Navigating the Complexities of Treasury with Pradipto Bagchi

Foreign.

To this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. And a special thanks to Flywire, our fantastic sponsors. If you've ever wondered whether there was a way to ease your international transaction hassles, they're the guys to talk to. Follow the link in our show notes. You can see me talking to my mate Greg Levin, their Senior VP of Sales. I get to ask Greg about who are Flywire and how they can help you and your treasury team with your cross border payment headaches. Just follow the link to the interview in today's show Notes. And now let's get on with the show. This week's show I'm joined by Predicto Bakchi, the Treasurer at Zimmer Biomet. Zimmer Biomet is a global medical technology leader with a comprehensive portfolio designed to maximize mobility and improve health. They advance their mission to alleviate pain, improve the quality of life for patients around the world with innovative products and a suite of integrated digital and robotic technologies. Founded way back in 1927. Based in Warsaw, Zimmer Biomet has operations in more than 25 countries. The sales in more than 100 countries I think. Amazing. I'll get Predicto to explain a little bit more about the company later on in the show. Particularly we'd had a call before about in the podcast about how it came through things like Covid and everything else. But we'll talk about that later on. What we're going to do as we do each and every week, I'm going to get Predicto on the line. But to take me back to the beginning of your career, Predicto, if you would, and how you first got started in finance and discovered the world of Treasury. Over to you sir.

Thank you Mike. Great being on the show with you. My career dates back to the late 90s. I graduated from engineering school and the first thing I realized after graduating is hardcore engineering is not for me, bad realization after having invested four years into something that you thought you would be a lifetime you would spend doing. So I went into consulting and technology. It was a great time to be in technology consulting. Worked for a variety of clients in North America across sectors and I love the work I did because it actually gave me insight into how companies could be similar and how companies could be different. But being a consultant, what that does is you go over there, you offer a solution, but you don't have to live with the consequences of the solution. It's not a happy place that I wanted to be in. The other thing was I have always believed that formal education was something that helped you. I was not sure how or why, but I believed in it. Being an engineer doing an MBA made sense because I knew nothing about finance at that point. I did not know there were three basic financial statements. The balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. That was how little I knew about finance entering into business school at nyu. And that was a great place.

Well, you say that you. So you and I know that we talked about this engineering to consulting. Was it then see finances the area for you? You realized that or was that, let's try this or what was this sort of feeling behind it? Again, this is for the listeners who might be in a similar situation.

I was very open minded. I knew that I would get something out of MBA school. I was not sure what. I was fairly open to disciplines like finance or general management. The idea was to surround myself with the best professionals out there, with the best professors out there in the best city in the world, New York, so that I would be better placed and better informed coming out of the program as to what I really wanted to do with my life, career. Right.

So you did your, you did your mba, talk us through that and what that gave you and because that then led you naturally into finance, didn't it? What happened next?

So I started my MBA August of 2001, downtown Manhattan. Worst that would do something like the September 11th was two weeks after I started. It was a very sobering experience seeing what the city went through, what people went through, what happened to the job market after that. A lot of realizations came upon me at the same time. One is the fragility of all our assumptions and how dependent we are on external circumstances in order to succeed in whatever it is that we are doing. The two years went by fairly quickly. The school was a great place because you had the ability to meet different people at different points in their career. And you could actually see if I go down this path, this is what my career will look like. And certain things attracted me like I love banking, but the one thing I was not sure about banking was tended to get very specialized. And number two, I could be out of a job because of the environment and not necessarily because I did not perform well. That did not fit very well with me. So where all this took me was I wanted to be finance career but doing different things over a period of time. And what that meant was I needed a large company or what we call an academic company that gave me different experiences early on in my career. And that's how I chose to go to IBM. At IBM, I was a part of their finance rotational program. I started doing some commercial finance and FP&A work. And then I have the chance to go into Treasury. And once I got into treasury, boy, that was like a drop. I loved what I was doing. It was very exciting. I was managing billions of dollars of cash. I was out there issuing debt in multiple in the capital market, dollars, yen Swiss in the bank market, in the bond market, euros hedging billions of dollars in interest rates. It was amazing, not just the exposure that I had in terms of what I was doing, but also the idea that what I did really mattered. And I had to present the CFO so early in my career. That, to me, was very nice.

I know I was gonna say. And you say that. And that's exactly the question I was gonna ask you very early on your career. And you're suddenly thrust into this in a great way for you. But how did you land that? Was it just. Here you go, here's this job in funding and investments at IBM or just. Or obviously it wasn't. So you came out with your mba. That's a great role to land, isn't it? How did that come about?

Being at nyu, I had the ability to talk to a lot of companies and IBM was one of them. I did my summer internship with at IBM, and out of that came a job offer. The first job was in commercial finance and FP&A. But I used that opportunity to meet different people within the company in areas that I thought would be interesting. Business development, corporate, FP&A and Treasury. What I found very surprising is when I randomly reached out to very senior executives asking for their time to understand what they were doing and if it would be of interest to me. They were very generous with their time. And I think this is where company culture comes in. I was very fortunate that six months within my first job in IBM, I had the ability to talk to a range of executives about what they did and put my name out there. So when an opening came up in treasury for the specific job, global funding and investment that I was looking for, I jumped on it.

Excellent. Great answer to an easy question. But I did that deliberately because recently there are sessions in New York and one of the things that came out from particularly actually the Second Night with Chris Cocaine Endeavor and Dana Leidhold and NASDAQ Is that networking piece? Is that the treasurers that seem to network the best, like yourself and like them, they, I said, we said on the panel, how did you get that job? I networked, I knew this guy or I was talking to this person internally, I was talking to this person. But it's not unnatural, not natural. But if you do, that's where you get the power, isn't it? So you got this through getting to know people. So I think that was amazing. And tell us more about the role and how it develops sort of things. You were there what, five years with IBM in total?

Yes, I was with IBM for five years, probably spent three and a half, four years in Treasury. My first role there was being responsible for their CP issuance, commercial paper and they had roughly a $5 billion program at that point and also for investing their cash which was anywhere between 5 to 10 billion depending on the time of the year. It was a very interesting time because the level of flexibility I had and the freedom I had really helped me develop as a professional. I took the IBM cash portfolio and started looking at other of what we could do with the cash to enhance yields, things like externally managed portfolios, looking at short term bonds. It is not something that was stuck to me. But you know, the fact that I went through an MBA program, I learned about these things, thought I could apply it over here, worked with other, my peers in other large companies who were doing similar things, bringing all those ideas to IBM. I thought that was great and I enjoyed doing it and I thought I'd do it forever. But my assistant treasurer at that point said nope, you're going to do something different. You're not going to be responsible for leading our debt issuance and hedging. And I did that again, great experience because I had been helping the debt issuance earlier on in my while I was doing the CPN investment but actually leading that, making the calls with the bank, deciding who to hire, deciding when to issue, how much to issue, going through the whole pricing process, the marketing process, I love that. And so I ended up doing that for around a total of 5 years at IBM. If you are in the IBM trading room, recruiters have your phone number. So I received a call to look at an opportunity at Pepsi which was actually going through a transition at that point from being a brand company with a light balance sheet to more of an operating company with bigger balance sheet. So they were looking to bulk up their capital market group and I joined there as the director for capital markets.

Most people should know Pepsi, but can you explain as you say the transition. So Pepsi was changing as a company. Can you maybe describe the company at that time? So this is 2008, just for again for the listeners. People are going to know who Pepsi are, but they might not understand Pepsi as it was structured, if that's the right way to put it.

To most people, Pesti is the name on the door. But it is a both a snack as well as a beverages company. And the snacks business is actually bigger than the beverages business. The company manufactures and distributes all the Frito Lay snacks worldwide. There is some outsourcing of the manufacturing, but mostly manufactured in hand beverages. On the other hand, when I had joined, the company was more about selling concentrate bottlers that were independent entities that went around then bottling and distributing the product. Bottling is extremely capital intensive. And the fact that Pepsi did not do that meant that there was less debt on their balance sheet. They did not have to have an asset heavy balance sheet. But that changed after I joined when they acquired North American bottlers and as a result brought significant debt on their balance sheet. And that's what I really brought to the table over the ability to do large debt financing. Soon after the Butler acquisition, that was followed by acquisition of a company called Wimbledon in Russia, which is the largest dairy company in Russia. Again, you're funding the acquisition of a foreign entity with a lot of other complex capital market activity that had to follow. For example, while we bought the shares back from the founders, you still have to buy the general shareholders out on a very specific Russell's guideline following through on the. On that, working with bankers in New York and London and in Moscow and making sure that things were done the right way at the right time. Very exciting for me. Yeah. And I think I did a good job because the treasurer then showed up in my office one day and said you're going to London to be in Europe Treasury. And I thought he was talking a couple of weeks here and there. But it was actually great expense opportunity. I went to London, soon became the trader for Pepsi in Europe. The Pepsi in Europe is expand from Iceland at one end and Kazakhstan and Siberia at the other. So you're working across numerous time zones in lots of different countries. And remember, distinguishing snacks and beverages are very low. You are selling your product locally. You have the truck that goes around dropping product store by store and maybe at the end of the day collecting two to three thousand dollars. That's how the company collects cash, which means you're collecting cash locally, you're depositing it in A bank locally, and then you're funneling it out. So treasury operations become very important in a company like this. The other thing about treasury, that tends to be very insulating, especially if your role is externally facing. You could care less where the money is coming from or how the company makes money, because you don't really interact a lot with that. So what this role did is expose me to the business, the nitty gritties of actually collecting cash and disbursing cash, but also engaging with the business in areas where treasury could add value, things like supply chain financing, things like capital allocation, things like capex. So I love this role because of what it allowed me to do.

I know that when we had our chat, you talked about this and how this sort of experience in Europe really broadened your experience. What was it like, the transition between New York to London? I know the weather. Beautiful. I was there and it was, it did. It does rain in New York, I've got to say. What was that like for you, getting that more international experience, if you like, at that stage in your career?

It was absolutely priceless. I would recommend it to anybody in any stage of their career. If I look back and if this did nothing for my career, it would still be absolutely worth it because professionally I learned a lot. My family enjoyed this experience. It's something that laughed with us for a lifetime. Yeah. Professionally, what I liked about it is I had the ability to travel all across Europe from Moscow to Cork, made friends and acquaintances across the continent, learned about the differences. People asked me, which are your favorite European cities? And I, in the list, I will always add Moscow, just because of the great friends I made there, the great food I had there, and just the ability to interact, learn about their culture. You know, to do it. We have the preconceived notion of what people are like, but then you actually meet people and it really changes you. I visited Moscow, I've visited Kyiv, I had friends over there. So it is a great professional as well as just personal experience. What it also taught me is the importance of being agile and responsive. One of the things that happened when I was there was the European debt crisis. So countries, one after the other, went into troubleshooting with Spain and Greece and Cyprus. Now, Greece and Cyprus are important because there was a point in time where there were actual capital controls in place and your ability to move cash was limited. Right. So that had real implications for treasury because it mattered how you were funding those countries, how you were making sure that operations were going, how people were getting paid, how Suppliers were getting paid. And that is when treasury worked very closely with the commercial business to make sure that we were able to supply and collect through the crisis. So I was very fortunate with the timing of my experience. But I learned so much about how external events can impact the company and how it's important that companies plan to be resilient for such uncertainties. And treasury is a function that can help companies do that. There's really no other function within finance that can help companies prepare to be resilient, to prepare for eventualities that come from external financial and capital markets. So, great time in Europe. All good things come to an end. I came back to New York for a role, similar role for Latin America, but now I also had global liquidity under my belt at that time. So I have nothing but good experience going to Europe and having worked over there.

Yeah, good news.

So back in New York, I worked a couple of, maybe work another 12, 18 months of Pepsi. Then I had this incredible opportunity to be the assistant trader for capital markets in Allergan. Allergan, as a lot of you may know, is famous for Botox, the drug, the miracle drug that helps not only for cosmetic effect, but also for a lot of therapeutic applications. People are surprised when I say that the therapeutic applications bring in more revenue than the cosmetic application. But from a Treasury perspective, this is a very interesting company. This is a company that went from a couple of billion dollars in debt to almost 44, $45 billion of debt in a very short period of time. And then it had a big divestiture that brought in a lot of cash and big capital allocation decisions had to be made. And I was in the middle of a lot of debt. And I had a great treasurer, a great boss who actually gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. Essentially, he would come in and tell me, look, Pradeepa, this is a problem we need to solve. Come back to me when you know what we want to do about it. So be it. Capital allocation, where we got 34 billion in proceeds from a divestiture, be it care, buyback, execution, using an ASR for an Irish company, that had never been done before. And the global tax rules were very complicated to make something like that happen. So I had the opportunity to do lots of different things, run large transactions fairly independently because my treasurer gave me the opportunity to do it. The way we ran treasury was extremely collaborative. I think of it as divide and conquer. But it was more of him coaching me, giving me the opportunity to do things on my own so that I could develop my career. I've been very fortunate with the kind of treasures who have been leaders for me. Every one of them has made it a priority to prioritize my career and to help me out when I needed to give me the opportunities that would help me grow. So I can't be thankful enough for these people for what they did for me.

Predicto for a moment you said that treasurer there gave you latitude if you like or gave you the opportunity to explore within capital markets. But I just wanted to zone in on that because again we talked about this before that a lot of people say I want to get debt capital markets on my experience, I want to do this. And so it's then they learn the rule book. But as you said, there is no rule book. Is that the right way to describe it? Because you see, it sounds like it was giving you all this. Just go and work it out. Just go and think about how we approach this. Which sounds slightly different to some of the other ways that it gets described by people.

Yes and no, Mike. Absolutely need familiarity with the bread and butter bond issuance that companies do. You know, 10 billion, 15 billion here and there in the dollar market, in the euro market, established market. I had done that earlier multiple times at IBM as Pepsi. So I had done those things. So the treasurer had a level of confidence in my abilities to execute. What alogin provided was newer problems that needed to be solved. Things like how do you do a big share buyback with an ASR in Ireland when there is no roadmap? How do you monetize shares of a public company that you own without upsetting the share price and at the same time minimizing for us working with bank and unique structures that have not been done. So for example open market sales, you just do some sort of what we call a reverse structure that we worked with banks to come up and not other and other companies had not done before. So nothing happens overnight. You have to build on skill one after the other. And capital market is fascinating because the starting point is debt issuance in the dollar and the euro market. But it doesn't stop there. You need those things to be able to do more complicated things because you appreciate the market dynamics, you understand the advice that you're getting from banks, you're able to discriminate the conflicting advice that you may be getting from different banks. And I think by the time I was at Allergan, my treasurer knew that I had enough of the foundational detail in order to pull this. So it was a combination of Both my background and for whatever reason he thought that he could trust me to pull this out.

So you worked through that role. You were there for nearly four years. What then led to the next role or what happened Next?

Allergan in 2020 was acquired by a company called AbbVie, the makers of Numera. It was a great transaction, I think $66 70 billion. But for me to have a meaningful career I would have to move to Chicago. And that was not something I was prepared to do at that point. And I felt that I was ready to step up to be to lead a Treasury organization, but not just any treasury organization. To me what makes treasury interesting is complexity. And complexity comes from how much debt do you have, how much interest rate exposure do in there, how strong are your ratings? Is there any risk coming out of the ratings that the treasurer needs to handle? How international is your company? What kinds of effect exposures do you have? The more complex a Treasury organization or the underlying financials, the more interesting it is. And that's how I decided to take on an opportunity that came for Zimmer Biomet. Because Zimmer biometric is roughly $8 billion in sales. So you're not as big as an Allergan or a Pepsi, but the same level of complexity. And Zimmer at that time was also going through some ratings challenges. They had a large acquisition in the 201415 timeframe which actually drew the leverage fairly high relative to where it needed to be for its investment grade rating. But the delevering was not happening so they were under negative watch. And the first thing that the treasurer had to do was stabilize that and convince stakeholders that the capital allocation is part of the solution to fixing the balance sheet and why fixing the balance sheet is important.

So just going I know at the header of the show I explained that Zimmer Biomet is a global medical technology leader and all that. The corporate statement can you translate what the company is the layperson if they.

Don'T really know them? So Zimmer Biomet is a musculoskeletal health company based out of Warsaw in Indiana. They've been around for almost 100 years. A lot of people would have had encounters with Zimmer Biomet products without even knowing it. So Zimmer is the leader in when it comes to implant hip, knee. Then we used to have a spine and dental portfolio which we divested a couple of years back. But we also have upper extremities, lower extremities, post and trauma products. So it's the Entire range of musculoskeletal products that you may need when the bones have either deteriorated due to age or because of trauma.

Yeah, and you join there and what dates? Because I think this is very relevant to the story, if you like as well.

Sure. So I joined Zimmer in June of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. But that was a very interesting time for Zimmer because you may recall that was when Covid had just started. The first thing that happened was that all the hospitals were shut down for elective procedures because they were preparing for the tsunami of patients with COVID that were going to come through the healthcare system. Now when you think of a joint replacement, be it your hips or knees, they are elective. Nobody is dying tomorrow because they couldn't get a joint replaced. People can wait. All elective surgeries were canceled. But 80% of Zimmer Biomet's revenues come from elective surgery. The company was essentially staring at revenue cliff. We do not know how long, we did not know how deep, but we knew it was coming. Now, just before I joined in March of 2020, this is when the hospital shutdown started and Zimmer was facing a billion won of maturity in April of 2020. It was the liquidity trap that the company was navigating through. But fortunately they took the right decision to go ahead and get the financing out of the way without taking into account the cost of the financing. That was the nature of Franklin. When we look back, hindsight, that was the right decision. And that is one of the many decisions that were taken that actually help the company survive because of the liquidity that it gave. When I joined again, it was the height of the pandemic. Liquidity was at a premium and we had to decide how do we make sure that we have enough cash in the company to keep the operations going. Fundamental business is down. We knew that elective surgery will come roaring back. Covid does not cure arthritis. So people with the degenerative state, the patients with the degenerative conditions, would need our product at some point. The idea was to make it through till that patient population came through the funnel again. We looked at our revolver and we increased the size of our revolver from one and a half to two and a half billion. Because we wanted to make sure that not only were we able to fund the operations of the company absent any revenue input, but all outlooks happening anyway. That's number one. And number two is any bond maturity that may be happening along the way. A difficult market to get it done. It's a times like these that you find out which of your banking partners actually prioritize you. Because we needed capital, they were taught of capital, they had to prioritize capital. And we were fortunate that several of the banks that we thought were our friends really came back, came through for us. This is also the time when a lot of the company actually realized a there was a Treasury function because the fact is in most companies people don't know that E Treasury exists and B even if they do, they're not sure what they do. The second thing that people in our company realized how critical it was for us to have our investment grade credit rating because that is what allowed us to access the capital market under such stressed circumstances and get the capital that we did to stay afloat. So my priority as treasurer was to make sure that we got our leverage, that we prioritized our capital allocation towards paying down debt and right sizing our balance sheet. We did that and over a period of time we got the negative watch taken out. We added a Fitch as a third rating and over time we stabilized our rating to MIT bbb. It took a lot of commitment on part of the management team to allocate scarce capital to the balance sheet to make this happen. And this only happened when management looks at treasury as a strategic partner and not just as an operational partner. It was a great experience for me as a treasurer. It was a validation of everything that I taught a good treasury function should be and should do, especially in times.

Of credit and talk me through. Then we talked about treasury plus if you like, sort of investor relations, how you and I love this treasury plus thing. I've actually used the treasury plus phrase a number of times. People have said to me where do you see treasurers and what have you seen from the podcast? And I've actually talked about what I call treasury plus And treasury plus to me is when I first started my treasury recruitment career, treasurers just did their treasury box. They went in their office, that's what they did. And then they spent all this time trying to get involved with the business and reach out to other people. Fantastic. What to you is treasury plus and what does it mean?

Treasury plus to me is a very amorphous term. Right. It is anything outside the treasury area that a treasurer or his team members or his or her team members get involved in order to add value A to the company and make Treasury a better partner for the company in the long run. It would come from several areas. The most natural, especially for debt heavy companies are Investor Relations, FP&A, and to some extent even the commercial financing. When it comes to things like payment terms, supplier financing, et cetera, business development and strategy are another very core function treasury must work with effectively. Now clearly treasury leading these areas. But a treasurer needs to know everything that's happening in these areas. So for example, in my role I work very closely with the investor relations team in understanding our story, in crafting our story and then delivering that story to our debt investors, equity investors and to the analysts. That makes me a better treasurer. Because when I put my treasurer only hat on and think of capital allocation, I know what the strategic priorities of a company are. Because at the end of the day a good treasurer makes sure that the balance sheet of the company is there to support the strategy of the company. It can support the capital allocation required to make that strategy happen. Not just this year, not just next year, but over this five, six year horizon that companies typically plan for. And the more a treasurer knows what the strategy is, the more he's involved with areas like investor relations and fpa, especially when it comes to long range planning. That makes for a better treasurer. When I think of a treasurer's role there are the operational aspects. You absolutely have to get that right. No questions there. You don't have the ability to get any of that from the way I joke around quite often as other functions make a mistake, nobody notices. If treasury makes a mistake, you'll read about it back in the front pages of the journal. That's how important the work we do is.

I'm loving this. I'm shutting up. And this is the world of treasury according to predict. That was bloody brilliant. Carry on.

So a lot of companies see treasury really as an operational function where you keep the liquidity flowing, you issue debt as required without really putting a lot of thought why of it. They take instructions and they do it and they do it really well. Right. But others are structured more as treasury being seen as a strategic partner. And that's where treasury plus is really important. And I think those are the treasury functions that over deliver. I think those are the companies that are better off for the treasury engagement. And in my career what I have seen and also in my interaction with other peers is companies where a lot of the Treasury, a lot of the talent circulates through treasury are the companies that are seen as called academy companies or where the finance overall, the general finance talent is seen as seasoned and well rounded because they've been through Treasury. So I always encourage people a, if you want to be in treasury all your life. Great. I can understand why. But even if you have no interest in treasury, but you want to be a good cfo, you want to be a good divisional cfo, spend a couple of years in a Treasury, it will open your eyes. You will learn something that stays with you and is valuable to you for the rest of your career.

This is golden. And this is exactly what the podcast is about. I'm just. I'm literally. You're on fire, sir. This is brilliant. And you're talking about teams and we're talking about people. I think that was one of the other things you and I talked about that you've already covered there, about board engagement and everything else, managing global teams, that's obviously another key challenge facet of being a global treasurer and everything else. How do you do it? Again, for the listeners, they might be other treasurers or more senior staff in the desk, having to coordinate these teams across all the continents. How do you do it? Or any tips for me, to me.

That is one part of my job that I probably enjoy the most. Naturally. I like meeting people from different backgrounds, different cultures. I like people who speak a language that's not a language that I particularly know very well, be it English or something else. So you have to be curious about the world around you. It should fascinate you. It's something that really that you could enjoy. If you don't do that, International treasury and managing international teams is not for you. So one of the things that I try to do, and it's possibly treasury, because international treasury teams tend to be smaller, maybe about 50, 60 people top. And it's not hard to know these people one on one, even if you have met them for 10, 15 minutes. I take the time to travel to where these people are located, where my team members are located, meet them in person, over dinner, over lunch, in casual environment, try to understand where they come from, try to understand the country that they live in, the food that they eat, and that creates for a much better engagement and a much better feeling. What I tell them is reach out to people, meet them if you can, talk to them if you can. Because if you have met somebody, the chances are you send them an email, they're not ignoring it. You call them, they're probably picking up the phone. It is very important for geographically disparate teams to talk to each other, to engage with each other as much as possible, in person, virtually as possible. But that is the time. Now, when I look back upon my time in Pasica, Europe, I don't recollect a lot about the work that I did. This was important, but I know the big things that I did, the little things, not so much. But what I do remember are the conversations we had over dinner, that Uzbek restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Moscow where we had some great kebab. That always stays with me. And that is what I think makes a great international treasury team. When you have members who can reach out, understand where people come from, where leaders who are who travel to actually meet the team members so that they feel that the leader in the setting in New York is actually accessible. That's a great organization. Of course it comes with travel budget requirements and that can be tough in a lot of times. But treasurers need to prioritize that and make their CFOs understand why this is important.

And I think it also transcends just the treasury team per se. But what I mean by that is I've just done these couple of events and I was so excited about them because I was actually seeing people face to face. It was actually pressing the flesh exactly as you said and embodied their predictor. You're actually meeting people. People want to be back. If Covid taught us one thing, we are, we are sociable animals. We want to be having that kebab, having that chat with them face to face, that's what makes it different, doesn't it? And that's what treasury is all about.

Well, absolutely. I joke with my team and it's been a while that I've been back to an office on a regular basis and what I truly miss is bad cafeteria food. Brilliant.

We won't tell the cafeteria stuff because otherwise when you do go in there next time. That said, they won't serve you, albeit I'm conscious of time, I could just carry on going. But you're a very busy treasurer. We are going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can connect you on. I know that there will be a raft of things coming through there as well, but if you like the takeaways for today's show, this is what we do each and every week about. Maybe if you're early stages of your career, you've given some great advice there already. But any wrap up pieces of advice that you can give to junior staff, mid level, senior staff, maybe two or three different what are the key things takeaways you'll give to people today?

I think the first thing that I learned and maybe realized later on in my career is that it's actually good to say I don't know or good to ask very simple stupid questions because those are the ones that Ellis said. Great insights. Early on in your career, you're afraid to ask those questions. And that fear doesn't really go away even when you're assistant treasurer or treasurer, because regardless of where you are in the corporate hierarchy, there's always somebody above you that you want and you're afraid of saying I don't know or afraid of asking a question that may be stupid. Don't do that. That's the way people sabotage their career. You will learn the when you ask those questions fearlessly, you may look stupid months, but you look smart in the long run.

Fabulous.

Keep an open mind. When I look back at my career, I thought engineering was the thing and four years later not so much. I went into consulting and joined it. But then again, it was not for me. I did not want to go into finance because my father was in finance. He laughed when he looks at my career now because the last 20 plus years I haven't been in finance. Every time I went to an area that I did not know a lot about, but people said, good, try it out. It has always been great. In the process I learned not just what I liked, but I also learned what I did not like, which is very important because it becomes very clear to you very soon what you would want your career to be. Don't try to make your career what somebody else's career is because it looks great. Every career is unique and it's shaped by both your personal circumstances, country circumstances, and by economic circumstances. Try to make the best of what you have and trust me, you will end up with a career that you'll be very proud of.

Fantastic. I'm going to. I'm going to leave you there because those are some great closing remarks. Predicto. Thank you very much. What a great podcast today. I really enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you next time I'm in New York and it'll be great to catch up over, as you say, a compatible or something else. But no, look forward to seeing you sir.

Thank you so much, Mike. It was great talking to you today.

Thank you sir. Thank you very much for listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Wanted to catch up with you at the end of today's podcast to invite you to join us in 2024 at one of our Treasured Career Corner live events throughout the us, throughout Europe, throughout the uk. So we're going to be right the way across and we start the world tour for Treasure Career Corner Live in New York on Wednesday the 6th and Thursday 7th of March. You don't want to miss them. You're going to be there. If you're in New York, please look it up. Register. You've listened to the podcast, you can actually get to meet some of the guests live. You get to meet me live. I've kind of everything. But anyway, no, I hope you'll come and join us. Talking treasury careers. Each event starts at 6:00 clock with registration 6:30 to 7:30. I meet with the guests, I talk to them on a live panel. It's live version of the podcast, after all. And then we do networking drinks. So the first one, say in New York in Times Square, then we actually move on. We've only got 65 people per night that. So we're booking up with as I record this, we're over 60% full on one of the nights, 55% full on the second and then we're hitting the road. We're doing Treasure Career Corner live in cities across the us, UK and Europe. We'll be at Kyriba Live in Las Vegas, we'll be at texpo in Houston. We're also stopping off in Dallas and then we've got other of our own events in Chicago, London, Athens, Luxembourg, Frankfurt. What could be better? So if you keep an eye on the website, we'd love to see you there. Keep an eye out for dates and venues. We're coming to a city near you. If you want to connect with us, just reach out to me. Can't wait to see you in 2024. Treasury Career Corner Live the World Tour. See you soon.

Sa.