The Challenges of Returning to Work After a Career Break with Catherine Porter

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 treasures about how they've built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next this week's show. Delighted to be joined by Catherine Porter, good friend of mine from the treasury industry. She's been a number of different places throughout her treasury career which I think is going to be well fab to deep dive in. She came from sort of financial control in the earlier days, then discovered the wonderful world of treasury cochlear the ear implants, then did some work at cancer research, short stint to Paragon Housing and more recently cbre. But she's got a really rich history in Treasury. We were talking before the show. Cassie gave me some really detailed briefing notes and a lot of stuff I didn't even know. So it was really interesting. Catherine, enough of me chatting, come on, talk us through your career today and how you first got started. Probably I even noted the notes you discovered accountancy, then discovered, you know, got into finance, then discovered Treasury. So talk us through that early journey and then bring us through over the next 20 minutes. You sort of your career journey if you were over to you.

Thanks for the introduction, Mike. It's really nice to come on the show. I started out in accounting, slightly sort of stumbled into it I think after my university degree, which was an engineering degree, joined one of the big accountancy companies. So Arthur Anderson, a sad, sad, long, long time, no longer with us and trained as a chartered accountant in London and was always very keen on things German. So once I passed my exams in London I went across to the Hamburg office which was great. But I think like many who come my route through accounting or to treasury, indeed if we started an audit we'd probably want to get a bit of a change from that. So I worked in industry in Hamburg, joined P and O containers as a. An accounting manager. Quite fun, nice time. We did nothing to really to do with Treasury. It was very much back office type accounting voyage accounting, paying for things, that sort of thing and a big regional team. I had a team of people working for me in the Northern European part of the business.

You had an interest in German, you're not German by background?

No.

You went off and learned that stuff just again I thought that was an interesting thing that I didn't realize.

I did an O level, chose how old I am, that I'm talking about o level, not GCSEs and was really kind of keen on it because I had a relationship with a family in Frankfurt through my dad's work, actually, you know, I've known the family my entire life and they were just very supportive about getting out there and had a gap year and did courses, did a load of classes in Germany and in London as well when I was doing the accountancy. So I was just very keen on it really and looked for some opportunities when I was at the Andersons and after a couple of other projects I went and worked in Hamburg. So that's how it happened and was over there quite a few years and it's real shaping stuff, actually going and working abroad, that much I can say. So was still working in sort of financial control type of roles in the P and O containers period and actually worked in Rotterdam for them too. But then kind of got to, you know, you get to a point with a job, you think, I'm not kind of moving forwards anymore. I need to look at something fresh and sought out GE Capital as a business that was very in at that time, of course been through different times since. Very much so. Came back to London, worked in a leasing business for GE Capital and did kind of, you know, some integration accounting and closures of. Assisted on closures of acquisitions. They were very acquisitive at that point. It was quite fun, but didn't stay there that long. But got a couple of good things out of it. One was that I became aware of the ACT people having treasury exams. So I had a few colleagues who were not just accountants, but they were, they'd taken treasury exams and they were doing, clearly doing some more technical work at GE Capital. And that kind of was a bit of a moment where I thought, hmm, what are they doing that I don't know about? And also I learned some structures around running projects at GE which I thought was very helpful. And I've taken that with me actually in my, in my, in the rest of my working life. Kind of now a little moment where I'm starting to think there's something beyond accounting, you know, should. Is that something I should investigate? I had 12 months just about in a startup, in a tech startup after GE and kind of went there, I think, to help the CFO with preparing for an ipo, but actually that never happened. So it's my job. My role sort of went away because the company was actually purchased by a.

Big telco that was in the ninth. That was the sort of around the dot com boom as well.

Exactly that period. And you know, people probably, you know, Stop questioning interviews. So why did you jump out of GE into a tech startup? Well, because everybody else was doing it at the time.

Everyone. Yeah, at the time. People saying, how do you scare an investment bank? And just say boo.com. and it was. It was a scary time.

I think the thing is, Mike, you know, when you. When you're a bit younger, or maybe even when you're a bit older, but certainly when you're a bit younger, you need to take a few of those sort of slightly edgier opportunities and not be too wed to what your dad might have advised you to do, sort of thing. And it was one of those moments. And for various reasons, I don't regret it at all. But I guess one of the learning points from that job, which I put in my notes to you before this chat, was that even when it doesn't matter what kind of company you join, you've got to have a proper role when you get there. And this was one of those ones, for all kinds of positive reasons, actually, just sort of fizzled out and you have to recognise right time to do something else. So when that company was bought up, I went almost the next day, I think it was like two days later, I joined MWB Business Exchange because a mate of mine had been working there and said, could you come and. Could you come and help us out here? We got some European subs again, an FC role, all the usual things going on. There's something about that role. I was there a couple of years, something about that role where I was kind of thinking about the treasury background, or rather not having the treasury background at that point in that role, because there were some cash issues and I think not just the. Just to do with cash, but I think it would have been a better financial controller at that point if I'd had a bit of a grounding in Treasury. And in fact, that's one of the things I really think strongly about if you're in a slightly smaller business where you've really got to be quite hands on. I think understanding some treasury principles and knowing a bit better how to deal with the banks and that sort of thing is sort of vital. I would have been better at that job if I'd have had some more structured education.

Sorry. It's an interesting one. I've just done a session for the virtual forum and part of it, we talk about treasury skills wheel and perhaps I'll share that in the show notes, actually, people. Treasuryskillsweet.com and it relates directly to that about, you know, awareness of different areas, but also propensity to learning. And we summarize that from speaking to 70 treasurers. So it's exactly as you said there you are pre that, if you like, you now post that because you are a treasurer. And you know, but it's all those different things, you know, you would have been a great person to interview for what makes a good treasurer. What have you got in your toolkit? Because you've got all those bits in your treasury toolkit, if you like. But we just sort of summarize it with hard skills, the softer skills, they say qualifications in there and project management in the hard skills. But in the softer skills you've got that communications with internal external partners and things. It's interesting that you've actually sort of identified that at this stage.

So I think, yeah, I think actually the dealing with the outside world, for many people that tread the sort of financial control accounting kind of route, you often don't have really not had any experience with dealing with the outside world. And that was one of the things that, as I got into treasury, so actually after I left MWB actually to have my first child, it was right at that point that I thought, right, I'm going to actually explore the act and start doing some exams. And it was kind of at that moment where I thought, oh, you know, they talk to the outside world. I so want to talk to the outside world. And if you look in my, you know, obviously I've been through a number of job changes. Anybody, many other people will have been at my stage in life. One of the things that is an absolute given in my, you know, what makes me tick, I often have little notes of things that I'm thinking about in my next role. But there was something in those notes over that period which was, I really, really want to talk to the outside world. It popped up every time and I wasn't cracking it through doing these kind of classic accounting roles. And so moving into treasury, that's been a very important part of becoming a treasurer, is being that interface with the financial institutions, et cetera. It's a really important part of the.

Role for all treasurers and then moving on.

So this kind of light bulb moment just touched on moving towards do some treasury education. That was kind of happening. MWB Business Exchange. So did my amct, which in those days, back in the day was you were chartered accountant, was a couple of sort of long written papers up in the City, and then with having started a family and not really got the classic kind of treasury background, wanted to look for employment. And this was actually quite a tricky period because trying to persuade recruiters like yourself. I don't know if I rang you up, Mike, I'd have to go right back to all my files and can't remember. But I did meet one or two really unhelpful people who just.

That wouldn't have been me, that would.

Have been someone else who just kind of assumed that, you know, as a returning mother, A, you probably wouldn't be able to hack it, and B, you know, you haven't got. You haven't done this and you haven't done that, instead of sort of looking at you in the round and going, she must be quite tough to already done some exams with a new baby and she really, really wants to go down this route. And also something which is quite dear to my heart is that returning mothers mostly don't have the capacity and don't want to work completely full time, put all that into a package and actually go and talk to a recruiter about part time and et cetera in a new field. It doesn't stack up to instant job offer.

So, yeah, I think you're right. And again, I read through the show notes before and I think there's a sort of, you know, challenge, if you like, between the two, which in some ways is you've got a client. And I think clients are. I know it sounds crazy, but clients are probably a little bit more flexible nowadays, although they're less flexible post lockdown, because there is greater pressure, I think, on them at the moment. Currently, I think that will ease off. But in general terms, I think treasury has broadened and become less, you know, specialist niche, you know, oh, Treasury. Oh, look at this. You know, now treasury is more mainstream. People have heard of it. Yeah. So. But at the time, you know, clients were saying, well, they must have this, they must have this. Unless you ticked five tick boxes, they would not interview people.

Yes.

And it was just a strict no. And it was just, why have you sent me this person? Well, you know, they're really great for the role. I know. I think they can be valuable. They could do. No, they only took four out of the five boxes, Mike. That's a no. And I'll be like, oh, really?

I think that's incredibly narrow. I do think that's incredibly narrow.

Yeah. But I think it's changed, I think. Yeah, I think it's got better as Treasury's become, as I say, more mainstream. People have understood it a bit more.

Now and I do think on the returning mother's piece I mean from my perspective at that period I was quite probably quite a tricky candidate to place because I genuinely hadn't been doing some of this stuff, you know, in the previous 10 years and I understood that. But I think if you're talking about somebody who not necessarily returning mother it could be somebody else from our society who wants to shape their life in a different way. I think that with a bit of thought you could easily organize a Monday to Wednesday and then a Wednesday to Friday with an overlap on Wednesday or whatever to make job share or part time possible but you just have to get organized at that point. It was a tricky nuts crack and I happened on Cochlear who you mentioned in your opening session is a super company, a cochlear implant company, Australian company and there's CFO there. David Ashton saw my CV dropped on his desk and he said oh I can employ her. And indeed I did end up with a Treasury manager role which was less than full time and on and off. I did that over the next four years and it was a really, really good period because I was able to sort of combine all those elements in what I wanted to do at that time in my life.

And so tell us about that role because I think that was a good example of what was treasury like or the treasury set up when you arrive there.

So there hadn't been a Treasury person nominated treasury person before. I guess it means something that had been tacked on to the FC or even CFO role whatever had been happening. I think there was a treasurer in Australia, group treasurer and I kind of coordinated cash consolidation. There was cash coming in across the region and made sure that that was pushed back to HQ as far as I can remember. And I dealt with or the company was dealing with quite a lot of the more those sort of challenging countries in the least and whatnot and collecting. We did collections on letters of credit and I organized for bid bonds to be made. And so there were some things that were slightly different away from the cash piece that were. Which were quite interesting and I hadn't done before and I tried to remember actually what happened. I hired an assistant and she's probably still there I think. So it was a very, very positive story in terms of sort of, you know, moving over and handing on to the next person. So very, a very nice working period actually.

So a good period for you and then you moved on and talking about this sort of graduation of you if.

You know, you know, if you ask that question. So what was your big break? I Think probably moving to Cancer Research UK as Head of treasury was. Was that because that, you know, you've got something on your CV says Head of treasury. And they were a very particular point in the life of that charity. So the UK's biggest fundraising charity, and obviously it's hugely well seen and very important in our kind of national life, et cetera. But at that point, for whatever reason, they had actually cashed up their equities and after the global financial crisis and so they were in the position where they actually had quite a lot of cash to manage. And I did that job for the time that I was there. I was there for just over four years in total, but most of that time I was managing a lot of cash and I sought out all kinds of ways to safely house that cash in layered deposits and little short dated bond funds and various things like that. I was able to present a beauty parade of investment managers to the Finance Committee to suggest another way of doing, organizing the portfolio. And that's what happened. And you can see that if you look through the account, you can see when it flicks over to be managed and it actually went to the investment manager was Pitt, was Goldman Sachs. And as far as I know, they still manage it. And that was a very good period from my perspective because, you know, I had the interaction with the City, had to, because I had all that money to look after. And the City obviously likes working with the charity sector. So it opens doors if you want, in a way that maybe it's slightly different if you're a corporate City tends to be pretty generous with companies and customers anyway. But particularly as charity representative, that meant, you know, knock on, you know, lots of being invited to lots of sort of talks and other events that banks and things would be holding, investment managers would be holding, which otherwise you might not have got into. So it's quite interesting from a point of view of understanding better how things work in the City, that sort of thing. Particularly on the investment side, from my perspective, a really good story in terms of this is what you acquired in the job and this is how you moved it on and got it to the place where it needed to be. And the other part of the job which was really, really great was being involved with the defined benefit pension fund, Cancer Research uk, which was closed for new entrants, but obviously had to be managed in the four years I was sort of both the pension trustee director and on the investment committee. And the two takeaways from that, being involved with that really, one was working alongside really, really Senior people who were experts in their field who were co opted onto those committees. And so that was really good sort of proper learning stuff. But also that the fund went on to be and is, you know, sort of in surplus and in really good shape. And I think that reflects on, you know, the people who were chairing those committees and how we behaved as a group and made our decisions over that period to do this and do that with, in terms of the husbandry of the fund. And it's a bit technical. I think treasurers quite like being involved in pension funds just because it's a little bit technical, it's a bit different from what you're doing on the day job. So this is a really, really good period from my perspective.

And as if you weren't busy enough, you then also deep dived into. Again, we'll come on to this a bit later separately. But you did the mct. You know, again, some people will understand what that is. Some of the guys perhaps in the US won't know because they did tend to focus more on the ctp.

Yeah.

Afp.

Yes.

What is that? And you know, you know, what does it cover?

I've taken loads and loads of exams in my life, but I'm looking at it right now in my work room at home. But it's the only certificate I've got on my wall so that maybe it puts it in context. Got a university degree, I did chartered accountancy, I've got the certificate somewhere. Did my associate exams at the act. But it's the mct. It's in a gold frame behind my computer screen, right in front of me. And it is the course that was, I mean, sort of over the years the course has changed a bit. But the course that I completed in 20 is actually called an Advanced Diploma. I'm reading off the certificate, Advanced Diploma in Treasury Corporate Finance, which you all know very well. Mike, there are lots of people in the UK who've done this and some further field out. It was a 13 months, pretty well full time. There weren't really very many fire breaks in the course, multi modular course of study. So a mixture of case studies, really meaty case studies with quite a lot of excel and write up etc. And plus exams, plus quite a long project. I wrote on a, a cash on the balance sheet theme for that. A very, very satisfying course to have done. Very well organised, super tutors. Quite a lot of it's done online with a tutorial. I think the shaping thing about doing the mct, apart from being incredibly loads and loads of hard work and I'm not selling it very well. People are saying, oh, I wouldn't want to do that. But it's very satisfying when you've done it, is that, you know, your roundedness in understanding the corporate finance piece for company, how the companies work, was massively strengthened by doing this course. It wasn't just about treasury, you know, it was much broader than that. I could say I wish I'd done it years ago, but in a sense, it's one of those things where a little bit of maturity and distance is also quite helpful.

Yeah, you need it. Well, the way I've described it before and you have sort of three levels. I know they've restructured some of the stuff, but it used to be stiff and cash management was like doing O levels or GCSEs in the UK and things. And then your A levels, which we started to be more independent, study and do. That was your amct. With the amct, it made it a lot easier. But the mct, which was much more. And again, I described it to people, it's like your degree level in treasury, where you're actually independent thinking and exactly, as you say, you need probably a bit more maturity or exposure to a number of other areas as well.

I agree with that. I mean, the study group that I was in, we were quite a mixed bunch. I mean, some people were very, very good on some of the technical things and I probably asked more questions. There were other areas where I think maybe other people had better skills in how to write up and communicate with you. Because you had to show a lot of your work to your peer group online, which is actually a super skill for anybody working in a company, because quite often somebody in the team has got to draft something up and then you've got, you know, that panic, oh, I don't know anything about this topic. Why am I going to put it down? You think, we'll just give it a go, just get something down and then team can have a look at it, or your boss or whoever it is, who needs to see it next and not be too precious about the fact that you've left a bit out and you haven't quite calculated the other and whatever it is. And I think that that's a skill you need in a company, not to be too worried about it, just stick your head above the parapet, have a go at it, show it to somebody else, have a bit of discussion, tweak it, you know, refine it. And there was a lot of that in the course Which I think was very, very helpful.

And then from there you did a short term stint with Paragon, but. But you then joined cbre, who are again for the people listening, real estate services investment organization and made some really interesting stuff there. I remember meeting the offices and we talked about some of the stuff you did, really interesting work. So perhaps again explain some of the treasury transition, the treasury stuff that you brought to bear there.

Yeah, so I got the job at CBRE just after their company had purchased a facilities management business which was branded Global Workplace Solutions from Johnson Controls in 2000. So I wasn't involved in that at all. But I came in after that and it was kind of the regional CFO FD team who wanted to beef up what we were doing in the, in treasury in the EMEA region. And it was one of those jobs which sort of emerged into what it was going to be. And I think it ended up really being kind of a series of projects to support the U.S. treasury team and the EMEA region with putting in standardized payment connectivity. So sort of payment factory connected to the tms which the US were looking after in order to have efficient cash management. And it was really a lot of entities, not just from the acquisition, but entities that had been in the legacy business which were then being flipped over to this new way of doing things. And all of them kind of on their own journey. And there were times new entities coming in as well from more acquisitions, etc. So that was kind of the main part of what I worked on and involved in that or setting up those projects was really quite a lot of detailed sort of background, you know, sort of positioning, okay, what companies do we have? Where are all the bank accounts? Where are all the banks? And then we made quite a lot of bank changes in the banking arrangements of the company. So you kind of line up banks. I mean, I put this in a presentation, so this is stuff that kind of been presented in a public forum before. But we kind of made sure that we had a kind of banking strategy so that when you came to do the tech projects you kind of, you knew who you're going to be dealing with because it was. When you've got big region, you inevitably end up with a number of different banks who've got sweet points in different countries, et cetera. And you have to work all that out really before you start doing technology, because you try and do technology with. Sounds a bit pejorative but you know, I can think there was a one mom and pop type of bank in one country and they Actually came to us and said, you know what, you're just too big for us now. We really, really don't want to do this project. Would you mind moving on? I thought that was quite interesting, but I suppose all treasurers have that. You have to work out who your banks are and how they can help best in which countries. You need to sort of have a handle on that before you start diving into lots of technology changes. And I got sign off from the company to do a presentation about those projects, the ACT Annual conference. And actually it made me laugh. One of the slides I had made me laugh because every time I presented it because, you know, a little innocuous slide saying, this is what we did. You know, I hired a project manager and I had another project manager and we did this and we did that, and it was actually two years work on this little slide with sort of five blocks on it.

I remember seeing it and I remember, you remember at the time you saying, this was a lot of my life, you know, exactly.

This, this really took ages. This was not so quick. It's a bit like the NCT really. You know, you're dead shoved when you've done it, but when you're in the thick of it, you're thinking, oh, this is a bit of a slog.

Just sort of jump in, I think. And we've, we've talked about this before. This is one of the things I actually, again, on the treasury skills, where we brought about communication and presentation skills. And one of the things I spoke about just in this virtual forum was last year I spoke in Chicago halfway through the speech where I'm presenting about the skills. Well, I said to these, the audience, I just sort of broke out, I said, do you know what? I don't enjoy doing this. They all like looked at me and said, what? I don't know about you, but I found that I don't enjoy necessarily. It's not like as, oh, do you know what? I want to stand in front of a room of 100 relative strangers. You know, mine are, you know, maybe I've met 20% of them, but the other 80% I haven't. And so sort of frustrate myself and just tell them all this stuff. I said, no, it's a real. But I realized about 10 years ago, in order for our business to grow, in order for me to be a better communicator, I needed to do this. I needed to get up on a stage and start to do this. And, you know, I've seen you talk in the past and things like that. Did you find that sort of, you know, has improved your communication skills?

Absolutely has improved. I think setting yourself some targets and challenge yourself to do some public speaking is a good idea. I'd say earlier on that I think treasurer's got to be able to communicate externally, etc. And I think that does include some public forums. I think the clue here is not to take on something that you're not comfortable doing or you're not. Actually, I'm being a bit harsh here. Not qualified to talk about take on things. It's not the Today program. You don't want to go on and get shot down like a politician and it's all very tough and you're cringing and it's just like, oh, this is not going the right way. What you want to do really is start off by least talking on things that you feel comfortable with, that you know about and to be honest, that you've prepared for. You've got to have a story when you stand up and talk. If you're actually going to do a classic kind of 15 minute slot as a conference, you've actually got to have a bit of narrative, you know, not just, you know, ramble through a few slides. And I think most people are pretty good at doing it, but it does take some practice. And to your point, do you. Do I sort of enjoy it or. I think. I think I've started to enjoy it more because now in the job at cbre, I was presenting all the time to the banks. As they came in, somebody in the team said, oh, I've never seen this before. Catherine, why is the onus on you to tell the banks? I said, because I know that I'll get that back because they will ring me with more helpful comments if I give them a briefing on what we're doing. I think the more you stand up in front of you, you start off in a boardroom with a little group of people and then you suddenly progress to those bigger forums to the point where you suddenly think, no, I can do this, I'll give this a go. I think you don't want to become. You don' Spread yourself too thinly and be on every other panel and talking left, right and center on things that you're not very comfortable with or you're not very knowledgeable about. Because I think people can notice that. Really?

Yeah, they see through it pretty quick. So you did that transformation there. Any other stuff you sort of. You did as well?

Well, I think probably legacy wise, I'm quite happy that I got the opportunity to hire a few good people both on fixed term contracts and in permanent roles and there were things that hadn't been there before and so, you know, it's quite nice to write a job description and, and get someone in and see that, you know, that that's another good person who's come along. And so, you know, the team. I'm really proud of the people who came and worked for me and the team in London and I think it was just quite, you know, it's a good period now on to see what's next really.

So what is next for you? What are we thinking is. Is next and we will sort of discuss around. We had a couple of topic areas I wanted to sort of. We both wanted to discuss. But what do you think is next view in the treasury world, would you say?

I thought really hard about this because I knew you were going to ask that question and I still do think that there are some things I know there are things that I haven't done in the treasury space which I'd like to do, whether it's on financing or technology. I'm not. It's not really prescriptive but I think what's important is that I see myself as a quite a rounded whole and don't discard the kind of accounting background or you know, big accountancy background because all kind of with you on the journey. I've had a few recruiters, not you Mike, I hasten to add is said, oh, we don't need to know anything about what happened 10 years ago and I totally disagree with that because you bring with you on your career journey, you bring with you all assuming they're connected. I mean if you were a cook before and now you're doing Treasury, I'm not sure the cooking is that relevant but it's all. It is actually all part of the whole. So quite optimistic about what will come next.

Next. Can you talk there about the profession and you've been involved with the act and I know that you did various things with different committees and again that was the thing that comes through again. People might want to get involved with their local AFP in the us they might go to local ACT or the actual ACT in London and things like that. What have you found that has given you and why did you bother? What was the. You got enough on your plate really.

Say what a fantastic organization the association of Corporate Treasurers is. I'm currently the chair of the Membership Advisory Panel which is kind of like the sort of membership forum or committee I mean, I don't have to do all the hard work behind the scenes there's an executive group who are fantastically dedicated and very well organized. But the ACT does run also on lots of treasurers. There's several hundred people every year who are giving their free time in different ways, different, it comes in many different guises. So I was asked to join the membership panel, I can't remember now, three or four years ago, but then asked to take that over the chair a couple of years ago. But in the, in the meantime I was on a governance review, sort of the actual structure of the ACT which went through a couple of years ago and I've, I sat some exams actually not, you know, my back garden and then we had a chat about the draft of those particular set of exam questions. I've done some little bit of talking about exam syllabuses over the last couple of years too. So there's different things that pop up and I know that there are a whole load of people, literally hundreds and hundreds of us out there who are also doing, providing support in different ways to the act. It's a fantastic community. You know, once you join, you're part of it and I really believe that passionately as the chair of the membership panel, advisory panel, as you know, I really want people to feel that they belong to this organisation for the rest of their working life and beyond into retirement. But obviously it's much, much smaller than the accountancy but bodies and many of us are members of those as well. But I've never had a personal interaction with the Institute of Chartered Accountants. I wouldn't know what that looks like.

You know, big in the mind.

That's just impossible. I just, I can't really imagine that. But the ACT is not like that. It is wonderful. It's a great group of people and a very, very hard working team who actually keep it going. I couldn't encourage people more to take some of the exams and get involved really.

The other area we would both quite, quite interested in it sort of was about women in treasury and we're just touching on that and I, you know, I recently recorded a video actually where I talk about the fact that, you know, to me it's, it's less important that you're a woman but because you know, you should be treated fairly whether you're black, white, ethnic minority, man, woman, you know, it's about finding the best people for the job. But again, at the same time there's the fact that as, again we talked about that if someone's coming back from long term sickness, he or she or whatever it might be, they're sometimes treated in a better way. We found them. Some people come back from maternity leave.

Yeah.

And that was a frustration to both of us. I know that's a big topic for you, isn't it as well.

Yeah. The number of conversations I've had with younger returning mothers. I'm fortunate that I'm sort of through that particular part of my life. I say fortunate, that sounds terribly negative, but it was, it was really hard, hard trying to go out to work. I've already expressed some of that about even trying to find a job. But you know, the conversations I've had with younger women more recently and I've said, oh, you know, you're back at work, that's great to see you. And you know, what's the regime? And nearly all of them to a woman has said, oh, you know, from whatever month I've got to actually be back here full time. And I said, oh, how do you feel about that? Oh, it's really hard. And not necessarily in treasury roles, but in, you know, other sort of financial. It is very, very hard to combine all this when you've got very young children. I just would like to see. I think this topic needs to stay current. It's, you know, it mustn't be ignored because it's very easy to slip back, I think, without being talked about, slipped back into slightly less positive, a less positive situation for people who really can't, for whatever reason, work full time or whatever.

What do you think can be done? I mean, quickly you had that role which was only. What sort of, was it? Three days a week? Two to three days a week, is that right?

Yeah. So I think I was, I think it was like 60% to start with and at the end it was 80 something. And we just, I had really a good, really good dialogue with the company. They were charming and easy to talk to and also the role probably didn't warrant full time anyway. So dialogue is one thing, but there are, are still people out there who are quite senior in companies who are probably not very good at having those dialogues and they're just, you know, my door is open. Well, is it really? I think it just can be tough and I'd say more recently. So I've just alluded to it, I've heard younger women sort of sighing as they realize that their part time time is up and they've really got to work full time again. I don't know, we just have to keep talking about it, I suppose.

So to wrap up today's show, we're going to put Catherine's LinkedIn profile in the show notes so that you can connect with her if you, you look through this actually. And because it'd be great to have in your network, she's lovely lady and, you know, and we're good mates and stuff like that, so. But as you go through Catherine's profile, you might be things you think actually that does stand out, things like that and you know, you think, actually I'd like to, as I say every week, you know, what are the top tips you perhaps give to some of the people out there that to keep in mind as they develop their careers, whether earlier the mid career, a bit later on, closer to yourself. What are the key things you would say as we wrap up today's show?

I think the first thing, I mean, I would say this, wouldn't I? Because I've come this route is complete your education and work hard. I think the two things are linked, I think education and if we're talking specifically on treasury now, I think it's very, very useful to have gone through the process of assimilating a certain number of facts and demonstrating you've got a kind of grasp of them rather than just expecting to shop for work and just meander through what happens in that company. A bit of professional education is a useful thing and everyone can go the speed they want to go at and the level they want to go to, etc. So there's quite a range of things out there that people could dip into and I associate that with hardworking too. The second thing I'd say is maybe be a bit open minded and take opportunities when they do come along because sometimes, sometimes you don't really recognize them and you have to, you know, maybe bounce the idea off somebody, say, you know what, give it a go, give it a go. Because it can actually be quite enriching to have done something slightly different and probably the last thing. This is probably a bit more vague anyway, but I think you need to take life as a whole. It's not just all about going to and from a company or logging on in your back bedroom at the moment, as everybody is. It's about combining things in your life and that's what makes you interesting as a person. And often that's what people hire. They see this bright person coming in. Don't let that go away. You know, if you need to take a run at lunchtime, go take the run at lunchtime. Think about it. Sensibly how it fits in with everything. Obviously, if you've got an interesting hobby, keep it going. Don't. Don't let it drop, you know, read books, go to the odd seminar, carve out time for all that stuff. Don't just come in every day and work really hard on the spreadsheet, whatever you do.

Yeah. Just try and keep that as you. Exactly. As you say, that sort of roundedness, you know, because otherwise it's just going to become. Yeah. All encompassing. I find sometimes when I talk to candidates as well. So, Katherine, amazing, thank you very much for your time today. Been well. I knew it'd be great fun. It was just lovely to talk to you about you, really. And I think some people will be able to take different elements throughout your career that will perhaps stand out to different people at different times as they listen to the podcast on the way to where they go. Oh, actually, yeah, I should think of that. You know, just. Just that lovely little summary. So remains me. Thank you very much for your time today.

Yeah, thank you, Mike. It's been great, really enjoyed it.

Love.