How Treasury Technology and External Support Drive Strategic Change

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now, 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 John James Dunn, the founder and principal at Elevate Treasury Advisory. Elevate Treasury Advisory helps organizations transform treasury into a strategic driver of enterprise value. Founded by John James Dunn, he is a former group treasurer and former president of the IACT and lecturer in corporate treasury with the Institute of Bankers. John James and his team at Elevate Treasury support CFOs, treasurers, finance leaders, and boards in optimizing liquidity, reducing financial risk, strengthening governance, and enabling digital treasury excellence. John James, take us back to the beginning with you. How did you first start in finance and treasury?

Thanks, Mike, for the opportunity to speak once again. Like many treasury professionals, I fell into treasury. It's a term you probably have heard on a lot of your podcasts. I finished university in 2011, which was the height of unemployment following the financial crisis. And to be honest, the only job offer I had was treasury. So I joined IBM on an internship on a rotation program, and I was actually made permanent to the role after 6 months because I immediately went in and I started to improve processes. This is a theme you're going to find throughout the podcast. Made permanent, I rotated, completed the internship, and then I moved into the dealing room. And to be honest, in the early part of my time in IBM, I actually hated treasury. I hated the BAU, I hated the manual elements of the process. But as I moved from, let's say, payments and the cash management into the dealing room, that little bit more decision-making gave me the hook to actually say, I'm in. I actually want to stay in treasury. And when I moved into the dealing room and you're executing, I suppose, billions of value transactions on a weekly basis, I actually thought I peaked in my treasury career so early on, even though I think I was like 22 years of age, thought I was the wolf of Wall Street. But then I suppose I started to think a little bit more broadly about my career. IBM, obviously fantastic organization, very mature treasury function, over 250 people in treasury at the time. I always found that I was finishing off the last 1%, 2%, 3% of a process that I was improving, or that, that little bit of improvement. And I wanted something that was a bit more transformational at the time. And, and that's actually when I decided, after 3 to 4 years, that I would actually make the move and, and step out of IBM. Right.

And just before we, we step you out of that, I was recently talking to a candidate who— and it's going to be one of our newsletters— where he's quite early on. He's probably 18. I think he's actually 18 months again into his career, and Early date. Oh, I'm thinking of moving. Oh, I want to get back in the. I want to do a front office. I want to do this. I was like, I think that's a good thing to do. All right, great. Well, you know, can you move me? I said, "Well, no, not yet." I said, "You don't know enough yet." I said, because it was also more about adding value to the organization. He was like going. He was being quite selfish. I think about it, and I wasn't being rude. I said that I think you need to give back more. As you say, finish those processes. Actually, you know, learn more and also the breadth. When— if we talk to that for a moment, I know you and I have talked about that. That's a key thing, isn't it? You sort of doing your foundational work, didn't you find?

Yeah, absolutely. You have to build up that high performance over an extended period. If you do it once, you prove you're capable. If you do it a few times, you prove that you're reliable. And then you build up your brand value, that you're someone who delivers over and over again, and it's not just a once-off. You have to have a little bit of patience.

Yeah, will you then talk us through the next move?

Yeah, and this is one thing that also is going to resonate throughout our discussion is networking. I managed to build up a network within the ICT relatively early, and I was connected to an opportunity in Grafton Group. So unfortunately, Mike, I didn't actually go through a recruiter to move into Grafton Group.

It's all right, I wasn't around, don't worry. Who are Grafton Group?

So Grafton Group are an international building materials group. So if you think of in Ireland, you have Woodys, Chadwick's in the UK, at the time, BillBase, now disposed, Selco, etc., and in other European geographies as well. So they were, they were very well settled on treasury strategy, fundraising, etc., but their treasury operations was quite undeveloped at the time. Didn't have someone full-time in that side of the business. So I joined as the first dedicated treasury professional. I had a relatively clean slate in front of me. I brought in an FX hedging program, implemented their first TMS, And I was an early adopter of Microsoft Power BI back in 2015. I think that Power BI had actually only just been launched.

Yeah.

So jumped on that and got huge value out of kind of the BI analytics side of things. That's really where I kind of got my teeth into the transformation side of things. And as you know, I got the hook in IBM, thought it was going to be a career. It was when I got into the transformational side of things, I was like, wow, this is definitely something I want to pursue going forward. And when I was in Grafton Group, that kind of transformation was recognized with Adam Smith Award for best cash management solution. And I received 2 nominations for the Real IT Awards, which are IT industry awards. So not treasury, this is a separate industry award. Nominated but didn't win, which I still think is a fantastic achievement. So BT actually won one of the categories. They had 200 people, 7-figure budget. They rolled out the smart meters across the UK. So it was really David, one-man band versus Goliath. So I was delighted to be there. And obviously winning the Adam Smith Award is probably kind of the highlight of my career to date.

And what challenges did you face when you were— you came in with this? I know that, again, data-led thinking into Treasury, data systems and things like that. Was there more a business-as-usual approach? Hang on, why are you doing this stuff? Or was everyone on board with it? What was the situation?

In fairness, as the senior leadership team, they fully backed the concepts that I want to bring in. It was more the people at roughly my level or between myself and senior leadership that I had to bring them along, take them on the journey, explain to them why they're doing it. And I typically would focus on initial early wins to try and show people and demonstrate, well, we made this little improvement and it yielded something significant. Imagine if we do it on a bigger scale. and just try to bring them along the journey, involve them in the decision-making rather than just telling them, this is what you're going to do. And that is not just at head office, but that's really something that I like to apply across the whole business. I've often seen a lot of finance teams dictate to the underlying business units, do this, the report is due on this date, you have to do it, here are the guidelines. I would try to build a tangible relationship up with the business units and also bring them on the journey and show, well, why is treasury important to you? And for those business units, I would typically say, you guys make the money and I'll manage it.

And give us a practical example, or just talk us through how you would approach that sort of thing. Again, if someone's listening today, they're maybe more junior, they're still learning treasury, and they're given the responsibility for this. How did you win hearts and minds?

Yeah, it's probably a little bit harder now post-COVID, but prior to COVID, I actually got out and I kicked the tires. I went to every single branch. Brand across the group, UK, Ireland, intercontinental Europe. I visited at least one branch within the brand because some of these brands have multiple entities. And I made sure, got out, shook everyone's hand, introduced myself. And they might have only been 30, 60-minute meetings with the finance team, walking around the stores, trying to understand the underlying businesses. Because if you don't understand the underlying business, how are you going to be a business partner to them? Like, if you get $20 million in today on the cash pool, you need to understand why that came in. What's the impact from the business? If you're hedging a year forward, why are you buying US dollars? Like, what is the company using those US dollars for? If you aren't able to answer those questions, I would struggle to believe that you can be the best business partner to those businesses. Yeah.

And that networking approach, I know that that was one element that helped you for more senior leadership as you, you know, moved on to the next role and things like that. But just, is that what you would say, network, or what other things?

Yeah, network, network is a huge, huge piece of the puzzle. Like, you need to go out. We spoke earlier about kind of building your internal brand value in terms of being someone who delivers, but you have to do that externally as well. Go to events, go for coffees, go to the Treasury Career Corner, for example, and really just try to increase the breadth of people who will say, JJ, Mike, great guys, you know, Have a chat with them, do an interview with them. Other things that I would recommend are, I suppose, get a good mentor. So back to the IECT again, there's a fantastic mentorship program. That's something that helped me as I progressed my career. We'll circle back to that. Get a good coach if you can. There's kind of maybe a couple of things that I piece together is be curious, be self-driven, and be someone who's reliable. If you can piece those all together, you can, you can really be someone who is dependable, deliver results consistently.

Yeah. And then from there, what was your next move? Because how long were you at Grafton?

You said at Grafton, the guts of roughly about 6 years, I think, off the top of my head. Okay. So what happened next? What happened next was actually I went and got my mentor and I said to my mentor, I want to be a group treasurer. Worked through with that mentor in terms of boxes that I needed to tick on my CV. And there were 3 kind of big boxes that I needed to shade in a little bit more, give them a firm, a firm tick. And that's when the opportunity at DCC came along. And I actually knew the group treasurer through networking. So that made the interview more conversational. HR had to jump in a little bit to try and put a little bit of structure on it, but it was more of a chat. So that really helped, I suppose, break down those barriers as you're going into an interview and be a little bit more relaxed.

And who are DCC, for the audience again?

DCC now are an energy company, but back when I joined, they were in healthcare technology, or more of a conglomerate, and they were focused on kind of Europe and North America in particular. So I joined ECC, I think I was maybe the 14th or 15th person in group treasury at the time, so a much bigger unit. And I focused on treasury controllership, people management, and funding as well, items on my CV that I really wanted to firm up a little bit to ultimately position myself to become a group treasurer.

Yeah, fill in the breadth of things. And you went in as a group treasury controller. How different was that to some of the other roles? As you said, you'd done your front office back at IBM, you'd done a broader role.

So in my first week in DCC, we acquired, I think, maybe 2 businesses and we had an extra few hundred bank accounts. So I knew that I was moving into a faster-paced team. And one thing that really impressed me about DCC is the pace at which they integrated acquisitions. Because once they do an acquisition, they're on to the next, they're on to the next. There's no kind of, let's sit back, let's think. Let's integrate and then move on. It is a bit of an acquisition machine.

And you were just talking there about your mentor and taking the step, but you were then also in a sort of softer skills way, you were moving from delivery of work to actually then leading others, influencing other people. What was that like for you or how did you do that? Again, was it meeting people over a coffee or what else?

Yeah, so I joined DCC during COVID so I actually didn't meet a lot of my colleagues face to face for Roughly a year, I suspect. And moving from that kind of delivery mindset and graft into kind of managing and hiring and managing a team, I suppose I had to develop my own leadership skills a little bit more. I'd always been used to, and we mentioned a few minutes ago, about influencing people, but indirectly. They don't report to you. So now I was in a position where I can actually directly influence people. And I developed a kind of coaching and mentoring leadership style, which is probably no surprise, given my continued reference to it. Where I'd hire someone based on their potential, I'd bring them in, I'd sit with them. I wouldn't micromanage, but I would sit with them and bring them through the processes in great detail. But once they were comfortable, I would stand back and give them full responsibility to own their role, take responsibility for it, and bring it forward. Absolutely, I'm there if they have a question, happy to jump back in. But once I hand it over, they're in control. They need to get satisfaction from delivering the process from A to Z.

Yeah, you're done. And then how long were you there?

In DCC for a couple of years. Yeah, very strange time, obviously, being in COVID. And so didn't quite get out to kick the tires, unfortunately, like I did in my previous role. But look, we all have to adapt to that point in our careers and that point in our life.

Because what came next, I know, but you can explain to the audience.

Yeah, so again, my network helped. I was headhunted into Glendimplex as group treasurer, but I know for a fact someone in the background put my name forward to the headhunter. And so you can see that has played a huge part into kind of that networking, that brand value. So I joined Glendimplex as Group Treasurer. The incumbent was there for 36 years.

Wow.

I was joining a 4-person team. There was an open role, but when I went in, I was, I was told that open role wouldn't be filled. The expectation was I would bring in a system and therefore be able to manage the same function but with 3 people. During that first week, The assistant treasurer, I was told he was going to transition into another role within the group. So I was losing him, albeit on a transition basis. And on my 4th day, the treasury analyst left on the spot. Nothing to do with me. There's an obvious joke there, but I assure you it had nothing to do with me.

But suddenly you'd gone from a full room to like, where does everybody—

Yeah, where's the team gone? Now, thankfully, the incumbent, he stayed on an extra few months just to allow me to get one of the hires in. So, he stayed on a few months. I got a treasury analyst hired. He retired. I'm very grateful that he did stick around for a few months. And then I hired a treasury assistant later in my first year. So, I essentially went on a multi-year transformation. Year 1 was people. Getting the team was obviously the first priority and then bedding them in. The second year was around processes. So, I'd inherited a multi-currency hedging program. Multicurrency cash pool, multicurrency in-house bank, trade finance program.

Blendimplex, what do they do?

Blendimplex are a leader in electrical heating and cooling solutions. So probably brands that you might recognize are Dimplex in the UK, the kind of panel radiators are one of the biggest items that they would sell. Heat pumps, a bit in consumer appliances as well. But they range from everything from China, Australia, New Zealand, across Europe and into North America. So the reach is quite extensive, and you have to know a little bit about treasury in each of those geographies, which, which makes it a little bit more challenging, particularly on the, on the hedging side and cash management side of things.

Now, you, you'd got that group treasurer role. I know it was a little bit head-spinning because you're like, here's the group treasurer role, and here was a team— oh no, they're all leaving. But it wasn't you, as you say, it was the thing. But, you know, what were the biggest challenges that you sort of Inherited or that you took over, sort of thing?

Probably the biggest challenge is I inherited a very complex function with no systems. So everything was done manually. I actually, when I went in, and obviously I had an idea of what I was going into, but when I went in and I found out how extensive and complex those programs were, but they're all completed via email, Excel, I found it very hard to believe that this was a sustainable model for a treasury function. Because it was so dependent on people being there every day and keeping it moving over and over again. So it was quite evident that like a TMS was going to be a game changer here. But I just had to go through that, those, those years first. There's no point trying to do a TMS in year 1 when I don't have a team around me. There's no point in doing a TMS in year 2 when the processes could be significantly improved but still relatively manual. Clean them up, get everyone into the hedging program, get everyone into the cash pool, and get those processes in very good shape. to bring them into a TMS, because there's no point bringing bad processes into a treasury management system.

Yeah. Where was the greatest resistance, if you like? Was it, you know, where were the blockers or obstacles?

The blockers or obstacles was trying to find the time within the team to implement a treasury management system. As I said, like a car going down the motorway, you have to tell the team, well, you're at 100% capacity now, We now need to do a TMS.

Yeah, good luck with that.

And it's roughly a year and a half of a project. So we now need to squeeze it in. So again, to one of my points earlier, trying to get those early wins, I focused on a few pieces of project and brought those to go-live early on. So while the project may not have been go-live, a few processes were, just to try and squeeze out an hour or 2 every day, just to free the team up that little bit to go after the next piece. And once they went after the next piece, that freed up another hour or 2, and suddenly had this little bit of a cycle. So by the time you got to go-live, it wasn't big bang. You had brought many processes through to go-live early just to squeeze out that little bit of extra time. And look, we did have to roll up our sleeves. It's inevitable. But just trying to get those early wins and to ensure the team doesn't have fatigue as well. If you go 18 months with no improvement other than extra workload and extra stress on everyone, Yeah. it's very hard to bring it through. Whereas if you can get a little bit of Early wins, it just brings the team, it shows them, because they might not have the same view on the bigger picture as the group treasurer. It shows them like, look, we're going in the right direction, we're making improvements, let's keep going, let's grind it out.

And there you again, you've gotten some awards over the years. You got the— you got an Adam Smith Award for the best cash management solution. What was the problem you were trying to— you identified and then solved? Or, you know, talk us through that.

Yeah, so every week from senior management, I would have a similar question, but just from a slightly different angle. So the biggest thing that I wanted to solve is not having any more questions from the CFO, from the senior management, etc. So I interfaced the treasury management system into Microsoft Power BI, and I built a suite of dashboards that allowed the C-suite to self-serve. And I kind of wrapped that project around the title Self-Service Treasury Analytics. So I built the dashboards in a way that I'd actually written all the questions in my first year that the C-suite had asked me. And I built a dashboard around, can the dashboard answer every single one of these questions? Once I got down to the bottom of the page, I said, yes, I can. The process was so automated that when I was on 2 weeks of holidays, all the reports would update overnight automatically. To the point where the CFO would jokingly say, we could replace you with a cardboard cutout. So thankfully he didn't answer the question. I wanted to ensure that the CFO, C-suite, senior management, they had all the data at their fingertips and they can slice and dice it to their heart's content. Okay, it removed 99% of questions, but there's always that slightly new question that comes in, and I would edit the dashboard so at least it wouldn't become a recurring question. And I actually brought that kind of that mindset into a more general finance project where I looked across— I'm trying to remember now, I think it was maybe over 500 branches in Grafton Group, maybe a few hundred more on top of that. And I looked at the financial performance of every single branch over an extended period and presented it to the C-suite. And that allowed them to go in and slice and dice and make strategic decisions across the group. So it's something that I would strongly recommend for anyone in corporate treasury is to broaden beyond treasury when you can. I completed a few secondments as well into more general finance roles, finance manager, etc. And it just comes back to the point in understanding the business. You get a greater breadth of understanding of the business, you have a wider skill set, you have a greater appreciation for what you're doing, and it can only help you progress your treasury career.

Joking aside, you say about the cardboard cutout sort of thing, some treasury folks are worried they're going to be automated out of some roles. But how important was the sort of human side of the project compared with the technology itself? You know, how did they sort of balance out?

Yeah, well, essentially you have to present the dashboards, the technology to the senior management, to the wider finance team, to the underlying business units. Again, you don't just send an email saying, this is live, have a crack at it. Power BI was in its infancy in 2015. A lot of these individuals had to be upskilled and walked through the process of how to use the new technology. I actually went on a roadshow— maybe a roadshow is a firm word, but I went around each of the businesses back again on the same loop again, and I demonstrated the treasury management system, the treasury reports, but also those branch reports as well. I can remember distinctly being in front of one CEO of a business, and he gave me 15 minutes of his time. That's all he could give, 15 minutes max. After 5 minutes, he walked out to his PA and said, cancel the next hour. I want to get stuck into this report.

Wow.

Because he, in his mind, he was like, the C-suite are looking at these numbers so they can see these percentages. They can see this trend. I need to know what this data is telling them. Because they're going to start asking me questions about it.

And they actually made then decisions based on that as well?

Exactly, yeah. Because then kind of later on in the roadshow, someone had said to me, I know why I've been asked these questions, because it's pointing, it's screaming out on this page. So they all wanted a piece of it. I gave everyone access, but only to their specific piece of the puzzle. And it allowed them to look at their own data better, which is remarkable because They're the ones who submit the data to head office. But I was just churning it through the BI model and visualizing in a different way than the typical finance team would, you know, with tables and very basic Excel charts and graphs. It's when you move into the more visualization part of Power BI, you can really start to see trends, start to see outliers, and that's where those strategic questions come from the C-suite. Why is that branch in the top right corner or the bottom left corner when everyone else is clustered in the middle? Yeah.

So if you're not a Power BI user, you know, you're out there in treasury listening today, this is all very well because you've got these skills, but you don't have those skills, how do you recommend they give clarity to the reports or, you know, just to the general work that they're delivering?

I think, yeah, one thing that I'm quite worried about for the next generation is you ask AI any question, you pretty much have an answer within 60 seconds. So one thing that I would encourage people to do, even if you don't have the skill sets on the tech side, you can still get down and understand the underlying detail and why, why a process works a certain way. Because if you start relying on that 60-second answer, you're not really going to get down into the weeds and be able to build it up. So even if you don't know how to build it, you should at least understand the cogs that are driving the engine behind it.

Yeah, well, you're right, it can hallucinate. One of the key things we did with the ACT session Victoria Underwood from Imperial Brands, she's brilliant. But she actually said that in— when we were talking about technology, and that was a key theme of the session, she said she fed in some FX, some deal, and it came back and she went, hang on. And she looked at it and she went, that's wrong. It's like read the wrong side of the deal. And she went back in and went, that's wrong. And it went, oh yeah, I lied. And just went, what? Like, oh yeah, I just— yeah, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, I lied. And she was like, hang on, if I hadn't— if she hadn't known the fundamentals of that FX, she could have taken that as gospel and gone to the, oh yeah, here we go, and the, what? Hello? That's a big danger, isn't it?

Absolutely. I can remember there was a formula error in a report that I was given at one stage. I looked at it for 10 seconds and that's wrong, have a look at it. Because you need to be able as, as group treasurer to look at something and inherently know if it's right or wrong by It's not the big numbers that are jumping out on the page. And that's the fear also that I have is that people start churning through AI models and Excel and technology, just become overly reliant on it and they don't actually step back and think about what they're sending.

Yeah.

And I would always say to anyone that's within my team, I say, think about the question you're going to be asked. If you send that to a CFO, to a group treasurer, What's jumping out on the page? What could they come back and ask you? And try to send them an insight in terms of what drove that, what changed, what happened, rather than sending it, getting the response back, and then answering it. Be proactive. Give them the answer before they even ask the question.

And I want to get onto Elevate, but before I do, you've talked a number of times, and again, I shared the stage with 4 amazing treasury professionals who are all deeply involved with the Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers, the IACT. What led to you becoming involved in ABAT? And then, then you became president. So talk us through that.

Yeah, I, I was asked to join the committee to build out the Young Treasurers pillar. Yeah. So the association, when I joined roughly 5 years ago, we had about 400 members, and we had quite a significant portion of those members were very senior, which is fantastic. But that next generation, the proportion was maybe out of sync of where it should be. So I came in, I think I held 3 Young Treasurer events in my first year, and I had over 200 people attend them. And that really drove a huge membership drive. And also, at the same time, other people working on EDI. So over the coming years, I really built out a Young Treasurer pillar. And we went from 400 members to roughly 700 members. The conference, I think, roughly doubled in size as well. I'm not taking credit for it all.

Yeah.

We really invested and we really doubled down and really grew the association and brought that next generation through, enhanced our conference offering, enhanced our EDI pillar as well. And in 2024, I became president of the IECT, probably a little bit earlier than I expected. But I suppose I come in, I'd shown the initiative, I really rolled up my sleeves, I got stuck in and I delivered. I Then, having completed my presidency, I was like, well, what's next? I have a few years ahead of me. It's a 7-year term. So I turned my attention to the educational side of things, and I introduced a graduate program. So where we bring people from Trinity into secondments in Treasury departments across Dublin, and then ultimately support them becoming full-time in Treasury. We also brought in a professional diploma in corporate Treasury in collaboration with the Institute of Bankers. We felt that that's a fantastic relationship for us because we're a committee of volunteers, where obviously the Institute of Bankers are a more professional organization, for want of a better word, but they have the structure in place to deliver education. I completed the Graduate Certificate in Corporate Treasury and followed that on with the MSc in Investment Treasury and Banking, and they were huge in my career. So I've always had a huge reliance on kind of combining education and practice to accelerate my career. And it's something that I wanted to give back and to give that next generation opportunities to enhance their education. CTF have a fantastic structure in place. And we were trying to see, well, what could we do on our side of the Irish Sea, but not maybe directly compete with them? Where's the niche? And the obvious answer was in that next generation. So we focus on treasury analysts, treasury managers, and we put together a professional diploma to be very practical and to give them the skill set to move on in their career. And while I deliver the theory, both myself and Jason, who's the other lecturer, and he was the 2025 president, while we deliver the theory, our focus is on the application in terms of how does a group treasurer think, what are the board going to ask. The theory's there, it's grounded in theory, but We always focus on that practical side of things to really give the students the greatest opportunity to progress their careers.

I'm thrilled to say this podcast is part of the coursework.

Absolutely. You were very kind to give me a long list of podcasts that were applicable to the various topics that I was lecturing in, and I received fantastic feedback. People were bringing them in, you'll be happy to hear, in the exam as part of their answers.

And where do you think there is the biggest gap between— that's the academic side and learning treasury. And then actually doing it. Where's the— how do you bridge that gap? Obviously podcast, but, you know, but other than that, you know, where do you think that there is a gap?

Probably the gap is— excuse me— the gap is, I suppose, taking that theoretical insight and then having that self-drive to go and apply it in practice. And look, sometimes it can be very difficult to do that. You mightn't be in the role to allow yourself to apply some of it. But this is where you need to have discussions with your manager, express your expectations, have the patience that we mentioned earlier on. But if you're trying to look to apply the theory further and kind of move up the career path, I would say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery in terms of if you want to be a treasury manager, look at some treasury managers that you aspire to be similar to, walk like them, talk like them, dress like them, essentially imitate them as much as you can. Take little pieces of how they walk into a room, how they communicate, how they interact with other people. And if you can improve yourself and imitate them 1% every day, just like your pension, that'll start to compound over the years and allows you to develop and then bring that theory in, bring that technical skill set to then start applying it as you move throughout your career.

Now, obviously you've got a thoroughly practical treasury experience and things like that rather than consulting. Yeah, Elevate. And the thing is You know, one of the things I don't— you know, if someone's listening to this and they're— people have asked me before, they've come from consultancy, they want to, you know, be on the Treasury, you know, background before it. You've got that in spades, you know, you've got all that. So what prompted you to then establish Elevate Treasury Advisory? And, you know, talk us through that.

Sure. It's been something on my mind for several years. And I said early days in Treasury, I wasn't enjoying it. And some of that was I don't like BAU. So a lot of those manual processes you're doing over and over again. And I came to the conclusion that if I was to chase that transformation, that project, that funding program buzz, so from essentially getting something big over the line, if I have to chase that for the rest of my career, I won't reveal my age, but I've quite a bit of a road ahead of me.

Yeah.

I'd have to rotate through a lot of companies to do 3, 5 years, go again, 3, 5 years, go again. I said, why put myself through that when I can, I can get that buzz several times a year across several clients? So it was kind of wanting to get that, that little bit of buzz, controlling my own destiny, and ultimately coming back to those secondments and getting to know the businesses in more depth, wanting to build my own business as well. So yes, obviously day to day, I'm doing the consultancy, doing the advisory, and that's something that I really do enjoy. But what really excites me is trying to build a business over the coming years.

And has that changed the way you look at the role of a group treasurer, maybe being standing independently?

It's changed a lot about how I think about a lot of things. So I need to be more ruthless with my time. I have been getting better with that and need to become even more ruthless as I go forward. One thing that really resonates with me now In terms of how a group treasurer thinks and acts is impact. So anytime I was doing a big project, I would always include in the business case, what is the impact? What is the value add? Why are we doing this? What are we going to get out of it? But now from my own perspective, I have to demonstrate why would you work with me? What's the impact? So that really, really makes me think a lot harder about why would you implement a cash pool? Why would you implement a hedging program? And while I always had that as part of my pitch to the C-suite or in the business case or whatever it might be, it's really made me think even harder about it and how much treasury is a strategic driver of enterprise value.

And what treasury problems are you seeing? Are you seeing them— businesses struggle with technology or processes or people or all of the above? You know, you're seeing— you're going to different organizations now. What's coming to the forefront?

Yeah, I suppose maybe there's 2 answers to this question. The first is a lot of businesses don't have time to go after the cash management structure, the hedging program. They're just so consumed with everything else they're doing, and they just need that little bit of a lift to get them over the line, that support for a defined period. And then on the other side is the scale of technology involved into significant TMS implementations. They're up to kind of 18 months in length, and even internally on their side, they have to do a huge lift and they need that external support to really get it over the line. And that's where I like to think I bring an interesting blend in. I have the corporate treasury experience for 15 years, ex-group treasurer, but I also have that technical skill set. So I bring kind of the best of both worlds, I'd like to think.

And Not—

I just, I don't just implement what I've been asked to implement. I try to give that little bit of advice. Have you thought of this? Or would you consider doing it this way? Or would you like to maybe throw that process on its head and do it slightly differently? Because this is the time to reset. When you're doing a massive implementation, it's the time to reset some of your processes. And that's why I took that second year in Glendimplex to get the process in good shape. If you bring poor processes and poor data into a system, you're not going to get the best out of it. So I do try to challenge my clients in terms of, you might want to rethink that, or have you considered X, Y, and Z?

And if you were to sit down with yourself way back in the day, some of your early days at IBM, what would you tell yourself then? Or, you know, as you're coming up, any advice that you would give to yourself theoretically?

We covered a point on patience. So I jumped the gun a couple of times and accepted roles and then took took counteroffers. So I was probably a little bit too aggressive in trying to pursue my career at times, where I did need to bed in that a little bit longer. And that actually paid dividends in due course. Okay, maybe not initially being patient, but it does compound as time goes on. I would get a coach and a mentor sooner. It was— I obviously timed it quite well going to Group Treasurer role, but I didn't have anyone like that in my early career. And maybe they would have been an individual who would have said, calm down, you're going a little bit too fast here. You know, just give something that extra year because you got to appreciate that while your manager might be trying to support you as best they can, there are payroll cycles, there's just a natural movement of people in and out of business. Just because you've knocked on their door today doesn't mean by the end of the week they're going to have something for you. So just having that little bit of patience can be key, and that's where that mentor, that coach can really come in.

And is that something you'd say to someone who they want to be a group treasurer but they can't see the route from where they are today? You know, that, that it seems to cover a lot of that, but anything else?

Yeah, it gives you a little bit of that career path, and I'd blend in the trying to get a qualification under your belt. Yeah, look, there's some fantastic individuals who have built massive careers, massive businesses with no education, but for the majority of people, it is a proven route that if you go and you get your accountancy qualification, you get a treasury qualification, there are very few that you know or that I know that are not an accountant or don't have a treasury qualification. They have either/or and some have both. So it is a proven path to success. And I would challenge people to try and broaden their experience. I know we mentioned the wider business, but within treasury as well, you have your specialist roles and you have your generalist roles. And neither are the correct answer, but I would challenge people to have both. Go for a specialist role, do it for a few years, go for a generalist role, do it for A few years, and that'll allow you to fine-tune your career to exactly what you're interested in. Yeah.

So what's next for yourself and Elevate Treasury? What— where's the future?

Well, I'm only in my 4th month, Mike, so I'm still trying to settle in and battle with the widened skill set of being an entrepreneur. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually miss my group IT function in terms of— even this morning, my My laptop turned on with a BitLocker warning and I was like, what is going on here? And I know you challenged to get— you had the challenge of getting your own camera on this morning. So I do miss the wider corporate function when I'm in times of need.

Having that phone number to call and go, help desk?

Yeah, I am the help desk now. This was for Elevate Treasury. This was the biggest prizes, I think, on the technology side of things. You brought it into the questioning. Most mid-cap and large corporates have significant investments in treasury technology. And that's something that I'm looking at intensely, intensively at the minute. And I might try to reshape Elevate a little bit over the coming years to really focus on supporting corporates on the technology side of things. So at the minute, I offer advisory, fractional support, treasury services, but treasury technology service, but I think I'll skew more towards the technology side as time goes on.

Yeah, specializing in it. Okay, so we're going to put your link details in the show notes, and it's our weekly take. Again, we've touched on it all the way through the show, but early stage of your career, what advice would you, you know, someone sitting with a coffee on a Friday morning, they listen to this, mid-stage or senior, what advice would you give to the range of folk out there?

Yeah, maybe the last thing I'll say is just on communication, soft skills. On the communication, like, as you progress, and this is maybe the answer one of your previous questions a little bit as well. As you progress, your, your technical ability gets you in the room. Your ability to communicate keeps you in the room and gets a decision made.

Well, that's it. Mic drop moment. Love it. Thank you very much, John James. Great to chat to you, and, uh, really looking forward to seeing you again, uh, very soon.

Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it. All the best.

Thanks. 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, 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 5-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 FP&A 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're, 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 treasuryrecruitment.com. 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 a $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 treasurers. Last time in Nashville, 8,000 plus, one of their biggest ones ever. It was amazing. So just go to the show notes and you'll find the link, or treasuryrecruitment.com/partners and get it all from there. Remember, if you're looking for a role, visit treasuryrecruitment.com. If you need some advice, reach out, mike@treasuryrecruitment.com, um, 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. Then we've got Dublin. Then we're back to the US for Chicago. Then New York. Crumbs everywhere. Eurofinance. 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.