How to Fast-Track your Treasury Career with Topi Jokiranta

Hello, it's Mike Richards here from the treasury recruitment company. I hope you're enjoying the Treasury Career Corner. If you are great news, perhaps you give us a rating on itunes or wherever you consume your podcast content. This means that even more treasury professionals can benefit from finding out or by finding out about how treasurers have achieved their career goals. The link to rate our show will list at the bottom of our show notes. And please remember as well, the show itself is as much about you as it is about us. If there are specific questions you want us to ask or feedback you want to give, please drop me an email. My direct email is mike treasuryrecruitment.com inventively enough. But anyway, that's enough from me. Let's get on with the show. So welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each 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 delighted by joined by a good old friend of mine, Topi Jokaranta, from where he's currently the head of group Treasury Retig as we he showed my enunciation of my finish. He's actually Finnish by background and Retic is a Finnish family owned investment group with approximately, well euro 1 billion of turnover and a variety of different investments. But you know, we'll come on to that a bit later. Topi can explain that you studied and then did national service and things and talk us through then and how you came to London, treasury and everything else. So give us a, give us a kickoff from there.

What happens obviously here in Finland is national service is compulsory. Roughly you do a year crawling in the forest and then after that most of people continue their studies after that studied in Amsterdam, BBA degree there, then moved to London and that's really where the whole treasury career started.

No.

Wow.

And then, and you say you moved to London and you thought oh London wasn't too nice. Let's, let's go to Bracknell or talk you through because you actually started at Hewlett Packard and before the show saying that we've previously interviewed Connor Ma who used to be HP and obviously there's a few other guys that have sort of gone HP in some of the similar places yourself. But how did that role come about and how did you hear about Treasury?

As part of the studies we had to work somewhere abroad and I happened to do my work training as part of the studies at Hewlett Packard through That I ended up just contacting the same organization and they have this European treasury center in the uk. And then I just got lucky. I managed to get my first treasury job there. It was cash management. It's really just learning the very basics. But it was great because there were many other fairly junior people there and also then some seniors to guide you through. For example, Conor was there at the same time. And so that was the first touch really to treasury systems and money markets. A little bit of foreign exchange and all these things kind of started flooding in. That was how I ended up there, through university, really.

And was treasury an accidental choice or had you heard about it before or did you think, oh, that's an area I want to be in? Because obviously that was. That was quite a while ago. So it's still not in its infancy. It'd been around for a while. But, you know, we said a lot of people get into treasury by accident a lot of the time.

Yes, I think it was half accident. I majored in corporate finance, so I wanted to do something to do with finance and I very nearly stayed in Amsterdam. I wanted to have something to do with, you know, perhaps the stock market, perhaps derivatives. And there, there was a possibility to stay there and start learning and work with options. But then I thought perhaps I would prefer to work for a real company. So I ended up actually then in Treasury. So half accident, but then that turned out to be a very good accident and I really haven't looked back since.

And then you joined Ray Christopher at Regis or talk us through some of the moves then that happened.

That was a fairly busy time. We built some cash forecasting systems there. It was expanding very, very fast. They just gone public before I joined. Just explain Regis.

Yeah, this is Regis, correct?

Yeah, yes, Regis plc. And so it was really just learning to be a public company and really building various pieces of the treasury expanding very fast, some people could say even too fast. And then obviously that was also at the time when the 911 attacks happen and Regis had a big flagship office in New York. So that was a very strange time that then caused real issues for the company. And that was a fairly short stint that I did there. But I learned a lot because, you know, really it was myself and Ray and then millions of things happening. And so that was interesting to say the least. But I learned a lot and that was probably the first time when I sort of also understood that, you know, things might also go wrong. Things are not just Sunshine and Rosie all the way through. And as a fairly junior guy, had to deal with, you know, issues with the banks and some pretty heavy discussions during that year. Especially the sort of latter part of it, I think was a good experience in all the, you know, all the horrible things that happened around it. But I did learn a lot and so I don't think I'll ever forget that.

And then you moved on and you sort of by that stage, so you've been sort of treasury manager, stroke analyst. But then you were, you know, you joined Diageo. Talk us through the moves and the progression there.

Diageo was then a role when I then wanted to get some more exposure to front office foreign exchange. And really that's where I learned my foreign exchange first time. It was a pretty big treasury, also a pretty sophisticated Treasury. And I suppose that was a very different view in that we were at the head office doing big numbers, huge numbers of deals also. That was the infancy of foreign exchange dealing platforms. So things started to get more digital and less phones and more tapping on your computer. And so that was the first piece there. And as I said, it was a big, big Treasury. So you could see a lot of things going on, not just foreign exchange, but capital market stuff, very large accounting part that was happening there in the same office. So that was a very different treasury, but again, a great ground to learn because you had a lot of people and you had a lot of also senior experienced people to guide you through.

What was Gaggio like, you say? He was sort of developing there, you know, what, you know, what transformation did you see? Because you did quite a lot of project stuff and, you know, lot of progression for yourself.

I enjoyed it, first of all, you know, it was great and it was a great company to work for. And so I think it had a lot to do with systems, treasury systems, dealing platforms and all of these things. And that had a particular flavor to it. And so I did, I suppose, you know, the first time again there I had to be part of these teams, you know, that implemented these, you know, various systems. We also had a lot of fairly sophisticated analysis there. I remember we had a couple of PhD students there all the time running some pretty amazing models. And so it was a very different approach to financial risk and risk analysis and risk management. And I suppose that's really working at the front office and then a little bit of capital markets there as well. Bond issues and these kind of things begins to give you a more rounded view of what are the different parts in a large Treasury. It was pretty high pace as well. Things happened fast. A lot of Things, big numbers. And so I guess it was part of the journey where you learn that there is a lot more that revolves around treasury, not just you and your desk and the immediate things. You see how things link together.

I suppose then you made the move. You've done three years at Diageo and it was time for the next career move. Is that the right way to describe it?

Cadbury was looking to beef up their Treasury. They also had a new treasurer and they wanted to largely overhaul their financial risk management processes in treasury, again to do with the treasury systems. And so that was an opportunity which was a little bit too good to decline.

So talk us through your roles there, because you had good progression over, what, the next five years sort of thing with Cadbury. And obviously it was changing a lot before it eventually got bought out by Kraft Foods and things. But talk us through. What was it like when you walked in the door?

The first impression was that it was a little bit stuck in its old ways and the need was there to overhaul a lot of the processes. And that's really, you know, that sort of set the pace for the next year and a half or two. New systems, new risk management policies and, you know, rebuilding the team. And enjoyed a lot. There was a lot happening, a lot of M and A pieces as well. Some bits sold mainly the drinks business, and then other bits bought and again, getting a different view where you kind of have to dismantle all processes and, you know, rebuild them again. And that I enjoyed a lot. I also then moved to Singapore for a couple of years to really look after their Asia Pacific area. And it was a regional setup. So, you know, I suppose the head office was obviously in London, but the regions were not necessarily that close to the head office. And so one of the reasons why I moved to Singapore then was to kind of, you know, pull some of the cash management things together, risk management hedging processes, and if not, establish those. There was a guy there before me who moved to Japan, and so the opening was there. So I kind of just continued what this particular person had started setting up. And it was really just getting the visibility from the region to head office. But it was risk management, it was repatriation taking, you know, participating into these kind of projects. It did involve quite a lot of traveling just to make sure that, you know, you understand what was happening in all those countries. Good fun. But that was a lot of traveling because really it was anything from Japan to China, India, and then all the way to Australia and New Zealand. So that was a. That Was quite an area.

We spoke to Chris Emsley from General Mills and he's, you know, down in actually Singapore, is the Asia Pacific treasurer there. And he again talked through the sort of journey that they've been through and establishing new things and things. What was it? You know, you say you took over from someone, you came in, you walked into this sort of Singapore office, but it sounds like they were doing stuff their own way. Or how did you land there as this European guy that's just sort of, you know, with. And then work with the guys or what was your ethos around? How did you make it work?

The regional office was set up some years ago, before that, but it was mainly really set up by guys from Australia because Australia was the biggest manufacturing base for the drinks and the confectionery at the time. What really was needed is just going through all the countries, just understanding what's happening in there and how to build up a process, almost like a consultant approach to understand what's going on, what needs revision. And then implementing the revisions course, you know, then just reporting back to the head office involved a lot of setting up risk management reporting and other things which could flow back and forth between London and the region there. But you have to mix the culture into it. Obviously, when you go to the region and they focus a lot more on the operations, they're not really too, necessarily too fussed about what's going on at the head office. It's too far away for a company of that size. It definitely is too far away. And so my role was really just to make sure that the. The treasury set up there develops and is much more under control when it comes to cash risk forecasting. And also various things that had to happen. There was a lot happening in India. It's not the easiest country with all sorts of regulations. There was a lot happening in Australia, selling one of the drinks businesses. Big, big repatriation projects which we pushed through. And so it's interesting to see the regional setups because, you know, it gives you an. It sort of reminds you that that's where the money is made. And they're much more concerned about selling stuff, the operations, the manufacturing, everything else, instead of the typical things that happen at the head office. And so that gave me the perspective that, you know, you really kind of have to listen to the guys on the ground before you start dropping decisions on them. Exactly. And then you mix the cultural thing to that. One thing is, you know, perhaps having a clear idea in your head what to do. But when it comes to Implementing something in Japan, in Thailand or in Australia, you have to do it in very different way in all these countries. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an absolute stunning trip for a couple of years, even though it was pretty busy. Lots of time on the plane and then.

Then you decided you have enough time on the plane, it's time to come back to and work back in the UK or what.

What prompted that really was just a sickleman. You know, it was kind of agreed that it's about two years and that that's really what it was. Then back to the head office and really we continued setting up the regional treasury at the same time. When I was in the Asia Pacific, same thing was happening in America's region, same thing was happening in the emea. And so we had two other regional treas who worked, you know, and did exactly the same sort of thing in all the regions. And of course, by the time I was back, it was much more, much more in control. And so we could focus a little bit more on, you know, maybe leading it heavier from the. Maybe that's not the right word, but, you know, having a better control from the head office and then focusing on other things you could layer on, like cash pooling and other things which you could then develop. It was just a natural step to come back. And of course, by the time I came back, this takeover talk started with craft. First it was friendly talk and then it turned hostile very quickly. And we know how it turned out and it was a bit of a shock to all of us how it really turned out. And so before I left the Kraft treasury, if I remember right, was in Switzerland. And then of course, they wanted to consolidate a lot of the functional treasury work. I decided that that wasn't for me anymore. That was the kind of natural time to then perhaps look for something else. We also came back, we came back from Singapore, just made it back before our second kid was born. Maybe that was another sor of natural point to kind of think, well, okay, perhaps we'll. We'll do something else.

Yeah, so you completed your experience there, confectionary, consumer goods and everything else, and then made another consumer move to retail. So to Tesco. Talk us through that. And then. So you did Tesco and then you decided to head back to Finland and stuff. But talk us through those couple of moves.

Yes. Tesco was a little bit like Cadbury. It was a story where a lot more visibility was needed. Instead of hang regions, they had very, very large business businesses in Eastern Europe and in Asia also. Some in the US wasn't that big, but anyway, you know, the visibility in those businesses wasn't necessarily where it could have been yet. Some of the core processes with Tesco bank and the whole cash management and all that stuff was actually very good. And so again, it was more of a story of, you know, trying to pull together and understand what's going on in the businesses. And of course, it did involve, well, not really that much hedging, but, you know, a lot to do with funding and forecasting and pulling that team together such that you could have visibility and lead it a little bit more efficiently from the head office.

And you were international treasurer there, so you were obviously dealing globally or what were the regions that you focused on.

All the regions, really. We had Eastern Europe and of course, uk, that was big. Asia was big, South Korea, Thailand. And so we had a team member in Thailand, we had somebody in Hong Kong. Tesco wasn't interesting in the sense that they also had very large property business. Of course you have to build these shopping malls and what you would have in the UK is the shops, but in China it was shopping malls. There was a massive property business which was booming and that required quite a bit of. Quite a bit of attention because the numbers were big and it was mushrooming. So that was part. Eastern Europe was much more established, but regulations in various countries make it a bit difficult. If you compare Hungary to UK or Poland to uk, then you kind of really have to understand what's going on in the ground. The businesses were really big, so you had to really have a pretty grasp of what's going on there. So that was again, a sort of. I wouldn't call it a project, but it was similar kind of tasks to understand what's going on there and pull it together for the head office to manage better.

And then you decided to head back to Finland. What happened?

Well, family happened, really. By this time, two small kids. My wife had graduated. She went back to uni when we were in London and really she wanted to really think about moving back. Working in London would have required a much bigger house, au pairs and all sorts of other things. And so at the end of the day, I think it was a mutual decision to then perhaps come back here. Also other family reasons. Our parents obviously are not getting any younger. It was one of those decisions to come back. And Finland, of course, us both being Finns, it was easy in the sense that, you know, it's a bit of a reverse cultural shock, having been abroad quite a long time, but turned out well what happened next was really just a long two year project for an American company.

Tell us about Carestream.

Carestream was the medical business of Kodak. It was basically demerged from the troubled photos and cameras business. But this was top notch imaging business which is to do with X rays or X ray technology and various imaging technology. And again a very different business in the sense they were present in huge amount of countries around the world. A pretty large business as well, about 2 billion turnover. But it was different because most of the clients that the company was selling to was either state or municipal authorities.

Right.

Really what my remit was to start a pretty big project which was European Middle east liquidity management. So we basically did a European wide project to pull the liquidity and cash management and cash pool together and also implement a new treasury system at the same time. And so that was an all out treasury capability build and that turned out to be quite a project easier because I knew my then boss and I had worked with her at the time when we were at cad. So that was interesting because the customer base and the business was very, very different. It wasn't fast moving consumer goods. This was now industrial healthcare stuff, high technology. And of course Europe, Middle east was a huge amount of countries and of course the trick was at the time European crisis was going on. And so when you're selling stuff to Spanish, Italian and Greek states or municipalities, it wasn't necessarily that easy to actually get paid for your stuff. And so it added another twist to it in the middle of all this European crisis going on. Added another layer of complexity to it. The project went well. Eventually they established the treasury center in Amsterdam. By the time the project was done, came to a decision that I don't necessarily want to sit in Amsterdam, just having come back a couple of years back.

Yeah.

So then it was basically time to wrap up that project and then think about perhaps working for somebody else.

So you joined as you say, you're Finnish accent a little bit better than mine let's just say. But obviously the private group. So I don't want to intrude too much in it. But you know, family owned, private. But what, what can you tell us about the group or talk us through some of their sort of treasury setup if you like.

Yes, indeed. And even though this is a private company, if you go onto our website you will find all the financial statements and everything else just like any public company actually publish them. So it's a very open company in that sense. This is a company which started off as way back this is the now the ninth generation that's running the company. The near history was shipping, freight ships, eating technology and then lime based mining. But before that the company was actually in tobacco, alcohol and sweets confectionery. So you know again they've gone through many sites, cycles of reinventing themselves. And so currently the latest change is that it's an investment company holding various investments in the portfolio. The two biggest ones are heating technologies, salt radiators, underfloor heating, various other systems which you would also find in the uk. For example your Myson radiators would be from Retti. Nordkalk is the mining business. So it's basically limestone which you then take and do various sort of things with it. And it really goes into other industries, industrial processes, production of steel, construction, concrete, it goes to environmental processes, glass, chemicals, you name it. And so Redpig is the biggest European heating technology company. Then Nordgalc is the biggest Nordic one and there are various others. Recently we've also diversified to healthcare. So we now hold a very sizable stake in affinity private healthcare provider Tervestalo as well as some financial. In the financial sector we hold also a very sizable stake in a fund manager and corporate finance house called eq. These are both listed companies, these two that I just mentioned. So there are privately owned and then there are also stakes and listed companies. There are also various others. And so managing this. Most of the treasury is geared to service the industrial companies which obviously are about 1 billion trillion euro turnover in more than 20 countries, maybe European centric, but also in China, Russia, Turkey, a little bit of US and of course all the European countries pretty much wherever you would need heating. Let's say I came in here and really there was a need to kind of update the processes, risk management policy and the processes and overall treasury management and competence. A very small team, we are three. But again it's a very Nordic thing that you know, we love technology so it's very heavily relying on extremely efficient systems. And then of course you know, you have some pretty good talent because we can't really hire too many people to stay, you know, somehow sensible with the budgets. What we run here is a full in house bank. It's payments and receipts on behalf of those units providing all the foreign exchange, interest rates, commodity hedging services of course, then all the intercompany loans, all the external funding goes through here and supporting the M and A activity which is never ending in this company.

Now you've made, you know, you've had a number of moves and number of roles within PLCs and public companies and things like that. And then you've made the move to private. How would, how have you found the contrast? Or the pros and cons, if you like the advantage disadvantages? What you know, how would you describe that?

Public companies are a good. It's a good school to understand how things are done, usually quite well because you've got rules and regulations of what you can and cannot do. Also, the companies I work for were very, very big. And so, you know, those Treasuries were top notch. That was a particular view. Private companies can be. Obviously they range from A to Z. This particular one when I joined was probably a little bit stuck in its ways. But the Treasury Department had some pretty good starts with technology and pretty good starts with other processes. Size wise, this is a big company in the Nordics, but this is not particularly big company if you put it to European or global context. But here we are pretty sizable. And I think things can move very, very fast or they can move very, very slowly, depending on really very much what the owners want and what kind of an agenda the owners want to implement. What happened here was, you know, again we had the generational change. Our new CEO came in three years ago. He was, if I remember right, 36 years old at the time. He was part of the owning family. And then things obviously started to change pretty fast. Completely new deal. And then things started happening very fast and then the pace has continued over the past three years. Anything to do with funding these new investments. And so I suppose I enjoy the private side because, you know, again, you're very close. At least we are here, very close to the actual owners. We are in the same building. We see them every day and they're very often in the same meetings. You get to see how they think because you know, this is their own money, this is not shareholders money in the stock market. So you tend to see that they can take very, very long horizon in some decisions. They can behave sometimes in a different way compared to a listed company. In our case, it's a strength because we can get into investment cases. We don't have a set exit date. We don't have to behave like a PE fund. And so it gives us a different kind of an to investing into new things and looking at our portfolio companies. But then the downside of course is you can't afford to stay and expect that now that we're in here, fine, let's just run these businesses so the same rules apply. You have to reinvent yourself every Couple of years in order to stay competitive. And in that sense doesn't really change. It's not any different to a plc.

And just you talked there and touched on, you know, that they have this ethos around technology and things. Where do you see technology and where do you see the future of. Treasury recently spoke to Ronan from Honeywell and he was talking about AI, automation and lots of different things like that. Is that something coming along for you guys or are you going different direction or what was technology doing for you?

When I refer to technology, it's really using the available treasury systems in the in house bank engineering, we use a Finnish provider, electronic invoicing when it comes to that side of things. And so artificial intelligence and robotics and all that. Not necessarily that takes a bit of time. It can also take a big investment in the sense that at least you need some people to learn how to do that and then teach the others. What we focused on is really taking the products in the market without customizing anything. I mean customizations are customers, kind of software houses don't really want to do that and we wouldn't really have the budgets to kind of, you know, take a system and then customize it for our needs. So what we've done is, you know, make the most of the systems but then develop the processes and fine tune the processes so we can get by with three people and service the whole group with full in house banks just taking the systems and pushing those to the limits. We also take it, take an approach that, you know, things are very modular, modular. It's not just one system that does everything. We pick maybe two, three systems and then we use the bits from those which are best fit for particular process and then we make those systems talk to each other. And that I think is the recipe that's been successful for us. So, you know, picking three or four core systems using the best bits from them and then just having them talk to each other. And then I suppose we've got some robotics or AI, but really it's some automation which we've done with bits of middleware where we can consolidate and retrieve information and basically turn it into understandable information very fast. So supplementing the systems with some customized things, but they are not. I mean it's mostly Excel based but you can do a lot in that system. It's if you use clever people to help you.

Just looking back over your career and your history, if you like, one of the things I noticed here was your ethos or attitude to study. We come onto some of the People that are there with you and recruitment ideas. But when you're looking, or when you look back over your career, rather, you've got treasury qualification, you've also then most recently studied, relatively recently for an mba. Why go to all the effort? What do you think that gives you? And then does that then influence you when you're looking for people and recruiting, that you've got those things in your back pocket, as it were?

I enjoy studying. It's one of those things that. It's always one of these things when you go back and you have clever professors who might be going through things that you've studied before, but again, it's a refresher to start with. Second of all, you do always learn something new. So the treasury, the ancient, as it was called back then, was an absolutely key thing because it really gives you the theory and the hardcore of, you know, what this whole thing revolves around. So that's actually something I'm putting my team through as we speak. Not very common in Finland. Not many people have done it or are doing it in Finland, but these two guys are doing it and I think they will be very, very surprised by the time, you know, they're finished with it. It's a really good degree. MBA was another. And it's a completely different thing, you know, where you would have maybe 20, 20 people there from completely different backgrounds, top professors from the best universities. And so it gives you theoretical depth, but it also gives you the opportunity to go through problems. You know, if you've got 20 people in the room, you get 20 different approaches. It teaches you that, you know, there are many, many ways of solving the same problem and thinking about various angles. MBA is usually quite a bit of work, and it was quite a bit of work, but I enjoyed it because it gave me contacts. You know, I know a lot more people and I also understand how the business works in this country. This is Retic is actually the first Finnish company I work for. So it was one of the. One of the twists. But NBA gives you a completely different angle. Is it worth it? I think it is, but if you do it, you have to go really all in. It's no point sitting there for, you know, half of the lectures. And then you really kind of have to use the time and match the time and invest in it, and then it gives you a lovely payback by way of understanding things. And so when I look at people, as I said, we're a pretty small team, we have to have clever people, but it doesn't mean I have to have people who've been doing treasury for 30 years. No, it means I have to have people who can complement each other and also are hungry to learn things and also take ownership. That's one of the big things which needs to happen in a small team is there needs to be rotation, there needs to be ownership. If it doesn't really work, a small team can't function.

And how do you assess that if you're, you know, maybe if you're looking for new people and things, how, how can you, how can they prove that they're sitting there in front of you, you're interviewing them but you know, oh, I took ownership of this. Well yeah, prove it to me. Or how do you sort of get them to, you know, justify as it.

Were, that that is a difficult one always. I don't think there's a silver bullet. First of all you need to have enough candidates. You know, sourcing is of course one of the things which traditionally, you know, you kind of ask for some help from the recruitment agencies and of course, you know, you get the pretty good pre screening at that point. We used also some recruitment companies for testing these guys, you know, general test interviews and that sor of gives you a short list, references. I did a lot of calling around their previous managers, previous companies, other colleagues who may have worked with them. And so you kind of have to find the pieces of the puzzle. Ultimately I still believe in the old fashioned interview process. Not 15 rounds but you know, to maximum three. But if you take enough time and you set the environment such that you can have a good discussion, not necessarily just going through the CV and sort formal engineering approach but you know, having a discussion, talking about examples, completely random things, you begin to get a pretty good sense of these people and what they're like. Are they sociable, have they had drive? Do they have drive? Why do they want to work for you? This particular company have some old fashioned but you know, I still think the actual interviewing process has a big part in it and generally speaking we get very good in our treasury is not a big area in Finland obviously we only have so many companies that need a treasury department per se but you get very good candidates, many engineering backgrounds, also more traditional economics, corporate finance people and then there is a big split. Either you work for a bank or you work for a corporate. I suppose it works that way also in London. And so through these, putting these pieces together you get a pretty good idea on what you're looking for. And then of course you need a bit of luck. Top talent Is, I suppose, relatively easy to find by way of formal education, but then finding that person who's able to take ownership, take things and execute things. And also, you know, actually then finally being sociable. Yeah, you need a bit of luck. But so far I have an extremely good team and we were very, very lucky to get these hungry young guys who are all of these things that I mentioned.

But I think also you take, as you describe it there, you've built up a picture of them, not just a snapshot at an interview, as you said, you looked at lots of different sources of reference, as it were. So evidence from past employers, past bosses or people that you know in common, maybe that then that's helped you build up a better picture of them rather than just, all right, great interview today. Thanks. Yeah, offer them the job. It's much wider than that from the sounds of it and it needs to.

Be because, you know, treasury is not. It's not a huge market here in Finland. It's a very specialist area. People usually want to work in treasury unless they're very, very junior. They do tend to know the basics and that helps. And then what you then have to do is pick from the pieces specific expertises. So one in the current team, you know, there is more of an accounting strength there and the other one is more market hedging and risk management geared and then they both have to learn these things and rotate and then perhaps I bring other things to the table which I can then teach them. And so it's also trying to find then some specific exper teases and strengths which you can put together. But as a team is pretty small, you know, they have to accept it from the beginning that, you know, they will have to do things which they may not necessarily like or it's not necessarily something which is which. Which is their strength, but they will get exposure to those things. And that's the magic thing, is getting exposure. I find when you give these guys sufficient challenges, they seem to work harder and really because they understand they're going to learn the process themselves.

Okay. And as we wrap up today's show, I spoke to Topi before and we got permission again to. We'll put his LinkedIn profile in the show notes so you can connect there. That's with all our shows. Someone goes on there, they look at your background, they look at the successful career you've had from Diageo, Cadbury's, Tesco's, Care Stream and now letting. You've obviously got great corporate treasury background. Someone looks at said actually that's what I want. Looking back over it and in summary of you, what would you say, what advice would you offer those looking at it?

Well, the first is the study bit. You go through the sufficient training, for example, the corporate treasurer's training, that's always good, but then it's also at the various opportunities, sometimes be a bit adventurous, somebody offers you things, maybe you have to relocate. That's not. I mean, it's always a bit of a hassle, but it tends to be easier when you young. And so you should try and do that, you know, before the whole family thing steps into the picture. And another thing is, if you are moving jobs, then the next one should be something which is new. Don't, don't move from one job to another where, you know, you do the same thing. Always try and find another focus and build around it. Experience in treasury, because then if you're able to work in all of those different areas of treasury, then that after a while gives you a much more rounded experience which you can apply. Instead of becoming a deep specialist in some area, you're able to approach things in a more holistic way. And I suppose that's what I tried consciously doing because it went pretty well. But I did enjoy the ride around the world and I would thoroughly recommend it to anybody if there is a chance, then take up those various opportunities, even though it might look a bit scary or it might not be the thing that you're. You've done before, but then the whole point is to learn new things. Yeah, it's hard work, but, you know, it's very satisfying when you then get the opportunity to do something you haven't done before.

So don't be afraid to take the risk and go and do it.

Absolutely. Yes, situations change and, you know, economic cycles change, but I tend to believe that if you do your job well, it'll be well placed and if you get this rounded experience, you know, you'll do even better.

Yeah. Thank you, Toppy. I know that I'm going to be seeing Topi later this year at the Treasury Leaders Summit, so we're going to be attending that and can't wait to catch up with him for a couple of beers and a thank you for being on the show. All that remains for me to say is thank you very much, sir, and look forward to seeing you soon indeed.

Thanks very much, Mike.