Implementing Treasury Roadmaps with Séverine Le Blévennec

Foreign.

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 them 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.

In this week's show to delighted to be joined by the amazing Severin Le Blevinek, one of my lovely friends. She is now the global Head of Treasury at Aliaxis. We caught up with her last time when she was at Honeywell and you can hear that in a separate show. We'll put that in the show notes. I was due to do a quick 5, 10 minute chat with her about her new role. Wasn't 5, 10 minutes, it was an amazing whole standalone podcast episode in and of itself. She was amazing. She's so giving, amazing lady. Just so you know, she's global Head of Treasury Aliexis they're a global leader in advanced piping systems but for all kinds of uses. So building infrastructure. The lot company provides communities around the world with innovative solutions for water and energy. We touched on that a little bit. But more about the move across it was three years to the day when we spoke crumbs. That was amazing. Honeywell, she was there then she made the move. Just such a wonderful, wonderful guest. What a wonderful lady. She's joined me on a couple of other panels. I'm just grateful for her time and her friendship. She's a wonderful lady. And let's. Let's get on with the episode. You guys are going to love this just as much as I love this lovely lady. So over to Severin.

Yes. Two major things to me. First, we survived Covid which is in itself an achievement. Clearly technology have helped us go through this crisis. We were ready to push on a button and we could work remotely from a technical standpoint and operational standpoint. Obviously emotionally and I think none of us were ready. But overall we could show the resilience and how technology and systems and having mature processes give you a good level of resilience. And then second big thing is that I decided to join Aliaxis and leave Honeywell after 15 years of good service. So I'm really, really proud and happy. So I've become the treasurer of Aliaxis, which is a Belgian company. To be honest, I did a not them because it's private company. They tend to in the past they used to be a bit more private and a bit more secret I would say. Surprisingly, the company has 4 billion turnover and with huge growth, very, very good culture match. Big change for me to switch from an American company, European, Belgian company also our CEO is from American origin and we can feel it that is trying to reach that culture gap.

Yeah.

So yeah, big change.

Why did they bring you in? Were you that was a Treasury there before or what was the sort of the shift them to bring in someone of your stature. You know, you've got big company treasury in your back pocket and they bring you into a private company that and again just talking about piping systems, water things. Why did they need someone with that depth of treasury knowledge for a private company?

Before I joined there was a treasurer, but it wasn't a global treasury organization. So the treasurer was essentially focusing on debt financing towards someone who had evolved a bit later in his career into a treasurer role. For a number of years they were aware that they had to set up a global treasury organization and to leverage technology. They had made a number of studies, analysis, but basically they didn't know where to take it. I think at the same time, given that they are implementing a new ERP S4 Hana at the HQ and in the main region, which is North America, they realized that we need to do something about it, especially given the growth and sophistication of the company. Since I joined, we obtained a rating, we issued our first bond. We have really huge organic and inorganic growth prospects. At some point they really wanted to someone who could build a Treasury from scratch. We had been in discussions for a pretty long time, close to 1/2 year to be honest. And for me, I mean great opportunity. But initially I was not convinced and it was not the senior management, was not the one it is now. I was not really feeling that they had really realized that I would be requesting major investments to do that. Right, right. I was hesitating right until the management got really settled that we would really know for sure who were going to be the new CEO, who was going to be the cfo. I could talk in extent. I think we had maybe eight or nine hours of discussions, me and the CFO before I decided to join. And I think probably after half an hour it was, it was clear for him that he wanted me to join, but so we kept in contact. So pretty unusual as a hiring process probably, but given all the changes in the company, I think it was very, very important for me. I didn't go and seek a title or better salary. I mean, of course all this goes hand in hand. What I wanted is really the empowerment, the ability to build something and making sure That I could get the resources associated to it. I've been absolutely spoiled, but I think it was good for me to wait to come at a time that the company was mature enough, do those long term investments which require time, money, support, it's not easy. It's really together at a time where the company is converting from a holding company with big small subs all over the world into a real multinational with a real head office and head office functions. So at the same time that we are taking their company away from the 90s where they were stuck for treasury, we are also getting more maturity in all the other functions seen in the last two years. I don't have the exact metrics, but more or less the head office has doubled capacity. So we hired people in all the functions. Treasury, Communications, fpna, it Tax, every department has been developing which gives kind of an atmosphere of kind of scale up. Right. But still we have huge growth, we have excellent profit which help us fuel that. The best of both worlds, right? A company where we can invest, we can have the long term view and at the same time we have a lot of agility, flexibility, people that are new in their function. So we build that together, we build those ties. Often I have to reach out to a function, ask question and all right, yeah, we didn't think that we had to have a service like that. So okay, let's work together on building something. So I need their support. I'm quite intense on the help I need from the various functions. There is a really, really very positive energy all around in the company.

And Simone, you mentioned that they done studies about an ideal treasury structure and obviously you'd had your own ideal treasury structure. You know, we've talked about this in the previous program and the best way to do it and things. When you walked in, did you just take one of their plans off the shelf and just amend it yourself or did you have you say, guys, this is how we have a Treasury? Because how are you structuring it? You've seen Best in Class, you've struck that and restructured it up and down and up and down over many years. So you've now got that sort of, again, this is for some of the listeners, they've said in the past. One of the guys said he was listening some of our past shows and listening to treasurers such as yourself and say, right, focus on this, then do this, then do this and this is your framework.

Boom.

And he was loving it. We will at some stage have an ebook of some of these tips. What did you do.

It was quite funny when I joined, given this full ERP project, they were implementing SAP and literally the day before I joined and it was not related, the day before I joined, they had sent RFPO to implement a number of modules in SAP and that included the treasury module of SAP, which to me is really the example of the wrong good idea. And I've always liked for SAP. It shows like that the previous treasurer had really no vision where to go. So in three days I told them, I'm sorry, but this won't do. It just. We stopped at rsp. So, yes, I had ideas of what I think is an ideal treasury and I think it should be managed. But to me there is no single technology which in itself is magic or it's not about buzzwords. What makes it a good technology and what really brings, where innovation can bring value is when your technology is really anchored in your reality, your problems you want to solve and what you want to achieve. I've embarked on a journey where I started collecting massive amount of data and I got the support from the Price Patrol, Cooper's team in treasury, which, I mean, really, I have the A team here. I'm very spoiled. But really my first thing even before I'm on board is really to speak to find who were doing Treasury. Nobody could tell me, ask, okay, I'm global head of treasury, who are the people doing treasury in the world? Well, we don't know, right? As the CFOs, right? So I had to dig out and I built up a big long interview. It took like 8, 9 hours per region to really go through. And then I went like an onion, right, going peel the onion and get to really understand ever more volume of the flows, the systems, the connectivity, what goes well, what goes wrong, how are they complying with the very weak policies that we had in place, et cetera, et cetera. And with that I decided, okay, what do I want my treasury to be doing here? You will know very well, knowing industry like nearly no one else, that from one function to another, even with the same title in treasury, can be very different from one company to another. I had really that flexibility and that luxury to be designing, okay, what is the scope of my Treasury? What do I want as a model? What do I want as a role for the central treasury, for the regional Treasury. So I worked on that. I also focused a lot my attention on all Dutch phones with the ERP Connect program, as they call it, so the implementation of SAP, because when I came I had like very basic questions, okay, how do you want to do your connectivity to the banks? How are you planning to the netting in the SAP, outside SAP, I mean a number of quite basic questions which not only were not answered but that nobody had asked even before. So I've answered those questions. I didn't want to focus like I was asked, okay, you don't want SAP treasury, fair enough, you're the treasurer, we believe you. What do you want as a Treasury system? Was their next question. I said well, I don't know, I just want to know what I need to do. So I did all these analysis and from that even before selecting my system, I designed what I wanted to be on the basis of the knowledge of the company and my treasury operating models. What I wanted to be my full technology ecosystem, not just which TMS or no, I built my full technology ecosystem which is what the rule for tms, a payment hub, number of fintechs that I want to connect what kind of data I want to exchange from one system to another so that I really know what is my vision and where I'm going to and that I can select systems that are really compatible with each other and that can really talk to each other the best manner. So of course I cannot implement 100% at the same time. There are things that's the implementation step, but first you want to know where you want to go. And my technology ecosystem has been really the backbone of the start of my transformation. Only then did I launch a RFP for a TMS or RFP for Payment hub, RFP for Bank Account Management management system, which are the first three systems we are implementing as well. We are also implementing Swift as connectivity for our bank with the Swift Service Bureau and the whole flavor. But obviously it was clear that these are the first steps but knowing where I want to go to and what I want those systems to be, exchanging data between systems, which is often, you know, a good system in its own and it's completely not connected, it's just a database. Once you start to connect system between each other, then you really unlock value and have real strong static data management which then allows you later to leverage data to take good decisions. That was my approach and then obviously I built my transformation roadmap not only on the technology side but also on other aspects like how do I want my team to be structured in the short term, middle term, long term, all the governance. Right. I've been reviewing already all the payment processes in the company to reduce the risk design really to be models for the systems that I'm implementing. I'M working on, of course, all my policies, setting up, in some cases, some new policies. Try and see of course a business case which can derive from that and from the business case, then you see where are the biggest benefits and you can start developing your roadmap. Right. So of course, first objective of having cash visibility, setting up a true liquidity structure so that I can set up my priorities. But everything is really driven by a good view of what will be my end state, but not my end state as just coming from my experience and knowledge of the market. Of course that was a great input, but really anchored in the reality of the company and what this company is able to absorb in terms of efforts to get there where I can really unlock the value the quickest and the strongest.

I want to ask you about reality you got on. Say you haven't here physically, but you had this amazing roadmap. I'm going to say it's all the pipes because this is what you do. Alexis, as people may know, is a global leader in advanced piping systems. I know of LinkedIn there, but that wasn't actually what was occurring to me. It was that the fact was. So when you're in Honeywell treasury, how many were in Honeywell Treasury Europe?

From 9 to 7 over time.

Right. And when you came in, it was solo, you know, you were starting it. Yes, you had some support from people, but you've shown all these people all this pipework. But it's you originally and yes, maybe you have a couple of people to help you, but what was the reality of then to a new treasury setup? If you like these people, you've said, guys, we've got to connect this and connect this and connect this. And you're looking around the room and I've done it before when gone through various things and I'm looking around the room, oh, there's no one here, it's me. You know, it's like, right, how do I, how do I right size that. How did you cope with that? If you like and right quick hire people or get consultancies in. And again, we'll have listeners going, well, that's all very well, but if they're a Honeywell size, great. You've got people that help and you can give a bit of the project and everything else. If it's yourself, how did you cope? What was your then roadmap for labor? What was your roadmap for implementing it?

I have to say that when I joined, actually the former treasurer was supposed to be reporting to me, but in Fact, he didn't accept this change of oak chart. So he didn't talk to me for his last few months that he was there. I couldn't count on him. That's one thing. Now a lady was reporting to him and brilliant lady, brilliant lady. I think she suffered a lot over the years of really realizing that everything was just too manual, not efficient. And she saw lots of projects like coming up and down. Nothing, right. They talked about stuff but nothing never got implemented very quickly. I could feel how enthusiastic she was initially she was a bit skeptical. Okay, again, good ideas. She has really, really good ideas. But will it go through? Will it get implemented? Right, which was. So my priority has been to first leverage all her knowledge even if it was limited to the in house bank role and a little bit to Europe. And that was a bit it. She had a very good knowledge of the company and absolutely great personality leverage that and to release her from the pressure first because she was alone carrying all the operations. I leveraged a person who had been working as an independent consultant trying to help on technology but again not with a good alignment with the former treasurer and whatever, but very helpful person. So my focus has been to decrease operational risk and have him document the actual processes so that if this lady would go for a health issue, the operation could continue. So first decrease operational risk. So that took a few months document get to have structure in the, in the data. I mean even a share drive was not there a decent share drive really basics to decrease the operational risk first. Then I've been focusing on hiring someone with reporting to her, a senior treasury analyst so that she could give him the more operational aspect and focus on the transformation and centralization of the activities in Europe. And then I've hired a director more focusing on capital market in terms of experience, but who I'm building as my right hand person and I'm expanding his scope of knowledge. I mean it's a fantastic addition to the team. He was very experienced in debt management and now he's getting involved in cash management in M and A, in many, so many other topics that it can bring. So that's, that's the first, first move and of course in parallel I took very close, I established very close links with the people in treasury in the other regions which I didn't know they were, nobody could tell me they were there, but I found them right. And in most regions very capable people honestly were doing a great job with the little support they got or guidance they got. So lots of interaction with them, informing them and making Lots of one to one meetings to just explain them all. My process of what will be the treasury scope, what will be the operating model, what will be the technology ecosystem, what are we going to implement time over time, what is the roadmap and what does it mean for their respective regions and trying to really build on their knowledge and align with their local projects. In the finance teams as well. The team is evolving pretty well to me. When I built my team I really looked especially in Brussels, I didn't design roles first. I first look at the skills that I had in the team and I said okay, this person entwined have those and those and those skills. Okay, now I'm missing. I have those and those and those skills. Okay. And then what additional skills do I need? What additional type of experience do I need? So on the treasury analyst level I try to have someone with some bit of IT savviness, a bit of programming or who can I can build as a super user later for the systems on my director capital market obviously someone very close to to the financial market since we have issued only one bond. But we may do more. I'd like to set up a CPE program. I'd like who can take those projects. We have of course syndicated facilities. We want to go into ESG financing. Someone who had that kind of skills. So I tried to see okay, how can I fit those skills into a job spec so that it can make something challenging for people and building a team where on all topics I have someone who's a bit more junior in terms of knowledge and someone more senior and that people can really learn from each other. Learning from one and teaching the other one. Right. So that this skill set that I have in the team that I have at least two persons having each of those skill sets, right. So that's how I'm building and team will will further evolve as we are going further in the transformation I will centralize more the effects. So at some point I will want someone who's more focusing on effects. But I don't. I would not want this person to do only that. Right. Because I really believe it's a lot more enjoyable for people when. When they get a bigger variety of activities to do when they. There are really more opportunities to develop in different areas. But initial experience is the entry door and then, then we build well this is part of.

So there is so much to do. They're coming in the door. You're helping give them their mini roadmaps if you like their sections of the map, if you like what Is your definition of regional success or what are you saying to them is you've got FX there? What is their definition you're giving to them? This is what you're aiming towards? You know, is it complete de risking of the FX risk and things like that or how are you setting the individual benchmarks if you like? Because in a recruitment business, so I might say to one of the guys, it's not just about billings. Billings is a key thing as well because that means that their minimum is to cover themselves. But then it's like right, do this. But actually we've got other benchmarks much more about how many people have you met, you know, who have you talked to? You know, it's a more relationship now within Treasury. It can be a little bit clearer in a way because it's numbers and everything else and it's risks and things. But how are you doing it for some of the different members of the team?

Perhaps to me first we have also the wealth of knowledge of the PYC team supporting us on our journey which is of course additional great opportunity for my team members to be learning from. Right? Giving structure in their learning. To me what I really expect from the team members it's not so much about figures because yes, treasury is about figures but that's the basic. What I want them to be is really that they understand that we are here to support the business and our expansion and for that what is really important is to build agility, scalability and really build a true function that everyone will think oh we do something, oh let's call in treasury, right. So it's really establishing this, this credibility of, of the function so that we are involved early in the process and can really a much better job at supporting the business. So it's really more the service orientated stuff. Of course there are metrics. I want to diminish the global debt level because we have too much cash. So I'm setting up new liquidity structure that will of course diminish the cost of carry. I will diminish in terms of fx. I want to dimin realize the FX benefit or loss in terms of yes, There are objective KPIs but what is really important to me is really to bring this long term view. We want to be at the heart of the finance organization, right. Connected very closely with the tax team M and A team Capex team and also developing that knowledge in the regions, right. So I'm completely, instead of having a number of independent small treasury here and there, I would want us to work on the common set of policy system processes, but with the focus of the region being on the data quality. That means we're going to make build all kind of interfaces, but then they will connect with the business and audit what has been interfaced to make sure that if there are this utility and then performing some local trades. But within the framework that we have designed, I want to decrease counterparty risk, which is for instance, not at all managed. There wasn't even the concept of a counterparty risk. So I want them to understand that compliance to new policies is a must. Right. But we will work with them because I cannot just set up a new policy and say a week later, what? You are not compliant with my policy. Right. So it's really building those partnerships with the different regions and that's what I expect before anything from my team. Because if you do that, then your figures will for sure get a lot better. This is a result, right? It's not the objective, but it's results. If you manage your treasury with really being very integrated and speaking to all the functions, of course you deliver value. Of course. Do I have a specific figure that I want to give them? No, it's really more. And it's a lot more difficult. Right. It asks a lot more engagement, not being afraid and speaking up, taking the courage to say, doesn't make sense. Right. What about doing it this way or that way and having a real advisor role for our function and for the other functions, which I explained are also gaining in maturity. Right. So my Antoinette in my team, who's been there for 20 years, she tells me, oh, you could change that. Well, once again you've used your laser arm. Well, no, it's just I explained to the people what I want to achieve and then people understand and yes, I could change that and I could change this and I'm going to change further things. It just needs to be. I spend really a lot of time to explain the vision to people at all level in the organization. And yes, we are putting pressure, asking a lot of data, but they understand why we're doing it and what will be in it for them.

It's not for data's sake. So that's the key thing. Now you're on the virtual stage because you were having issues with, with travels, but we were in front of a Euro finance group and we then talked about your new role. But we also. One of the key things, we were talking about talent, we're talking about people and things and I know we're approaching the end of today's show. We're not quite putting your LinkedIn details there again, but I just want to reflect on that. You, as you say, you've inherited some of this team and everything else. But when we last spoke, prior to pandemic, we've been through a pandemic. You and I both talked about remote working. You know, we talked about all the different things. How's it been people wise, just in. Not in a deep depth, but more. We went into this, it was one way of working. We're three years later. It's a different world in three years. What's it been like for you guys?

Well, when I joined the company, it was still full remote working, right? So I got my computer, I was at home. All my introductions with the various functions in remote, I think they've done it quite well. They've organized for me a one hour meeting with each head of function so that we could get to know each other to some extent. Maybe more time than if I'd been live and people crossing people a bit less formally now. Luckily, a few months later we could return to the office. And initially I was coming here because I thought, okay, I'm going to meet the people and someday. I didn't meet anyone all the day. So it was sometimes a bit strange. Now I can see that generally at Aliaxis, people are a lot in the office because of all those projects going on with a lot of interaction. For my team, we have contracts where we may work two days per week from home, but it's absolutely flexible in practice. It's really when we have those design session interactions where we have meetings, where we have four, five, six training, etc. I mean, we just come to the office. If it's just an up to date call for an update of a few points or less strategic and so on, then we can do it from home. It's not really a question. It's very natural. I have to say that my team members don't live far away from the office. Neither do I. So it makes it of course easier. But to me it's more. If you come to the office, then there should be a reason, right? You should understand that. And here it's so obvious that we want to be to the office. So it's just depending on where we are on certain projects, there can be weeks where we'll be more away and weeks where we are there every day. It's just natural. It's just not a difficult topic, I have to say.

Amazing. I've taken loads of your time today, but I Think people will have had amazing value before. Amazing value. Now we're going to re wrap up. We'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so that people can connect to you in your new role, but reflecting maybe an iteration with three years later and everything else. But. But what takeaways. I thought there was some great stuff in there about the definition of success and data quality and everything else which people would lovely take away. But what final words are you going to give to people today? Severin, over to you.

I really love the values of Aliaxis, which we have changed recently, which are to dare, to care and to deliver. And I have a great alignment with those. To dare is. Yes, push yourself outside of your boundaries, challenge status quo, raise the questions, the difficult questions and dare care to experiment. Right. To care is respect the people. Don't be a big machine crushing people because you don't do anything without them. So it's caring about your staff, caring about your stakeholders, caring about balance of relationship. Safety is value number one at Aliaxis and it goes well beyond that. Right? It's safety, it's well being. I think we can work very hard and still care for our people and make sure that they are happy to come to work and deliver. Yes, ultimately we want to achieve something. We have those aspirations on what should be our role, what should be the treasury and knowing that we want to deliver. And luckily, after some months where we've launched all our projects, now in the coming weeks, we have a number that come to an end and that's a good opportunity to celebrate. And so, yes, delivery is what we want to do, but this to me is the result of putting everything in place. If you put people with a clear vision, that you give them the means, the tools, the investments to achieve that vision and that you respect them and want to make sure that they. They develop at the same time as the company develops. Of course you deliver. Of course you do.

I mean, I've had some interesting, should we say I rubbish company mottos? I love that. Dare, care and deliver, Whoever made that up. Yeah, it's amazing. Thank you. Well, I look forward to seeing you in reality. Next week we're going to be meeting up at a conference which will be absolutely brilliant. But continue delivering and don't carry on. Work around. Daring and caring. I think it's just, just great. What a great way to wrap up today's show. You're an absolute superstar than. Thank you very much for your time once again.

You're always so sweet. Thank you very much, Mike. Have a good day. Bye Bye.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe, depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there, you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And as you can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce. Every week it'd be amazing. Just take, say, 20 seconds, leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I could wait to see you soon.