actually is happening. But first of all, I must say, in this whole difficult time, everybody should watch out for and make sure that they stay healthy. That's the most important thing in life. So, so that's, that's what I say to, to everybody, my team, you know, coming back to the earlier comments, we are a pure tech company, can say over 95 of the people that we have globally, roughly the 19,000 folks that we have, are all working from home. So that's what we do. But what I say to my team is maybe a couple, couple of lessons learned. First of all, we need to stay closely connected. Maybe in the old days we were having biweekly meetings that we, for instance, scheduled. We now put the frequency more up, so it's becoming even more important. Maybe I need to say to myself to be a little bit more patient these days, take a step back, let it flow, Let them flow a little bit. It's sometimes a bit harder for me, but that's an honest for myself. I always say share successes. If we obtain something great, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it among ourselves, but also with others and take a break. You know, we need to stay energized, do something else, do fun and share the fun among ourselves. So these are the simple things that we are doing in these days.

And you say that sort of not impatience, that's the wrong way, but you're wanting to progress things and things like that. Is that because, because when you're talking to people it's about different levels and things. Because I was asked on a Treasury panel recently and they said, oh, everyone's zoom box is exactly the same size so it means it gives equal space and time for a Treasury analyst to speak to their treasurer. And I said, well. And they said, oh, that's a big new thing. I said it's not a new thing. Treasurer's doors are always open. It's just, do you go and ask them the question about, you know, do I do this FX deal? Well, no, actually they don't. You don't need to go to the treasurer, you go to your treasury manager. It's different now. Yes. Because you're trapped in your homes. You or you have to work in a different way and you're perhaps, yeah, you could ask your treasurer but actually it's probably better use of your time and learning to ask your treasury manager. So it's sort of the lines of communication have not become blurred but a bit mixed. You know, have you found that yourself or, you know, how have you managed that? Because again, this is what treasurers out there are, you know, listening to the show hopefully and facing the same or how have you organized it?

So it's an interesting question that you're asking me. I feel, still believe that treasury is, is, you know, it's, it's working like a nexus. And I always, you know, I don't like so much the hierarchy and the layered way, how to work. It's a purely team play. So I'm more working in the fact that I hate ghostwriting. So whenever somebody brings a certain idea, we always take them along all the way up. That's the philosophy of the organization. So we are not so much layered. I still hope that despite the current crisis, people still reaching out to me because at the end of the day that information, that's the key to everything, you know, information is not rumor or guesses. It still needs to have the right analysis behind it. But then for every good idea they can pick up the phone and give me a call. Because that's what treasury is about. It's about the forward looking thinking. Yes, maybe we are wrong as always, but, but we need to do this on a calculated way and if we are wrong one time, we need to learn from it and do differently the next time. But I think overall I have a relatively flat organization and that's also the experience within Waltz Kluwer that I got. You know, we are a relatively small, lean and mean head office that's the philosophy of the organization.

Yeah, keep it, keep it like that. And when we talk about the organization again we spoke before the show about you're a multinational group, you've got lots of different people in the team and things like that. And again this came out in the article about networkers and different things. Perhaps you can describe rather than me take some of the stuff you've talked about. George, you referred to it before about what the blend of the team you feel that you have to have and I wanted to deep dive in some of those because again, either you're a team member that needs to think about some of these things or you're at your position and this is think about recruiting. Oh actually I need a blended approach. I need to. Oh actually I heard George the other day talk about this. I need one of those. Can you explain, you know, your team members and what you look for?

Before I go into the team members, maybe first what I envision from the team itself, you know, then the requirements will be there. I think, you know, if you want to lead a successful team these days, I think it's crucial for treasurer to be prompt. You need to stay ahead of the curve. Always. A simple way within treasury is if you wait till you need the money, you're probably a little bit too late. So you need to be proactively and that's the second one you need to get out. You need to interact with your internal disciplines like investigations, communications, tax auditors, these are the folks that you need to have. But also externally, we need to speak to your firms, we need to speak to the networks that you have, the treasury networks for instance in the Netherlands, the Dutch association of Corporate Treasurers or other corporates. That's how you, you get your new ideas. Thirdly is you need to be the team player. We already spoke about it. If you want to be a good team player, you also need to communicate and then also be open minded. If you only think it from a Treasury perspective, you're probably too narrow sighted. You need to open yourself up to other ideas because there is a difference of being right and getting right. That's, that's crucial in this whole philosophy. And then finally, and you know we were already chatting about this in the begin, I think you always need to do this with a certain smile on your face. And you know, we're spending so much time with work or work related so having a bit of passion to do this. Yeah. Would help and keep you going. And that actually boils down to the characteristics what we are looking for. We're looking for networkers, we're looking for critical thinkers and we're looking for team players. People who can communicate, are stakeholder sensitive, are result driven and to a certain extent also street wise. You know, they are always looking for people who actually can say no to certain things. Things. And no, I don't understand because that's the crucial, the last thing that you want is only having people who are nodding their face say yeah, yeah, yeah but at the end of the day have no clue what they, what they say. Yes. Or understand the situation.

So they fall over some sort of.

Criticality among what you do. That's the kind of people that I'm looking for.

Fantastic way to build teams and things. I think people, you know, again, are you assessing that when you're bringing them into the team? Do you pre assess and say actually we need someone stronger in this area or how do you measure that? Or do you pre measure that or what do you do?

Yeah, well we try at the luxury to build a team. Not every treasury team can, can, can build different individuals. At the end of the day you need a certain capability and if you are in small teams you, you have less opportunity for that. I have a bit of the benefits to do that. We're looking for different people. We're looking for different people with different nationalities, different backgrounds and sometimes also different personalities. We always looking for people with a certain quote, unquote a twist. Everybody's bringing fantastic resumes and great universities and whatever, but it's always the twist in a resume that you're looking for. And for me that is folks who for example started their own business, was apparently not a big success. I don't care. But at least by trying you show the kind of animal you are. That's the piece that I like. I also recall that one of the candidates who are actually, unfortunately, actually didn't recruit besides that he was actually did some top sport in his early days that brings a certain discipline and focus and for me that was very interesting because I thought if I can match that with my team, such a personality that also brings a certain drive to the others and then we speak about true team building and that's what I like.

Yeah, well, looking for that. What's interesting as you say there, you look for that twist and it doesn't have to always fit. But as you say, if you're investing, as you say start a business or done a different sport or whatever else, you're looking for that and then you decide if it fits at that time or at that moment. So you get a different blended team sort of thing from the sounds of it.

Yeah, I think as every manager, you need to avoid that. You're only looking for certain lookalikes from yourself because that is setting you up for failure. And I would urge everybody, or especially the younger ones who are in the early days of their careers to focus a little bit more on other things as well. And don't be shy as well to speak about those in certain interviews with new job opportunities because that makes it interesting for the potential new job that you want to get.

Yeah. George, we mentioned at the beginning of the show that we'd met at various conferences and then you talked about the Dutch association of Treasurers and getting involved there. I was going to say for the people listening today, why do you think it's important to get out there again? As I say, I force myself on a stage. It's not out of the comfort zone. But why do you think treasurers like yourself need to be out there on a stage or getting involved in the associations? What's the sort of reasoning behind that, if you like?

I think it's coming back to my earlier comments. If you only think you can progress in your job, if you can progress with the department or for the company only by doing that behind your screen, then I think you are a little bit too narrow sided. You need to get out, you need to interact, you need to interact internally to make sure you stay connected. But also that means that you need to force yourself to speak to others and get different opinions. I think if there is one thing, especially coming back to your earlier comment, especially when you are in an organization already a little bit longer, you have to be mindful of that vulnerable situation to become only silent in your own ideas.

Right?

So you need to open up and make sure that you get those ideas. Previous manager to me said once that, you know, if you go out and you spent half a day at a conference or whatever and you come back with two or three great ideas, then it's already a well spent time and that's what it should be. You know, if we can leverage that two, three good ideas, that's what it's all about. So I would definitely say it brings you a personal development to your point standing on the stage, but also for the organization, it's bringing definitely added value to it.

And just, you know, we're not quite at the end of the show and we'll do the LinkedIn wrap up shortly, but what I was going to ask you because you're out on these stages you're looking at future treasury. You're seeing other treasurers talking about it and you know, different ones are programming robotics online, you know, on live on stage. And this is a big thing. When you're looking at the future of treasury, what's coming at you? Again, many shows I've talked about that the CFO seems to use their treasurer a little bit as the scout and pushing them forward and looking at the future of treasury and we've heard about blockchain, we've heard about different things. What are you seeing? What's coming at you? What initiatives are you thinking? Right, we need to be embracing that or actually that's not going to be a big thing in the future. What are you thinking?

Well, I think for us and I hope for everybody still liquidity remains always the most important thing. Every treasury is top of mind. Especially also we've seen this year with the whole Covid situation when a certain crisis kicks off, everybody's running through all its liquidity profiles and to see if everything has been arranged. So I still believe that cash will always remain one of the kings to go after and that will also remain for us. Another thing that has become more known in the market and we also within our organization, we will spend some more time on that one as well is the whole sustainability clearly world's clear is, you know it's, it's so connected in our day to day purpose having great healthcare, justice, tax, these kind of thing. But that whole stakeholder value thinking and also from the sustainability link towards funding is definitely a second team that I think we will spend more time on in the coming year or years. And then finally the whole automation supporting our businesses in the most efficient, secure and streamlined way that goes with a certain IT landscape. Luckily we have our own tools as well that we can leverage. We have a digetic tool that we a company that we bought a couple of years ago and we're currently implementing a certain cash tool which helps us with forecasting of the organization. It's great thing, you know, you leverage an own product among your own team and within the organization. A fantastic win win solution for us to look out for.

That's great. And as you say because you're using it internally, you can walk across the room or you know, leverage the expertise you've got in house. Which is great.

Exactly. And you know, it's also, you know it gives a certain fantastic feeling to use your own products. But also I feel that that is also a need for the to do.

That so and integrates treasury as well, across the group as well, even more damn.

Exactly.

Doing a great job. As I said before, we will put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So if you feel that, you know, people want to connect and you know it's worthwhile having them in your circle of treasury connections, you can connect or not connect as, as you want. But again, we spoke at the beginning of the show and before this, trying to give some tips to people. Again, they look at you and they say, hang on, George has been there 23 years and they'll see the progression and some of the things you've. But what pieces of advice would you give to those listening today? And they might be the juniors, start their careers mid career or perhaps treasurers, similar level to yourself. What pieces of advice, you know, tidbits would you give to those guys out there?

It reminds me actually on the tip that I was getting from my dad, I don't know, an awkward thing to give as an example. But anyway, here he goes.

Sorry, go for it.

My dad always said to me that whatever you do, it doesn't really matter, but as long as you do it well or stay on top of it, so make sure you're good at it. That was his philosophy. I think that for me, that is treasury, that is managing treasury, the risk management as well as the real estate these days. That's what I like and that's what I feel, at least where I try to be good at it. There are a couple of things that we talked about in the show that are crucial to stay good at it. And that's of course, first of all, stay connected. And I cannot say that often enough. You need to get out and take a broad view. At the end of the day, treasury is more than the traditional cash management. It's more about different disciplines, different functions and maybe even rotating in and out in jobs. So if you can learn more from others, go for it. That's what treasury is. It's purely the holistic view among the function that makes you a better Treasury.

And that's you, that's, that's you done. I mean, some great advice there for today's show. As I say, we'll put George's details in the show. Notes connect if you want. It was lovely. I mean, for exactly as we said earlier, 23 years throughout the company. I think it's admirable. You know, we joke around that, you know, we, we could do with a bit more turnover because my kids do need shoes and things like that. But I think you're doing a fantastic job there, George, and keep up the good work. And people can see you on a Euro finance stage or, you know, a stage in the Netherland, wherever it might be, quite often. And I look forward to the next time when we're allowed out of our houses and things to see each other. So it'd be great to see you. So thanks very much for your time today, sir.

Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. It was a great pleasure. And you know, whatever what I say to everybody, you know where to find me. I love to interact with new people. So to your point, the LinkedIn details are there.

Great stuff. Thanks very much, sir.

Thank you, Mike.