The Benefits of Diversity in Your Team and Career with Mark Kirkland

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they've built 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, Deloni excited to be joined by a long term friend in the company and everything else, Mark Kirkland. Mark is currently treasurer at Constellium, based over in Zurich in Switzerland and actually he's the first doctor we've had on the show, but we can explain about that. There's a He's incredibly bright, amazing man and I'm looking forward to today's episode. He's going to throw some good opinions your way as well, so be a great listen for anyone today. As always, Mark, enough of me chatting, let's get on to you and how you discovered the first the wonderful world of finance and then and then Treasury. So back to you sir.

Well, it's been quite a journey.

So I studied mathematics at university and.

That was more because I was good at it at school than any desire to do anything in mathematics, which is a little disappointing to all my maths lecturers that may be listening.

I then decided at the ripe old.

Age of 21 that I was far too young to start working and I really fancied having the title of doctor. So I stayed on another three years at university to do a PhD.

During my PhD I kind of realized.

That I probably wasn't smart enough to be a university lecturer and do research and things, but I probably was smart.

Enough to go into finance. And being somebody who's rather focused on money, I thought working for an investment.

Bank would be ideal. So I wrote to 20 investment banks.

And told them that I was very.

Interested in swaps and making markets, although I really wasn't sure what either meant.

Interviewed with maybe 10, got job offers.

From three and ended up in Merrill lynch. And actually that was a great team that I worked in at the very beginning.

I was hired actually because one of the guys who hired me was also.

A doctor and had known my professor and said anybody that can survive him for three years probably should work at Merrill Lynch.

So it was quite a funny start. After three years of working in London, I was a quant, so I was.

Building the models that were used to price non dollar swap deri so swaps, options, caps, floors, swaptions, all this stuff. I was the quant behind it. So I was writing the computer code for that and Seeing how they should be hedged.

I then kind of realized that actually.

I didn't like living in London. Most of you will be surprised at that. But London was a little bit English at the time and I had the wrong accent. So I had the opportunity to move.

To Germany and seize that opportunity just.

Before Britain moved out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. So actually in hindsight I did very well.

But I moved to Germany, worked there.

Structuring deals for investors. So I decided that actually moving towards the clients was how you made money in an investment bank.

Did that for two years, was very successful. My boss who ran the German office.

Headed up, then moved to head up commodities and asked me to run commodity sales in North America and later in South America too. So then I moved to New York a couple of years, worked in New York three years, lived a high flying adored life. The Wall street life with all its perks and all the interesting sides.

Traveled extensively in north and South America, didn't really have much personal time at all during this period.

Decided that I was kind of 34.

Years old, I had quite significant money in the bank and I really was.

Leading a very lonely life.

So at this stage my boss change, I moved back to London and I.

Looked for an exit from banking. I think I was a little bit tired of it.

So the opportunity came to work in Amsterdam. I thought I would like to kind of go into semi retirement, right old age of 35. So it showed you I had some.

Very good years in investment banking.

So I moved to Amsterdam to work for Philips Electronics in the treasury department. And it kind of was for me very easygoing.

I ran, I first was a risk consultant for the treasurer for the cfo.

Advising them on what policies they should have. And it was very funny when they.

Interviewed me, they asked do you think we should hedge P and L or do you think we should hedge cash flow?

Now actually being a banker, I had no idea what they were talking about.

So I said well I think you should do both.

And they hired me because of that answer because they thought it was very clever. So I'm not sure it was really.

Such a smart one in hindsight.

But anyway, I joined Philips, I grew my portfolio in Philips. So I started off just running this small consulting group. Then I took over the dealing rooms.

There used to be four or five, we made it into one. Then I took over cash management as.

Well and streamlined that department and then.

Credit risk management at the end. So by the time I had been there nine years, I actually was running about half of the treasury in Phillips.

Philips for the again for some of the listeners, they will know it, you know, certainly across Europe. You know most, I would imagine most, some of our North American guys will go, Philips Electronics. Who are they? What was the sort of shape of the company and size at the time? I know they were massive. But again for the listeners, so at.

The time Philips had five different divisions.

So they had the Medical, Philips Medical.

Which was one of the parts of.

The company that has actually become Philips.

As we know it today. Then there was consumer electronics which was TVs, et cetera, DVDs, all this sort of stuff. Then beside that there was domestic appliances which Philips have just sold I think.

To private equity Very recently they made.

The shavers, household appliances like kettles and things like this.

And then there was components which they got out of not long after I.

Was in the company. And the last part was Philips semiconductors.

So they were widespread, spread nearly in every country in the world.

Big markets in North America, big markets in Brazil, big markets in Europe. It was like the Dutch civil service.

Effectively revenues, I can't really remember, I want to say $30 billion but it.

May have been a little bit lower than that. That's the number that sticks in my mind.

And what was that like in treasury terms? Global multinational in the Netherlands but literally focused everywhere. Would that be right?

That's right. So there was a lot of legacy issues, a lot of country thinking, a.

Lot of empires, businesses against corporate. However, what was kind of unusual about Philips was there was a very forward looking group of people there.

So in 1999 I joined in 98. So in 1999, 2000 we were probably.

The first major corporate that move to.

Multi bank Internet execution of transactions. So at the time I think we.

Were the first, maybe the first or second large corporate that basically told their banks we are going to use this platform. Now the platform we used was Currentex.

At the time but 360t or FXO.

Would be today's equivalence.

And we basically told the banks we're.

Going to use this, if you don't.

Want to be on it then goodbye. So we really moved that at that.

Time which was quite aggressive. We also one of the first bank.

Corporates that had a payment factory and we were executing almost all our payments.

On a central basis.

This was in 1999. So it was very forward thinking. So as a Treasury, although we were part of this massive company, treasury itself.

Was very forward looking and adopting new technologies which of course I didn't realize at the time because I Thought that was normal.

You did that role and then you made the move. You know, you were in the Netherlands, very happy, doing well. And then Bombardier came along and again, that's where we did a lot of work together and talk us through what the group was like. So I know it went through a transition period whilst you were there. Again, it's a sort of theme with yourself. A lot of the places are developing and changing and forward focus. So you then moved on and joined Bombardier again, what was that like?

First of all, you know I moved to the Netherlands and those of you.

Who don't know, the Netherlands has extremely high tax rates.

But for those lucky few, the tax.

Authority are willing to give you tax package which lasted when I was there for 10 years.

So it doesn't surprise anybody to learn.

That after nine years I left the Netherlands.

I moved to Switzerland, which actually I've always wanted to live in since.

I was a child. My mother comes from the German Swiss borders and I have lots of relatives in Switzerland. So moving to Switzerland was always a kind of dream for me.

So at Euro Finance Conference actually in Vienna, I happened to sit beside somebody from Bombardy and they asked me, do.

You know anybody that's looking for a job that would move to Switzerland?

And I nearly fell off my chair because it was exactly what I was looking for.

You handed them your CV quickly. Here you go.

Exactly. So it moved very quickly. Bombardy was made up of two main.

Businesses, so aerospace and transportation. Transportation being trains.

The transportation UN unit was headed in Berlin where I happened to have an.

Apartment, so it was all very convenient for me.

And the treasury of the transportation part.

Of the business was in Zurich.

So the idea was that Bombardy were.

Going to go into a joint venture with another partner for their transportation business. And I was hired to be the standalone treasurer of that and work through the the separation of the company. That actually never happened. And so I ended up being the treasurer of a business unit rather than the group treasurer. And of course that means that you have very limited interaction with banks. Most of your interaction is with your businesses. So it's on cash flow forecasting, it's on risk management, et cetera. So the corporate finance part effectively is missing at that stage.

So I enjoyed that.

The company was going through a lot of change. The profitability of course was affected because of huge investments in the aerospace section. They of course built the C series, which is the Airbus 220, which is.

A very nice aircraft, but cost Bombardy dearly. And so the work at Bombardier was really shaping a Treasury, which used to be a back office, so a lot.

Of change of staff. And I know you've met Susanna in.

The past, who worked for me in Bombardier, but we also had some very good people who really changed the way.

Of thinking of the treasury and drove it forward.

You stayed in Switzerland and then you made a couple of moves because you were there, keen to sort of review some of these and also look at your views on treasury, because I think they're brilliant and everything else, but then talk us through the next couple of moves and can study them, who people might not know and things like that.

So I actually decided to part ways with Bombardier and that was probably around.

February of the year.

And then in April, I think I.

Was approached by another company, cofra, if I could do a short consultancy work with them. And the consultancy work was to look at really their hedging policies or their policies and help them with the treasury policies and also look at the organization of Treasury. So that was very interesting. It was interesting being a consultant because, you know, as those of you who know me know that I can be pretty aggressive and pretty passionate about my viewpoints.

Well, you, you would have some views that people should listen to. Mr. Kirkland, you're surprising me.

Well, you know, I can be passionate, but as a consultant, it was quite nice that you didn't really have to be, you know, they paid you anyway. If they didn't like what you said, then, okay, go their own way. So that was interesting for me, just.

To be in that role and see.

Actually that sometimes it's more powerful to be a little bit disjointed from the subject and be passionate about it. Sometimes if you're passionate about it, people.

Put up their barriers, but if you're less passionate about it, they start accepting what you're saying.

So around the time I was approached by Apollo.

So Apollo's a private equity company. If I would take over the role of a company as treasurer of a company called Constellium.

Constellium, like many of you, is a.

Company I'd never heard of. It was part of the downstream business.

Of Alcon and Alcan was bought over by Rio Tinto and then Rio Tinto.

Decided they didn't want this downstream business. Now, the role of Constellium is to.

Take aluminium, roll it or heat it and extrude it, and then sell the.

Large rolls of aluminum which look like enormous rolls of toilet paper, or shapes which can be used in different industries.

So we're not mining bauxite we're not making alumina, we're not smelting to aluminum. We're buying either aluminum in slabs or in billets, or we're actually buying scrap.

Aluminum and then we're converting that aluminum to other shapes.

And the end users are aerospace, so.

We actually provide the metal, which makes a lot of aircraft.

So aerospace, automotive.

More and more cars are moving to aluminium for lightweighting.

If you buy an electric car, probably it's almost all aluminum because that's how.

You get the range.

Also the train business and of course packaging. Coca Cola can, Pepsi cans, beer cans.

Et cetera, we're probably producing the metal.

So, you know, in your daily work a day, you're probably touching our metal.

Somehow, which is interesting for a company nobody's heard of.

It's amazing and it's. Yes, it's not dissimilar to people like, say, Johnson Controls, a big client of ours that, you know, again, people just don't realize that every bit of safety equipment in your car is probably them or a spin off company.

Yeah.

And you're exactly the same. And I know this from talking to you as well. But we also talked just before the show and I literally said, you know, you've ticked virtually all the boxes. You know, as a treasurer, you've got this incredible career and things because you then went, you know, some people say, oh, I want to go through an ipo, I want to do this, the only thing, as you say, and touch wood, we're doing fine. You know, we don't want to do chapter 11. That's the only thing we want to avoid. That's fine. You said very well, so there's no comment on that. But joking aside, you've literally done everything, so talk us through that because you then, you know, you've implemented the systems or what's your ethos as a treasurer when you were there, is it this constant desire to improve or what's the, what's, what's it for you?

So look, I think when I arrived in Constellium, it was still owned by private equity, which is a very different type of job than when it's a public company. Apollo were extremely professional, wanted to be.

Very close to treasury because they understood.

That'S where the understanding of money was.

Wanted to be involved in many decisions. They weren't quite sure how to hedge. So we had a lot of discussions on hedging, which sounds strange, but in.

The converting aluminium business, as in many metals businesses, when you hedge, you don't.

Hedge to fix prices. You hedge to make the prices floating. So it's a little bit counterintuitive how.

It works, but we learned over time and I was able in a very.

Short space of time to write the treasury policy. Of course, having spent a summer with another company doing that for a consultancy, it was rather easy to pull some of my notes to actually launch the treasury policy of this new company.

That was in December, so I joined in October.

In December we did the treasury policy.

We did a refinancing in March and in May we did an ipo. So it was treasury on speed. And that process was very, very interesting. Of course, post the ipo, as Apollo.

Exited the company, we decided to start refinancing. And so we entered a bond deal, which was the first unsecured bond I've done in high yield. So that was very interesting.

Shortly after that we decided that now.

We were a teenager, we were going to buy something else. And so we bought another company in.

The States called Wise Metals. That was a process that nearly, nearly.

Drove us to bankruptcy. We paid too much for the company, I think it's fair to say in hindsight. We also, the results didn't come from the company that we expected. And so our leverage went through the roof. We had to revert to secured debt, we had to do all types of factoring facilities which allowed us to have the liquidity to keep going.

As I say, you were filling in everything. You literally had your checklist. As you know, I've done many of these podcasts and both the chapter 11. I'm glad you didn't go there. But you filled it in then because then you also would change the treasury management system. You're doing all this as we look through this. Is this a an area for you that you're quite passionate about, the straight through processing, take out manual processes. That an ethos for you, would you say?

Absolutely. For me, the future of treasury is not to spend time making reports or producing reports. The future of treasury is to discuss the reports. I have a degree in mathematics and a PhD in mathematics and I'm hopeless.

As arithmetic, so I kind of feel.

The same about risk management. Putting together a spreadsheet for me is ugly. I like to look at the results and see trends and that's what you're going to drive going forward.

And here Constellium as a company is probably not nearly as advanced as Philips was in 1999.

So we've got a lot of catching up to do.

But if you look at finance processes.

I think there's enormous advantage to gain.

Through standardization, standardizing processes, automating processes and.

Having access on a central basis to data which allows you to automate cash forecasting, for example, through the direct method allows you to start thinking about how you automatically see foreign currency exposures, building.

Up a picture so that in fact.

You'Re less and less dependent on the manual input at site of individuals.

And when you look at other treasurers and you, you just touched on that. I think it's brilliant, the deriving those meaning from the reports, not just focusing on the reports. Oh, here we go, here's the right number. So what you know, you've got the right number. What does that now influence in our behavior? Do you think that's where you know again, we sometimes do on the podcast where we talk about what people should be thinking about for the next stage or if you know, as treasurers, what they, you know, their war stories. Is that where you think treasurers need to spend their time thinking about the direction they're going or what's your ethos around that?

I think your way of thinking will.

Be very much around the journey that.

Your treasury is particular.

Treasury, where you work is on.

If you're a startup company more or less as constellium was in 2011, then.

Just to get any numbers is a major achievement.

So as you start developing, you start.

Realizing, hey, the treasury management system we have is made up of four different systems which are weakly tied together.

This isn't a very good outcome.

We should move to one system because then we have integrity of data, et cetera.

So over time you can start developing. What I would say is I've worked in a single A company, Philips, I worked in a double B company, Bombardier.

Now I'm working in a single B.

Company, Constellium, so I'm going to end up in triple C, I think. But I think it's very interesting the different perspectives you have because in a company that runs very well and ERP.

Is all singing, dancing, you have one.

ERP system, somebody like Cisco, God bless you, you're in paradise.

But the role of treasury is rather back office.

Whereas if I look at our own company, my own company, you know, the.

Role of treasury is key because you're.

Single B, so you're affecting, you know.

The debt levels are very important to investors. The facilities you put in place are key.

So when the company goes through difficult times, treasury is absolutely vital and is driving even the payment behavior of the company. I mean, I've been in situation where.

We were reviewing which payments could be made at which sites over the next week. That's an interesting situation situation to be.

In because you start learning more and.

More about the business.

Of course, if you're in a AA.

Or AAA company, you'll never have these sorts of issues to worry about. You may have other issues, but you know where to put your funding at the moment. Where to put your cash at the moment probably is a key concern.

I've recently written a blog and by the time this comes out we'll, we'll put the link to it in the show notes. But I know that and just like the listeners will be, they'll be totally engaged in this, you know, hanging on your words because you know, you know. And I was so thrilled to be able to get you on the show. But without that we, one thing we haven't touched on is people. Remember looked at again this, on this blog I talked about hiring for your weaknesses. You know, if you're very technically strong but not so strong with people. Not saying yourself because you are very good with people. You know, if, if you're a treasurer that's technically, you know, really strong and that, you know, you might want to get a number two who's really good at engaging with the team or the flip side, you know, if you haven't got accounting knowledge, hire a decent controller filling in for your blanks. That makes you a more rounded, technically strong, but not so strong with people. Not saying yourself because you are very good with people. You know, if you're a treasurer that's technically, you know, really strong and that, you know, you might want to get a number two who's really good at engaging with the team or the flip side, you know, if you haven't got accounting knowledge, hire a decent controller filling in for your blanks. That makes you a more rounded treasurer. Now I know you're a very people centric person. You're very engaging with people as people see at conferences and everything else. But when you look at that side of things, because we're very, we focused on the business side, but actually the business is made up of people. What are your views on that if you like.

I think the first thing if you're sitting in the treasury role is know.

Your strengths but also know your weaknesses.

It's funny you class me as a people person because I don't really see myself as a people person. You have to ask some of my.

People, I guess we've had that. We'll. We'll put the link to Susanna and Detail. She was a previous podcast Guess. Amazing lady. Weirdly, I don't know why she loves you and thinks you're one of her best ever bosses, but, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll slide that by, you know, but. And I've known you as a client, a friend for many years and it's, it's just fantastic. But, you know, I think it's the great thing with yourself is it's that knowledge and that, that sort of, you know, you, you made light of it earlier that you're a doctor in maths and stuff, having that technical background, that expertise, just knowing it. When I talk to treasurers like yourself, it just engages. And I think that again, with stuff. So you know that if your treasurers got that in their back pocket, this is someone you look towards. But I think you are great with people and you underestimate that as a skill of yourself. So how do you then push that out on the team? Or how do you coach people?

I think how you coach people depends.

A lot on the individual.

I think some people you need to guide very carefully.

Other people you can give a project.

To which you possibly already have an idea of the answer, but you let them discover the answer and that's a.

Good way of them learning about the process. I have a lady who works for me in corporate finance, Christo Sayun, who was always a little bit reticent to.

Touch things that I was working on until I said to her, well, I'm.

Going on holiday next week, you finish doing the bond deal.

And she did it in an amazing way, but just giving people the space to do things and telling them, look, I'm not going to interfere, but if.

You want me, you can call me. Right?

And that way she took ownership and ran with it. But I think you need to give.

People the space to fail as well as succeed. And failing is not necessarily failing because.

Hopefully you're there with a safety net. But failing is a way of learning so that people learn what actually went.

Wrong, what didn't go right, et cetera.

It's funny you say I'm quite personable in the business. I think they would find me tough, very tough.

And so I'm kind of the tough side of treasury. And I have two or three ambassadors who work for me who are the nice people at Treasury.

So I think we balance that rather well. But I feel that work towards your.

Weaknesses, use them as strengths.

I think it's very important to have.

A team that works well together, that.

Actually gets on with each other.

My team is very diverse we're in Switzerland.

Three French guys, a Belgian lady, we have a Vietnamese lady, we have an.

English guy who's Bangladeshi as well. We have lady from Britain, I should say she doesn't identify herself as English, although by her accent she's English for sure.

We have a German who works in the team and we have a Swiss and we have a Scott who has a Swiss passport. So, I mean, it's very international and.

We all get on rather well together.

So when I go out and hire.

Somebody, I'm looking, does this person fit.

On the team is number one?

Do I like the person? Do I trust the person?

Is the person motivated?

Are they driven? These are the types of things I'm looking for.

Before I moved to investment banking, when I was a student, I did many awful jobs.

So I delivered papers when I was in my teens, early teens, I washed cars for money. Later on, I worked in a nightclub, I worked overnight in the post office, I worked in a petrol station to make money.

And I respect people who have done.

These things because working with the public.

Is something that matures you very well. So at the end of the day, when you've dealt with people screaming at.

You that you pushed up the pump.

By half a penny and how to deal with this and not take it personally, then actually business is not so complicated. Dealing with the public, I think, is.

One of the most maturing exercises you have.

So I look for people who have.

Grafted, to use the word, who have.

Worked hard, who have come from maybe an unusual background and who want to succeed. These are the people I like.

And when you're doing that, you say that obviously you're identifying and was taking some notes here about their technical skills. But how do you. Then you're saying you hired for that.

Team fit, how do you assess that?

Are you looking for compared to the other blended team? Because you've got all these different. This melting pot, as you talked about. But do you think, right, we need one like that or we need an introvert, an extrovert?

I don't think I go out of my way to define the character. What I would insist on is, when I look at potential candidates, that there's.

Always a diverse group of people in the list. So you're not just hiring white males from Switzerland.

And that way you end up automatically.

With a diverse group of people while not putting quotas on different. We must have another lady or we.

Must have somebody who's not European, it comes automatically. So for me, the main thing is.

To get consensus that this is the right person.

Not just have the boss and me.

Interview the people, but also have some of their future peers interview and say.

Okay, do you think this person you.

Can work with or not?

Because of course, some people are very.

Good at interview technique. When they meet their future peers, they don't get on.

So it's important that people feel part.

Of the team day one.

And also, so if you're involved with the interview process and you've agreed to.

That individual, it's hard to then reject them later. So you want that person to succeed.

So by being part of the process.

You'Re automatically supporting the person when they start their job. So that's important for me to build.

That strength in the team.

Now, you can probably help one of my other listeners if you would, with a little bit of advice. And this is an interesting one, I think thing Ricardo, who is establishing a new startup, treasury, you know, he's going back through and, and bless me, reached out to me recently and said, mike, I'm going back through your podcast. I'm loving it. Great. The listener numbers keep going. I said, listen to all of them. But he said he was actually going back through and, and I think there's, there's definitely something in there and people talk about, you should write a book about all your guests. And some of the things and what I wanted to go to was you've been in a number of established companies but in sort of startup situations, you know, but you've got bread size and company diversity. Do you go in and have your standard checklist of. Right, where's your cash? What's your financial risk management policy? We've talked about the policies there and it's not just, here you go, here's the policy, put it on the shelf. You're talking about active stuff. What was your sort of checklist? If you like, when you go into these new roles and you've walked in as a new treasurer, is it right? Look at what the previous guy did, where can we improve it? Or what's your. How do you approach it?

So I think broadly, treasury is responsible.

For three main things. The first is it's responsible for liquidity and making sure there's enough liquidity in the company for the business to run. So that would be my first view of what is the liquidity? How is the company being financed?

Is it financed at a good rate for the rating?

Because that's of course rating dependent. Is there sufficient liquidity? How's that liquidity made up? If it's a cash rich company, how is that cash being invested, do we have too much cash, et cetera.

The second is, are risks managed in.

Line with shareholder or stakeholder expectation?

And here I view that the way.

To think about risk or financial risk.

Is if there's a movement in the.

Dollar or the metal price or whatever, how is cash flow impacted by that?

As a company, I'm less concerned about profit because as somebody once said, sales are vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is reality. So I'm very focused on cash as.

A treasurer and cash flow.

And so risk management, do you have.

The right policies that protect your cash? What does your board expect? Clearly, you cannot hedge every risk your company does because if you did, you wouldn't make any money at the end of the day. But there are financial risks that you.

Can address and you can look at.

Peers in the market, how they do it.

You can also think about what is.

The right way for your company and how are you impacted.

The third area I think is really.

On the governance of payments in the company. So how does the cash work?

When the customer pays, who gets the cash? How does that work?

How do your businesses spend that money and how do they actually physically make the payments?

I think these are all questions that I would ask. So just to categorize, these are the three main areas and then I would think about, okay, what fits or seems to work for the company, what doesn't fit? And then that's where I would focus my efforts on.

He's going to love this checklist. I'm going to give him a preview sort of a of this because I think it'll save him listening to lots of the other podcasts, but I want him to keep going. Carry on, Ricardo, we love you. So right, as we approach the end of today's episode, sir, we could literally keep talking Treasure all day, but unfortunately you do have a day job to do, so we're gonna have to release you soon. Can we just, you know, looking back at the advice now, we get listeners that are at the beginning part of their career so, you know, wanting to get your job job at a later stage. So I think, or the guys that are running teams and stuff in the mid level or you know, they're other treasurers, so they're seeking advice and you know, when I've listened to a lot of the spoken to a lot of listeners, they've said we love it for the war stories. You know, we love it and you know, I think we've got some great ones in there. So any earlier in the show, but we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and people can connect to you. But as you reflect on this and people listening to this and they're going away and you're sort of of they're going, oh yeah, I really enjoyed that advice. And Mark, what are the sort of closing pieces of advice you give to the treasury professionals listening today?

Sir, the first piece of advice is have fun at work. If you don't have fun, you're at.

Work a lot of the time and.

If you're not having fun, you age very quickly.

So I think you need to have fun. I think that the second thing is.

If you're at the start of your career, don't just stick with A, AAA or AA company, you know, see some other things.

And the reason is because I probably.

Learned more in Constellium than I did in Philips and Bombardier put together.

Just because being close to the edge makes you A more key for your whole company but B sharpens your senses.

So you start realizing the cause and effects of things.

I think one of the big wake.

Up calls I had was probably quite.

Early on in Philips when we had significant US dollar, US dollar bonds and.

We had a lot of cash in.

Euros and so we were hedging these.

Dollar this was before I was running.

The dealing room, but we were hedging.

This mismatch rolling cash or rolling hedges every three weeks or four weeks. The problem if you do this, if you have a trend in the currency is that cash can drip out of your business.

And so suddenly you realize that hey.

As your hedges have matured, your debt has got less. But on the other hand, your debt's very long dated whereas your hedges are very short dated. So unfortunately your debt reduced in size but your hedges that you're rolling over constantly is dripping cash out the company.

So suddenly you start thinking, oh, although.

I was hedged on an income basis, I haven't been hedged on a cash flow basis.

And I think that drives a lot.

Of these sort of wake up calls.

Where you realize, hey, we've paid a billion out to banks in settlement of hedges. Which is correct and was the right thing based on the hedges, but it.

Was the wrong strategy to start with.

And I think you have some of.

These wake up calls through your career that sharpens your thought process.

I think, I think people shouldn't be scared to get into the detail, not necessarily the numbers. But think about for example, in many.

Companies people struggle with the direct method of cash forecasting.

But there's something in EHS where You.

Ask five whys, you say, why do.

People struggle with forecasting? And maybe the answer is because they can't forecast their payments well, why can't.

You forecast your payments?

What is wrong with that process? Is it because your procurement department is not communicating?

Is it because they're doing everything on a rush basis? Why are they doing this?

And by asking five whys, you build up a picture of what is wrong.

Perhaps with a process at your site.

Which is driving a bad treasury process. So for me this is really interesting.

Where you start challenging the bigger finance.

Organization because in many companies finance will.

Be 90% bean counting and 10% treasury or MA or strategy.

So at the end of the day.

You have not many people who are forward thinking or who are willing to challenge processes.

So it's very powerful to be able to understand that the net effect of.

A bad process at site, whether that's in procurement or another case I've seen.

With invoicing where a huge portion of.

The invoices were wrong. What does that mean? That the clients don't pay in time? Why don't they pay in time?

Because they dispute the invoice. So again, your cash forecasts are all wrong. So this can drive a real improvement of your business.

By just identifying these, which may not be clear to most of the finance.

People, even though they're deep in it.

Every day, you may be able to identify issues.

And I think that's very exciting. I like that.

Amazing. So in summary, because I've been scribbling notes here, well, going to go back to the startup checklist, so liquidity and running the business, make sure you're in there. Do number two, the risk management, you know, predicting that and looking, you know, addressing the financial issues going forward, forward, the governance of cash. So that's the practical ones. And then on a personal basis, have fun at work, which is all fantastic. See what other treasuries, sharpen your skills, go out there, don't be scared of deep diving into the detail and asking your five whys and be a forward thinker, challenge those processes, do they work and benchmark.

Spend some time, go and see other companies, go and chat to other treasurers because the problem you're facing, probably somebody.

Else has done it.

And it's really interesting how different companies address different issues. I found a lot out through just.

Seeing how other companies do things.

You probably are not going to ask your nearest competitor, it's probably in a different industry. But I find just an hour chat.

With another person from treasury in a different industry.

Can often address. Maybe one point is interesting, but it's really worth it.

Amazing advice there from Mark Kirkland. We'll put in his details in the show notes to connect with him on LinkedIn. I knew it was going to be a pleasure and we could keep talking for hours, sir. But yeah, you do have a day job and yeah, we'll let you get back to it. So amazing. Thank you sir, and look forward to seeing you at a conference soon.

Thank you.

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