This is a YouTube video titled "Saying “Yes” in Your Treasury Career with Stephen Hogan" containing a detailed monologue by Stephen Hogan discussing his experiences and responsibilities in treasury management within a multinational company, including acquisitions, cash management, and banking relationships. The content is a professional career reflection and explanation of treasury operations, recorded in June 2023.
There's not an acquisition. And there's an acquisition in terms of you take over a company and you buy shares, but there's not a cult, there's not a cultural takeover. So it's not like you suddenly you keep the best people and you keep the culture and that even now, 20, 30 years, you know, you'll see that within our different acquisitions there's still the legacy cultures still exist, which is slightly different in each division. So I mean I remember going and we would meet up and the people from Danzas in Switzerland would come and Express, obviously we were based in Brussels and now the people from corporate finance as treasury was in Germany. And I remember meeting in a large castle, Castle Crickenbeck on the German Dutch border. Like, you know, are seated in this large room around three parts of the room and that's where we were then discussing what was going to be the future of treasury or corporate finance finance in this new 3D organization, effectively bringing together these three companies. So yeah, I went out to Singapore. You know, the first thing was really to work on these cash management projects and really look at eight countries if I remember at the time and how we could bring. Because obviously then in Asia it was fundamentally the express business in every country and Danzas or DHL Global Forwarding, so as we know them today, DHL Express and DHL Global Forwarding and they were working together as a finance organization already, which was great. And so you arrived and of course the nature of DHL is you're a colleague and so of course, you know, you are welcomed and you're given a seat or a desk. But fundamentally you were on your own. My new boss was now in Germany. You were left to your own devices. You get on with it, right? You have this project to do, get it done. And once you've done those eight countries, go and do Oceania, Australia, New Zealand and so on and so on. Get all of the banking and cash management fixed, get it that we're using our core relationship banks, get it in these, in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc. That we're using zero balancing cash pools, that we've opened up the central entity accounts, our in house bank is up and running and LinkedIn because already we had at that time, you know, an in house bank running. And that was actually quite interesting that you actually had two companies, both DHL Express and Deutsche Post who were using in house banking. So it was a natural, easy rollout fit. Then when you're there, then the business going well you're the treasury guy, right? We've got, you know, the forwarding people say, hey, we've got a big FX book. This is your issue now, right? So you take care of it. And other people say, hey, but, you know, we've had these bank facilities that we've been managing. That's your job, right? And there you go. And then the divisions, you're sitting with them. And then people are starting to say, here, this is your work. Right? And it was, it was, you know, so you're trying to central. So as part of trying to centralization, the business is realizing, okay, now we have our treasury person here. I was told we need to set up an rtc. That's where I recruited a small team and effectively was told, okay, it's not just about looking at bank relationships. Now your job is to represent corporate finance. So whether it's bank relationships, financing or debt, FX or commodity risk or working capital or M and A, it's your job to be at the front. You are, you know, and even my current boss now is, you know, this is what we are. We are at the front end and we are the connection to the business, to our colleagues in the region on those topics. And so, you know, I got involved back in one of the big things was the acquisition of bluedart. And Blued out was a major, you know, when you went into India, if you wanted Express servicing. Even today, you don't say dhl, you say Blue Dart. Everyone knows who you're talking about, right. And you know, I got involved. Other people may run the project, but my role was to ensure everything was in place so that we could execute it, so that we could pay all the shareholders. Interesting. By pay orders that we had the guarantees in place that the bank accounts are in place to execute the transaction, that the demac accounts were in place to host the shares upon purchase. And so suddenly your role changed. It wasn't just cash management or a bit. And that, you know, what I liked about it? We've, over the years, as I say in house banking is a norm for us. We've rolled out the payment factory in Asia Pacific. I tend not to. I have a number of key banking partners who do clusters of countries. And that's because we, you know, going back to my point of finding the best bank for the fit and then my role, you know, we in 2005, globally, we acquired Excel, the UK supply chain company based out of Bracknell. And so that suddenly brought division into the group and they had extensive operations in Asia Pacific. As well. So now you had to bring them on board to the same structure.
