Returning to Treasury Leadership – Why Jens Rejoined Trelleborg

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. Let's get on with the show. In this week's show I'm joined by Jens Bilberg, the group treasurer BP treasury at Trelleborg Group. Trelleborg is a world leader in engineered polymer solutions that protect critical applications in demanding environments. Reliability of industrial equipment is ensured and secure key infrastructure like water networks, ports, energy facilities and that they contribute to a low carbon sustainable future. Three main business areas, Trelleborg Industrial Solutions, ceiling solutions and and medical solutions. Company's actually been going 120 years since 1905. The company's actually been listed on the stock exchange since 1964 on Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap. So enough of that about the company. I want to get into Jens's experience and his career. Jens, if you would take us back to the first start for you and then how you discovered the world of Treasury. Over to you, sir.

Yeah. Thank you for inviting me to this podcast, Mike. I'm happy to participate and give a little bit of my background especially. Well, so it was a little bit by accident, you can say that I started obviously I have a background in my university studies related to business administration and also with a little bit focus of financing. But I started off with Trelloberg which was my first real job was more related in the operating business where I was more in the controlling area and I was exposed to various parts of the group. But also during that first year as a trainee I was sent to the treasury function which was based in Stockholm and in the southern part of Sweden at that point in time Malmo. But I went up for a month to do a small project at the treasury team and I liked it very much. So I went back then to.

Can you tell us who Trelleborg were then and how they maybe evolved as well? What are they as a company? I gave a little bit of an explanation about the company.

Yeah, absolutely. You can say in the past, in the 80s trellable was a conglomerate involved in a lot of different industries. I would say also a large part was within the mining industry was holding companies. When I started the year 2000 it was in a process of going into more the polymer business or more the rubber industry suggest purely focus on that. We had four business areas at that point in time with large focus also on the automotive side, high end polymer solutions. But a little bit more there. You can really see, I would say amongst the years I've been with Trello Board that it has really changed. I mean we really moved up to the value chains in really all the niches where we operate now. That's really one of the main changes when it comes to the size of the company. It's more or less stayed about the same. I mean we have, we have made a lot of mergers and acquisitions during these 20 years. It's always been with sales of about 30 to 45 billion Swedish krona and now we are in that range again, but with a complete different.

So then when you came back from your studies, you started off in the back office. Good place to start within treasury as well. What was that like for you?

I would say the back office is really like the backbone of the treasury function. Everything floods through the back office and you get a really, you get a good overview. It's also the engine in the Treasury. It's the final destination for all the payments, the confirmations of all the deals made. So that's a very good place to start to move onwards within the Treasury.

And then you started that and got your back office experience. What then came next?

Then after a couple of years I was moving on then to the front office, so the trading desk. So then obviously I got more involved in deal execution working then we also involved more in liquidity management and also had another type of discussions with operating business and all the subsidiaries on a global basis, discussing currency exposures, financing setups, could also be trade finance solutions in the daily, sort of more project based parts. Part of the business that we have within Trello Board and also will give a trading mandate so you can also take your own positions in the currency and interest rate markets. And by doing that I think you also get a real good feel for risk management and also get the feeling of managing large positions that you could need to upload in the bucket and.

Then you were given wider remit sort of thing. Was that simply because you understood the function then? And they said because then you were doing a lot of dealing. But they said, right, we want you to look after more of the cash element of things. What was that like for you as that sort of. Did that give you a different view, would you say?

Yeah, I tried not to do just deal execution, but also try to understand the difficulties that the subsidiary encountered in that daily business related to treasury, find ways to make their lives easier when it comes to currency management and all those related. Building a tighter relationship between treasury being More staff function, but being more like a service function for the operating business.

And you say about the business, the a lot of the listeners, they get to handle a lot of international things. So you were doing implementations across Europe, Eastern Europe, so doing Poland, then China and India. What was that like for you with those diverse regions sort of thing? What were some of the challenges you may be with the structuring? Because I know that when I've spoken to people in the past about India, for instance, they've had to have, you know, a number of different bank accounts. You have to have a local account, you have to have a local one for tax as well. And it's a real challenge. You like. So what was that like for you?

Yeah, I can agree with those. I mean setting up cash pool structures in those countries, sometimes it's not even possible. Take a country like India. There is historically there was a certain way of setting up cash pulling, but was also depending on the legal structure. But obviously, I mean working with our relationship banks, being global banks, maybe a little bit Nordic European based, they cannot really service all the needs locally. Then for all the subsidiaries in countries like China and India, you need to have certain banks do just take out cash, for example, using basic accounts in China or to make in certain regions certain statutory payments like salaries, Social Security payments, to use local banks. Let's combine that with your relationship banks and also with banks where you can build accounts, cash pooling structures. And then you just have to ensure that the liquidity at all points is really placed in those cash pools and the money is just transferred to the other accounts when really needed. You still try to focus all the transactions to your relationship banks, but also work alongside the local banks to fulfill all the needs of the local subsidiaries.

And then you'd work for a number of years at the group and you decided to then make a move into consulting. What happened? Describe that for us, if you would.

And why at the point of time I've been with Trelleborg for 11 years was not because happy in my role with Trellorg like the company, but I just would like to see something else. I had a discussion with this consulting agency for a couple of years. They've been interested to employ me in the past as well. But now that was a good opportunity. There was certain position open and also that I could manage business units related to treasury management and corporate finance. And then I also before that I haven't had any direct reports. But now I was also managing a small group of people. So I thought this was a good Next step for me to broaden my view to get a better understanding what other companies are doing, but also working versus financial institutions and also broaden myself not just to work within treasury, but also into other operating things like working capital management could also be turnaround occasions for small retail businesses. Interesting time. And I think my learning curve also jumped up quite significantly very quickly.

What was the worst you saw? What was the best you saw?

Yeah, and I think that maybe some of the smaller companies that have tried to grow into becoming a little bit more international that missed a lot regarding really having sufficient risk management. And I'm just not talking about financial risk management, but also how to secure the supply chain and also how to take risk. Also with their borrowing and lending funds. One retailer was really close to bankruptcy. That was interesting. Also to be part of reshaping that business as well and help them so say start over and also cutting costs. I mean the cost base has grown a lot within those companies as well. Too much luxury, maybe that was really not needed and that's what was hurting them.

When you say luxury, what do you mean in terms of the products or in terms of had too many systems or what do you mean?

It could be that they had really the best systems in place for really small businesses and also it could be additional, a little bit more considered luxury things that shouldn't really be part of that type of business. Then I got. Actually I was talking to a former colleague of mine that was working for another large Swedish multinational company and they were setting up a Treasury hub down in Luxembourg and he wondered if I was interested in. He thought that role would fit my background very well. So I jumped on that challenge. Also good to live abroad for some years to also get that exposure and also with a new company. I also like being a consultant. You learn a lot, but it's also good where you can take your own initiatives and not be trying to sell your services somehow and try to convince people why they should. This was nice to be back in the corporate treasury world. I think I missed that. Even though it was just a short term period. I was working as a consultant. This sounded like a very good opportunity to set up something from scratch. New company, new country. So I thought that was a very exciting challenge for the listeners.

Who did you join?

Yeah, no, it was assabloi. So certain parts of the.

So who the internal bank function, you and I both know them. So this is for some of our internationalists who might not know the company. So what was the setup of treasury and why was it Set up in Luxembourg as well.

Loxa was a main treasury in Buckham, Sweden. This from scratch and the plan was then also to build up this company and also to employ certain other parts. I employed one person as well and from the beginning we were using a lot of external service providers. But after a couple of years we really did all the processes and the branding setup as well in Luxembourg. So the office grew. So when I left again after five years with seven people in the office, it's really similar to Trello Board. It's much larger than Trello Board but still the same business model. A lot of decentralization, a lot of subsidiary on a global basis. So that's also a extremely good company and well run company when you're there.

You know, what's it like being in Luxembourg? I know you're working for an audit company and things like that. When you're. Then do you, you know, how do you make sure that you. You're based in there? Different jurisdiction if you like. So did that change your approach to governance compliance or was it more of the same or what was it like?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean much more focused. I mean this point in time I became managing director of one of the entities and also part of the boards for the other companies. So a lot of corporate formalities that have to be followed up. Quite a lot of administration and local report which was new to me. But I had a good colleague who has been working within Luxembourg for many years in the past. So he also had a good experience in that and that was very helpful in many instances I would say. The downside was maybe that you were a little bit like a satellite, you were a little bit isolated in Luxembourg. Even though you had close contact with the group pressuring in Sweden, there was still from time to. He still felt maybe a little bit alone from time to time. Yeah.

So how do you. Yeah, if someone's in that situation and they've got a team in Luxembourg and they're listening today and they think, oh, we've got a Luxembourg team, how do you make them feel more part of the group?

I think it's important to use maybe. I mean Luxembourg is very well placed in Europe obviously and like Altabloid, they have a lot of companies, Germany, Belgium, France, which is very close by. So it's good to give an additional responsibility to use them as a regional treasury center, meet the local operations in all of those countries. I would say that would also beneficial since you're sitting close by, but also to make everyone a little bit more involved in the business. Yeah.

And then with that.

Yeah I got a call from CFO at trellboy@ that point in time he said there was an open position as a good treasurer and that he got a tip regarding me and he was wondering if I was interested to my side maybe a little bit harder for the family, but two children as well that at that point in time I lived five years in Luxembourg and liked it very much. But I think it was a good time to move back. I was commuting for one year on a weekly basis but then we moved back because I would say it's a little bit like the dream role for me being the group treasurer for 12 where I was school in Treasury. So for me it was really an easy choice to. To say yes to you say it's.

I know you and I talked about this before, you're going back and you kept good relationships with them but now you've gone in before you were sort of one of the team. Now you're the leader of the team and you lead a team of sort of 9 stroke 10. You know, how has your leadership style changed or what was it like to go in like I was one of the guys and one of you guys.

Yeah, that a little bit strange but that was some of the people that has been there for a long time and extremely skilled persons. So obviously I tried to make everyone still feel involved. Didn't do too much changes in the beginning so it was more like I tried to get confidence as well that I was not here to change everything from day one but rather to do more strategic thinking setting up long term goals and also in which direction we would like to work and go different areas. I think after a couple of years that's been a little bit of turnaround of people as well within the group. I've also started as a good point in time because I think the group would like to see some change. I took it back maybe to some of the. I will say more like it used to be in the old days as a travel boat. I never felt like anyone disliked that I started spent 11 years my previous career there and I think I tried to always been a good worker doing.

My best to get the good relationships and things. You started by you know, trading and FX and fixed income to then overseeing the risk management. How have you and the function of the group treasurer changed when you maybe look back over it when you were first there at Treborg, how was it different? Was it more the systems or what else?

Yeah, I would say this in a Number of changes obviously. Much more optimization today just take simple things like currency dealing and now you're using trading platforms instead of calling a number of banks to request quotes, et cetera. Much better systems as well, Much more administration because I mean previously there was not much about KYC AML reporting, but it's much more compliant at the same time. The workload still about the same, but it has changed now it's much more admin parts as well that you. And much more compliant that you have to put put efforts into as well.

And would you say technologies help with that at all or is it still lagging behind?

No, I would say a lot of technology has helped. I think we've been quite early on as well just to adapting. When I started, you can say we got a little bit of challenge by the CFO and not just talking about treasury now, but really the full CFO organization to use robotics of younger people in my group as well. Certain things, I mean to fully automate those that has helped us. And then since then we have also changed treasury systems and a lot of the technology or the functionality within the robotics processes could then be lifted onto this new treasury system instead.

And when you say about what do you mean by that sort of thing, can you explain what that is machine learning wise or what are you thinking about?

Yeah, I would say now AI and digitalization is really the buzzword. I don't think it's. I mean it's not really artificial intelligence, it's more about machine learning. Robotics is more about really giving instructions. For example, we have just used it never to collate or input any data in our system, but rather to extract data and then compile that into reports. We also used it to import certain bank balances into our treasury system. We have also used it to do certain checks and to ensure that we have daily uploads of FX and interest rates in the treasury systems. Things that then help us in the book closing process. We could save time and say that all the data in the system is fine. So it's not about really I would say a lot about giving automated instruction to certain software and that the robotics. But now it's moved on a little bit more being more like a different way of automating most of those career.

And you, as we said earlier, you went away from Trailborg, then came back and you did some consultancy. Is that what you think people should be able to do that they should be able to, you know. Or is there anything you would approach differently? If you're looking back over your Career, what would you say?

Yeah, I think as a person I'm a rather curious. So when there is a good challenge, I try to jump on that and somehow that builds exposure. Maybe it doesn't feel right every point in time, but I'm looking back, I think it's all about building a wide experience and that is helpful. I mean you get into different type of, I mean also looking into treasury, it's not pure financing or pure risk management. Sometimes you have to work with the operation as well and then understand their challenges. So having a broader base of experience on various topics, I think that is helpful. But then if I take the optimal way or. Yeah, that's hard to say as well. I mean sometimes it's also about being a little bit lucky. For example, just before the financial crisis we also have a change of treasurer at the same point in time some of my senior colleagues left. That was good for me because that opened up new possibilities for me. Be more senior in my role. I think the most important thing is to be curious, have the interest to learn and also to understand things, show that interest and also give maybe feedback to your managers how you think things could be.

Yeah, for yourself. You obviously started out right in the back office, you know. Right. So back office controllership and then you've eventually got to the number one position of the treasurer and things like that. What advice would you give to someone? You know, sometimes there might be new starters in treasury going, oh, I'm not sure about going into that area. I'd rather be in the front office where all the action is. How would you answer that?

I would say for younger listeners, for younger treasury professionals, I think it's important also to have a little bit more long term view. I can see some of the younger people today are very eager just to change positions very quickly. A senior role or a treasurer role. But I think it's important also to have a long term view to see also how you can build your internal database of treasury knowledge. You don't have to work just within that role but also to if there is some type of project maybe that you could be involved, that you raise your hand and say, okay, I want to be part of this. And also that you, when you say that you will actually deliver on that as well. And I think if you're doing a good work and doing a number of, let's say, I think then afterwards you will be rewarded somehow, I mean with a more senior role, added responsibilities, et cetera. So I think it goes hand in hand. Treasury functions normally, is Huge. I mean, we're talking maybe five to 15 people normally and you have largest Treasuries. Obviously it's not easy to change positions quickly, but I think it's important to ask a manager as well that when open positions arise, you are able then to reward the younger people that are angry and have made a good job to give them that responsibility and give them that opportunity as well.

I just wanted to ask, obviously this current. There's lots of things happening. We got trade wars, we've got tariffs, we've got. Then treasury trying to cope with it all as well. What would you say? How are you dealing with it, particularly given the company background and everything else? Are you guys affected by it or how do you deal with it as a treasurer?

Yeah, I would say obviously. I mean it's building a lot of insecurity in the market when you don't really know the rules of the game. Right. Of the global trade. So everyone is affected. Looking at Trello Bar and the direct effects, I think they're rather limited. We work on a local for local approach. Taking China, what we produce in China, we mainly sell in China. The same goes for the US. We have 25 factories in the US serving the local need we have there. Looking at Trelleborg, we have almost 100 production facilities, which is quite a few considering our turnover strategy. Want to be close to the customer, be perceived as a local company in those markets. We operate so. And then Covid came. You can really see that we had compared to others much less effect on our supply chain because they were not really global, but rather regional. So very limited effect. And then our setup was seen as a strength. And the same goes now in terms of trade wars and tariffs, that is seen as a strength. So we consider that the direct effect of the tariffs will be limited. But obviously as many of our customers are in the Catholic goods sector, it creates also some hesitancy. Maybe take. So there will be some indirect effect. Depends per se on how. How our customers and our customers suppliers are affected. That will be the indirect effect. But I think we try to do everything according to our model and not change too much. I mean, obviously there are certain things that maybe we export from Europe to Canada, but we have a logistics center in the US and only we send it to the US and to be sent to Canada. Obviously we will do those changes and send it directly to Canada. We have mapped all the flows also within the group, both external and internal flows. So some adjustments and maybe certain things how we where we produce them. And also if we sell them, assemble it or not always assemble them in the US etc. So a lot of the fine tuning I would say and from so it's more from a operation point of view from Treasury. I mean looking at the first weeks in April, there was obviously a lot of stress in the market. We tried to be a little bit quick also to add on maybe some additional financing just to ensure that we will not be any issues of issuing new commercial papers, etc. So I think there is certainly a, I would say it's not a financial crisis now so we rather, I would say not too stressed about. The banking sector is very strong as well. So no issues of getting new financing or increased credit lines at this point in time. I think we're quite in a good seat. But obviously, I mean business growth goes down generally we will be affected as well. No one is really new to these type of things.

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Indeed.

Yeah. Well look, we're going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so that people can connect to you and I know that they will want to after this. What advice would you give maybe to someone whose earlier stages of their career you did that move where you went from a back office to the role now of treasurer at the same company or in and out a couple of times. And for other treasurers that are maybe going through similar challenges that you are, what would you say?

That's an advice. Yeah. Maybe back to what I said earlier, to have more, maybe a little bit more like a long term view to focus on what you do today and you try to do the best out of that and then I think as long as you're doing that well, things end up well. And then sometimes, you know, we call it luck or yeah, certain incident that that maybe is, let's say change really your career. And I also think as long as you enjoy your daily work as well and continue to do it, if you don't like the place where you work or the things that you do, maybe try to find something else large part of your life. Yes, I think it's always important to enjoy your work, your colleagues, the company that you work for and also that you feel appreciated where you are. So say given responsibilities and also being looked after in every aspect. Love it.

Great wrap up. Thank you very much Jens. Amazing to chat to you sir. And yeah, as you say, it's funny, the harder you work, the lucky you seem to get. Looking forward to seeing you at a conference soon. Thank you very much for sharing today.

Thank you Mike. Yeah, thanks.

Thanks.

Thank you. Thanks.

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