Lessons From Inchcape: Building Treasury Teams That Scale Globally

In this week's episode, you're going to get to hear from Alex Chalmers, Group treasurer of Inchcape plc. Alex will talk about the power of being curious, how you need to ask questions, because as he says, there's no such thing as a stupid question. And also it's about investing in your network because treasury is a relationship business. Actually, I'll hand over to Alex, Alex can explain a little bit more and we'll get into the episode.

Look, I think there's a few things and none of this should be come as a surprise. You need to be curious. I think if you're not curious, you won't progress in your career. You need to be asking questions, you need to be taking an interest in things. No one's going to spoon feed you through your career. I think the other thing is, and I was firm believer this, there's no such thing as a stupid question, right? You need to ask questions as you're going through and make sure that you have a thorough understanding of of what it is you're doing because ultimately if you try and blag it, at some point you will get dumbed out. I think it's important that you invest in automating mundane tasks and manual tasks because only then will you get the head space to do what I just mentioned about being curious and asking questions. If 90% of your day is involved in doing operational stuff, by the time you've got the last 10% of your quality headspace, you won't do any of that. And then finally investing in your network. Treasury is a relationship business and it's really important that you spend time with internal stakeholders for sure, but certainly the external stakeholders, your banks, having people who can help you for your projects. If there's a significant change in your business, if you're doing a big M and a transaction, knowing who to pick up the phone to, having had conversations previously about how you might structure a deal, these are all absolutely critical. But by the same token, if business isn't going so well, if you made investment in the relationships with your banking contacts, you can have those grown up conversations as well. And that will be helpful in the context of ongoing support when things perhaps aren't going so well. So those key things I would probably call out.

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 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, delighted to be joined by Alex Chalmers, the group treasurer. Inchcape dlc. Inchcape is the world's leading automotive distributor. They work with more than 60 of the world's most loved automotive brands in over 40 markets across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa to power better mobility today and in the future. But we'll get on to that later in the show. Exactly about indicate, Alex, if you would take us back to the beginning. You and I have known each other for a number of years. How did it all start? Well, I know it started, but you tell us.

Mike, thanks for having me on the show. So great to be here. Finally said, look, how did it all start? I mean, like most people, treasury was found by accident, by myself. Like all good stories, it started with a it out and before people had smartphones. This is just going to take you back when people had, you know, Motorola flares in their pocket or more affluent perhaps they had a Nokia and got home and had an email from a recruitment website which you know is pre LinkedIn if you will, with role. That was for an accountant training contract with a global telecommunications company in Newbury. Being the end of a night, I didn't quite, quite put two and two together at that point and I hit apply. Yeah. Uploaded my generic cv, no covering letter, no nothing, and promptly forgot about it. Then the following morning, or perhaps a couple of mornings later, I get a phone call once I'm in the car from the recruiter, said, yeah, they really want to meet you. So I went out to Newbury to meet the head of the treasury back office at Vodafone, as was then and yeah, the rest of kind of history in terms of my first move into treasury, but first and foremost I was looking for a training contract as an accountant. I'd studied accounting and finance with European study. I had sought a career ultimately in accountancy. I suppose what I found Vodafone, after two and a bit years of working in the back office in compliance space that I had a bit more of a taste of for the commercial forward looking aspects of treasury than more backward looking, rules based debits and credit control and things. Yeah.

Can you just for the audience, everyone know Vodafone is a household name in terms of telecoms and things. Can you just for the listeners, because at the time you were joining Vodafone back in 2004 or whatever it was.

Yeah.

What was the shape of Vodafone then?

Yeah, look, I mean it was, it was a, you know, I think at that point FTSE 1 or 2 in terms of numbers traded on the FTSE on a daily basis. Management acquisition had happened a few years prior to the Japanese business was still part of the overall picture, the US business. So it's a huge business, a very complex from a Treasury perspective, I suppose as somebody coming in, having, dare I say it, not even given any thought to treasury, it wasn't something that came up as part and parcel of professional university study. You learned about what banks did, you know about what accountants did and economists did. Treasury, corporate treasury wasn't really a thing. So to come in and all of a sudden be exposed to fx, FX dealing, debt, capital markets, commercial paper program, share buyer, you get a full spectrum of stuff going on. So yeah, pretty much any sort of treasury angle you could envisage was going on at Vodafone at that time for sure.

And a good start in treasury per se because it was a big team. You were learning a lot from, as you say, you'd gone from zero treasury knowledge to suddenly force fed it in a good way.

Yeah, look, I think it was an excellent move for me for sure. When I've finished my SEMA studies and passed my exams, like most people, you then reflect, okay, you know what next? And I think at that point it also suited me personally not to be based in Newbury. So I wanted to be a bit more London based at that point it just made sense to look and see what there was and I think that's where I identified a role at what was ACG 7 and they were looking for somebody to come into their middle office. So I hadn't really had some front office experience when I was at Vodafone. My role was very much a compliance and reporting role. So I got to see and add sight of that. I wasn't actually by any means at the coalface acg. I was hired by Ventasolt at that time and was brought in a really interesting sort of setup which was predominantly around looking at long term cash flow forecasting but also providing some reporting. And yeah, I suppose the bits and pieces I was doing in my Vodafone days on what the front office was doing day to day. And it was provide a bit of governance, a bit of rigor around it. But Subsea 7, I'll talk about Subsea 7 rather than ACG because Subse 7 is still a business that is known today. Essentially a collection of projects. It's a collection of oil and gas, deep water complex projects. And what's interesting from a cash flow perspective is that cash doesn't follow P and L necessarily. So you have very lumpy milestone payments on the projects. Whereas an accounting perspective, you recognize revenue as a percentage of completion on a project. So you need to understand how cash is performing because you can't just rely solely on the P and L to understand what your liquidity position is and what you should or shouldn't be doing. But also it's quite crucial to understand from a business performance perspective, if cash starts to slip, that's going to be your early warning that projects are going off track. And what you can learn very quickly is if you want to figure out if something's going wrong somewhere, you start with cash. So cash was absolutely king. I mean the business had some difficulties a few years prior to me joining, so there was a huge cash focus and ultimately whilst I was there and still is a very successful business and.

Quite different to, as you say, just going digging into that oil and gas, usually a constant cash flow, but literally the tap comes on and there's cash flowing out for your businesses and things like that. So if you're a Treasury analyst and then you became manager and assistant treasurer, what was that like for you in terms of how did you manage the business counterparties internally, how did make sure that they were on side? Was it hitting the phone saying, guys, give us your cash, give us your cash flow forecast or what was the ethos, if you like? Yeah.

So starting there and being involved with long term cash flow forecast, and particularly given the importance of it in the context of what happened in the recent past, meant I was well known even as an analyst with the various finance directors at different levels within the business. And that was a great way for me to build my network out into the broader teams. I'm London based, as you well know. Milton's driven for oil in London, but there's obviously a team in Stavanger in Norway, there's a big team in Paris engineering who looked after the African business and then there's an Asian business, a Singapore and an Australian business as well. And then down in Rio and Mackey for the Americas. So you quite quickly got known around the estate, as it were, which was super helpful, which then helped me pivot. As a Treasury analyst I was responsible for middle office, but I pivoted through to more of a front office or perhaps I headed up front office at ASIG as was at Subsea 7, a known quantity internally and the conversation moved away a little bit from cash flow and is more around the hedging piece. So these, again, these are long Term contracts and once they're awarded you look at what your expected cash flows and overlay a hedging strategy to ensure you defending margin of that project and you.

Had a strong career growth throughout that growth stage if you like. And so you went from let's say more operational and a treasure analyst through to assistant treasurer type role. Can you just talk us through again for the listeners? You went from analysis, ownership, then leadership if you like. That's quite a different shift if you like. You've gone from sitting next to the guys to now you're oh guys, I'm leading you. What was the hardest thing to do or how did you the expectations grow or change?

Well, I think really since subsea 7 I was probably more of a subject matter expert I'd say so the leadership sort of soft power. I suppose the way to describe it really leading the filter probably came a little bit later when I joined Inchcape. I suppose what happened post sub C7 a little bit of context in terms of stories. I'd been to sub C7 for five years. Year four we had a merger of equals between ASV and sub C7. Effectively two treasury teams were coming together. The decision was to move the treasury function up to Aberdeen at that point also everybody's role that existed at that point got smaller as a consequence. I mean obviously there's natural wastage in terms of synergies come out as part of a. But my role had been quite broad. It covered cash management, investments, foreign exchange, less so DCM because there wasn't a huge, huge DCM focus but there was obviously a revolving credit facility, et cetera. And my role going forward would have been purely a cash manager, a role which didn't suit me and obviously didn't necessarily suit my circumstances to move to Abdeen. So I stuck around for about another year to manage a transition effectively and I moved process up to Aberdeen. So subsea 7 didn't have a Treasury management system at that time, ACG did. I took the treasury management system that we had within the system and effectively deployed it into the subsea 7 organization and then supported the team whilst the recruitment happened for the team in Aberdeen. But then ultimately my phone rang. It was a former financial controller at acg. He'd set up a shop in Richmond, again, oil and gas, not the obvious place for an oil and gas company, that's where they were based. And he wondered whether I'd come and join him as his corporate finance manager in a PE backed business which was obviously very different. A kettle of fish to Oslo Boers listed similar sort of size to a sort of FTSE 100 company. I went to Reef.

So how was it different? You'd gone from a listed business, PE back business. What were the biggest transitions and if someone is making that same move themselves, what should they look out for? And some do's and don'ts sort of thing.

It as an extreme you. If you think about what subsea 7 was, it was at that time an EBITDA business of a billion dollars. So call it six. Yeah. £700 million. Reef was an EBITDA business, about 10. So it's a much, much smaller business. You learn a lot in those sorts of business. I've got obviously votefone. Yeah. Gigantic. Yeah. Subsea 7. So on the cusp of FTSE 100 equivalent, I would say in terms of market cap to a business which is essentially a startup venture. So very different challenges. Working capital management is about how to make the next payment run. Yeah. At what point do we run out of cash, actually genuinely run out of cash as opposed to having to dip into our RCF or have a profit warning type conversation. So it's a much more of a hand to mouth existence. So you have very different sort of dynamics at play and you learn a lot about the business. Yeah, business fundamentals if you like. And you have to get involved in a lot more with a much broader role.

What habits did that sort of give you? Maybe that you kept with. You talked there about really knowing the numbers because as you say tomorrow you could run out of cash if you're not careful. So how have you kept that with you?

Yeah, look, I think what I would say is that kind of business is not for everybody. I did it for about two years in the end. And ultimately that business had a business model of an oil price north of $100 a barrel in the sort of late 2000 and tens, I should say sort of 2012, 2013, 2014. You may recall that the oil price kind of dipped a fair bit. And in the real struggle we had some vessels in the North Sea which if they are operating or not, probably cost you about a million pounds a month to just have sitting there idle. So if you haven't got the worth coming in, you burn through the cash very quickly. The business was quite leveraged anyway, but also in terms of operating leverage. So very high fixed cost base. You had to have a very keen eye on cash. Cash management making sure that when commercial teams went out and agreed payment terms with oil majors that you're getting upfront payments or you certainly weren't giving sort of 60, 90 day credit terms able to wash its face in terms of the ongoing costs that existed within that business. So from that perspective I think you're a little bit shielded from that sort of thing when you're in a PLC because it's arm's length, your backstop RCF which is undrawn for x £100 million. The conversation is much more around what operating margin is looking like this year and what's not going so well but it's not quite close to the wire let's say.

And then you made the move to join Incape. So I wanted to talk through who Inchcape are were then up to now because I know that business has evolved and at the same time how your role evolved because you went in there the mandate to design, to design and implement a sort of more modern scalable treasury model. If you. What were the first things you did? What was your checklist if you like we do that sometimes on the show. Talk us through then move making the move to indicate.

Sure. So look, I stick with the oil analogy. I moved very significantly downstream to automotive and yeah I was brought in to a business which at that time was doing pretty well but was still reeling from the financial crisis and people had been burnt and there's very significant cost focus within that business. So it was a business that looked at cost out opportunities and probably wasn't looking at inorganic growth opportunities perhaps in the same way as happened laterally. I joined my mandate really was to a put in a Treasury management system. The treasury management system that was there was out of support and had now supported for quite some time but also there, there's part and parcel of that look at overall process and look at upskilling the team and making some changes if necessary there around. Around that. So some. Yeah the first job was really to come in, put in this new treasury management system and look at process more generally is I'd say it's fairly operational and manual at that point. So there hadn't been a huge amount of change and evolution within a Treasury function for a long time, years and my role really was then to go and challenge and implement new ways of working. Notional cash pooling was implemented. We moved away from telephone dealing for FX to electronic trading. The basics I would argue to a certain extent what that did was created capacity for people in the team to think about other value add activities be it analysis, just more broadly building relationships with banks etc whereas up until that point had been head down work and then that naturally leads you to a place where, okay, other people in the team who can step up and new talent will bring new talent in. And there's obviously natural wastage as well. But the team then evolves very much with factors and just talk us through.

I touched on Inchcape. Can you explain who Inchcape are now, maybe who they were then? Because you went through, over the sort of 11, 12 years, whatever, what was the size of the business then and how did it grow?

So then it was about 26 markets. Yep. So Inchcape, the world's largest independent automotive distributor. Right. What that means is that Inchcape will operate in markets where the manufacturers find it too difficult or it's too small for them to operate themselves. So Inchcape would effectively run the brand for the manufacturer in such markets. A great example is in Chile. We represent everything from Porsche through to JLR to Volvo, BMW, Subaru, Suzuki, and there's also a long chain of Chinese brands there as well. So you think as a customer, you're dealing with one of those manufacturers that I've just mentioned in terms of going into the retail site and choosing your car, but in actual fact, it's Inchcape in the middle.

Yeah. And you talked about modernizing the Treasury. What were the easy wins? What did you underestimate?

I think there's been a bit of an underinvestment in treasury generally. So the role came about because Chris Davis had picked up financial control and treasury had no treasury experience or very limited treasury experience and was looking for somebody to support him on the treasury side of things. Treasury hadn't been particularly high profile for a period of time, probably a couple of years. There hadn't actually been a senior treasury person within the business. I won't name names, but they're certainly part of the banking group which were taking advantage of that, let's say, and therefore some really quick wins from my perspective, in terms of looking through tender various bits of work. So very quickly you can then start having conversation about, well, look, we've managed to unlock X, Y and Z. And actually what we really probably could do with it is a little bit more headcount, just underpin and actually operate more efficiently. Efficiently. As soon as you move to electronic trading, for example, you can demonstrate very quickly that you're getting a pretty good price in a much tighter price than you perhaps would have done if you're dealing on the phone. So again, you can redemonstrate the value add of treasury and then the conversation becomes much easier around, we now need to do a little bit of Investment.

And partnering and things like that move things forward. And you brought up the example of Chile, for instance. You operating in these global markets with complexity, you've got hard challenges there. Where I know when I've talked to some of my treasurers on the show before, they've got, well, this is our global policy, but this is the way it works locally. How did you get over those? How did they meet together?

Yeah, there's no. I think there's been big evolution really in treasury of the years when I joined Inchcape, effectively a team of two at the head office level. And while the head office hasn't really grown that much, there's a team of four who are London based. What we have done, because we've also been quite acquisitive, particularly in South America, we'll perhaps come on a little bit later on, is build out capability in market. So I actually have three heads of treasury or regional heads of treasury that sit out in the region. One based in Santiago in Chile, one based in Sofia in Bulgaria, covers Europe and Africa and one in the Philippines. And effectively the recognition on my part that as that business grew, when I joined Indecape, the Chile business or South American business was a 200 million pound turnover business, is now a 3 billion pound turnover business as a consequence of both organic and inorganic growth. We're not going to find people in London who can sensibly support treasury operations in Bolivia or in Peru. Capability understanding on the ground because we have a physical presence there. It's not like we're just shipping goods into that market. We actually got a physical presence there. We've got cash management requirements, we'll have requirements around customers bonds, we'll have requirements around foreign exchange, that's non deliverable currency there you have to deal with. Yeah, I suppose from my perspective what we have done at a global level is insisted on adoption of the treasury management system. So every year the same treasury management system. So yeah, there's consistency there. Everyone trades on Bloomberg. So again, we don't trade on phone, we don't compromise on that. And that's been a bit of a challenge in some markets over the years where it's been the banks have been less willing to. But certainly that's what we've pushed for. And as a consequence you still got very robust backbone and operating model. That certainly been times in the past where you have the audit and then the bank turns up and says, this is what we think your portfolio looks like. And then it's like, oh, we've got something different because it's maintained in a spreadsheet that doesn't happen anymore. That's not a thing. So it's just on global sort of standards in terms of the tech stack that you recognize that there are nuances at the market level.

And Alex, you've been involved. There's been so much financing M and A, it's a big part of your role. Talk us through some of the examples of that because that's been a challenging yet fascinating part of your job.

Yeah, look, absolutely. So I think the business, as most listed businesses have, is an RCF. I've been with the business for 12 years, so I've been through a few refinancing processes but certainly in more recent times. I talked earlier about being a cost out business when I first joined the M and a journey we embarked on probably from about 2017, 18 onwards. Deals were with hindsight, smaller at the time. They were quite meaningful sort of 200 million pound acquisitions. And then having developed relationships with the banks and having spoken theoretically about Akfin, it's then nice to be able to go back to the banks and actually have a conversation around what we might do to backfill, liquidity, headroom, et cetera. And on some of the smaller transactions, it's perhaps a term low, but certainly as we turned the corner out of COVID and we were facing into quite a large M and A transaction, class one transaction. Derko acquisition, having spent the time with banks over the years talking about the sort of theoretical big transactions, soft letters of support, et cetera, came to fore, if you will. So just for context, about 3, 2 and a half, 3 billion pound market capitalized market cap business. The Derko acquisition was 1.3 billion pounds. So it's a real transformational play for us in, in the Americas and was going to require a very significant financing package to go with that. My role as treasurer was to go and very confidentially speak to a couple of the banks in our banking group had expressed and shown interest in this in the past. We'd gone through a private rating process with Moody's about a year prior in anticipation of this particular transaction. So we knew where we were in terms of overall ratings, which is quite important because Intercape is quite a unique business. It's not a distributor, a pure distribution. It does multiple different product lines. It's automotive, it's not an oem. We sell cars and we've got retail I suppose in there as well. So it's a bit of a Venn diagram of different in terms of credit positioning, having Those conversations early with rating agency and helping them understand the business was absolutely critical. So what we wanted to get to in terms of rating and then went through obviously the process of the M and A transaction involved in diligence and supporting M and A team in relation to that and then getting your underwritten financing package in place, your Actin financing package in place and then the kind of clear structure in terms of what the takeout was going to be in. And for us that was a £600 million Axin financing package. It's going to be £400 million of cash, £300 million of equity that we did transactional and that £600 million was then split into a bridge to bond and a term loan to help us deleverage the business on a gross basis.

And in those where are the bits to watch out for? Where are the pressure points, if you like that, that you've been through this? What are the pressure points or the challenges that you face that you think other treasurers by the way, watch out for this and this.

I think it's making sure you've invested the time with your banking group. If you don't do that and you're on the back foot, you're not going to be calling the shots quite in the same way. I think you'll definitely pay over the odds if you're using your M and A advisor potentially. So you do need to have an understanding of where the market is. So when there is actually a transaction and they come to you with a ridiculous term sheet, you can the terms that they showed you six months ago and say well what's strange? And then you can get back to where you need to be. But I think being front footed about it is important. Having the trust with that with your banking partners as well is absolutely critical. So you can get a transaction away. I can't imagine having done it in a sort of a quick way. Certainly for Inchcapes it was a debut rating, it's a debut bond. So it's perhaps different. What definitely is different if you're in an organization that's constantly going to the bond market and constantly going to other financing avenues. But if you're, if it's your debut, you need to make sure you have your ducks.

And if you haven't got any activity in the fallow times, how do you maintain that?

Look, there's always things to talk about. I think a business such as K the bank will. Banks are always looking to present ideas to you in one shape or form. So I think. And you As a treasurer, need to steer that a little bit as well and make sure the banks understand your business and what your interests are. And so you can have the relevant and personal conversations. So they're coming to you with ideas. Build up around the what if scenario with the banks subliminally and then you can take things from there.

Talk us through other things that you brought in. You said you went from manual and it was. You were bringing it up to date, let's put it that way, with systems and things like that. Other challenges you found you've taken it from. From where it was and aim it for best in class. Which is. I know one of the key things you focused on.

I've touched on the pure treasury aspects in terms of trading and tms. The other thing that I pushed for and we implemented in the aftermath of COVID in particular was a global payment platform. What we then implemented was a solution with a provider called tis, a payment platform solution, which a very quickly gave me visibility around Cash. But also it was also the middleware that sat between our various ERP instances and the bank. So they were responsible effectively for managing the connection into the bank, which had two benefits. One is you've got to outsource that. In theory, moving banks is a little bit more straightforward and as a treasurer you sometimes have to do that because banks might want to lend to you more. So that gives you a little bit of flexibility. But it also, from a control perspective meant that we could have a very standardized suite of controls we could insist on. Yeah, you need to have two signatures for these sorts of payments. We can pre screen everything for sanctions before it even goes out the door to the bank. So you're not even having an old conversation with the bank. You have an awkward conversation with somebody within the finance team as to why a payment's being made. But you've kept your. You're not airing your dirty laundry inside, for example. Nor that's a particular feature. Useful thing to have within your sort of payment ecosystem. That's been a great thing to be involved with and certainly gives us a lot of insight around how cash moves around the business. And then you find out things which then leads to other projects where you optimize cash more. You can make sure that people are perhaps approaching their hedging in the right way because you can see what's actually happening in terms of flow across the account.

Yeah. And then with the future of treasury, how do you see it now evolving? Because there's been this massive evolution just the past few years. But in general terms, where do you see it going?

That's an interesting question. So I think it depends a lot on the organization. So, yeah, if you're a big sophisticated treasury function, you're naturally going to be a bit more at the cutting edge. What's happening, be it tech, certainly, but also the markets where you operate in. I mean, we operate in some markets where crypto things. We've got a business in El Salvador. Cryptocurrencies are legal tender in that part. It really depends a little bit on your business and where you operate as to what the future is. The regulatory burden and requirements is not going to get any less. You can't take steps back. You can't really be running any meaningful treasury function on anything but a good tms. I think what will be interesting is how things like stablecoin help treasury manage liquidity go forward. And we certainly have some conversations around that. And we have parts of the business which are challenges in terms of accessing liquidity in certain currencies. There are solutions out there where you can look at stablecoin, other things to help support and leverage that liquidity.

Your summary of that, if you like, because it's the hot topic, is when you and I go to conferences and I joke with a couple of treasurers this week that put AI on the end of any session and the room fills up. Whether it's about AI or not doesn't matter. But in a similar way, you put a stablecoin in there, they're like, oh, hang on, let's get in there. Crypto. What's been your sort of reflection on it?

I think it has a place in any treasury organization. It is relevant a person to the business. I think what I've learned over the years, particularly perhaps going from, yeah, sub C7, which had, yes, sophisticated treasury, certainly from an operational perspective, backbone going into a smaller organization, you're back on spreadsheets and you're dealing with continental European clients. Stablecoin is not really a thing. I mean, you can get the Wheaton Crane around to Norway without any difficulty. So I think it's horses for courses, really in terms of what's next for Treasury. But I think as a treasurer, you need to remain current and need to make sure you're investing the time and understanding how things are evolving and how that relates to your business. And not all of it will relate to your business.

And how have you learned about that? Is it going to all these sessions or. Because you're a busy treasurer, so on top of your day job, you're going to learn about blockchain and stablecoin and all this stuff. How do you balance it?

Look, it's a mixture of certainly looking at what the ACT have out there in terms of materials but a lot of it, to be honest, is through the relationship banking group. So the banking group is absolutely critical for the success of the business and heavily invested in you because they're in your wrong credit facility, they're looking for ancillary business but you need to spend the time with your banking partners and they will come to you with ideas and obviously know your business. The reason why certain banks are with you in your rcs because you operate in their own markets. Regulatory changes coming if there are new sort of products coming to market. That's really how I've kept up to date with that over the years.

And so for yourself, I mean what does the future hold? What other topic areas do you think treasurers need to keep an eye on? Or you as a Treasury leader, how are you developing yourself?

Great question. I think I've been fortunate in as far as the business that I've operated in has gone through a change over the last 10, 12 years. So as a consequence I have been forced to make sure I kind of remain current and have an understanding if we go acquire a new business in a new geography, I need to learn the curve pretty quickly in terms of what that looks like. So we do not operate in G10 markets, we operate in more exotic markets and with those markets comes complexity. So you need to be across that. But also particularly when you get to a certain sort of staging or your seniority within the organization, you're no longer the subject matter expert and your job is to make sure you have the right people in the right place to support the business. And I think that's a bit of a. Yeah, we kind of get recognise that and I suppose where ultimately I got to in terms of my regional treasury organisations at the day so only so much that we could do from London is actually quite important that we have the capability and also people in the right time zone frankly with the right language skills to support the business as we forward.

And just looking back, if someone you know, reflecting back over your career, you've gone as you talked about right at the beginning from being an analyst right the way through to now a treasurer for someone listening today, what would you. What should that. What should other people do to in a similar way?

Look, I think there's a few things and none of this should be come as a surprise. You need to be Curious. I think if you're not curious, you won't progress in your career. You need to be asking questions, you need to be taking an interest in things. No one's going to spoon feed you through your career. I think the other thing is, and linked to that I suppose is around there isn't a firm believer of this. There's no such thing as a stupid question. Right. You need to ask questions as you're going through and make sure that you have a thorough understanding of what it is you're doing because ultimately if you try and blag it at some point you will get all down. I think it's important that you invest in automating mundane tasks and manual tasks because only then will you get the headspace to do what I just mentioned about being curious and asking questions. If 90% of your day is involved in doing operational stuff, by the time you've got the last 10% of your quality headspace, you won't do any of that. And then finally investing in your network, that's. Yeah. Treasury is a relationship business and it's really important that you spend time with internal stakeholders for sure, but certainly the external stakeholders, your banks, having people who can help you for your projects if there's a significant change in your business, if you're doing a big M and a transaction, knowing who to pick up the phone to, having had conversations previously about how you might structure a deal, these are all absolutely critical. But by the same token, if business isn't doing so well, if you made investments in the relationships with your banking contacts, you can have those grown up conversations as well and that will be helpful in the context of ongoing support when things perhaps aren't going so well. So those are key things I would probably call out.

Well, I mean you've given a pretty good wrap up there. I mean, but this to wrap up the show, I mean maybe the, the takeaways from today, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes, but anything else or just your final words?

So I think, look, I think treasury is a fascinating part of finance and you get to see and get involved in many different things. And I think probably the key thing for anybody career wise is make sure you're getting things from your role that you need to get from your role. And if you're not, then perhaps it's time to make a move for something slightly different. Or call me or call Mike.

Thank you very much, sir. Very good. And again people, I'm sure people will connect to you and looking forward to seeing you at one of our next events as well.

Great. Thanks for.

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