How to Manage Treasury Teams with Andrea Paulis

I give myself and I think through for Everybody it's a 50, 50 target at the end, 50%. It's your attitude, it's your skills, it's your willingness to understand and listen, it's your willingness to do things and then 50% is the opportunity that comes. I think the fact that I was proposed to work in London to the main treasury vehicle of Fiat was an incredible opportunity that probably would have given, would have been given to me just once if I had said not at the time, it doesn't mean that I would have probably lost my job or anything else, but maybe I would have settled for something less. That opportunity was very visible in Fiat, allowed me to be visible with a number of people in the management and I was still in a kind of a medium sized management role. But I think it allowed me to show that I was capable in doing things and I could grow further, which then happened. So I like to mention a quote said by Walter Kreisler, it's about opportunities that they come and when they come you need to grab it. There are many people that don't see these opportunities coming and so they let them go. It is to me extremely important that you are able to look at opportunities to understand when they come. Two things, two exceptional things happened. The first one was the big financial crisis in 2008 and 9. It was, I think per se was the most important experience I had to manage. As I told you, I was in charge of the financial markets, I really was in charge of liquidity. Fiat was coming from a long time of its own personal crisis was going up in ratings. We had just reached an investment grade and then the financial crisis came. I remember that it was a very quick change for us. We had good performance, we had good liquidity ratings going up. Then suddenly everything changed in a very quick time and so we had to react immediately. That was, I think a team effort from World Finance, from the group treasurer to me as a financial markets person, my team and I have to say we were able to manage that crisis pretty well. I think that the reaction time we had was incredibly fast. We were able to secure funding transactions which really ensure the group to have its own liquidity to navigate during that time. By the way, Fiat lost its investment grade immediately. So it was the typical fallen angel, just, I think six months operating on investment grade. And it was, as you can imagine, those times was extremely difficult. But it proved that the school of treasury in Fiat and especially the way we have been managing banking relationship on over time was paying out. It's always attitude. I think that attitude made a difference when I started. It allowed me to grow and therefore I think it's extremely important now obviously it depends on who you are looking for. If you're looking for a person that maybe needs to be there for a senior position, obviously you are also looking for a decent background, technical skills and experience. But if you're looking for a more junior position, I think the attitude is to me the most important, important thing because I started by learning on the workplace. I remember someone at the university saying, don't lose too much time in university. Go and graduate as quick as you can. Because every year you lose is the year that you lose at work in the workplace. And I think companies in general, they like to train and grow their own people anyway. So the right attitude to me is the most important thing. If I see that a person is quick, is smart, is willing to accept its role and its seniority and is willing to put himself herself at a challenge, then I think that's the most important thing. Anything else can come and will come by the way because every company anyway is different in doing things I don't expect. The way we work in treasury is exactly the same. Other companies working treasury and this is what I hear when I talk to other treasurers in other companies. It.