Investing in Your Treasury Career Video

For those of you that don't know me, as Yanmata very kindly said, I'm the CEO and founder of the Treasury Recruitment company. We specialize in recruiting corporate treasury professionals. Basically you guys for leading businesses around the world. And I've been doing this since 2002 alongside my day job. I'm an active blogger podcaster, had the lovely Ann Martin Neufer on the podcast show recently so you can listen to that and a regular speaker at a number of conferences around the world discussing variety of topics treasury and treasury recruitment related so today I'm talking about investing in your treasury career. Why now? Based on the current state of the treasury recruitment market, the this is more important to you guys than ever before. In your roles as treasury professionals, you spend your entire days analysing the return on your company's investments, assessing and hedging the risks, developing future strategies. But are you taking the same amount of care over yourselves and your careers? I suspect not. I hear it so often when I ask a candidate, what are your goals for the next few years? What does your ideal role look like? What are you looking to achieve next in your from your next position, as it were. And I get this. Not quite sure Mike, they've not given it any thought or the alternative. I get the rehearsed robotic in five years I'll be a treasurer. Five years from that I'll be a cfo. Robotic not really genuine, but I do actually come across some people that have got a definite career path and they're saying in two years I want to be in this position. Five years here, 10 years there. But when I ask them how are you going to get there? Their faces turn blank and they haven't got a clue. And there are lots of buzz phrases career investment plan, personal development plan. But all of these are relying on your companies, not yourselves. And it's your treasury career. So today I'm going to be talking about five areas that we see as being key to career success. Does work excellent. First, stepping stone career planning, defining your goals. Now, I'm sure you all know the phrase fail to plan, plan to fail. Without a plan, you've got no career. How can you achieve what you want if you don't know what you want it to be? Now, I see incredible value that a lot of companies are putting in investing in people. But this isn't enough. It's your responsibility to make a proactive choice about your career investment plan. It'll give you a sense of purpose, added side effect of fulfillment and happiness. So I was with my Colleague Craig Martin in the US last week speaking at the AFP conference. And we were asked on the AFP podcast, they said, when do you think someone should start looking for a job? When should they start planning their next role? Simple answer now, not straight to, you know, not when you're coasting along. Top of your career, nice and relaxed. Plans change tomorrow, your company gets bought, you're looking for a job. What if you were already doing that before? You need to take charge of your career and your present role. So you need to decide on some of these things, decide on what your goal role is. What's that? Well, again, that's looking at not where you see yourself, perhaps at the end of a happy treasury career in retirement, that's much more realistic. Planning stage, maybe looking at three to five years as a job title. You might want size and company that you want to be working for. What roles are you going to enable you to achieve that? Stepping stones, if you like, or do your research. How are you going to do that? This is where that little known tool, LinkedIn comes in. Maybe check out the LinkedIn profiles of some of the people you want to copy, you want to emulate. Look at their careers and what steps did they take? What career choices did they make? How long did they remain in each of their roles before they moved on? So then you go on to assessing your current role. You're doing a great job, got some great current responsibilities, strengths are going well, everything else doesn't matter. What are your weaknesses? What's holding you back? If you do want to make that next move, do you need to expand your experience better than other areas? Are you going to need additional training? So when I started my business number of years ago now, before I did that, I actually did my research and looked at other recruitment directors, successful ones and some unsuccessful. What was their background? What did they have that I didn't have? And I realised in order to work at the top end and recruit treasurers and things like that, at the top end, I'd need to work and have recruited at that level. So I actually chose to join an executive search firm before starting up myself because I thought, actually I've got a gap there. And if someone says, well, how many treasurers you've recruited? None. I thought, it's not going to be the most impressive sales line, is it? It's not about me going on about it, but it's about more reviewing your progress. Are you on track? Do you need to modify another bit? So I started the business 2002, I knew that I wanted to expand our international footprint. So I decided to go out of my comfort zone. I know it might seem unusual, but I don't enjoy speaking. It's a learned skill. I don't wake up and go, oh, do you know I want to do another speech today. No, believe me. Because this all relates back to Euro Finance. Paris 2004. God, I was bad. So bad. All I did was, unlike today, I read from the slides, just, literally just verbatim. After 10 minutes, people's eyes were glazing over. Some people, like Andreas over here, were looking at their phones already watching, yeah, I'm watching. Just catching up on their email. I thought, how do I recover from this? I know I've got a way to get through this. I'll go straight to Q and A quite, quite early in the session. Question and answer, hand shot up in the middle. I say, yes, Simon Bullock, at the time, a friend of mine, no longer anymore, CFO of CNBC Europe. I said, simon, Simon, you've got a question. What's your question? He asked his question and I then said the immortal words, simon, that's not the question we rehearsed. It was a really bad day, but I decided to review. I practiced and I keep getting on stage and I keep dodging the tomatoes. I've spoken at the Chicago Summit five years in a row, four international conferences, AFP last week, Chicago for the second time. I'm not saying it's all, look at me, da, da, da. That's not it. It's to demonstrate to you guys that your goals and you need to push yourselves out of your comfort zone. If you got weaknesses, build up on them, get rid of them. You need to demonstrate that you need to evolve over time and need to stretch you, and it's your responsibility. As I've said, these choices aren't accidents. You need a positive mental attitude. And the key thing I talk about, and one of the other bits we do in another speech, is that you need to be the driver of your career, not just the passenger going along as your company takes you along and says, oh, yeah, make the next move. And that's what we're thinking about for you. Next step is saying skills development, qualifications. They're a key differentiator for anyone working in Treasury. I get quizzed by candidates, especially those perhaps in the earlier stages of their treasury careers. How important are qualifications? Simply answer a question with a question. How successful do you want to be in Treasury? I know in some professions a specific qualification may be needed or not needed in treasury or finance. It's key, it's vital. I was talking to Sarah Jane hall, the global treasurer at GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical group, a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and I said to. Well, I asked her about it. I said, what do you think, Sarah Jane? He said, mike, the more qualifications you have, the better if you want to become a group treasurer, as she is pretty small company, only footsie five. She said not only this quote, but then for her, she felt that qualifications are a real differentiator, a rubber stamp of her, of the level of expertise for a candidate, if you like, when she's hiring two different people. She's got two really great strong candidates, really loves them, but one's got more qualifications. Which one's she going to choose? More qualified one, potentially. They might edge it, but in most cases you'll choose that. And why? Because they put in the hardest work, they've achieved more. So continuous learning. It's no good gaining qualifications, sitting back thinking, that's it, I'm done. Those job offers are going to come flooding in. Far from it. The focus for you then needs to be on staying ahead of change. There's no excuse not to, based on how much information that is accessible nowadays. Go on to this one. IBM crazy stat, but that's the accessibility and how you process all that knowledge that keeps coming at you if you don't evolve your skills and knowledge base. And we're talking about. You guys are talking about Blockchain or Dave or all this knowledge being thrown at you. This is what they're talking about. You come to amazing conferences by, like this, put on my lovely Ann Martin. But I spend, for instance, a huge amount of time on LinkedIn, not just trying to find people, but actually reading articles about treasury, latest developments, posts from treasurers, staying up to date on the challenges you guys are facing and what's happening in the industry. I spend hours listening to podcasts, key influencers in marketing, but also in Treasury. I've got to say, my kids absolutely love a long car journey with me nowadays when I say to them, oh, podcast time, guys. You can probably hear the groan all the way over here in Vienna, but the information at the end of the day is literally on your phone straight away, and it's an incredible resource for you and the growth of yourselves as treasury professionals. So investing in a mentor or coach, let's just separate them out for a moment and talk about the differences. So a mentor is someone who's a proven track record in their field. They might work with you as an individual to provide support and advice, either on a topic or guidance throughout your career. A coach, on the other hand, has been trained specifically that they're a coach. They're hired to address a specific challenge you might be facing, as opposed to the relationship with a mentor mentee that's going to span decades or can often span decades. And the difference is key. And you need to work out what relationship suits you best. A lot of these people, you know, a lot of you guys in the room are going, oh, I'm not quite so sure, but actually, I'm later on in my career. It doesn't matter. It does, obviously, early stages of your career, that's when they could be in the greatest demand, because you're beginning, you're wanting guidance, you need the right direction, you want career boost. Boosting your confidence, if you like, can be as important in the middle stages, Refining your skills, expanding your networks, and staying on track with that career plan we talked about and being the driver of your own career. They can also challenge your norm, particularly at the latter stages of your career, and give you new perspectives. You need someone to challenge you. So speaking last week to Karen van der Dreeshe, the assistant treasurer or VP treasury at Avnet in Brussels, on the podcast, and we talked, we got into a conversation about the value she's found from having a mentor. She gave me some great feedback as she was doing it. I was like, great, I'm writing this down for next week. She said, for her, having a mentor has been a safe place to share her ideas. It's an environment where she's been able to voice her concerns without it having a negative impact and without being judged. She found it was her place to be human in some ways, and it helps her understand how to coach other people. And she was able to try out and rehearse presentations, for instance, a bit like this, without the fear of looking stupid on a personal level, I. I wouldn't be where I am now without the help of some different coaches and mentors. Most recently, I've been using a coach. We knew that our business needed a different approach to social media. It was lovely, actually. David mentioned earlier, he said he actually did some great photography for us at the Vienna conference a couple of years ago. And he said, you've just taken over LinkedIn. I was like, yeah, we use an agency. I'm not doing it all the time like this. But we knew that we needed a fresh approach. So in order to stay ahead of the competition, we've got a podcast, Treasury Career corner, feel free to sign up. And it's really great fun because I talk to treasurers about how they've achieved career success to help you guys. We talked about following them on LinkedIn, but it actually brings it to life. Now I'll use Chris Ducker as an example. He's a great social media guy. He does an entrepreneur newpreneur, some summit. But then we had to felt after a year I'd actually grown past that. He was really more of a the coach and I needed a mentor. So I recently reconnected with my business school mentor, Paul Barrow, who offers me a different insight. He's much more business focused market, you know, less marketing but more business strategy. So it's well worth thinking about how you go through those transitions. So it's an evolution, but decide what works best for you guys. That's why I'm doing this for you, to get you to think about how you need to focus on your own personal investments. Got a few nodding heads there already. People are going, oh yeah, maybe think about just doing that one thing. Third, stepping stone, your personal brand. We decided not to make today all about personal brand, but it's a key facet of it and I'm very happy to talk to lots of people. You know, Martin, seen a few other people, have seen some of the speeches I've given up, say Euro finance about it and LinkedIn and all the other things. I speak about the importance of why it's essential to your career success. When I first started, there wasn't a personal brand. I was there. It was your reputation, as he called. Took years of dedication. You were meeting people, building up great, reliable bench strength benchmark rather. And now it's a totally different story. You can actually create your own brand in a few minutes, develop a decent strong LinkedIn profile, put some testimonials on there, looking great, but then it can be destroyed in seconds. One, you know, false tweet or something else and it could all go wrong. Look at this guy. I think he knows a thing or two. Mr. Bezos, it's about what people are saying about you when you're not in the room. Whether it's on or offline, you're continually being judged by those around you. If you take a look left and right of you now, those people are judging you, so watch out. And everyone in this room has their own brand. Whether or not it's a positive one or not, you've got to make sure that you protect it, otherwise you're going to suffer. These are some of the tools you can use. You've got all of these up here. You've also got other things that contribute to it. You've got things like Instagram might not be doing it, but it's still out there. And look at their reach. Crazy figures. If you've ever posted an article, people will read it, they'll judge you. Whatever you add to social media is public. It's out there and you're going to be judged from it and everyone's going to be judging you all the time because it's constantly going. I'll give you a practical example. I was at the Chicago Conference 2, three years ago and there was a lovely intern at the interns party, New Starters party. We called him Greg. That was because that was his name. And he was in the process of looking at internships for large corporates. And I asked him about his social media use and he explained, mike, it's all right. I've locked down and removed a lot of Facebook posts, I've cleared my Twitter stream and I just asked Greg, Greg, because the beers were free and he wasn't going to buy me a beer. He was an intern after all. I said, could you get me a beer? Yeah, no problem. Went off. 60 seconds, he came back. As he came back, got out my phone. I was like, greg, how's Tijuana? Lovely destination, party town in Mexico. And he was like, his face literally dropped. He was like, what? And I said, well. And I showed him a picture of him at a party which he'd been really enjoying. I said, how'd you find that? I said, I used a very little known search tool called Google. And he was actually really mortified. Even though he'd locked it down, someone else had tagged him in a post and it was still out there because it was public and this guy was trying to get internships and he was actually really worried about it and he should have been. So when I spoke on the panel last week again in the us there was Chris Fulton from, he's the outgoing treasurer of Scadden Law and they actually had hired someone junior person joining them. They did all their background checks and they had to withdraw the offer because they found that this person back when they were 15, 16, had actually, you know, put some posts which weren't in keeping with, you know, and they, they were gutted. This person was incredibly bright, but actually was affecting them many, many years later. So these are two real world, you know, real examples that in your everyday work, work environment, your workplace, networking events, things like this. So Watch out. David is taking photos. So as he floats around, just turn your face away. And all your peers and your bosses, these are all having an impact. So I was asked again, someone asked me in the past at a conference, they said, what would you say are the key things about your personal brand? What the, you know, top three say? For me it was three Authenticity. Think about what your core values are as a person and they can become the foundation of your own personal brand. It's the real you, if you like. It's how you form your collaborations. Your long term career development will then follow from it. It's your UVP unique value proposition. I know, bit of a catchphrase, but it was what sets you apart from the competition. If you like in your. If you're looking for a role, so I just notice a couple, I will be sending all of these slides out to everyone afterwards so you can have it. So you don't need. You just, just look at me. Or you can just take photos of that. I don't mind, it's fine. But UVP, it's. If you're looking. There's 10 treasurers that are looking to get hired for their next big role. And what special offer do you give someone that is different to the person standing either side of you? What makes you stand out from those other people? Consistency. This is your behaviors, your values, your identity, but also your brand message. Exactly. As we said, it's about the way that you've built your personal brand. Because without it and if you don't have one. I've got one of the practical example, one of my candidates going for an interview the end of this week. Someone he's meeting has a deputy treasurer, has no social media presence at all. They made a distinct decision. That's all right. But what he said is it's confusing to him that he's actually saying, I want to get to know this person and actually get the most out of this meeting. It's actually preventing him from doing so. So it's about how you present those around you. Now we saw the Jeff Bezos thing. I don't think that's true anymore. I think it's about more than that. It's what people are saying about you and then you're processing it and it's them, what they're believing about you. But you might not even be in the room. Networking. I say to some people, networking, particularly Jan Martin, I've seen before, they can't wait to network at the bar, straight in there. Others, I see you just heading for the door straight off to the train. Obviously I'm in the first category, but I haven't always felt this way so I had to work at it. And it's through years of experience coming to conferences like this and seeing that a lot of the time the most connected people were the most successful and investing and doing that networking. I saw a lot of you networking over the strudel before, but it's a good thing to do. Let's give you some tips on it, some real world tips. First one is well done. Give yourselves a, you know, a fictional round of applause for actually being here today. You're educating yourselves. Conferences like this are a great start. Different ideas and everything else. Some people are at the back just like straining. Don't worry, I will send these all out to you. You're going to have a copy of them. Developing yourself, it's like one of those travelators sort of thing, but you're on the wrong way. At the airport, if you stand still and don't do anything, you're going to be going backwards compared to your peers. You've got to constantly think about developing listening. Now, you might see in the bar, it might be a bit more difficult, but you've got two ears, one mouth and it's a difficult, difficult task. But if you master it, everyone's going to be want to be part of your network. Active listening and reciprocating as well. It's very easy to get wrapped up in the sound of your own voice. I say that I'm speaking up here, but I'm just doing it for knowledge. It's all right then. It's following up whenever you speak to someone. Got a great tip for actually Chris last week. What he does, he'll go to any business meeting or an event like this and he'll get all his business cards at the end or when he pops off to the loo or whatever. And he'll just make a quick note of a couple of the bits of the conversation. Number one, so he remembers who the person is. Number two, when he's then coming back to you, they'll be impressed that you're actually interested enough to engage with them and go, oh yeah, and your daughter's going off to college or this is happening, actually, they remember those things and that helps form genuine relationships rather than just, what can I get? Fifth one elevator pitch. Now, a few people have said to me, haven't heard of it, don't know what it is. It's basically the way you introduce yourselves. It's about telling Someone in the fewest words in the time it takes maybe to come down in the elevator. And you've seen these elevators here, they're quite quick between maybe floor six down to the bottom one. So 10 to 30 seconds. And it sounds straightforward, but it's actually harder than you think. So what do I do? When you've got that person, you're talking to them. This is your sales pitch for brand you. This is about yourselves and how you get over who you are and they do the same back to you. And if it does sound like a sales pitch, it is basically because you want them to be part of your network. So explain clearly what you do now and how you can add value to them by having you as part of the professional network. Now, some of the other tips we've got here, don't undersell or oversell yourselves. Don't keep going, oh, this is what I do, this is what I do. Get a balance with that. Now, how do you do that? The best thing to do is rehearse it as you rehearse it with a friend of yours, you know, someone that can give you decent feedback and actually find out what they think and say, look, that actually was good. And get it with a really good friend. So they say it was really bad. You know, that's really going to help you reciprocate. This is a key one, I think. So what do you do if you're showing active listening, so you're saying, okay, and then trying to relate it to their experience, it's actually going to work. And then we said about writing the notes, perfect way of doing it.

Quick one, because we have been talking about in also in our first session and we're trying to be more active. Yeah, but what is your view if you're not out there for really hunting for a new job, is it really worthwhile to spend a lot of time polished it up or is that more at the point in time where you say, now I'm going to go out and stand with it.

Great, thank you very much. That question, it's almost as if I asked you to tell me the one. Yeah, that's it. I've answered. Beer. That's it. So basically, no, it's not. When you're looking for a job, just as we said earlier, don't do your LinkedIn profile. Just when you're looking for your new role, people say, but Mike, I'm not looking for a new role. It's not about that. It's a professional network. When I spoke in Brussels a couple of years ago, Patrick Vespach, lovely guy there. He said, mike, you know, I said to him, you need to have a photo on your profile. And we do these silly photos and things like that. Needs to be professional. So, well, look, I'm not the most photogenic. Patrick, look at this. I said, I don't have that much. And he was just like I said. But I said, patrick, it's not about that. It's about other people. He said, what do you mean? I said, well, you go into a bank meeting and you walk in and you want to introduce yourself. Do you think they've researched you? Well, yeah. So you've walked in, they've gone, hello, I'm Patrick, how are you? So you basically are turning your back on all those connections. You are 21 times more likely to make a professional connection by having a photo, for instance, on your LinkedIn profile. And people say to me, well, do I need a professional network? Do I need that? Well, you can actually use it in your day jobs. So you're thinking about a new treasury management system, or you're thinking about, you know, how are you going to face blockchain? All these different challenges are coming up. And you go to your professional network of three people. Oh, do you use this system? No, we don't. Thanks. Bye. 33 people. Oh, actually, yeah, we've used it. 330 people. And if you do that networking, then it pays results. Practical example, actually, of that Chris, Chris Fulton, the guy from Scavin Law, he was actually a live case study. He just made the move from treasurer to become cfo. He'd been headhunted and it wasn't just because he suddenly got on his LinkedIn profile and beefed it up and everything else. He'd been headhunted and been sought after, actually, not by a search firm. They'd actually found him and he'd been found by someone who thought, actually, that's the sort of person we want to work for us, because they're able to read his profile and he matched what they wanted. He did things with their Scadden Law foundation about helping young lawyers and things like that coming through. And they thought, actually, that's a person that seems to share our ethos. And he got headhunted because of that, not because he was actively looking for a role. Market, news and views. So, key question I always get asked every time, I'll be out there, so I'll answer it now so we don't have to do it again and again. What's the current state of the Market, obviously, a little bit up and down. There's this Brexham. No, what is it? Lexit. No, what was it? Okay, Brexit. That's it. We've got changes in Europe, you know, within political landscape. We've got the US changing. You've got Trump in charge. It was crazy being there last week. The things that they're so divided. It was. It was weird, if I'm honest. And all that does influence recruitment activity, obviously, but as a specialist area, we're actually insulated for it, from it in a little way because not like I'm going to get a phone call one day. I wish I dreamed of that day when I get a phone call. Mike, we'd like five group treasurers, please. Best. God, that'd be my best Christmas ever. But I get. I get a call and it's just one treasurer. There may, be, as we move down, couple of assistant treasurers in any typical model. And then you've got analyst level people as well. But there is constant turnover, obviously, as you move up in seniority, there's less junior. End of the market has been busy. Dan, my colleague, covers the European markets white, so make sure you all talk to Dan afterwards as well. And we have got business cards at the back, so you can actually talk to us as well. But it has been pretty busy. Particular areas we've said recently, Netherlands, Luxembourg, here in Austria, we've started to see an upsurge. I think it's also because we get more well known as well. The US has been coming back, but one of the key drivers over all of this I found, certainly from CFOs, is that they've said they wanted treasurers that have a real clarity over, or getting clarity over the risks they face, particularly with things like Brexit happening and all the external turmoil, if you like, rather than internal. And they wanted more controls so that they know exactly where they stand. Senior levels. There has been good activity, but very specific skill sets are being requested. Again, I was interviewed the other day and someone said to me, you know, what did I see when people were asking for treasurers? It's quite an interesting one, really. I get a CFO or FD will say to me, mike, I want a brand new treasurer. Yes, we want a really new person, new ideas. We want straight through processing. We wrote Blockchain. It's like they've swallowed literally a couple of the conference brochures in some ways regurgitated a bit. And then I said, oh, fantastic. It's a great opportunity to refresh things and then we get to the end. I said, got job description? Yeah, no problem. Bottom draw out it comes, five years, blows off a bit of the dust, crosses date and hands it back to me. So fills me with dread that sometimes we are seeing a change there. So it is actually helping. And I've been asked as well at the conferences have I seen that your role as Treasurer has changed And I wouldn't say necessarily it's changed over the past few years because you've always been experts in areas such as risk management, foreign exchange, bank relationships and IT systems. But what I've noticed is that you're having to balance all those things with all the other stuff that's on your plates. Sometimes you might have been seen as a more specialist area but you're still being asked to be the solution to your CFO's problems, be the paracetamol if you like for their issues and they want you to take away that headache whilst also spending all the other plates. It's a challenging role being a modern treasurer. So come and talk to me if you do need more advice on that. But I don't think it's easy. But a good way of looking for all of that is to talk to people like myself to look at LinkedIn to gain all that new knowledge. Now the other way that question I get asked a couple of people ask salaries. So we have for you and I think I've mentioned this. Yann Martin, some hot off the press news. We do a salary survey. It's a very little known website called treasurysalary.com yeah. Try and remember that bit of controversy. 72% of you lot are happy. So if we look at that. That's right. So 28. Yeah, just that row. So you lot are really happy. Fantastic. I'll be seeing you Lot of the bar guys this lot of buying because they're very happy. Currently We've got approaching 600 participants in the salary survey. So we in terms of Austria though we only have not saying just these four gentlemen, it's a confidential survey but just four Austrians taking part. If we do get enough Austrian participation we'll run a straight ACTA survey as well. So you actually know exactly where to benchmark yourselves. 3 minutes to take part. 200 page report for free as a result. Exclusive results as well. But anyone takes part. Now the funny bit. People say 72% happy. So stable teams. Right. Everyone's really happy. They're not moving does it so you're all looking for new jobs. Calm down, just give me a cars when you are looking for the new job. More than 80% said yes, they were looking for a role. So. So what does this mean for you when you're managing teams as well as being an eye opener? And a couple of laughs there. If you think it's because your teams are unhappy and it's because they're not being paid enough, it's crazy. It's a salary survey. It's about the money, right? It's not about the money. Those are some of the reasons. So this was color, but we brought it down to make it readable again. We'll share it with you. So you need to be focusing on. These are the reasons why people actually, you know, what makes people happy in their roles. But the other bit is what makes them unhappy. It's you as a boss. It's the work itself. The crazy bit is salary. Is there the previous one, competitive salary is actually 2%. It's actually doing something worthwhile, making a difference. That's what's really different, is making varied, enjoyable work. What are the other bits I say about this? Unhappy. Let's go to unhappy. How do you feel about your salary? This is overall 67% comfortable. Don't worry, I'm not doing a Paris moment and just reading off the slides again. It's just to make a couple of points on it. If they're unhappy in their roles, it's not about them throwing them the money. Now, people have said to me in the past, the observation that I've made as I've grown and we've done this salary survey before is people have said do a salary survey. Is it actually? And as people get more senior, they do get happier. So all the treasurers are really happy. Treasury analysts are really unhappy at the bottom of the pile. That's not it. That's not the actual reason. What's happened is when I've interviewed people and spoken to them, it's about empowerment and it's about self actualization within your roles and being directed by yourself. What I mean by that is most group treasurers. I was talking to Nick Taylor, group treasurer Schroders, recently. I talked about this again on the podcast. He generally meets his boss about once a year in a formal setting and they define the goals for the year. And every quarter they have a quick catch up over coffee. If there's an emergency. Yeah, they get together straight away. But other than that, it's like, how you doing? Yeah, I'm on track. Yeah. Great. All right, bye. That's it. Treasurers, treasurer, how are you Doing? Yeah, I'm on track, yeah. Great. All right, bye. That's it. Treasurers, treasury managers. Sorry, and treasury analysts in particular are being directed every day, please do this, please do this, please do this. And that's what it is. It's about setting them goals and helping them. So it's offering ways that you might be able to give their roles a challenge, recognizing their efforts. So we come back to that dreaded. If you do want to take part in the salary, As I say, treasurysalary.com worth taking part in. Now, this next one. Oh, yeah, love it. Brexit and also robots. It's all right. You're going to be taken over by the Dalek soon, is Brexit. I know that's the next. I'm not going to say too much about it because I don't want to do the next. Next lecture as well. Is it directly affecting treasurers? It's not. And I don't think it will necessarily affect treasury professionals because you guys spend your time coping with all these different issues and challenges. But it does mean the market you're dealing in have further issues. You, as skilled treasury professionals, need to prove your, you know, your case, to work them. I also get people saying, you know, with Brexit, is it going to affect migration of staff? It already has. There's a net migration loss to the uk where lots of people have left. Who's left? People below 50k in general. When you actually look at the salaries, the people in skilled employee aren't leaving. So basically you guys are dealing with it and I think it's less of an issue when we talk about it. Are you all going to be taken over by robots? No, there's always going to be automation, removing some of the mundane tasks and everything. Everyone says, oh, the robots are doing this, but you guys have taken away the low value tasks before anyway. You've either outsourced them to lower cost basis or, you know, you've automated them, you've brought in treasury management systems, you're focusing on future finance. Now, I know that you robots, you know, be great if they could predict the future. And you, you guys are looking at the future as treasurers now, if you do know how to predict the future really accurately, I'd like to know next week's lottery numbers, please. Okay. No, don't worry. So, joking aside, you've got to have agility of mind and thought, the power of marginal gains. So all of you lot apparently are busy treasury professionals, but you still make the time to come out here. It's education. I know. And it may seem overwhelming or time consuming to do any of the things that I recommended. So I want to introduce this very simple concept. I didn't make it up. So has anyone. And I will buy a beer for anyone. That's quite unusual in itself. Not you knows who that person is and you can't answer either. Anyone? Sorry, Jeff. No. No. This is Dave Brailsford or Sir Dave to his friends. British cycling team performance director. He came up with this idea of marginal gains. He joined the British cycling team in performance director in 2003. Before he arrived, professional cyclists in Britain had only ever won one gold medal in the Olympics in 110 years. Sorry, ever. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France. They were so bad that manufacturers would not sell them their bikes because they were worried it would affect sales. It's true. This is actually true. Exactly. And it was just. They were. Please give me a bite. But he became focused on this strategy and what he called the aggregation of marginal gains. Technical phrase. And it was the quest to find tiny improvements in everything he did all day. You do. If you break down everything you think of when riding a bike and improve it by 1% cumulatively, you'll get a significant increase when you put them all together. So him and his coaches, they started to make a few adjustments. They redesigned the bike seats. First of all, the riders wore electrically heated shorts to maintain bum muscle temperature. They identified ideal pillows and mattresses and got them transported wherever they went. So they got the best night's sleep. Small margins every time. Hundreds of these soon accumulated. He set out to win a Tour de France within five years. He didn't do it. They did it in three. They then went on to win 60% of the gold medals at Beijing Olympics. Nine Olympic records, seven world records at London Olympics same year, Bradley Wiggins, first British cyclist to ever win the Tour de France. Following year, Chris Froome. 15, 16, 17. He was actually going for it this year for the fourth time in a row. His riding partner, Geraint Thomas, he won it instead. And this success that they put it down was making 1% changes. So where does this all apply to you guys? What if you were to make one of those changes? Put a better photo on LinkedIn? What about if you were to think about talking to a mentor that might actually help you in the past? So maybe it's setting your next goal. The stepping stones we talked about of how to get there, developing your skills. Do you need to do some more study. As I said, reviewing your LinkedIn profile, adding a bit of content there it will actually also then helping with your consistent branding, getting the coach or mentor developing decent elevator pitch when you're on the train home tonight, thinking, actually, if I meet someone, what I should have said was this, this, this. Imagine the effect all of these could have on your treasury career. Hope you've enjoyed it. And I look forward particularly to this side of the room who are very happy all buy me a beer in the bar later, thank you.