Pushing the Boundaries of Treasury with Jan-Martin Nufer

Hello, it's Mike Richards here from the Treasury Recruitment company. I hope you're enjoying the Treasury Career Corner. If you are great news, perhaps you give us a rating on itunes or wherever you consume your podcast content. This means that even more treasury professionals can benefit from finding out, or by finding out about how treasurers have achieved their career goals. The link to rate our show will list at the bottom of our show notes. And please remember as well the show itself is as much about you as it is about us. There are specific questions you want us to ask or feedback you want to give. Please drop me an email. My direct email is mike treasuryrecruitment.com inventively enough. But anyway, that's enough from me. Let's get on with the show.

So welcome to this week's Treasury Career Podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. We talk about their past, present and future. In this week's show, I'm delighted to be joined by a good friend of mine, Jan Martin Neufahr, the Director of treasury and Funding at Borealis Group, who are a plastics, chemicals and fertilisers company based actually in Vienna. Borealis is the leading provider of innovative solutions in the areas with the head office there. The company currently has around 6,600 employees and operates in over 120 countries through their holding company, Mabu Dala, the global investment company who owns 64% of the company. The remaining 36 is belongs to Austria based OMV, an integrated international oil and gas company. But for nearly 25 years Jan Martin has been working in finance, gaining international experience in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, right the way across which he'll detail for us shortly. Martin's experience obviously ranges right the way from startups, large multinationals, a variety of different industries as well as lots of different roles within finance. In his spare time, which he has very little of, he finds time to lecture and speak at number of the finance and treasury conferences. As with every week I'll go through how Yamato got started within Finance and Treasury, some of the challenges he faces in his current position and where he's going next and Borealis goes as they continue to grow. That's enough. As we say from me. It's over to you Matt Gavartin. So take me back in the dim distant past with you. You started out in banking before you go into treasury, is that right?

Absolutely. First of all, thanks Mike for doing this interview and the elaborate introduction. So we have gotten all the information across on Borealis and myself. So happy to talk to you about my career, how I went into treasury and what the next steps could be in our profession. So yes, actually that's true. I started my career even before I was deciding to study business economics with a bank apprenticeship. So I was starting as one of the savings banks doing my two and a half year apprenticeship. And that's why I then have first quote unquote graduated as a trained banker. And I think, you know, during my career, funny enough, that has still given me a lot of insight and advantages when talking to the bankers. If you have done all the groundwork at the counter, at the checks department, at the credit department, at the payments department, then you know what you're talking about. And hence that was my view, very good preparation for the steps to come.

And then you made the move from there into treasury or talk us through as you started your career because you sort of grew in some smaller groups and then went into larger roles at different companies or how did it sort of grow from there?

Yeah, well, after the, this apprenticeship I first did then my studies at the University of Mannheim, the general business economics studies. So pretty broad like a lot of us probably did. Treasury at that point in time, honestly was not really something that was on the screen, something that you heard of. I think most of us can relate to, you know, being at university and probably have spent a couple of years there and never really have heard the word treasury as a profession, particularly not at that point in time when I was in university. So when I finished my studies I decided and say, well, what would be a good next step? And I looked into several of the bank traineeships that were offered at that point in time and then happily joined by Richelandesbank at that point in time who had a very nice, very international trainee program. And so I started my traineeship there. You have been round tripped in a couple of departments. It was an open traineeship that meant that you didn't have a clear path in terms of you do X months, X years and then you get into a specific job. It was about seeing what fits, seeing how you could contribute to the organization where people did like you. And then normally you would settle down in one of the departments in the bank. And then funny enough, and that's why usually say, you know, treasury is treasury careers to a large extent, you can on one hand plan, you can prepare, you can do all the training. But at the end of the day it also boils down to opportunities, seizing opportunities, being there at the right point in time and then take a decision. Just to give you an example I was working at that point in time in the corporate credit department at Bayer Landesbank and I've done a nice study, I think it was on commercial aircraft, on the topic of regional airports. I got to know a lot of the guys in the higher ranks in the banks. It was perceived as a nice exercise. And then all of a sudden one day the head of the credit department came to me and said, would you like to join the industry and go into Treasury? And I said, well, first of all, I needed to think very hard what treasury now exactly means and what that move would mean for me personally. So I looked a bit into it and he said, you know, and by the way, I need your answer tomorrow because we have certain obligations there. And then I did technically some research on A Treasury and B the company that I was proposed to go. And it was all in the, in the overall framework of Viac, who was at that point in time one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe. 70,000 employees with a very diversified portfolio has moved its headquarter from Bonn to Munich. And they were looking for some good guys to join the Treasury Department. So hence I had to take essentially within a very short time frame the decision I should leave the interesting and at that point in time safe and career wise, very well programmable banking environment and to jump into corporate Treasury. And that's what I did. So I did take that leap. And I've got to say certainly one of the steps I have never regretted in my career.

And then that sort of formed your basis, your foundation, as it were. We there four years.

Absolutely it formed a lot because you know, at that point in time, together with some of the other big household names, the Viac treasury was certainly one of the most professional that you could find. We had an own dealing room. We had a nice, you know, like a dealer's table where you had your three, four screens and the two phones as all the equipment that you would normally see in the bank environment. We have been acting as an in house bank for all the participants, patients. Since it was a very diversified portfolio. We had exposure to a lot of industries, a lot of projects. And due to the fact that, you know, those guys were not all 100% owned by us. So sometimes we had 33% here, 25% there. So we needed to compete with the banks. They came, they had a question, they wanted to deposit some money, they had a structural issue and you were there as the advisor, as their in house banker, so somebody that they could relate to, trust to. But essentially it was Also clear that if they would not like what you offer to them, they would have a certain right also to seek services outside in the banking world. So from that perspective that was a nice preparation, extremely professional team. I had the pleasure to work with a lot of great guys there with a deep know how and knowledge in the, in the industry and that formed certainly one of the, one of the main pillars in terms of my experience getting, getting into treasury and to have also exposure to a very wide range of treasury topics ranging from the day to day money market over more exotic structures up to preparing an ipo. So that was a very good basis and school for that. And since I was then responsible besides others for the telecoms participations, I was asked at a certain point in time and again coming back to my initial comment around seizing opportunities, we got the license in Austria, the telephone license in Austria, together with our joint venture partners in that setup. And then the guys asked me, well you have been into that industry and wouldn't you want to come over to Austria and build up from scratch the Treasury Department and by the way, not only the Treasury Department but also some other departments like the Revenue Assurance and some other things which were at that point of time not at all defined yet. So I also again reflected around what to do. I probably didn't realize at that point in time how far east geographically Vienna is. So I looked at that and it seemed a good opportunity and a good move. So I moved over as a secondee for WIAC at that point in time to Austria and had then the chance to join a team of at that point in time I think we had been roughly 30, 35 people which did essentially everything and built up an organization like a startup from scratch. So again here the fundamental change from one of the largest conglomerates that you could find in Europe to a small startup where you needed to do essentially everything right, talking to the banks, setting up accounts, you know, getting the whole thing really from zero to a workable environment and workable status. But that was good fun too. And essentially when I left then the company after a couple of years, we had 1200 employees. We did at that point in time I think it was the largest post war syndicated financing in Austria and a lot of quite interesting deals. So it was a good journey. And again one of those things where I say well, take a close look at opportunities that are presented to you. If they fit your personality, if they fit your know how, then take it. And sometimes also you need to have a bit of confidence in yourself and saying well that Might be something that you haven't done yet before. But if you feel apt to do that and if you feel up to it and people trust in you, then that leap of faith is certainly something which is essential for progressing careers.

Because you then took this role, how do you say identec. Is that right?

Yes. It was another step there. When I then finished with the telecommunications business, that was pretty much at the heydays where you know, all the licenses were sold enormous amounts for the next generation. Again, it was a great time. And I've got to say, you know, the fun thing about that one is that still after 10 years, 10 years after VIAC ceased to exist, we still did meet up with the old head office group that worked there. And in telecommunications the same, you know, that was a very close knit community. You have been building up something together. And essentially we met a long time after the company has morphed into something totally different still as the old, still as the old group. And then I thought maybe a good idea to try something out new. And I went to a again startup company, very interesting field, RFID technology, long range rfid. I went there. We had worked a lot to actually get the get to build up the company to make it ready for an ipo. I had then taken over the role as a CPU CFO with broader responsibilities at some point in time. Then I realized I think the package that we have been looking at with the growth opportunities will not turn out as it was intended. It will not turn out as quickly as we thought. And then we came collectively in the board to the conclusion and said look guys, we're probably a bit too high on the pay scale. We're a bit too exposed there. We just want to take another step and say the company probably needs to work on a much, much smaller scale for a couple of years before you can then take up this idea again. We need to realize at some point in time you also can be sometimes a bit too early to market with the technology and with the setup that you have. And then after a year I decided to move out of the company and joined at that point in time. Then Babcock and Brown, which was a bit going more into the advisory business. I was then one of the managing directors of the Babcock and Brown office in Austria. Was a very interesting time. Then it was back to structured financing transactions, leveraged lease transactions, financial advisory, more into the mergers and merchant and investment banking environment. And again that gave another spin to my know how base and career where you could on one hand apply A lot of the things that you have been doing in the corporate environment, but also add a lot of more elements to it in terms of structuring, know how getting very deep into certain transactions to manage a client portfolio to be responsible for a country setup, that was another very exciting step in there. And I left then Babcock and Brown at the point of time when I got the call into the airline industry and went then to Switzerland to join Swiss.

Right. And with the, with the role with Swiss, did that come with the team or what was the sort of the makeup of the group there?

Yes, it obviously came with a team. I was responsible at that point in time for a combination which was called treasury and Risk Management. So we had on one hand the classical treasury tasks, but on the other hand I was also responsible for the whole commodity trading. So the kerosene hedging. And that was a very interesting one and also an extremely interesting time to join the Swiss. That was a situation where the new company had emerged after the failure of the old Swiss entity. We created at that point in time, or was created, a new newly formed entity with a headquarter technically in Basel, which was called then Swiss International Airlines. So building on the foundation of what was there before, but in a certain way also having a new setup and a new team that wanted to bring the company forward in a way that we bring the business back to a sustainable platform after what has happened in the past to Swiss, which we all know, so extremely, extremely interesting environment. And due to the fact that it was a combination of the classical treasury agenda, corporate finance, to do the aircraft financings, but also the cash management, being responsible for all the things that you normally would see in Treasury. It was an extremely interesting task to build up the kerosene hedging portfolio again because at that point in time, and that's public knowledge, Swiss has sold a lot of the hedges, almost all of the hedges that they had in the kerosene space, to make room and to get cash in. So when I joined, the interesting fact was I needed to build up the hedging portfolio simply from scratch. And we all know, particularly in a high volatile environment, building up something from you, you know, the likelihood of being totally right or totally wrong is probably a bit skewed. So from that perspective, we had a couple of interesting months before we then got the, the wheel back to a normal turn and saying, we have a stable portfolio, we can build on that. And that's another interesting aspect in here that was only possible because we had a very, very professional and understanding management and supervisory board. That said, no, we acknowledge that if you do something new, if you have a paradigm shift and change in here, we need to give the room and the freedom to maneuver and have the guys build something up, have the trust in that. And even when I then, after the first one or two months that the portfolio was deep in the red, despite all the OPEC announcements on production cuts, was going totally against what the normal school books would tell you, there was never a discussion about that one. That was the right decision. We did push it through, and at the end of the day, we ended with a very nice result. But what I mean with that, you need to have as a treasurer also that environment where you are embedded in a culture which gives you the trust and the freedom to act, to put the hedges and the risk mitigation in place that the company needs at that.

Point in time, rather than say, this is the way, you must follow it and you're given responsibility to be the treasurer that we say.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Wow.

So interesting time to walk in unhedged, everything else. And three years later, you came out of it well, showered in glory from Salzburg.

Yeah, well, actually, I would say the history of how the Swiss turnaround was managed is equally a little bit of schoolbook story, like it was before the failure of the old Swiss setup. Because at the point of time, when we then concluded the deal with Lufthansa, we had been in a shape which was extraordinarily good. We have done our homework in terms of the collective labor agreements. We had a well functioning treasury and financing organization, and hence it was a good transition then when we handed over a large portion of the activities to my colleagues at Lufthansa.

Right. And that was the natural time for you to look for that next move or what happened.

Yeah, absolutely. I think at that point of time, you know, the two possibilities, obviously, would be to stay in the much bigger group now in the Lufthansa environment. But at the same time, at the same point in time, there came the call from the headhunters to potentially join Borealis. And what I found attractive at that point in time was clearly this very broad setup and the very broad requirements that Borealis has offered. And the possibilities, again, like a couple of times in my career, to shape the treasury space. So not to only get your piece of the work, your scope of work and work within those boundaries, but to shape the boundaries. And I think that's probably one of the most exciting factors that you can have if you have the chance in your career to do that, to really push the boundaries of your own remit in terms of the what treasury constitutes and to bring your own personal touch into what you're doing. And it was exactly the environment that Borealis offered at that point.

And when you first started, because you and I have spoken about this before, that you manage a huge team, which is quite unusual for a treasurer or having a number of different events, you talk about all the People Management Challenge. But when you first started, was it much smaller or were you given quite a big remit team people wise, or when you first joined the group 12 years ago?

Yeah, it was much smaller and it was different. I joined at that point in time as the Director VP for Tax and Treasury. So that was the core Treasury Department plus the Tax Department. And if I look at what the scope of my area is right now, that has developed, that has morphed over the almost 12 years that I'm now with the company, very significantly. That's also due to the fact that we could integrate things into treasury, which make a lot of sense, like to take the Commercial Credit Department, like to take also the Accounts Payable department into the structure so that you have the full control over the cash in and the cash out, but also to set up some departments which simply didn't exist before. So at some point in time, after I think it was two years, we farmed out the Tax department, which has now grown into a much bigger structure. It was a good decision to do so. I did take on a new department which I created which was called Group Financial Risk Management. So an overarching risk management function which didn't look solely at ethics risk or liquidity risk, but in a much broader scheme also into the commodity risks and the interrelations between those risks. And also that one was an exciting task to set that up. This unit does not manage the risk. This risk management is then either with the Treasury Department or the Corporate Finance Department or our feedstock traders. But this department oversees and connects and links all the risks together so that if you have a transaction in sector A that has a ramification, for example, on the ethics side, that this is then seamlessly seen as an interrelated risk, so that you avoid looking and managing in a certain silo. But to have the broader picture and a bit this top down view, the bird's eye view on what the risk constitutes in the company. So over and over the setup grew and we have now a Treasury Department which consists essentially of four departments. The classical Treasury Department, including the Central Payment Factory and the Back office we have secondly a corporate financing, the funding department, which also is responsible for investor relations. We have what we talked about, the group financial risk management as a central risk function. And then in 2013 and 14, I did also take then over responsibility for the credit and collection department accounts and the accounts payable department. So all in all, right, now we're roughly 55, 56 people in the apartment. I know that this is certainly not the normal setup. On the other hand, you know as good as I do there is probably no normal setup. You ask two companies and you get three different answers on how, on how the credit fits into treasury or not, whether insurance is in or not, how the Treasury Department looks in general. So there are so many different varieties in our profession in terms of the setup that I would never say there is a right or wrong. But I can say that we have been able to shape the treasury space for Borealis in a way where I can clearly say this is how I would like to have it with a good view on all the risks, with a good interaction, with a great process view in terms of an end to end assessment of what needs to be done to have hopefully have the best possible setup for our group.

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And it sounds like again, we've talked about this. This is very much from the sales of it where it's every touch point with, with cash. So where it comes into the group and then, then it's processed through, but also looking to the future cash. But in some ways, a lot of the time when I talk about typical Treasuries, it's about today's cash and the future. You're also gathering the cash as well. Is that the reason for this slightly unusual setup or what was the ethos driving that?

And again, it's a combination of design and opportunity. Very clearly I would never say that you can pencil everything down and say this is my blueprint perfect treasury organization. This is about again seizing the opportunity if a change is obvious and then make sure that you have your say in how to set it up. So while creating the group financial risk department was clearly by design, the takeover of the tasks in the treasury and accounts payable space had to do with some organizational changes internally had to do with some location changes and some management changes. And then at that point in time I could say that makes a lot of sense to take over that risk mitigation function in credit. Why shouldn't we look at the consumer credit? That was always a certain function where I was in the credit committee and being responsible for extending credit. But it was not a task that was inherently always within Treasury. It was in a different part of the organization. And again here having the opportunity at that point in time to integrate, incorporate those functions into treasury and then at the end of the day see what makes most sense. That is the good outcome of a combination of design and opportunity.

And with that, does that mean that's what you see as the success or what's been the benefit of that in terms of success features that you've got that, you've got that all in view of risk or what's a given back to you as a group?

Yeah. Well, on one hand it's clearly this holistic view of the risks. So I would say right now I can have visibility and steer the risk mitigation for almost all financial risks in the group. So that's the one part. The other part is a more, I would say processual consideration to have also the responsibility for a process end to end and in this end to end process, then having again the possibility to determine some of the parameters which will give you then either a positive or a negative impact in some other areas. Give you an example, we had, like a lot of corporates, a huge amount of payment terms in our system. And we said should that be really something that is determined predominantly by the sales Force and the marketing department. So let's say the, the customer related entities or departments. We said no, no, let's take that to a certain extent also under our wings. So anything that is not a standard payment terms needs to be reviewed by us and needs to be endorsed by myself to actually put it into the system. This is again one of the parts which drives then how effectively you can run your accounts payable and accounts receivable department so that all interlinks a bit. And I'm big believer in those holistic process optimizations to make sure that you can get the best mileage out of a certain setup. And that means reviewing continuously, keeping the touch to the market entities. I appreciate very much that we have that close dialogue with the sales force that is close to the customer. Because what is one of my main, my main beliefs, we as treasurers need to go out, we need to be present, we need to be business partners, we need to be the ones that people go to and ask a question. Right. It should not be the guys that sit somewhere in a, in a, in a corner.

Yeah.

Do something that nobody understands and they are only asked if there is a very, very specific question like could you open a bank account here? Or we need to do some financing transaction here. You need to be in the heart of the organization in terms of providing the best value added with the advice. And I think we have a lot of things to offer in treasury and by being at the forefront and being close to the market with our link to the sales department, being close to the market with the links to the M and A department, this is all where then the fun part starts, where you can at an early stage shape the structure and make sure that you have an early embedding of treasury in those decisions where clearly treasury should take a role and should take a stance and decision here.

And do you see that as one of the key achievements you've brought to it or what would you see as your achievement? What have you brought to the party?

I think it's a bit this overarching view not to revolve and not to optimize in a silo, but to have always the bigger picture, starting from what is best for the company, what makes most sense, this is where you can make that step change. Some years ago we received this award from TMI on the treasury transformation process. And I think that's probably one of the most exciting achievements that we had to be able to really do something which is classified and categorized as a transformation. And that means that you had some Fundamental changes. You did have a view. I could install a new system landscape, I could optimize some processes, I could take some departments together, as we discussed. Now, this transformation is probably the biggest success in terms of what I would see as bringing to the table what you ask for in terms of what was that main achievement here with yourself.

Is that what you enjoy the most about treasury, the ability to take it from just standstill to actually coming in and making that change fundamentally to an organization or what? What's treasury about for you, as it were?

That's an excellent question. Because I think the fun about treasury in my view is the following. Due to the fact that there are no real hard coded boundaries of treasury leaves a lot more room to do those things than in other areas. That's the number one. So this possibility to shape, to create, to innovate, innovate to really drive things, that's certainly one of the things that makes me personally tick. But I think which is also in general a very exciting part of the treasury profession. Secondly, I would also not underestimate that pretty unique possibility in treasury to combine finance. Know how a finance role with a pretty much external role like negotiating financing contracts, doing roadshows, presenting the company, all those things which is much more outward oriented, where you have a clear interface which is beyond the normal internal interfaces. I think that's another extremely exciting part of the, of the treasury, of the treasury trade and something that I think, you know, when I saw and we have a lot of people that have been more moving into treasury from other departments. We have a pretty transparent structure. So if you've got a good person from another department, they can join even if they are not treasurers by trade, but will learn it in getting there. And the feedback we get is that most people enjoy that tremendously. To have that dual role in terms of having the internal interfaces, but also to be clearly very much exposed to the outside world and being at the forefront front of, of an interaction with external parties, being banks, being IT investors or what have you. That is I think another very interesting part and the last one which I see is now looking a bit into what makes potentially the future treasury tick is about that. I always thought that in treasury we have a high affinity to technology. Things that are now in discussion around digitalization, robotics, platforms, use of systems. In treasury you usually have that at a very early stage, before others even think or talk about it. We had fully integrated systems, we had trading platforms, we had electronic confirmation systems. So that affinity to technology and that closeness to the digital Development, that's, that's probably the third part that I would see, which is extremely exciting in the treasury profession and which also provides, in my view, an excellent basis for the future growth in treasury and for the future development of the treasurers in the next 20 years to come.

When you talk there, you talked about bringing in internal talent. I know that we selfishly have recently recruited for you guys, so, so I think we potentially know what you're looking for or believe we know what you look for when you recruit. But when you're receiving a CV or resumes, obviously a recruitment company, what are you looking for from those people coming in? Again, I've talked to some of my previous guests and they've talked about qualifications. One talked about attitude, ethos. But also what we're trying to do is hone in on what makes a standout candidate. What are things that you perhaps look for yourself?

I think you can't answer that question without differentiating a bit for which role I am recruiting. There are some roles which are clearly driven more by qualification, past experience. So let's say the hard coded know how and the track record of the person. In some other areas we have, for example, some positions which we internally label also as development positions, where we have also an internal succession planning. By the way, we have succession planning for all the roles, but for some of the roles it's clearly indicated that should be under normal circumstances, an external person at that point in time, because it is really related to this know how and the certification potentially that you're looking for. On the other hand, in those development roles, we are pretty open. If I look at the candidate and you know, he or she has the right profile, the right spirit, the right attitude, honestly, I don't care whether he or she has done this for the last 20 years. He or she needs to convince me on a more personal basis the guys with the right drive, if they have the possibility to look, and for those development roles, we give that opportunity to learn, then we should also give them the chance to grow and to prove themselves. Again, if I look at my career and what I talked about, taking chances and getting those opportunities, in a couple of instances, I said, well, kudos to the guys that said, no, it's a young guy, but he can run that department, he can do it and give that, give that advance credit for people to also develop. So long story short, I think for certain positions more the qualification, the track record, what have they done before? It's always combined with personality, let's be clear about that one There is no good person without also a good fitting team spirit that fits also to the values of the company and to my belief how people in treasury should be. But on the other hand also to give that opportunity to grow and to come from totally different areas. So when I look at my former head of the group funding and investor relations department who has now recently been promoted nicely into a good role with our joint venture partner in Abu Dhabi, he has been a chemist of trade, he has been in group strategy, he has a chemistry background and he was an excellent man in the job. So from that perspective, again, I don't like those draw answers where you say you need to have 1, 2, 3 and 4 and then you're going to be the best treasurer in the world. I think it needs to be a combination that fits. And last comment here. You need to watch out for the cultural fit. Not, not two companies are the same, not two Treasuries are the same. And where you probably need in one, one company a very introverted treasurer that is concentrating on certain things, in other companies you probably need a very extrovert person who can sell the company at roadshows and to investors. So that's why I would say you know that much better than I do. From a recruitment perspective, there's a huge universe and we're always trying to hopefully find the best mix and match of qualification and what the role demands.

Personality fit. Yeah. And looking from here and now to the future, number one for you and also for the Borealis Group and Treasury as it goes. Where do you see it? This isn't, you know, the typical question about automation and all that monarchy. It's more about how do you see the evolution of Borealis and the evolution of Yan Martin as you continue your career.

Yeah, and thanks for abstracting that a bit from the classical digitalization optimization, because I think that's on the forefront of everybody. What I think will be the driving factor for me and also for my department again is to be the business partner for the internal departments. We have a huge growth agenda and a huge project agenda and we need to make sure that we can provide best services for the business. And if I say services, I mean services. It's not like, you know, doing an action that is required, it's delivering a service. And if I go back to what I told you earlier, from the first steps in my career when we had been at Viag this in House bank, the in house advisor, this is the role you should play. You need to connect, you need to further get more interlinked into the businesses. I always say, you know, you have reached your goal if you came from that push attitude. So I have something to offer. You need to ask me if you want to do something with currencies or interest rates, to that pull mentality where people say, hey, did we ask treasury already about that one? Shouldn't we get them involved in an early stage? They usually have quite, they usually have quite good thoughts. Let's get them involved. So to that pool mentality, I think that's, that's one of the key, one of the key areas to play that business partner, partner role. And again, I think the beauty, and that's why usually treasury doesn't get boring, is that element of change. You have a constant flow of change. And you know, I would say, even if it's, if it's a generalization, but the markets are moving faster and faster, you have a very high velocity that you need to have in your actions. You need to be prepared. I always say to my team, you know, you can be the best risk manager, you can have the best risk setup. Something will take you by surprise. You need to have everything in place for the unforeseen. So that element of agility, that element of velocity, that's a very important one, which again is for me also something that I, I work on personally, but also from a, from a team development to get on the forefront of those, of those transactions and further embed treasury into the, into the wider organization and then let's see what we can do in further integrate processes and optimize there. But in essence, I think this is a bit what I would see in the next coming years to be one of the good opportunities and challenges in the treasury space.

And if you're, as if you're not busy enough with doing all that stuff at Borealis and everything else. I know that, Martin, you've. Well, I know firsthand that you've recently, outside of your role at Borealis, you've started the Austrian Treasurers association and you've got a drive for that. Maybe you can just explain just briefly to the listeners, because I'm going to be speaking at that conference in November. Looking forward to it.

Absolutely. Looking forward to have you with us. Then.

I won't say you twisted my arm, but it was either that or he broke my arm, so I had to go. But no, I'm looking forward to it. But you know what drove that? Why bother? You've got enough on your plate already.

No, I think a couple, a couple of elements. First of all, you Know, I think we all need to contribute actively, personally to our profession, to do something in terms of the development of people, to also make sure that we can be heard in the market, that we have a relevant setup that allows us to speak up. And in essence, when do you say.

Heard by who, for example?

By the regulators, by the authorities. One of the reasons why I thought we need now to make that step is linked to. We had always a good informal network. The treasury community, we all know is a close knit community. You've got a couple of hundred people in the European space and fewer than in the different countries. So you know, most of the guys and this informal network worked quite well. Yeah, but it was nothing that was really organized. So sometimes you had a lot of people joining, sometimes only a couple. If you had a question you might have the right person to ask. Sometimes you didn't or you didn't even know that another company did something similar you're currently looking at. And you did the work, quote unquote, twice. So this informal network was not and was, was not enough for me. And I was, I think since mid of the 90s, the early days of the German Association, I'm a member there and I saw how a good setup can develop over time. And I always thought it's a bit of pity that we don't have anything in Austria. We are not an organization. We didn't have an organization that could voice concerns or that could endorse something that for example the EACT was putting out or that we could make comments to proposed regulations. So from that perspective I thought there is a certain need to do that. Secondly, I'm a big believer in exchanging information, in exchanging experiences and that you can best do in a professional network. And hence I thought, well, let's just do that now. Let's invest the work. At some point in time this is going to be a self running organization. We have in the meantime a great board of directors together that works with me on the development of the association. We've got great people in our supervisory board. We've got all the household names in the country that are already members. And I would say if we have now, after it's now nine months since we opened for the applications, we have already more than 100 corporate treasurers here in the organization. That's a quite encouraging sign. So we're going to continue and it's refreshing to see that we now can participate in European initiatives like the Cybercrime initiative from the EACT or other. You know, the times are over where you could sit in your own little Treasury Department at the last corner of the aisle in the building. You need to go out, you need to exchange. A lot of the challenges we face are not national challenges, are not challenges that one company has. Their global challenges talked about the cybercrime. You cannot do that alone. We need to do that on a broad basis. This has nothing to do with competition. This is embedded in what we should do, risk mitigation in the treasury space. And this exchange is probably one of the most important things for us to grow the profession, grow our network, be in touch with other industries and by virtue of that, take the next step in your own development and in the development of your organization.

And it sounds like you're giving the Austrian treasurers, which they need their own voice, as you say, with regulators, but also wider than that, an input to all the other associations as well.

You know, we have a lot of great people there that after we have established this platform to take the chance to, you know, participate in work groups and work on a certain subject together. So probably it was probably it was just the, speaking in chemical terms, the catalyst for what's now going to come that, you know, you have now established the organizational platform and a lot of the things come now in terms of self initiatives and that's very rewarding to see that this goes very fast in the right direction. You can now interact much closer with the fellow colleagues in other countries and this is a good sign and hence, yes, it's a lot of work, but I think it is absolutely worthwhile doing.

That's fantastic. Well, I look forward to it. And speaking at your conference, which we. Great fun. Anything else for our listeners that you think, you know, if they're. Obviously we've talked about why people get into treasury and everything else. I think it was a, you know, great conversation and you know, Obviously you're on LinkedIn. Is that the best way for people to connect with you or through the association or what's the sort of. What's the best way to do it?

I think Both, both works. LinkedIn is a good tool via the association, always works and usually then also multiple my whereabouts are known in the web. So you can contact me if any questions. But Mike, thanks a lot. I think it was good having that chat and to round it up a bit since you asked me final last words. Can you say that last words in there? Is it saying essentially if you're listening to what we have been talking about, you're probably already on the right path because you're interested in Treasury. I truly believe that the taking that leap from a totally other area into treasury was one of the best decisions that I ever did in my career. It's an exciting, it's an exciting profession and the good thing is again you have the possibility to shape the future with what you're doing and hence I hope that we can give with that podcast a lot of the treasurers in SPEE or the ones that want to further grow in our profession probably some thoughts to move treasury as a whole forward and in the right direction and.

That'S perfect end because that's exactly what we're trying to do with the podcast. It's not the big sales pitch it's basically representing you guys and give you a voice to explain to people exactly why treasury is everything it is. So thank you very much Yamato. What a great sign off. We'll, we'll use your words to finish it off as well.

That's great. Thanks Mike. Thank you.