How Treasury Drives Business Growth Through Relationships, Risk Strategy, and Resilience

Foreign 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 build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next. Let's get on with the show. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Declan Ware, the group treasurer at emr. European Metal Recycling Group. EMA is a global leader in sustainable materials with physical operations in the UK, US, Germany and Netherlands. In the US it's got 54 sites right the way from Texas, where I'll be in a few weeks time, to New Jersey where I'll be week after next. Core business in recycling of metal and plastics from a range of public commercial industrial waste streams, end of life vehicles, consumer products industry, all sources of recycling EMRs generate. This is great. Generate around 10 million tons of sustainable metals and plastics, saving over 10 million tons of CO2 compared to virginal terms. Great intro there, but Declan, we're going to go right the way back. Beginning of your career, if you would, if you. How did you first get started in finance and then Treasury? Over to you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike. That was a great introduction to the company. You should write our presentations. So where it all began, I graduated with a degree in economics at the University of Manchester and was fortunate to get a place on the graduate recruitment scheme at the then British Nuclear Fuels based in Warrington. And that presented a great opportunity to spend two years initially within the group finance function almost on a rotational basis. So I spent some time with her financial accountants, the management accountants, tax and I also spent some time at Sellafield in the operational finance side of things. So real good exposure to the business. At the time, the political agenda didn't want nuclear on the UK power source. There was also a significant amount of historical liabilities that needed to be managed. So the business BNFL in its current form was being wound up. I was then asked to, when my graduate training scheme came to an end, join part of the financial accounts team that we're going to be leading that. And at the time there wasn't a defined treasurer's role. So it was great for me because my time had come to an end and I was able to get involved in the treasury side of this reorganization of the sector. So that was everything from operational banking, setting up bank accounts to mirror the new site license structure that was going to be applied, the management of the investment portfolio to match the liabilities. I took over that, which was a crash course in the Likes of bonds and gilts and fixed income. And perhaps most excitingly was the disposal of Westinghouse Electric, which was almost a jewel in the crown of BNFL at the time. And that entity was sold to Toshiba for north of $5 billion. And not me directly, but me, in consultation with the fd, were responsible for putting inflation place hedging instruments to mitigate any adverse movements in the exchange rate from the time the sale was agreed through to completion. I just wanted to get in the pressure that.

Well, let me jump in, Declan. You've come in. What first sparked your interest in treasury per se, or you didn't know what treasury was? And they're just saying like this because these were early days. You know, it's when I first started my treasury recruitment career. People like, what's Treasury? I don't know, I'll find out from these treasury guys.

Treasury to me at the time was certainly early days was someone who looked after the money at the football club. You went and played football on a Saturday and you had a treasurer who made sure you paid your subs and they paid the league fees when you got a yellow card. That was treasury for me. When I was doing the initial stage of the graduate scheme, I was also studying sema. So whilst that is predominantly management accounting qualification, it does lend more into financial management and indeed Treasury. So I learned about it theoretically. And also the UK treasurer for Westinghouse, who I've just referred to, also sat in the UK office. So I spent quite a lot of time with him. He educated me. I was like, well this sounds quite interesting here. It's pretty dynamic. You're learning more about the business because every that the business takes typically has a Treasury impact as well.

Yeah. And then as you said, you gone from that intro to treasury and then it gone right up to disposal and the billions and things like that. What was the challenges for you at still that early stage, if you like, and how did that shape you then as a Treasury professional?

I think it required a significant amount of self learning. Yes. At the time, as with many treasury functions, I've found that the accountant would do the fx, the tax might look after the banking relationship. There wasn't really one to find contact for treasury. So having that motivation and discipline to go out and rope learning information from a theoretical standpoint. So when it comes to the practical side, I'm well versed, but also leaning on relationships. You know, speaking with our operational bankers, speaking with some of the fund managers and just being honest, you know, don't try and blag it. Don't say, oh yeah, I can do this. Be open minded and admit when you don't know something. And they were always very open and helpful in terms of getting the experience and knowledge that I needed in order to perform the role effectively.

You did that role. So you got a graduate group Treasury Manager and then you went to ey. What was the next move? Or how did it come about?

Yeah, yeah. So the reorganization of BNFL inevitably meant the group finance function in its current form would be diminished. So over a stage period people would leave. We were all given notice and within that notice period we were given the opportunity to perform any qualifications that we wanted to. So I, I did my Associate ACT examinations. I knew that I was going to be leaving in the December and I guess my head at that time was right, I need to get another job. I can't have a time where I've not got a job. So I guess through my studies with the act, got to know guys on the course, one of which worked in Infrastructure Advisory for, for kp. Sorry by. I'm getting my big four mixed up there. Really interesting. It was in the Infrastructure Advisory team it lent to Treasury. The fact that he was on this course meant that. Yeah, okay, this sounds interesting. Let's give it a whirl. I've gone from a corporate treasury function into practice. I've never done practice before. What have I got to lose? Yeah. So did the interview ahead of my finish day in December, got offered the role and I was thinking, great, I've got a month or so off now when I did a bit of traveling and in the back of my mind I knew that I had a role to come back to. Started there at the beginning of 2018 and my time in practice I enjoyed. I threw myself into it, really supportive bunch. It took a bit of getting used to in terms of the whole concept of doing your timesheets and obviously a very structured management and organizational frontage. But I was there for just shy of eight months, nine months in the end. And I guess it was a bit of a crossroads for me because I'd been doing pure treasury for two, two and a half years at the back end of my role at bnfl. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to continue that perhaps naively at my age I thought, well, if I want to continue Treasury, I'll have to move to London. I wasn't quite ready for that. This role was really appealing to me. But after a few months it became quite clear that this was too Much of a departure from treasury for me and those initial years, forefront or the start of my career, I was pretty clear that I wanted to continue down that path. Yeah, I've just done my treasury qualification. I wanted to get back into corporate side.

Yeah.

They started to look at what roles.

Were out there and along came emr. Do you want to explain what was the company then when you joined them 16 years ago?

Yeah. So everything you said on the outset was all true, just a little bit smaller. The business in its form in the 90s and early 2000s was predominantly UK based. I joined just after they'd completed two acquisitions in the European business in the Netherlands and Germany, and they had just started a pretty heavy acquisition campaign in the us. So the business was growing. It appealed to me because of a number of things. They had the breadth, so operational banking was key. Learned a lot of that. In my initial role, it's an exporter, so huge FX exposure. Did a lot of that in my current role and felt I had more to learn and more to add there. And it just felt as a company, it's the way you want to be. You work for a green, sustainable company. From a personal point of view, it was a Treasury role in the Northwest, which ticked the boxes, which suits you as well.

And just touching on that industry, if you like, what are the changes You've. I mean, massive shift, you know, the green economy, everything else. And you know, what are the biggest changes you've witnessed in the industry that you've been there at? The literally not the coal face, actually the metal face. What have you seen?

So the real change is a real shift. If you look at, certainly in the last five to 10 years, EV cars, solar paneling, all of those have such significant demand in the base metal space. So that for us is key because there's one of two ways, broadly, you can either make these products, metals, using the raw materials you find in the ground, or you can use scrap metal. Scrap metal clearly has a much, significantly smaller carbon footprint and the way the world is going, that's where the preference was. So there was a real expansion. It expanded beyond just metals. So clearly the name of the company suggests European and metal. We don't just operate in Europe and we don't just recycle metals. It a truly circular, sustainable approach to.

The industry and then pushing that down into treasury, you know, you've. I mean, exactly as you say, you're not just European cash management, is you managing liquidity across uk, us, Europe, Asia. You know, what are the biggest challenges you've seen in that because obviously, yeah, you, you've been doing it.

Yeah. So kind of breaking it down into the pillars there. So funding working capital management is key to the business. You know, we're procuring scrap, processing it and then typically at the moment exporting it into some of the countries which are demanding that product. So there's clearly a lead time there. Our funding is predominantly linked to the working capital of the business and it's reactive to the market. So if scrap prices go up and you look at recent times, there's been multiple events where you see a huge rally in scrap. Post Covid things started to pick up. The onset of the conflict in Russia and the UK and you see all these shocks and rallies and price goes up. More people want to sell their scrap, we've got more cash going out the door and therefore our funding increases. So it's all about, right, sizing the business so that A, it has enough liquidity to absorb that inventory buildup, but also there's enough dry powder there to absorb any market shocks so we can continue to take advantage while maybe some of our competitors don't. Because the fact of the matter is scrap, you don't make scrap arises from the economy. So there's so many variables which dictate that at the moment global output isn't as strong as it has been, so there's less scrap arising in the market.

Yeah.

So from a liquidity standpoint, treasury needs to arm the business with the funds so it can operate in a pretty tight market. Yeah. And we touched on the Risk Management. Sorry, mate, go ahead.

Well, that's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, you got Risk Management, you got to then negotiate in, you know, not. What's the word we said before, we're not going to go into any confidential information, but when you're negotiating with that sort of in the back of your mind as the treasurer, because it's a more business focused role, isn't it? It's not just sometimes treasury can be off on the side, you're really at the heart of it.

That's very true. I mean, finance as a function is sometimes siloed. Right. It's they're the guys in the building across the road and treasury is part of the Greek finance function. But it is more than that. It's the interaction with your internal stakeholders is just as strong as your external stakeholders. So you really have to understand the business model, you really understand the challenges because then you're going to the lenders external conveying what the business is all about making sure that you structure your facilities in such a way that means the business can operate day to day without any cumbersome restrictions.

Yeah. And then you were just moving on to risk management. It's great. See, I've got some notes. I'm actually doing my research. Sometimes it's got pretty good. Some of the biggest risks that you've had to get through. You touched on some of the geopolitical events and things like that. Any other times or how has your, you know, you've been there 16 years, how has your approach, risk evolved? Sort of thing. When you, if you look back now to when you were first there and think, okay, and now, has it changed? Has it evolved? What is it like now?

Yeah, I think if you look at the wider concept of risk management in its applicability to the business, that the two main ones are going to be foreign exchange. Risk said, as an exporter, we're selling predominantly into a dollar market and this is driving margin. We're procuring material, selling it into a overseas market. So our sales guys are negotiating pricing based on where they know the exchange rate is. So for treasury, we need to mitigate that and react to it. And guess what? I would say what's changed is we've probably gone more to a reactive approach, to being much more proactive. So by that I mean a request comes in, we'll hedge it, we'll book it. Sales guys have their contract, sales guys have their exchange rate and the finance guys can book that when we do the P and L on the balance sheet. Whereas now it's looking at the overall positioning of business. Are we under hedge, are we over hedge? What's our value at risk? Are we exposed? So say, at the moment, the market would seem to suggest some of Donald Trump's actions have backfired a little bit. So Sterling Dollar has rallied as a dollar seller. That means our mark to market position starts to increase. So it's all these things which are not directly linked to the commercial side of hedging, but as an overall risk management for Treasury. So key, it's the same on the commodity side of things as well. That's another key exposure towards. And what you find last year was a real rally on copper. And that wasn't because the market was thinking or the fundamentals are thinking, great, copper's going to explode because China's output was still pretty stagnant. This was pure speculation. This was people flowing funds into the copper market because the interest rate environment was showing a bit of decline and that was rallying copper to very unsustainable levels. So, again, being proactive, you're making sure that your limits are right, you're making sure that your overall exposure isn't inadvertently putting the company at risk. So that, yeah, commercially we're still hedging our stock. We also need to show that the whole taxonomy of risk management is covered.

It's that very outward thing, isn't it? It's like geopolitical and, you know, say that as a catchphrase. But actually you're exactly there. You're right. Dealing with it as a treasurer.

Yeah. And that's one of the things I love, Mike. It's. You are, you're selling your desk, you sell in the office, but when you get out to see the yards, when you get out and speak to the commercial guys, you understand what they're looking at and the challenge that they're facing, you kind of scratch your head there.

Yeah.

Where can I add a bit of value here? Where can I give a bit of insight? I don't profess to be a crystal ball gazer. We're entering into FX contracts to mitigate our risk, not speculate, but, you know, trying to arm proactively, individuals with information so they know what cord or couldn't change rates in, in the short term. On the, on a fundamental.

I'll put a link to it actually in the show notes. You know, I'm really good mates with Anthony, the treasurer over at Asahi, and literally.

Oh, yeah.

But you, you, you know, you, you can go into one of the yards and actually touches and then explain to the guys, yeah, this is how much this costs. This is how we do it. Similarly with, on there, with his site and we're talking about the bottle price and all the commodity. It's just fascinating really, about how treasury really is linked to the business properly.

So I think, yeah, absolutely. And so it's always refreshing whenever we get new members of the team. Part of the induction is go and spend a day in the scrapyard, go and spend an afternoon with the commercial guys, just so they really feel it. Before you even start logging onto banking platforms, getting your royalties log, or actually go and spend some time understanding the business and what we're.

Great idea. And then I know that when we did our pre chat and stuff a few weeks ago, we talked about you heading to the U.S. so you spent two years, two years in the U.S. on what was that about? You know, explain that experience because I know that you, both, you and I share a love of the US and everything else we'll shout out to all our listeners. But talk us through that.

Yeah, absolutely. And kind of this is lending to. I've been with EMR for 16 years and it's because I've been a challenge throughout, but also being given opportunities like this to continue to develop and add value. So it was, yeah, end of 2000, so you're five or so years down the line from when the last acquisition in the US had been made. The integration of those businesses was working well and certainly at maturity level, the group had been funded by a standalone group financing, so all through the UK with intercompany flow of funds, which is the right thing to do when you're building up a portfolio of businesses. But we were keen. As you know, the business is run by local management. It should also have its own independent and local management from a Treasury funding perspective. And it was almost that first step into being more diversified in our approach to funding, given that we had now three main geographical hubs of the business. So the CFO at the time, kind of just having a random catch up, he's kind of quite good culturally for the organization. You can just drop by the CFO's desk, have a chat, chew the fat. And yeah, he threw the idea at me, think, yeah, we think you should go out to the us. I was like, yeah, okay. So we had a chat and then before I know it, I was on the plane over to Philadelphia on a bit of a scouting mission to find somewhere to live, meet the team over there, get my visa application in. So from having the conversation, probably November, December, previous year, first week of April, I think it was, I'd moved stateside. Yeah. Based in our corporate office in Camden, New Jersey, over the road from Philadelphia. I lived in Philadelphia, great city, really enjoyed it. And the remit was, you know, headline, quite simple, you know, build up the local treasury experience, knowledge and exposure for the group with the local banks. So you do a bit of a roadshow. You already had a US bank in our group facility, so that was the stepping stone, if you will. It was okay, the relationship. We want you to be more focused on the US business and then you start to build around that with other banks in the areas that we operated in. Alongside that was building up more of our operational treasury function in the spirit of the group treasury policy, localized cash management, pooling. So it was there to support the business. Yeah, it was a fantastic experience.

And just going into that, so we do a lot. So US clients come to us and say, look, we need to set up in the uk, Europe. What do we do? We need a treasurer. Can you help us? This is all we do all day long. Yes, we can. You've done the, the other way and I love going there. As I said, off to New York in a couple of weeks. Love talking Treasury. Obviously a lot of US treasury can sometimes given the size of the economy, given the size of the country, can focus a little bit more cash management wise and things. How would you say that you've seen a difference or what are the differences? What are the commonalities? You know you've got it firsthand.

Yeah, I think one, one thing the US banking market is so, is so fragmented, right. You've got your key nationwide players or global players, BoA Chase, but then you've got a lot of regional players. So you go to Minnesota where we have one of our operations and you've got these small almost community style branches. Right. So if you look at what we did in the UK where our clearing bank was with high street banks, the interest of ancillary, you can spread it around. It's just a lot more difficult in that market because some banks are at the forefront of technology. Some if you tell them that you want to connect to a TMS via Swift, they look at you like you've got two heads. It isn't in their service package because their service model is about providing the service to the local corporate customers that they have done for years. And our business is so physical in that we do need that physical local banking presence. So the U.S. for example, you can still pay cash in some state for scrap. In some states we give them a check, they drive down the road and go to the local bank and cash that check. So we were never going to move away from trying to consolidate and standardize our banking relationships to two or three certainly on the operational banking side side.

And then as you say, you were there for the two years so getting that financing in place, any lessons you learned from that sort of again without getting too confidential but you know things that takeaways from that you were sort of right. This is, it's got to be standalone, stand up by itself. Any bits you took away from it.

I think the business, it was the first asset based lending facility that we put in place which is getting better in the UK and Europe now. But at the time that, you know that was like bread and butter, you know the, the league tables, you had so much information out there that you could compare and contrast what's the market doing, what tenor sizes are, who's involved in those banks, and those are the banks that you go out to. But as I mentioned earlier, your relationships as well, I made it almost a priority in those first few weeks and months to, to get out and meet with banks. Some never came to anything. Some you have good relationships with. They go in the back burner, but then come back and you build up to, okay, let's get everybody in a room. Let's have the presentation here. Let's talk through what the business is about. Let's talk for what the terms you are. Okay, you're going to lose a few. Some might not ask the questions in that. And then you have to have supplementary meetings to follow. We whittled it down to a banking group that knew the business well and was supportive of what we were trying to do. And then you move into credit. But again, it's the relationships to me which were the most important thing in that, to have somebody, a strong bank in your corner definitely helps when it comes to that syndication and book running.

And I know you've got relations. This is one of the key pillars for yourself sort of thing. But you've gone everywhere from graduate trainee now to group treasurer, a major multinational. We're in a Vice show. Someone's listening now. They might be a Treasury analyst on the west coast of the us they might be a treasurer in the uk, you know, doesn't matter. What are the career decisions, though, if you look back across them, that you think, yeah, that was a good idea, you know, you've headed to the U.S. you did that placement. You did, you know, if you reflect what advice. We're not at the end of the show yet, but it's more just the waypoints along the way. What are the things you think that people should be thinking about?

Yeah, I, I think it's embrace those opportunities, Mike, because it doesn't define you, it doesn't define your future. If you make a decision, if you show eager and willingness, like my example of going into practice. I tried it. I realized, no, this isn't for me. I put everything into it. I work hard, I delivered. But I realized in my whole heart that it was Treasury. When it came to the end of my second in the us, the decision was then, okay, what do I do? Do I stay in the US and just be the treasurer for the US business? You know, from a personal perspective. Yeah, get the green car, live in the US that was an adventure, but it was no, you know, I feel I've got more to give in a multinational space. So it was going back to Emaar and understanding Head Office and understanding what else is on the pipeline and the future projects and making sure that was a fit with my future. And at the end of the day, you do have to just take a punt, you know, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But you fail forward, right? You pick yourself up and say, well, I tried it, it didn't work. What's next?

And so. And again you talk about the future. What do you see as the biggest challenges, trends? I was on the podcast yesterday, we were talking. Yeah, you can talk AI, but it's actually machine learning. That's something that a lot of treasurers are doing. It's perhaps an overused bit, but, you know, what are the things, what other areas are you thinking or what are the other trends that you think other treasury professionals think about or should be thinking about?

Yeah, I mean, obviously AI is up there, isn't it? That's the hot topic. That's something which has its pluses and its minuses. I think in terms of the other trends, risk and volatility is so central to our thinking and my thinking within the current role. How many black swan events as we had in the last couple of decades. Right. Certainly in my career you can have three or four major ones. So it's being ready for that. On my point earlier about being proactive, you almost have to look forward and stress test and think, where could this go? We're not crystal ball gazing. All you're doing is anticipating, calculating what the thresholds are for the future. I think compliance is another big one. R4 coming on board, what that means in terms of capital allocation. And also linked to that, it's the ESG point as well. I think we're quite fortunate in that we know we're inherently green. Our name. You only have to read our front page on the website to know what we do. And ticks a lot of the boxes. Whereas you can see that ESG requirement being just as important, if not already, as the credit consideration when it comes to sanctioning deals. And it'd be interesting to see how that works. We get asked a lot about putting in sustainability metrics in our banking facilities. It's not something we're doing at the moment. It's probably coming, but again, we know what we're doing is it ticks the boxes and it remains to be seen how much of an influence that becomes in the future. And then, you know, risk management, aml, anti money laundering, kyc, that continues to evolve in its complexity. When I first Started, all you had to do was give notification of anyone who owns more than 25%. And it's getting to the point now where you need to know the inside leg measurement of any shareholder who owns more than 1%. It's going that way, which I get it, it's important. Banks are getting fined left, right and center for this, but it is a challenge for a treasurer. If you get credit approved and then you've got to wait four weeks to get KYC cleared, it's another bottleneck in an already tight process and it's on.

Top of your day job as well. I mean, when you signed up back in the day, that's not what it said. In 20 years time, this is what you're going to be doing. You're like, really?

No, absolutely, yeah.

And skills. And so, you know, I know you've done education, you touched there on, you know, in treasury qualifications. If you're talking to treasury professionals now, you, you sitting there for having a coffee with a Treasury analyst manager and they're saying, right, what should I do? What should I do? You know, Declan, tell me, you know, what is it? Yeah, go study. Or is it what other skills they need to develop if you reflect back over your time?

Yeah, I mean, I'm big advocate of the. I like learning, so I really enjoy doing the qualifications there, but I think the content they provide is really good as well. So, yes, if it works for you, the studying is, I would say it's more the active involvement. You know, get out there, go to the events. I know if you're funding it yourself, they can be quite pricey, but a lot of the time if you're in a corporate space, you get discounted tickets or access to the materials anyway, so it's get out there, go to the events, be curious. Sometimes you come away from these events and you might come away with four or five bullet points of things to go on. You could also come away with four or five contacts or networks. It's relationships. I've said it a few times, but when I think about all the recent financings we've done or all the placements we've made and recruitment, it's all about relationships of who knows who and you never know what the conversation you have at an event or even reaching out to someone on LinkedIn and it's just about staying curious and open minded. It's ever changing. Treasury by nature and its day to day is a very dynamic, ever changing role. So therefore the mindset you need to have to be able to thrive in that area is the same. Always look at what are you doing now, how could it improve and what areas does the future hold?

I think just reflecting on treasurers on the whole as think the more successful ones are the ones that work on that relationship building. And the, you know, I was just doing our slides for one of our presentations when I've freshened them up and one of the key things, you know, from I was reflecting on some of the podcasts when I talked to treasures like yourself and it's, you could go to, you know, come to one of our events. Great. But then you just sit there like, you know, one of those birds in, you know, that you're there, feed me, great. Give me education, great. And then I walk out. If that's not where the value is, the magic happens. After you listen to three great treasurers, then go and meet 10 other great treasurers and Grace, lovely having a beer with them, connect with them, make them part of your network. That's what the net, you know, invest in your own network sort of thing. And you've done that very effectively, haven't you?

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree, Mike. And it's a lot easier to do now. It's a lot easier to do now. You know, back in the day it was, yeah, you'd meet them, you'd have your, your outlook, would contacts in and you check in every so often. And I remember doing it when I was leaving being a failure. You kind of ring around your relationship banks, you ring around some of your peers who had moved on and you speak to them. Whereas now it's as simple as, you know, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great tool. That's your coffee and the events. Yeah, exactly.

A question before we get to your LinkedIn thing. Are there any, you know, challenges, treasury challenges, innovations, you're thinking, you know, we touched on some of the KYC stuff, that's what you got to do. But some of the stuff that you're actually excited about tackling for the future. What about other things that you're thinking about?

Yeah, you know, I like to think we certainly try to be progressive in our approach to things. So yeah, you could sit there with your whiteboard and say, right, transformational. How are we going to make this fantastic? But I like the idea in the culture I try and build in the team is, you know, going after those low hanging frameworks roots. There's incremental marginal improvements. Something as simple as why is the cash sat in that bank account when we could be earning 2% or paying down our Debt. And in the past it would be maybe, oh well, I'll have to bring the bank and move it. It's like, well, no, technology is an enabler for all this stuff where you can flag stuff, you can automate transfers, do everything to make things more efficient, to make those marginal gains and self manage. So get your KPIs, see how you've improved in these areas. I think one specific area of development we're looking at which is probably more transformational, is just trying to streamline and be more efficient in the execution of our risk management. So as I mentioned earlier, it's linked so heavily to the commercial side of things. So our challenge is now, how do we shorten that time from when an exposure creates itself to when we physically lock it in? Because you've got multiple people involved in it and multiple different systems. If we have it stped, then arguably you're locking in that rate now. Yeah, okay. Some might say, well, for every one you gain, you'll lose on, so it evens itself and on it. But no, the whole point of hedging is to create certainty and the sooner you can create certainty the better. And that's one area that we're spending a lot of time. We've had some really exciting conversations, a few different things feeding into that, you know, APIs, AI, machine learning, automation. So a lot of exciting areas to, to explore in the coming months for that project.

Right, well, you know, time wise, we, we run into time now. So I was going to say, so we're going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and we've done this before, I think I said to you, there was someone we spoke to back last year, oh, you should change that last bit. I went, why? Everyone absolutely loves it. It's like the sort of the key takeaways where someone's listening now, they're having their coffee and they're going, right, actually. And yeah, so if you are listening, take your notebook, put this in your outlook, whatever, what are the takeaways or advice you give to people listening today? Whatever level of Treasury. So juniors through mid and senior levels, what would you say?

I think it's, you know, fundamentally you think to yourself, where it's cliche, right? It's. But where do you want to be? It's in X years and then you reverse engineer back from there. Because it can be pie in the sky in terms of five, 10 years, but you've got to have something and then that translates into your day to day. And even if it's in your current role, you can still apply the same concept. Just like, how can I make today slightly better than yesterday? What? You know, it doesn't have to be a practical thing that I've just mentioned about. It could be your personal development. Who can I go and speak to? What can I read? It's just that curiosity in an ever changing world already. It's if you've got your finger on the pulse and you're always thinking, it's great. And I think treasury does give that great opportunity to be at the forefront of some of these decisions. If you're looking for your role or for. You're looking for your next step in your career, again, reach out to people. Anybody wanted to speak to me. I'm not saying I'm actually recruiting at the moment, but I'll be more than happy to. To speak to people about any of the decisions I made or any steps I've taken in my career.

It's about having that network exactly as you say. And you know, I did. We did it in one of our newsletters where I said, this junior guy in the US actually said. And we were talking this boss of him, he was on the pocket and he, he just said, this junior guy said, how do I learn about the business? Said, go have a coffee with people. You know, have one. And then he was about a month in and he said, oh, how many coffees? He said, I'm not learning enough. He said, well, how many coffees you had? He went, well, I've had a couple. He's like, no, have a coffee every single week. And rapidly became one of the most networked people there. Because, as you say, it's all relationships.

No, that's true. And I need to be better at that. I think speaking about it is a reminder that I all probably need to do more of that. At the end of the day, we're all people first, right? We're all people first. So people inherently just like having coffee and catching up and chewing the fat and who knows where it will lead to. Absolutely. That's great advice, Mike.

Well, don't worry. This Link, this, your LinkedIn, is going to explode after this. You'll be like, oh, God, how many people? Right? So you know, they're doing it. Thank you very much, Declan. Great career track record. Thank you very much, sir. Been absolute superstar. Thank you.

My pleasure, Mike. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast just as much as I did recording it with another amazing guest. Now, don't Forget to subscribe on your usual platform with whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcasts wherever you listen, so you never miss a future episode whilst you're there. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, maybe give us a five star review. Why? Because it helps other treasury professionals find the show, join the conversation and get even more value now. Also, we're helping you guys in Treasury. If you are thinking about studying for your CTP or FPA qualification, then listen up. We partnered with the AFP to offer a discount on study, both for the studying and for the preparation platform as well. So you can get through us. $150 discount? Yes, $150 for each. My goodness. Yeah, we, we're here to help. So it's a great step for your career and always good to save where you can. So all you need to do is go to treasure recruitment.com forward/partners. You got the codes there, then you head across to their website and you get the discount. You also as well. If it wasn't enough, we're going to be heading to AFP Boston later on in the fall, as the Americans call it in October. And we also offer 150 discount off your registration. So wherever you might be, it's a great conference, whether you're in UK and Europe, you should go. I'm going. It's going to be amazing. So incredible few days, Great insights, proper networking, great conversations with lots and lots of treasures. Last time in Nashville 8,000plus one of their biggest ones ever. It was amazing. So just go to the Show Notes and you'll find the link or treasure recruitment.com forward/partners and get it all from there. Remember, if you're looking for a role, visit treasure recruitment.com if you need some advice, reach out mike@treasuryrecruitment.com or come and meet us in person. We've got our sessions coming up. We've got sessions throughout this year in Texas, then we've got London, we've got Dublin, then we're back to the US for Chicago, then New York, crumbs everywhere, Euro finance, the lot. And then AFP and then back to London and then we'll do Netherlands as well. So it'll be great to see you. We're going to be everywhere, so looking forward to it. Thanks very much and until next week, enjoy the show.

SA.