Strategic Insights and Leadership Lessons from the Treasurers of Porsche and Tesco

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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. So welcome to this, our biggest ever treasury career quarter. Live in London with over 100 of you guys. Lovely people. Obviously, I'm putting it down to amazing panelists. They will introduce themselves shortly. Just a couple of housekeeping rules I'm going to come to. Firstly, number one, you have made an effort to come here in a quiet evening. Horrible out where the. Bit cold out there and everything else. I need your energy, your enthusiasm. Usually as kickoff. Few of you have been here before. I'll do the good evening. You like, wake up a little bit, fall asleep a few times and then you say, good evening, Mike, and stuff like that. We're not doing that. So I'm just going to do a big good evening. You're going to give it back. Good evening, London. You didn't let me down. Thank you very much, everyone. So that's the first one, you got some enthusiasm there. Second one is being present in the room. If you've got your phone on, switch it off, please. You've made the effort to be here. Wolfgang's come all the way from Stuttgart and he's come from Hertfordshire. But the fact is the commitment's there and make this commitment to you and your treasury careers. How often are you gonna. An opportunity to speak to two amazing treasurers here this evening. But before I do get into it, I'm very good at this. I'd make sure I want to thank our sponsors. Kristen, where are you? Behind up. There you go. So keep your hand up, please. And I have the guys from Chatham Kyriba, Stage three and Tis. Can you get your hands up, please? Look around. Those are the guys. There you go, Jackie in the corner. And we'll put Spaby in the corner, but we'll do that with Jackie. But those are the guys that support this event. Lovely venue and that's. We were doing drinks with them afterwards. Now it's a bit different because last time we're in the two rooms next door, we've been given the executive suite, haven't we? Kristen, where are you? Yeah, over there. Look at that. Thanks very much. Yeah, exactly. It's a very nice big room out there. So thank you for all coming this evening. Who am I? I'm Mike Richards. I run the treasury recruitment company. Very big Fat head there. Sorry. Started the business 25 years ago. I love talking to you guys. Treasury reflections, all levels. That's my day job. It's also Katie's day job as well. A allegedly when she does it. And we will help you find your next role whenever you need it. But I love talking to you guys so much, I started a podcast, this is it. These guys have both been previous guests on it, where I talked to treasurers about how they started their careers, where they are now, where they see themselves in the treasury profession going to next. It then led to this live event format, which I love doing with you guys, but I also need to tell you about the structure. So this is going to be the structure of the evening. So each of my guests will introduce themselves. We will then go through some of the topics. Obviously, they're senior treasurers, Andy at Tesco, Wolfgang at Porsche. When we get later on to the Q and A, ask them questions. How often do you get to ask treasurers questions that they will answer for you straight to your face?

As long as they're not hard questions.

They won't be hard questions, actually. Don't worry. And then we do get to socialize, let's say. So when we go out of here, it does make a difference. Go out, head out left, go up to the escalators, up one floor and turn left. Don't want any of you leaving. We will be switching off the down escalators. So I'm going to get my guests to introduce themselves. We'll start off with Andy and go to Wolfgang and then we'll go through your careers.

Thanks, Mike. Hi, I'm Andy Henley. Mike said I work. So I joined Tesco a little over 18 months ago as the group treasurer. And being the group treasurer at Tesco was really my first proper treasury job. So I'll fill in as we go through the Q and A. How that happened for the past six months or so. And I look after a broader remit. So I'm responsible as well as treasury for group tax, group financial reporting and the group control team. And as I think it says on the slide, it wasn't cut out. That includes looking after about 600 people in our shared service center in Bangalore in India. So, like many treasury professionals, I started my career. Another thing I said Mike on The podcast joined PwC because in my last year university, I didn't really have any idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. And joining an accounting firm at the time seemed to put off that decision for for three more years. And when I joined PwC, for those of you who've got worked as an auditor in the past, for the first year or so I thought it was the most boring job in the world. Carrying around a laptop, going up to talk to a client who didn't really want to talk to you, questions where didn't really understand the answer to the question you were getting but you don't realize at the time it builds like tenacity and agility continue and you go on a really steep learning curve. So I ended up staying at PwC for a little bit more than a decade, most of that working for PwC in London across a variety of different departments. Audit, capital markets, transactions accounting, technical function and also spent a couple of years on working for PwC in Hong Kong. Then I got so this is little over 10 years ago now, the pressure from my parents wanting to become grandparents back to the UK with my wife. Stayed at PwC a little bit longer than that, then took a role at Reckitt Ben Keiser working for the CFO at Reckitt Benkiser in a job that had a more glamorous sounding title than this but was essentially the CFO's bag carrier. So working across M and a finance, investor relationship, other projects or whatever needed attention of the day. Stayed there for two or three years, then moved to work at Tate and Lyle where I was a group financial controller and head of corporate finance. And the big piece of work that I probably spent somewhere between 50 and 75% of my time in the four years I was at Tate and Lyle was a big disposal project where we disposed of controlling interest in the kind of commoditized division of Tate and Lyle's a private equity in the U.S. so if that took up to 5% of my time, the other 25% of my time was explaining to people that Tate and Nile don't make sugar anymore. So Tate Brand in the UK that will be familiar to many of you. Tate and I sold that shade of business 15 years ago. So actually moving to Tesco it was quite nice not to have to explain every time I introduced myself, no, that's actually not what they do. And indeed it got to the stage where I just stopped bothering explaining that. And even my mother in law when she would say can you pick up some cheap golden syrup and I'll get some for you straight round to Tesco of course, let's take it off the shelf and bring it up to her. And then yes, 18 months ago joined Tesco. So looking after group treasury at A really exciting time for treasurers more broadly. Liz Truss had done her best blow up the gilt market. So I remember going all the way from Googling what is a liability driven investment to suddenly being the kind of expert in these matters at Tesco. And we'll come on to. I think that's, that's a, it's a brilliant kind of example of the expertise you're expected to get in a broad area across kind of treasury and corporate finance. And before I run on too much longer, that's why I was 18 months ago and as I said, taken on a Borga remit in the last six months.

So we're going to dive more into the international experience of both Andy and Wolfgang in a moment but Wolfgang over to you yourself.

So that was impressive Andy. I didn't, I don't actually know where to start to start but Wolfgang Ata is my name, I'm Austrian and I'm very glad to be in London. Thank you very much for the invitation, Mike. We've been working together for quite a while in different companies so maybe my background is a bit different, I must say, maybe when I start very early. I grew up on a farm so I was the youngest of four kids and was always foreseen that I would run the farm and that's where my first education is, basically being an Agra agricultural engineer. And I decided actually this is not enough for me. I actually worked five years at home with my parents and was a dairy farm and then I decided actually to move on and I wanted to go and do something else and a bit more international as well from Austria, small farming environment coming. I didn't foresee that. This is basically the future of my life and when I actually went into university my father died and I took over the farm. I did both at the same time, made sure that I had some people working for my farming business and I could basically go on the international side. So I started with KPMG afterwards at the end of the term of my university because I didn't know exactly how I should start. I wanted to become a tax advisor but after the internship I said no, it's, it's boring for me. Let's go into KPMG and. And then I tried it as well. Everything backwards driven. I want to actually create things, I want to actually look forward, do influence and steer the business. So I thought I might go into more turnaround management stayed with KPMG and then it was a bit life changing moment because I decided to go to a career event where we Had I think six or seven different workshops in two days. And then companies came after me and were asking for interviews. And I actually wanted to go into banking because all my friends went into banking. It was end of the 90s investment banking. Come to London and earn the big bucks and learn as fast as possible. But all the corporates were after me, so it's okay with my experiences and agriculture engineer plus a finance person. And this actually were very attractive to corporate side. So I decided to go and start with Henkel, which is a blue chip company in Germany. And the reason why I chose Henkel is I wanted to go overseas as quickly as possible. That was my dream, my really my direction. I wanted to go, I always wanted to go the us and six months later I was in Hong Kong. So agility was never an issue for me. I started in Hong Kong, it was the 11th of September 2001, so I think everybody remembers this date. And I started in corporate finance, so I didn't know anything about Treasury. Came back to Germany and worked in corporate finance. And then they asked me whether I want to go back to Asia and I say yes. I really enjoyed the stint in Hong Kong and to run basically for the Asian Pacific treasury or support the treasury in Asia Pacific. And on the way there, the plane didn't go to Hong Kong, it was turning to Shanghai. So in 2002 I arrived then in Shanghai instead of in Hong Kong, where I supposed to land. But the double tax treaty between Austria and Germany and Hong Kong was very unfavorable. So they bugged me in Shanghai and said, you need to learn about how actually to run a virtual organization as well. So my boss sits in Hong Kong. I was sitting in Shanghai and covering the region in Asia Pacific. It was fun. So I worked five years for Hankler and when I was in Shanghai, I realized there's a lot of American companies there, very successful. So I wanted to see what the difference is between the different leadership styles. And then I joined an American company in 2007 state where it was controls but back in Europe. So I had no family with me. So I was totally free. And I wanted to come back to Europe as well for family reason. And I, when I had the interview, I said I want to stay in Europe for at least five years. Started in Germany and a year and a half later I was back in Hong Kong taking care of Asia Pacific and the Middle east, which was very exciting and a big role. So was a fantastic experience because a lot of growth. Turnover went from 7 billion to 12 billion. In five years and that was pretty exciting. And then I came back to Europe, went from treasury out because I always had the dream to go to become a cfo.

So.

So I went into the business, took over the CFO role in Europe for the metal business, did a lot of restructuring post merchant integration. And then in 2017 I was asked whether I wanted to go back into treasury at Borscht. So that's why I moved to Stuttgart at that point of time. It's a fantastic company and the idea behind was as well, Porsche is part of the Volkswagen Group, but to become independent and if you going as a treasurer to a non independent company, then treasury doesn't have really the essence of it. So the IPO was very much straight from the beginning on the table from 2017, took us five years to 2022 where we went IPO and yeah build up the treasury organization there. And now we are a public listed company.

So we're going to go through here, we're going to talk about different areas. In fact, we'll jump into the international side because both of you have spoken extensively about being in Asia Pacific and things like that. Now do you think I was going to go into what the biggest challenges maybe you had when dealing with the different cultures there and what it was like being there. We'll go to Andy and then we'll come to you. Wolfgang, about that. But again, leadership style, firstly, what did you have to adapt there and do you think it's necessary? I was talking to a treasurer just the other day and he was saying, yes, you have to go internationally, you have to have an international assignment. And I was like, but do you? And he was like, yeah, it's brilliant if you do because it really gives you that the different businesses and that's really helped him. You've both done it. Would you say that's something everyone has.

To do with leadership and the rest? Mike, it's a really good, it's a really good question. I haven't done it quite to the extent where the plane lands analogy. I was planning to go to Hong Kong, went to Hong Kong, stayed there a few years in that and came back taking a step back. What I would say is actually I think it's desirable in life, right, to spend some time living away from your home country, irrespective of the benefit for your beer or otherwise. And when I was growing up, I didn't leave to go British Isles until I was 12 years old. So I always had this kind of desire to be much more international as I Grew up in adult life. And I remember at PwC, it was like the expected thing. Right. At some point in time, you will transition and you'll spend some time overseas. And what lots of people would do is either go to Australia and have what looked like a brilliant time for two or three years, or they go to the U.S. then a small number of people each year would go to Hong Kong because at the time, two of the big trading houses, Jardines and Swire, were clients of PwC. So you would go out there and one of those two clients, which is a fantastic experience and it definitely teaches you, you learn a lot about how you can't just have one leadership style. Right. So I remember going out to Hong Kong and. And for those of you familiar with that part of the world, Mike, there's a real culture of not wanting to lose face in front of more senior people.

Yeah.

So often you would explain something to more junior staff and you'd say, do you understand? You would say, yes, even if I explained something incredibly badly, and they were none the wise of what I was trying to do. So it meant really for me as a leader, I adopted a much more kind of nurturing style and involved more junior staff in that learning. Okay, so explain back to me what I've explained. What I've explained to you. It's a bit of an Americanism, but it's made me a much better coach with junior staff as I progressed back through my career in the uk. And it's also wonderful when you spend a few years overseas. It's wonderful to have another place which is no home home. But you still have. I still have a fantastic network of people out, out in Asia. So whenever there's a re. Whenever there's an excuse to go there, I will take it. Now, those of you who know Tesco know that it's French for most of its international expansion, but we do have a small sourcing business based in Hong Kong. So when the opportunity came over, came in the summer to go out there and spend a week with a sourcing team, I'd like. Yeah.

And over to you, Wolfgang, you jokingly said to everyone, you got off the plane, it was a different country, but you drove that you actually wanted that international experience. What's that given you, would you say?

Pretty much it's similar what Andy said, but maybe one anecdote as well. When I came to Hong Kong, actually not Hong Kong, but to Shanghai, I changed three things at the same time.

Can you move your microphone up a bit more?

Yeah. I changed three things. So I cursed the ball. You is a totally different country. So I came from the first thing. The second thing, my boss was Chinese. And the third thing was I didn't know anything about Treasury. So that was really. The first year was very hard. Very hard. But I learned a lot as well. Because it's not one leadership style. It's basically in Germany, I was super well connected and successful. And then you come in a different country and certain things, I was very young. Certain things just don't work. So you need to adjust yourself. First thing, you need to learn about yourself being comfortable getting off your comfort zone and basically build on what you are good at. But let's.