Next-Generation Treasury Talent & Succession Planning Strategies

Welcome to this week's Treasure Career Corner podcast where usually I talk to treasurers about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and treasury profession going to next. This is a different show. It's come from a live session I did where I moderated a session at the 34th Euro Finance International Treasury Conference in Budapest. I was joined by the amazing Winnie Lee, Group treasurer at ppd, A Thermo Fisher company and Ellen Corner Leeson, Treasury Director Europe and Asia at Filtration Group. Know the ladies very well. Winnie has been both a podcast guest and a Treasure curriculum, a live guest on my live tour and we got sessions coming up actually in London and Amsterdam. So we'll put a link to those in the show notes. So come join us for those. And also Ellen Cornelisen, we placed Ellen at Filtration Group. Both gave me some big shout outs and saying you guys should all be listening to the podcast. Thanks very much ladies. But together we spoke about next generation treasury talent and succession planning strategies. I know big title, but actually what we were talking about how in today's competitive professional environment, securing the future of your treasury team means more than just technical expertise. You've got to be a strategic succession planner, you've got to have a commitment to helping develop the people in your team for next generation talent. So that's what we were talking about as well. We also looked at how they identified and nurtured future leaders in their team. So you'll get some great practical advice on that and it help you build a strong pipeline of treasure talent within your own teams. And if you're one of that team, you know, and you're thinking right, how can I coach my boss upwards? How can they help me? Well this will give you some more advice as well. So it's really there to help you whatever stage of your career as well. So whether you're planning for leadership transition or building the bench strength or you are part of that bench and you want to make the next step, this episode is going to help you with some essential tools to ensure continuity and growth in your treasury function. If you're listening and you're, you know, just enjoying the episodes, please give us a shout out or give a us give us a thumbs up rating on either Spotify or Apple itunes, wherever you do it, or a lot of people are actually doing it on YouTube. So wherever you are, please give us a rating there. Really appreciate it. But as I say each and every week, let's get on with the show. Welcome this afternoon to our session about treasury talent here in Budapest. Firstly, I'm going to ask for your energy and enthusiasm. I know it's after lunch, I know you're still waking up and I'm not going to have a go at Julia, but we will wake her up in a minute as well, because I'm going to ask. Although we're going to have. Actually, Wendy, can you go to the slido, please? Is she there? Yes. There you go. If you want to ask questions, and I would suggest you do, because when was the last time you got to ask questions? Two amazing treasurers and a Treasury recruiter about your talent. Questions you haven't. You don't get a chance to do this. So what you can do is scan the QR code. This is the last time you're allowed your phones, except for if you're putting in a question. If you're doing a deal, get out and you swap. You should be doing that on your laptop. But the reason is because give yourselves this time, you're going to get to listen to these great treasurers talking about talent. I'll chip in a little bit as.

Well.

But if we go back to who we are. There you go. Come on, Wendy. Go back to who we are. So these people know, because they don't know otherwise. Wendy there? She's there. Great. So who am I? I'm Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. Have been doing for. Been a Treasury recruiter, actually, nearly 30 years. I love talking to you. Treasury professional. I love it even more when you move to other jobs, because I can send out a bill. But how did I get into this? As well as doing treasury recruitment, I also host a podcast, Treasure Career corner. We've done 400 episodes. Winnie has been one of my guests. Ellen will be a future guest. She doesn't know that, but I'm getting that on tape. Four hundred guests last week marked seven years. And Tony Massone, Global treasurer of Amazon. So, really worth listening to if you want to become successful in Treasury. That's enough from me. I'm going to let each of my guests explain who they are, give you a quick introduction and we will have time for Q and A. We might do some on the slide, but we might actually do more with you guys here in the audience. Over to you, Vinnie.

Sure. Thank you. Thanks, Mike.

Indeed.

I would say Mike's podcast is amazing. Do listen to it. And you learn a lot from the podcast and from lots of talents we see worldwide, really. So my name is Winnie Lee, so I work for a Company for ppd. It's a CRO clinical research organization and we are part of a Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Listed company. And the company is very big. It's about 130,000 employees worldwide and about 42 billion annual revenue. US dollars, 100 billion assets. The company is actually very global. As a group treasurer I've been actually working for the company for almost 20 years. Time really flies really when you're enjoying yourself. So helping the company do IPO and sell to the PE companies, sold it twice and then listed that again and then actually sell ourself to Thermo Fisher. So I've been really the roller coaster and all the rides through the company learned a lot and then truly, really truly enjoy it as well.

Yeah. Ellen Cornelissen I work for a filtration group in Switzerland but I actually belong to the corporate office in Chicago. I'm responsible for treasury in Europe and Asia and by the way as a small advertisement got my brilliant job through Mike so I can recommend him all the time. Our company is called Filtration Group. Nobody knows us which is totally fine but anyone probably has some stuff we produce in your watches, in your cars, we do air filters, water filters, purifiers, clean rooms, anything with filters and membranes is what we produce. We're a global company, not that big as Winnie's but we have about 7,000 people, $2.4 billion turnover and I managed about 150 companies in my regions so quite a bit. And also the topic for today is interesting because I'm getting towards the end of my career. We are actively looking in career planning and succession planning so hopefully I can share my thoughts on this with you and help you with it.

Okay Winnie, if you would can you explain the structure of your team maybe globally treasury wise and then we'll do the same with yourself and then because yours covers more you focus again although you work remotely, you've got a global team but in particular for our title here you hear the phrase next generation treasury talent what that actually means in the context of your teams over to you.

Yeah, sure. So giving the global nature of our business. So our treasury team are global as well and then they actually located in the US even in the US the various different centers, Pittsburgh and San Diego, Boston and North Carolina and then we also have in Bulgaria and then in the UK So currently we don't have anyone in Asia pac but we actually managing equally matrix system to us although it's actually they actually in different region but actually everyone's role is Global. And so we actually really trying to promote making sure everyone have a global reach, understanding global issues. We wherever you are sitting regarding the question is that next generation. And then I think first thing pop in my head is they're young, they're enthusiastic, they are actually very tech driven, tech savvy. And then also they to contribute to a purpose which is really intriguing. And then also the things actually I tried to build is actually wanting to make sure they have a curiosity to learn and then to continue to be adapt to this changing world.

Before we come to yourself and you and I, when we spoke from the podcast, you talked about going into Lockdown and Covid and things like that. And obviously we're at the center of things, but you and I on the podcast was pilots. It's all right. You had your team before, you then recruited some people, but then you did have quite the same people on the bus afterwards what happened? I know you and I describe it.

Yeah, it's quite interesting because during the COVID we definitely hired people who actually joined. During the COVID the only interaction you have is on the team and zoom. So literally you haven't actually built that gentleness in the team. So I think and then very surely you find the people actually you recruited are working with before COVID always stays with you. But during the COVID and they easily to feel like, oh, I just need to quit and change because they haven't actually really truly become part of a team. Hasn't gelled as much as everyone else. But we're always adaptive so we're actually changing our ways regardless where you are, how you're actually working, regarding whether we see you or not, we try to build a team atmosphere and culture. Yeah.

And how do you do that over to you?

The approach has changed over the years. In the past, it used to be that you hire people with a finance background with an ACT certificate or an AFP certificate. And I still like that both as the basics of doing so. What I'm looking for, and use the word curiosity, is I've hired a lot of people who are curious in wanting to learn. And my thought is that I'm looking more at if do the people fit into the team. I manage a lot of teams in a lot of cultures and a lot of countries. So being that round person that can work both with Asian people but with European people is important. And my approach is that if you're willing enough, people can be taught a lot. If people are curious, they're willing to learn. And a couple of the best Hires I have had in my career were people who were interested. So at the current stage, let's call it phasing out of my job. And we're looking as well to see if we can get young people in, not necessarily with the typical treasury background, but rather with some background in. Let's go using Power bi. At the moment, we're interested in developing things as well. So having a curious mind is extremely important, I think.

So when we had our briefing call for this session, we had a. We changed the title, by the way, guys, because we felt was more. Because there was some more discussion about planning. When you're retiring as a treasurer and you're talking about stepping out of the profession at a later stage. But we said, look, that's not appropriate. We're talking about what if you're moving a Treasury analyst to a manager. And the contribution I had at the time was I was trying to explain to people what's in it for me and tried to say to me as a recruiter, what has changed throughout the time is you would go to someone with a Treasury analyst with the next move to a Treasury manager and they go, here's a great opportunity, here's great. And then in the past, I'm great. What's the salary? Great. Okay, now it's a different set of questions. What's the hybrid working policy? Do I get lunch? What's the pension? And this goes back to an example and I gave this to the ladies as well, that my daughter, now 25, but when she was 16, worked in a restaurant. She said, oh, dad, what else do I get? I said, you get a job and they pay, you don't get a pension. I went, you're 16, love you like you don't need. What other benefits do I get? And then we were talking about the fact that was a different. That was a shift for us. And I was going to put it back to yourselves. I'll start with Winnie here. That succession planning, how do you do that with the different members of the team? How do you motivate those guys?

Yeah, I actually believe succession planning is not just for people about retire. It's really need to build into the organization structure from day one and then literally design your team with succession planning, making sure every role, every task there is actually someone else can do it. Because the global nature of our business, everyone at different locations, but pair people up regardless where they're sitting. And then you will find. And also one thing to point out is in my team we have someone as young as 23. And as old as 64. And then it's quite interesting, especially the 64 year old was saying, well, you're 23, I joined the company long before you were born. So actually you see the generations and so on and the team them up are doing different project, mini project together. You really, truly find they learn from each other. And then really later on I think we're going to talk about AI as well, which is actually really interesting to see what sparks off. Don't underestimate the youngsters, but equally don't underestimate someone who's older. They equally want to learn and I think spark that culture of learning, building into your structure, learning each other. And also we have this rotation planning as well, apart from succession planning. It's a rotation, everyone do different roles and then switch and swap by request, by discussion, by consultations, through annual performance reviews and so on, so forth. So then actually build this kind of a safe environment and people can actually reach out, ask questions, think about my career, how they want to do things and also understand your team, what they need as well, which is very important.

It's similar with us that we try to, when we hire people, we do some sort of summer internships where we get people from universities who work for us, we try to get some projects in. I had a team last year when we did some bank migrations, we hired people and we tried to pick people also from the university who are keen and also very important is that there's role changing. So we'd like to have people work in different teams in different departments before they in the end decide themselves where they want to end up for a while. And that gives a great background and it's a great learning process because by doing that they get to know all the stakeholders in all the teams are just not only focused on finance or treasury, but also get to learn to know the operation people. And I think that's a well rounded structure you can set up for your people and also to see people grow and give them a chance to grow. And I think that's one of the most important things, is that you set up people in your teams to grow into roles and that might not be one you want them to have, but rather that they find out what is the role they want to go for and that changes. I'm not a original treasurer, I'm a linguist. I like giving people the chances to find out where their true happiness lies in work and not. You're now in FP&A. So you're sticking to FP&A but have a sniff around and see what you can do. And I think that's a great opportunity in companies you can offer to your people to find out who they are and what they want to do.

And how do you then prioritize on the job training versus more formal education? Because a lot of these guys will do treasury qualifications wherever they might be, across Europe and the uk, but versus actually on the job, how do you prioritize?

I still like ACT or AFP trainings. That's a basic training. It's done me a lot of good. I've done it myself. I like people to have that sort of base knowledge and they can work from there. For me, you don't need to have an MBA. I've seen the opposite with people with MBAs who thought they know it all. I've seen people coming in who didn't have any finance background, who did the corporate treasury training. They grew, they blossomed. So it depends on the person as well. But I personally do that ASP ACT training as a good grounding to start for your career in Treasury.

But all the talk in the hall is about technology and AI. If we said, if I had a pound for that, I wouldn't be here, I'd be very rich, sitting on a beach somewhere, because it's the buzzword. How do you then. Technical training and stuff. How do you do that? And then we'll come back to yourself when accelerating.

I think it's again getting back to curiosity and AI is here to stay. I use ChatGPT quite a bit, especially for writing policies, which I hate. So I dump it into ChatGPT and get some stuff out. You all know that you do need to check what they're writing because it can be totally off, but I used that for policies. I have one colleague who's brilliant in power bi. So we use each other to learn and to teach each other. I'm not that good in power BI yet. My colleague is. It's again a team training. You support each other, you learn from each other and for me, that is a great part, because then again, people grow. You can see where people want to go to and you learn what's new in the market.

Yeah. I presented the New York Cash Exchange two weeks ago. Yeah, crazy. And we were talking about ChatGPT with the audience and actually someone said, I want to use it. And they said, but it's not giving me the results. I said, yeah, because you're putting in and not asking the right things. I said, because all that chat GPT is It's distinctly average. I says it's completely average. And they weren't getting it. I said look, if you say you want a sandwich, make me this kind of sandwich great and you'll get the average of everything. I said made me one that's made by Gordon Ramsay. The best of the best. It's a totally different ingredient. And they went, oh yeah. And it was just like their eyes. Now I know with training, with AI, what was it you said here? Learning never stops. Look at this go to you.

Yeah, it's so true actually learning never stops really. Maybe just step back a little bit. The global company I'm working for, the cup know top down, everyone passionate about AI, which is amazing because you have that top leadership team who are passionate about AI and wanting to seek the best solution for our customers. Then actually that's investment there. And then we got digitization department which is actually amazing team to work with and then collaborating obviously with them. We had our close cloud AI solution just for the company. 120, 130,000 employees. It's a lot of people actually using it. We do actually our competitions and then literally to look at which department use the most. And then they actually, in fact they said for work you're not allowed using normal ChatGPT, you'll have to use companies solution. So at the moment it's a gen AI. And then we just got the ChatGPT enterprise installed which is starting to use.

And just to ask you, so for this audience here, what if they don't have access to a closed system? I know Dan Ferguson was in insurance or insurance actually, but they had a closed system and he was able to chuck some questions at it, get answered in seconds. That was great for him. But one of his colleagues, one of his ex colleagues who was another insurance didn't have that. How would these guys approach that? Would you say?

Yeah, I think there's two side public AI and versus private let's say. And then I think be careful what you put in. So that's another thing from Clinical Research Organization. The PPD is serving in lots of data is actually private and then there's a patient data ID you cannot refer to. They cannot put any like the protocol number in there in case implicating to the the public domain and you know, leaking the private privacy. So be careful what you put in. And at the end of the day the AI at the moment is really developing and developing really fast. The more you put in is they're helpful for generating good answers coming back. However, validation humans do actually that you are in the driving seats and the output, the responsibility and the ownership is you. You are the one driving this. And then regarding our team, how we encourage the learning is that we actually at our. We have a social. Go back to what you're talking about during the COVID we started that we have not stopped it. I think we're still good to keep is that we have this social team meeting once or two weeks. So regardless of where you are, we have this show team meeting. Nothing you can talk about relating to work. You talk about anything else. So doing this and anything else. We talk about the AI tools you use for outside work and then what do you do? And then people talking about that holiday planning they did. They how they schedule their children's schedules and then how to actually put in their children's timetable. They have three children put all the timetable in this AI tool and how to combine into one combine it. And also saying what you need to take to school every day because this activity happens. So that's small little things. You build that environment. And also the other thing I think is lead by example. And then I tell my team where I go to do further learning. I did the Oxford AI course. I really find that very interesting. And then I come back and the share the information learned to the team and say, oh, that's how everything come about. Why is AI what we going in the next 10 years and 50 years and then what potential would be? And then if you nurture that safe environment, everyone want to learn, then actually inspire to each other and then positive cycle will go around. Yeah.

The one input from my side on AI is that AI is nice and it's lovely and it's going to be the next step in the world. On the other hand, working in treasury, you need different things as well as in you need to work with your banks. AI is not going to help you. You need to work with your teams. AI is not going to help you. So I love AI, I use AI, but I won't lose track of the fact that there needs to be communication, that you need to work with people, that you need to be able to get contracts in place if you negotiate with banks. So it's one line. It will be a gradual change and I saw that on the board. So don't. For me, it's also in going forward is don't forget the soft skills, as in needing to work together, work as a team, but use whatever you can to make your job easier. I use AI to do things I hate and I Tell my teams anything. You can program it because it's something you don't want to do. So take away all the nuisance work, take away all the grunt work and rather that gives you a chance than to concentrate on projects, on strategy, et cetera. So for me, AI is a tool to develop teams, but also to take away grunt work. If you would still do reconciliation by hand, I don't know, nobody does that anymore, I hope. But it's use that to your advantage to free up your time and learn more and, yeah, develop more.

And talking about learning of things, you guys are here for two, three days. You're going to learn some things and you're going to go back to your office and you're going to throw your bag in the corner and you're going to get your badge and you throw that in the bin and say, great, look, let's go out into Barcelona next year. Hey, what are you going to take away with yourselves? Just when you're on the plane, on the way back or just grab your phone, not now, I'm watching your way, but on your phone, some notes over the next couple of days, maybe tonight before the drinks, just like these ladies have told you, One learning point for today, one for tomorrow and then share it with your team when you get back. Number one, it'll be easier to come back to Euro Finance. So Wendy, thank you for the shout out, trying to help her, but you will be able to, oh, we came back. I learned this. Let's implement it as a team. And that's one of the key things. So if you follow me, I do a weekly newsletter which I've been made to do. I hate doing it, but the fact is I share some of the learnings I get from you guys that I enjoy because one of the key things is when we get back from the conference is try and give some of that learning. You're soaking this all up. I know there's also soaking up lots of the beers later, but that's a different story. Going back to you ladies, you talked about experimenting with new tools. How does that affect engagement with your team? If again, these guys are coming to learn about how you engage your other treasury talent, how do you do it?

I think let people share their learning. That's quite important. And then from nothing is too small because if you save your time and make your work more efficient, more effective, share it. Saving 20 minutes, 30 minutes is a saving time and you could actually get on with more value added activities. So definitely. And also team, also look at a New tool, a new system get them provide honest feedback. Not just a positive but also negative. What is actually had to avoid and what you need to validate to make sure this new tool is actually really useful for you. And how you use it is quite important. Like you would talk about the prompts, how you put in the prompts and then how to structure your question when you're actually trying to fully utilize that tool in the maximum capability and make sure that some team member who might be scared of learning any new things and giving them more space and more time to adapt because some people might be very quick. Oh I get it two seconds. Oh just this. But then some people may need that 10 minutes to even think through and to understand how that output is. It's quite interesting to see people's reaction when they're actually introducing something new. Just literally some people's eyes just light up. Wow, that's amazing. I want to just die in to do it. But some is that I need to try it before I test it, before I trust it.

So yeah say to your team and then we'll come to you separately. And I've told both these ladies they need to not retain their teams. They need to call me. There's a natural time sometimes for people to move on. But how do you retain or keep their interest as a team?

Yeah to my delight or maybe not your delight. It's actually most of my team is very been in organization for very very long time. I think keep them interested knowing that knowing everyone may ask their different life journey a different part. As I mentioned some is 23, young, single, eager to learn, want to learn more. Give them that you know to the environment they can learn more and then actually try out different things with them. Some people actually have a young children. They juggle various different things just be very sensitive. You remember they need to pick up their child at 5pm every day then give that space. Don't book a meeting in at that time. Don't get them into that dilemma. And literally I said to them book your slot 5 to 6, pick up your child, that's your time. Don't worry if it's something urgent. I talk to you at 6pm doesn't matter. So then actually really think about everyone's needs. They are all different individuals so that then actually keep them entertained and to give them the. Yeah engaged to make sure that actually they feel like that everyone is constantly learning and developing together.

And Ellen, you've talked about retention very much is a personal thing as well. Any habits that you Found that help as well, just similar to this.

I think it's very important to always realize that it's a job we're doing, but still it's a person doing the job. And like Winnie said, it's important to realize what's in the background of a person. I have one colleague who's small kiddies he needs to bring to school so he's fine. He's in the US so I don't mind anyway, but he won't be in before 9. Give people a chance to have their normal life. Don't stick to you need to be in the office from 9 to 5, otherwise give them free time. If they want, for example, have lunchtime because they need a lunch break for whatever they do, go for a yoga course, give them a chance. I think it's getting more and more important that in let's say my parents generation, you worked from nine to five, who cared about your background, Nobody cared about your background. This world is moving. So for me it's extremely important to see the person who is doing it out if I know that the person is happy in a home situation because it works out good for him or her. If the person has a chance to do some training or even go for football course, yoga course, whatever and then has needs to shift the hours away from 9 to 5. Giving the person that chance makes a person, at least in my experience, happier and that is easier for the retention. There are some projects you need to do in a time frame, but I give my people the chance to do it within the time frame, in their time. So the world is changing and we need to change with them. You can't force this 9 to 5 on people anymore. So yeah, see the whole person and.

You'Re being very optimistic about it, but pessimistic. What about when it's starting to stick? Are there any warning signs from when you start to see the culture going out?

What do you know that happens obviously and not everyone is as dedicated to do that, but you can see for the work quite a bit of the projects do have timestamps. So if you see somebody slipping, you can work with a person. What's in the background? Why are you doing this? Are you bored? Are you not interested? Don't you have time work with that? And yes, in the past also people had to go because they definitely just didn't want to bring in their expertise and the time. I'm sorry, in the end it's a paying job. If you're paid for it, you better work for it as well, but it's difficult in my career. I had one case luckily and yeah, sometimes you need to say bye. But my experience is that most people do value having more opportunities in their own time. Not being stuck to office hours. And with one colleague he loves to work in the evening because then the kids are in bed and he's got more time to do it and he's got leisure and peace and kids are asleep. No crying Daddy. Yeah, have a look at that. Times changing.

And yourself just what's a warning sign?

We have a lot of KPIs first of all which is actually we all visit a track. So you have a monitoring system also you have the one to one with your direct report. So anything vaguely slipping and I think that would already pick up by either KPI or one to one discussions and we help them. And sometimes actually as you say some of the circumstances you really see someone is struggling for some reason and then you discover potentially there's a deeper reason for it. And then in the past, some time ago now you have to literally, you know, one of the case would discover there's really personal circumstances. Then we have to restructure the contract. Even say maybe we work for this week. Maybe helping you out give you more time to look after the elderly and then you need to look after and so on. We totally appreciate the time we got with that person and then actually utilize a fully due nap time but ensure the business still running smoothly and operating successfully. So I think that's we all the common goal we try to achieve really.

And you touched on it earlier but I wanted to revisit about curiosity.

Yeah.

How do you build that into the daily work if you like or not. Just a nice to have because you've got someone. The other day I was talking to you, they said oh yeah, we do it all the time really. And we drilled down a little bit. Didn't actually make the podcast because I think they realized afterwards they weren't really there was so much they were doing. They were so busy they said oh yeah, we build in and then realized there's no time to build in. But how do you make it work?

Yeah, I think you can build in. Encouraging question. Ask more open questions. So sometimes what do you think Mike? What do you think the work you've done? How you find, you know, anything you feel like you are too very proud of or anything you actually feel like you could to improve on? Is there any alternative options you might have? You ask those open questions and then you would tease out different people have slightly different thought process the spark the interest from everyone in the team meeting. And also you can incorporate into your the team meeting. I get all my team member leading by themselves. So really when I started it was always a traditional the treasury manager leads it and everyone contributes and so on. Then actually said I want to give everyone the opportunity especially some people who are not scared of a public speaking. And then some. Some as generalization. Some people they actually very tech savvy but they are afraid of speaking up and they're very quiet. And then so what I did is actually for my team say we take turns to lead the session for the team meeting. So throughout the year many different team members regardless of what rank you are, how junior you are, you already led team meeting. And then if you have that experience and if you have curiosity to learn more and you find that they improve so much throughout period of time and then they leading the project. We're collaborating with other departments.

I'll pass that to you Ellen. But before I do we're coming up the 10 minute mark. So Wendy, could you put up the slido of here so you are allowed to use your phones whilst you listen to Adam Give this and you can give us some lovely questions, make them good ones. But for you, how do you tease out curiosity in your teams or how do you build it in?

First of all, I personally like going to conferences. I learn a lot, I just pick up new things. So what we do is on a regular basis sit together what's new in the market, what do you think we can do, get the IDs in and then we do some sort of planning to see what we actually can do. Sometimes can't do because we can't do it in the company. We don't have the funds for it. But just get everyone's opinion in and what could we change? What could we improve? How do we do that? And just keep people curious and asking questions, be open to discuss any change and as said, sometimes you can't do it but just listen at it and then make priorities and set up like this is what we're going to do. Do you want to lead this one? Yeah, sure. And then somebody else wants to do that. Learn from each other again and just keep a curious and open mind.

Nice. We'll come back to yourself about I often see companies hiring for experience. This is a job description and stuff like actually comes to one of the questions in here in a minute. But then sometimes you lose people fit because you've got a really technically strong person but they're not a good fit. What advice for any. If anyone in here is looking to hire people or coach people to try to balance technical skill versus potential. How do you balance the two? And then we'll get to.

I think it really depends on person and then you will see during the interview process you actually also look at the technical skill, the qualification but equally importantly is the culture fit, whether they fit into team. And then certainly our team, we felt like we are giant family and literally you felt like you coming into this family member, everyone with the gel together, how to spark each other, how to learn from each other and then I think it's really quite critical to have that. And then I also agree with you Alan in terms of some technical skills that also give you a baseline to do more learning. But saying all of that equally. In the past I hired people who was not graduates and then she did do ACT training but she'd never been to university. Everything's a life experience. And then equally she was doing great job and then able to also inspire other people to learn continually learning and being very adaptive and flexible and thinking about things is actually fairly open mind. So it actually really depends on the individual. Don't restrict you in any way to cut off the potentials.

I couldn't agree more than. So for me the fit within the team is very important. I said I manage Europe and Asia, so many different countries, different cultures. So having an open mind for that is so important. And I think that almost anything you can learn if you want to, if you're interested. So yeah, get the base some of the basics in but have an open mind in doing that. So for me, in the end the fit in the team will be extremely important and I look at that. If somebody has a, let's say rigid mindset, you can't do much with it but somebody who is open wants to look into things. Yeah. I don't know how to say it more but yeah, be open minded, have a curious mindset and have the willingness to learn.

Yeah.

To improve, to learn yourself and to help others.

So we're going to go to the questions because also we've got some great takeaways from you ladies as well. Towards the end, we'll actually take the second one down here. How AI is impacting your hiring decisions. Wait for those. All right, Wait for those. Yeah, we'll go How AI is impacting your hiring. And then I get asked about where it says Mike about at the same time. So how is AI impacting your hiring decisions, ladies?

It's quite interesting now you get cv. You can just identify that was an AI tool output. It's no personality, it's very concise, written, structured, matches the requirement. But is that human behind it? So that make you curious? Wanted to see who there's a person.

So I just want to jump in there and I'm interrupt but actually that answers the question how much? A lot of the time if someone is applying for a job I use a little known tool called AI to reassess the person said is this written by AI? And most of the time it comes out yeah, 99%. And I went yeah. So they've taken the job description, they give them the cv say make it match this and send it to me and I put it back into AI and go is this a load of baloney? Yes it is. So start again. Just on that being said, I do think that people should use AI to help them. So if you've got a job description and you want to put yourself forward, find out the top three pain points. Ask AI to help you. It's about implementing system or they're going to have to hire some people ask it what they see or it sees to help you refine and then put it in your resume and just say where do I match it? What are the top two or three things? Don't do all of your resume CV do just the top two or three because then when it lands on someone's desk so it lands on Willie's desk, it lands on desk they will go oh yeah. Actually this person has got relevant experience. Also if your CV and you can see it doesn't really match, stop applying for the job. You're wasting their time and your time and you might be desperate for job. There are other jobs out there but sorry, I interrupted me, carry on.

No, perfect. So yeah, exactly links very well in terms of hiring decisions really the person curiosity to learn as was said about and the team fit very important. The AI aspect is more about adaptable, willing to learn. So one thing I definitely I think I want to pass on to everybody is actually the professor from Oxford who is actually AI field was very top professor. He said that in the future it's not AI replacing human is the human who does not use AI will be replaced by the human who use AI. So with that in mind, you do want high people voice, has a curiosity, technical, warm to technical, doesn't necessarily be a technical expert but at least willing to learn then that will help you for cater for that very uncertain future we're all heading in. And also Adaptive to any situations we're potentially facing.

I don't want Ellen to ask this, but also we've probably got time for only one of these questions. We will be hanging around outside. So if one of you has put up this question, we're happy to answer the questions outside because we'll do the wrap ups as well.

But Ellen, for yourself, as in using AI.

Yeah. To hiring diseases.

No, I do reversed AI in. In checking.

Yeah.

Because to be honest, you can recognize things if you put it into AI. It's not. Yeah. So on the other hand, it's maybe horrible, but that gives me another impression. If you use AI without proper checking it. Sorry, that's not the curious mind I'm looking for. So yeah, use it to your benefit, but be open minded and also with people willing to learn. I'm just saying that from my age, don't look at young people only. I know a lot of people who are 40, 50, 60, who are extremely curious, extremely willing to learn, extremely willing to put their time in to get the job done. Yes, a lot of young people in the market, but I don't want to exclude anyone just on age based, but rather getting who is that person and does that person fit in?

And that comes down to say here, how to retain your people, not compromise the quality in light of high turnover difficulty. Now, how do you retain your people? I'm going to answer that is one of my closing questions. So just for yourselves, if you want, we move to closing and I'll actually answer that question as part of my closing. But closing things for the audience, what, you know, takeaways. What should these guys do?

I think build a really safe culture and environment for your team to learn and then spark everyone's interest to actually become as talented as they can be and give them the opportunities to learn and grow in your organization.

Awesome.

Yeah, same here. It's trying to develop people. It's one of the things I learned. When you teach people, you can see them grow, you can see them blossom. I think it's a great experience for everyone. You keep people happy if they can grow in a job, don't keep them in the same grindstone. On the other hand, some people want to stay in their job. Don't overlook that. Some people are happy what they're doing, don't want to change. So have a close look. If the person wants development or if a person is just happy doing what he or she wants.

Okay. And Wendy's there, she's going to throw us off the stage in a second. But don't worry. We do a salary survey, take part@treasurysalary.com, it's great. The reason I tell you this is everyone says people leave jobs and salaries. They don't. They leave because of you guys. If you're a good boss or bad boss, that's most of the reason. And one of the reasons we actually ask people, for people who lose, you know, why do they leave? What are the top reasons? It's about progression, you being a good boss and work life balance. It's not about the salary. So in order to have you retain your people, have a coffee with them, talk to your people and you as a boss, or you can also talk to your boss, say, can we have a coffee? My work balance isn't quite working. Or where am I going to go next? Where's my progression going to be? If you give that, then you won't go far wrong. Big round of applause from my panel. Today's episode of the Treasury Career Corner was brought to you with the support of our partners, tradeweb. If you're looking for a smarter way to manage your short term investments, then Trade Web's independent portal gives you access to a full range of investment products, integrated analytics and a simple centralized platform built specifically for the treasury professionals just like you. If you head over to treasuryrecruitment.com forward/partners, you can find out much, much more and we'll be able to connect you with the right person at Trade Web for both you and your business needs. Many thanks for supporting the show and don't forget, if you've listened to today's episode, you've enjoyed it. Give us a quick rating on itunes or Spotify wherever you listen to your show. And as an additional bonus, if you are CTP qualified, you can actually get CTB credits. Yeah, you just do a short quiz. We'll mark it for you, we'll send it to you and we'll send the CTP credits as well just by listening to a podcast. Whether you're walking your dog at the gym on your commute, thanks very much for your support and we're here to help you. Thanks very much.