The Evolving Nature of an International Treasury Career with Wolfgang Ratheiser

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. This week's show joined by by Wolfgang Ratheiser, the Vice president of Corporate Finance and Treasury at Porsche. I'm sure you guys out there know Porsche, you see them all around these beautiful cars. But headquartered in Stuttgart, the company, as I'm sure we know, is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high performance cars, SUVs and sedans. I'm going to get Wolfgang to explain that a little bit later on in the show. We've just had this pre podcast chat which was just brilliant, really enjoying some of the stuff and there's some great value for you guys to listen to today. But again, you had one of the most different starts to, you know, I usually say, you know, Wolfgang, tell us about finance and how then you discovered treasury, you weren't even in finance at the beginning. Talk us through your incredibly different start to your career if you like. So back to you sir.

Thank you very much for inviting me to this podcast. Pleasure looking forward for the discussion as well. And yeah, I mean it was a bit a different way in my case because I actually grew up on a farm and I was always as the youngest child of four, I was always considered to take over the farming business. And I'm a fully educated engineer in farming. And after five years of working at home on a farm, I decided to pursue a different career on top because the farm is basically a mountain farm in Austria. Not as big as well, doing an internship in Germany, I realized that farming might be from a business perspective as well, not fully big enough in order to drive that through. So I decided going into the second way of education and when I started to study at the university in the field of finance and controlling, my father died. So I took over the farming business at the beginning and changed from a dairy farm to a baby beef production and organic farm and really spent the first two and a half years mostly on farming and only 20% in Vienna studying finance. The whole topic and the whole drive behind was really to see that I can change the farming business in a way that it becomes independent and I could go and study overseas because that was really one of my biggest objectives and targets as well. And before I actually started to study, as I finished my A level, I was in the US and that was Always a dream to go back and study in Berkeley's but due to the death of my father then I couldn't pursue that. But after two and a half years I really made it and I went to the south of Chicago, Urbana Champaign for an exchange program. And that was the first period of time to see and figure out whether the farming business will be able to run without operational involvement myself. And that was a great experience. When I came back I knew that I wanted to get international and really work in an international company in order to learn more about different cultures, different systems and how people actually interact in an international environment differently.

As you say, you sort of have that challenge of being in farming and then this professional finance career. How did you know? As you said, you sort of, you balance them off. There was such a demand from the farm and then. But then you really sort of started to lean more into if that's the right way to do your finance career. What, what convinced you that it was right? Finance is the way for me away from farming or was it just you were driven that way or how did it work?

Yeah, I mean in farming you need a lot of finance experience as well and then see how you can actually steer your company successfully. So I was always very interested in cost accounting and calculation and how can actually drive finance and support finance the business at the end of the day, whether you're talking to banks and financing and financing investment projects on a smaller scale and what kind of tax implications this has. So I learned in this regards a lot of from the practical perspective and that interested to me more from the academic perspective as well. And that's one of the things where I thought, thought I'm going into finance and on the other hand I thought I'd like to combine this finance plus the farming business. But maybe I can become a tax advisor and do it being my myself an entrepreneur and have my own company and then combine it better. But then throughout internships I realized more and more I really wanted to go international and that's why I chose an international route and working for international company instead of pursuing so the tax route.

And you joined Hankel. Can you just, you know, describe again? I know the group a little bit, you know, done a bit of the research, but some of the listeners, as we say each week, won't know the group. And again walk through if you would, you've had some interesting companies as well, so maybe walk through that if you would.

Yeah, I was lucky to really join after university Henkel first in Germany and then it's A consumer goods blue chip German company with excellent company, excellent track record. And I didn't really know the company so well. And from the outset, you know, and because different brands.

Yeah.

But I was lucky that they actually offered me a job then in Dusseldorf. But the main driver to join them was actually really the possibility to go international. And for me, international. I always wanted to go to the US and we thankfully, actually I ended up 10 months later in Hong Kong, the first time for a mini job rotation. And I was really fantastic and opened a very different view on the region of Hong Kong and Asia. That was actually my. My first step into international, looking at Asia Pacific in the earliest 2000. China and Hong Kong, that was not so well known in Europe at that point of time are not so much in focus. So it was a very early stage of doing business in China, sending experts over there as well. And then there was a great opportunity. So for me that was a door opening at a different market that never had ambition, but it was international. That really gave me an opportunity to go international.

And when you were doing that, we discussed this before the show, that you're making that move from financial control and then focusing on treasury and international finance. But it was leadership change, but also that massive shift from, you know, Germany to China and the way that you developed as a person, as a manager. Again, people listening today, you know, so maybe someone is listening down in China. If you are, hello. But if you are and you've just arrived there and spent your previous career and what sort of tips would you give to those guys down there? Or how did you find it different? What were your. How did you make a success of that, if you like?

Well, for me it was a door was opening and I just took the opportunity and there were a few challenges. One challenge was that I went from financial controlling basically into Treasury. So it was a new field. I got the manager who was Chinese leadership style, which is different to a European sort of leadership style. And then of course, it was a different country, first Hong Kong and then I went actually to Shanghai and in particular Shanghai, that was much more Chinese 20 years ago than it is today. So I had to learn a lot, become more open, see how to approach certain different things, which worked very well here in Europe. And I could influence and convince people. Suddenly didn't work that well in China. And I had to take the feedback and see how I can actually change myself in order to have more impact going there. If I can say to people, what could I give them as a Don't take Three new areas at the same time. I think one or two is good enough. So it means if you go from treasury to treasury, you have a new leadership style. That's maybe it's one thing plus a country, it's another thing. So there's two things you change, but one thing is which way you are pretty good at so that you don't have an extreme learning experience. Of course, extreme learning experience brings you further. Yeah, it's you learning faster and in a short period of time it's a little bit cumbersome and you're getting out of your comfort zone. But that's how extreme learning happens. But you just need to be patient and believe on certain qualities you're having too. And being open enough. And sometimes, of course, you find yourself, am I open enough? And how do you actually do that? And when you struggle with whom you're going to talk, ask for help to overcome certain things and as well to understand why you're not progressing as you have hoped for.

Well, you'd been with Henkel for, you know, sort of four and a half years and then you made a move, you came back to Europe, you know, talk us through. Then you move to Johnson Controls if you. And the move into automotive, if you would.

So when I was in Asia and in Shanghai, we, we had a lot of discussions about how American companies are successful with their leadership styles and German companies are successful with their leadership sty. So we compared, for example, B and G and Henkel, and B and G was growing faster in China than Henkel at that point of time. So it was, for myself, it was very clear to see as, okay, well, let's see what the leadership style difference is. In my early stage of career, I'd like to work for an American company to see the difference, experience the difference, because they do things faster, but they change directions quicker as well. So it's not so structured. But you know, I'm more entrepreneurial in a way, okay, I make a decision. If the decision is wrong, wrong, I'm going to reverse the decision and I'm running maybe exactly the opposite direction. So how I wanted to understand and learn this and that's why I joined actually an American company now back in Europe. But if I move in your young career very early, very often, of course, from the private side, you leave a lot of things behind as well. So partners can't always follow you as quickly as when you move on every one and a half or one year to some other locations. This is a bit difficult. That's why I Wanted to go back to Europe and joined an American company.

And so you went back and you didn't, you didn't just go back into straight Treasury. Treasury, treasury. You know, you've got a breadth of other experiences. You chose that deliberately from, you know, again from our discussion. But you. So you follow treasury in Germany, but you said, you know what, I'm open to another move. So you can you just walk us through that if you like. And because I think that's a key facet that your universally opened. You know, you just, you're looking for that challenge all the time. How did that happen for you?

Yeah, it was actually interesting because, I mean, I had this Asian experience for man in Henkel. I worked around about four and a half years, two and a half years in. Or. Yeah, two and a half years in Asia, two years in Germany and then wanted to come back in Europe to Europe in order to stabilize on the private side of it. But then there was this opportunity to go back to Asia out of Hong Kong to run the Asia Pacific and Middle Eastern region from the treasury perspective for TOMS and Controls. Well, that was just such an opportunity. Again, I was like, okay, well, the door opened. I just took this opportunity to go back there in order to really help the organization to grow and especially Asia Pacific. Middle east was very interesting at that point of time because we just acquired a company. So there was a big growth story coming and especially the China market was taking off hugely as well in the automotive section. So it was very interesting to help growing the company from the Treasury's perspective. It was financing related, risk management related or also setting up new joint ventures. I got the vast majority of experience cover 23 countries out of Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is a fantastic place from the entrepreneurial perspective as well. Networking. I met so many different friends and partners I'm still in touch with. And it was one of my greatest experiences in Hong Kong and helping the time to build the business as well. So I was five years in Hong Kong and then in treasury and then I decided and asked the organization to go into the automotive business, really to go out of treasury into the business. So I became first a finance director in global engineering and for the automotive part. And then after more or less a year in there, I got the opportunity as well to become then the CFO finance director for the metal business in Europe, which was really driven through two acquisition projects and as well integration projects. But there was a lot of restructuring. We moved actually businesses from Western Europe to Eastern Europe try to reduce costs and Did a lot of restructuring for a couple of years. So that was a very different view from Asia coming where it was all about growth, going back to Europe where it was all about restructuring and seeing how we can actually reorganize and re engineer the business and put the cost structure in place.

You made these moves at Johnson Controls. I've known the group and you and I, we've got many connections there and I've recruited for many years for Johnson Control. Can you perhaps describe Johnson Controls just for the audience? Again, some people know them very well, particularly a lot of our massive US corporate. We have Mark, the global treasurer on one of the early podcasts. But can you just again bring us up to date with who Johnson Controls are? Because I think it then directly impacts then that theme within your career, if you like. So can you describe them for the listeners?

Yeah, Johnson Controls is a multinational company out of the US top 200 was at that point of time over 20, 25 billion and then grew up to 40 billion. Company with three businesses was automotive was the biggest 50% and then you had the building of efficiency and the. Yeah, you see power solution part as well. This group is totally restructured today. It looks very different because the automotive business is now at the end is being put on the stock exchange in 2016 and our solution part is now taken out as well. So now it's Trans Controls really the building efficiency plus security business. But it was a very interesting, very multinational, you know, parts and excellent growth and companies. I had a great colleagues there where I learned a lot of different things especially as well in treasury and I'm very grateful of this experience. I have almost 11 years working with.

Now I want to explore some of your views on treasury and how treasury is changing. And we've talked about this and touched on that a little bit. But we were talking before the show about how you joined Porsche where you're the luxury cars and you know, it's obviously automotive is changing rapidly, you know, as, as we even talk today. You know, it's you know, seeing lots and lots of changes in the industry itself. But how did you come about sort of to leave the, you know, Johnson Controls after many years, very successful to then join Porsche? How did that happen? I know that we discussed it, but again for the listeners.

Yeah, man, it was interesting because at the end of my stay at Johnson Controls I got the opportunity to go basically to Harvard for an executive program, a general management program to broaden actually my view. I always had the idea to want to become a cfo. And when I had a chat with Porsche before I went there doing this Harvard experience and Executive program, you actually really work besides a lot of different cases, whether it's in finance and marketing and strategy and technology innovations and so on, you have a pool of 130 people really focused for half a year, basically on and off on different things. But the main issue is really developing your you over the next. What do you want to do next? Over the next 10 to 20 years? The main drive is then to say, okay, what do you want to give back as well? Because you're in the middle. Manage his career. And it's like, okay, well so far I've gotten a lot of possibilities provided by the companies I've been working with and then now it's time to give something back to the society, but as well to the companies through leadership and as well through innovation. You want to drive and it's a bit different kind of how you deal with things, how do you influence people, how do you actually get certain things through, which is not something you can achieve from today to tomorrow, but it's more a strategic, long term focus. And Warsha came to me, besides being an iconic brand and a fantastic product, it's what really drove and interested me most. And that's why I went back into treasury is being part of a transformational process. The automotive industry is in a very much transformational process. Whether it's electric cars, whether it's digitalization, whether it's autonomous driving, new business ecosystems around it. There are so many things which is right now, let's say in a change where there's a possibility to influence and help to shape the future. It's a lot of insecurity as well, because we don't know exactly how it will play out, but it is on our hand and we're trying to help that. And we put a lot of emphasis on whether it's through investments, building the right teams, transforming the teams as well, because skills you need today, they might not be needed anymore in the future tomorrow. So you need to make sure that the team is actually developed along and you bring them into the new stage. And we have big responsibilities from the social perspective, let's say people working for warship, but as well the social environment where we are based, whether it's in Stuttgart, Leipzig, in Europe or in other parts of the world as well, we have a big responsibility to drive this innovation so that, that we are supporting the future business and shape the future business.

Porsche is a luxury brand and that, you know, a lot of the Luxury brands and we recruit for them. Has a certain amount of cachet, a bit of an attraction there and everything else. But as you described to me, it wasn't just the sort of. Just the name that attracted you. You know, you. There you go. You're the number one in treasury and corporate finance globally for this company. Ego is. There was much more than that. You know, as you talk, you touched on there the sort of opportunity, transform and qu. Formative period for the industry. But can you again describe for listeners why you chose this role or it chose you in a way as well? Because it wasn't just a knock at the door overnight come and be our treasurer, was it? It was a bit of a longer process than that.

I think the majority. I mean it's. It was actually I had to change my strategic direction because I always was on the track to go cfo. I brought a part of CFO and not going back into treasury, but Treasury. And then when I actually worked in Johnson Controls the interest part as well. If you go into CFO finance role is you shaping the business. You're doing restructuring. It's cost driven. But I missed a little bit the outside in view as well. And that's really the treasurer's role. The fun part I enjoy a lot because we have a lot of outside in view, whether it's coming from the banks, from fintechs, technology driven or from investor base. When you were talking to investors, what they expect what. What they expect from the corporate perspective and how you actually take this back in and so that the company incorporates that as well in certain ways. And that was one thought process as well which drove me to go back into treasury because I missed that. On the other hand, being a finance director, which is much more number crunching and business cases and internal discussions versus the external discussions. And what treasury is about as well is the job is very different. Every day is you have a different project and you're trying to do. To solve different, let's say problems as well.

Again, we touched on there the sort of evolving nature of treasury in the current market. Yeah, we've got it. Automotive treasury is obviously changing and evolving and you're having to evolve with it and things. But you talked about this period of, you know, and supporting the business. That's a key thing that we've talked about. But you know, what would you sort of see as you know, the key challenges? Sometimes I talk to treasurers and it's about artificial intelligence. That's one of the key things. And getting through a few years ago it's all blockchain, blockchain and bitcoin and all this stuff. You know, there was, you know, those seem to have sort of a lot of treasury teams at late adopters of technology sort of thing, but they wait till it's a bit more proven and things like that. But, you know, I know that you're driving some changes through and you've done a lot of things in ESG and various bits. When you're looking at it, what's your sort of top checklist? I know there are lots of different challenges, but what are the key first challenges? You're thinking, again, for some of the listeners out there, thinking, right, that's what they should be thinking about. What would you say?

For me, first is always the team, because without the team, you basically can't achieve what you wanted to achieve. Right. You need to have a good team that they can actually really drive the. The division you have through and support the business. What I see on the challenges we are having is, if you look at the team is not about technical skills only, it's about a combination of technical treasury skills, plus data scientists, plus as well being a business partner. So you need to have social skills as well. It's not only tech freaks sitting behind a computer and being able to program and understand data, but you need to be able to explain complex subjects in simple ways, which is sometimes very difficult. And I have my difficulties as well in treasury that sometimes really difficult when you're talking about new projects and how do you actually convince, on one hand, the board that is the right things in a way that they understand it and you are being considered as right business partner. So I think this is the first thing on that you have the right team with the right skills that you know what kind of areas you need to hire the right people in in order to help you to achieve this as well.

When you're wanting to coach and enable your team to be. And I've sometimes had it as translators and sorry, I want to keep going with you and not interrupt your flow, but how do you do that? And what I mean by that is some of my, you know, listeners today would go, yeah, that's great. You've got to, you know, speak in the different departments, different languages and help them understand what treasury is, is doing to help them and things. How do you do it? Or how do you enable your team members and say, look, guys, focus on this or focus on that. What do you. What do you say?

I let them try certain things or I let them do it. And you know, explain it to the leadership team as well so that they learn how to do certain things. And I'm trying to be in the background and trying to give some hints what I would do different. But, you know, it depends on the situation as well. I'm trying to involve, enable them certain things. Sometimes it works better, sometimes it doesn't. But what I try is really to have the team is able to execute it and I try to remove obstacles and roadblocks on the way in order to have them really being successful in executing the projects so that they see that. Because sometimes the execution or the removal of obstacles is very cumbersome and it's a lot of discussion, side discussions in order to, to achieve that. So I'm trying to enable and help them in order to remove obstacles. That's basically what I'm trying to do and give them opportunities to really shine as well.

So you get them to be great translators and connect with the business. What else do you see as developing in Treasury?

Well, we need to. And then that's what we're trying to do as well, that we focus less on putting numbers together and information together. It becomes more to how can we actually, from the data model, retrieve the right information so that we can drive decisions, whether it's on FX decisions, whether it's on commodities, for example, and fx. In the future, I think that a lot of decisions will be done through artificial intelligence. And you need to understand, or you need to have a team who understands basically how this black box, when you call it black box, is really working. So what kind of data going in and what this data will actually cause, that there will be a certain outcome. And that's what my view is that in the future, in a few years, a lot of these kind of decisions will be automatically provided by the systems. And we, from the treasury organization or from the treasurer's perspective, we can say, yeah, we understand how the model works and we basically implemented the model and we understand what the outcome is and we can agree to the decisions they are providing.

You know, with reflecting just on that for a moment, I think it's brilliant. I know that there's loads of, you know, every day you're probably getting emails, you're getting calls from different technology providers with this all new sparkly, shiny thing that's going to be great for Porsche. This is what you should be doing. This is, you know, come and use us and different systems. How do you select, how do you filter through that if you like, and make sure it's of value? And it's relevant to you as a treasurer, but you as a company and things like what's your. Not your checklist but what you know, how do you filter through it?

Well, you talk to other companies, you talk to other treasurers, what they have done, what kind of experience they have. I don't need to be in every everything first mover as well. When on blockchain, for example, when you look at it and see whether there is a relevance to your business. We don't do so much in trade finance for example, I see there's more opportunity maybe in this regard. So it's not something we want to pursue. But on other sides if we see there's a relevance to our business then we're trying as I said, talking to different treasurers but as well talking to consulting companies and asking them to help us to structure it and and see whether this has some relevance to us as well.

We've touched on a number of different areas that again you talked about the development of automotive and this is forefront of a lot of people's minds. What are you seeing your role within treasury being and what other areas do you think are important would you say?

I see treasury as a very strategic role. Has a very strategic role I am thinking about or what I'm working on is really how is treasury part of a finance organization? Because what kind of role are in this finance organization? When we look into more role based organization, whether it's a governance, it's a business partner, business service role, how do you actually position yourself in certain areas and to really increase your efficiency as much as possible. So from the governance perspective and what kind of partners you need to incorporate as well to support the business going forward. I'll give you an example. Financing you can do and go to the capital market and finance yourself and find the cheapest way of funding through either bonds or we do it through Schulzha market in Germany and when you have a good credit rating. But there are more and more projects and when you go into the ESG value and our company decided to be fully CO2 neutral in 2030, you can't do everything by yourself. You need to find different ways and different partners as well. From, from let's say financing perspective, treasury environment perspective that can help you to achieve that. Right? Because it's just not everything putting yourself on the balance sheet. It's more how can you do certain things asset light as well and having the right partners. So that's a big role from the treasurer's perspective. Besides what kind of organization you have behind. Do you really need to have three departments front, middle, back office or what kind of of department structure you have going forward as well using all the processes and systems and you are being one agile organization and closer to the business in order to influence them early enough. And I give you another example when you are talking about commodities, when it's a bit late, if you just come in and you realize that the commodity prices go up and the usages of certain materials is only automotive driven, maybe you need to think about much earlier in a circular economy with the engineering, with the purchasing department together, what kind of opportunities you have in order to take out risk as well because treasury is only the end of the value chain to manage risks as well. So that's basically what I see going forward where we contribute value do in a much earlier way by setting certain standards, having a governance rule but as well necessary when you go out of standards as a business partner.

Well, we, I've avoided talking about COVID You know, in a way we're so, you know, as we start to move out of it and things like that. I think just before we wrap up today's show, I just wanted to sort of touch on it and ask you again because a lot of the guys out there listening will go look, you know, how have you guys got through Covid? What's it, what's it been like for you? And you know, I read when I was doing the research before I was looking some of the, you know, there was conversations about you E payments and how you'd, you know, try to smooth that process and various other bits. So I didn't want to deep dive in it. But how did you cope with it? You know, you went into it, got through it and now we come out the other side. What's it been like for you guys? And then we'll sort of, you know, approach, give some final top tips to people listening. How would you, how would you touch on that?

Well, I think it's a challenge for everyone, right? So when we went into it, it was a big shock. It was like, is it the black swan? For me it wasn't always black swan because I was in Asia in 2003 when there was actually the SARS happening. And when I saw this in the first news coming in January, I had a few questions as well to our asset managers what we are going to do and what kind of risk model we have in place. And I think there was a big surprise for many but Porsche itself, we were in a, let's Say unfortunate position that our business model is a very strong because we are in luxury premium segment. On the other hand, we are a company which can actually act very, very active and very quickly with the board together we made decisions very, very quickly and acted accordingly by reducing costs and focusing very much on cash flows as well. So that was very helpful from the liquidity perspective. And we found out very, very quickly that we have a strong liquidity base and unfortunately we are doing very well from the profitability perspective. And the biggest challenge on the other hand is we were very good positioned as well as how you actually we went from today to tomorrow basically into home office mid of March last year and we didn't really have big hiccups. And from the treasury perspective, it was very actually smooth and we could work everybody from home. So the IT folks did a fantastic job being prepared and having us on home office, VPN accessibility and so on. So we had, I think a very good leadership team and made the right decisions on that one. Nevertheless, I think the longer this lasts, this has implications on how do you lead teams and being efficient, but not so effective because we are digital discussions, whether it's teams or whatever medium you are using, is very, very agenda driven by. We miss the site discussions and I think it's from the innovative perspective, it's cumbersome. How do you drive certain things through because you don't have the opportunity sometimes to get into discussions which are not agenda driven. That's sometimes very, very important. And that's what I miss on the other hand, is if you hire new people, how do you actually integrate them? How do you make sure that they understand the culture of the company being part of what makes Porsche, what drives Porsche, what emotionalizes Porsche. And that's another point which is fortunately a little bit lacking and we all miss that. And I hope that going back to the office, not in a full way, but I mean, I think that would be a good combination working from home and working back in the office. But that's what from our perspective was very important as well, to see how we actually can achieve that and work together with our team.

Yeah. And how you bring back this hybrid approach of what the right balance is as well. Wolfgang, as we come to the end of the day show, as we do in each and every week, we'll put in your LinkedIn details in the show notes. So I'm sure that after hearing today's show, a number of people want to connect to you. You can connect them if they're right for you and don't connect them or not, but I know that, that, you know, a lot of people then like some takeaways, you know. And I think throughout the show, you know, we've talked about transformation, we've talked about getting out of your comfort zone. Some great stuff and you know, going around the world as people will be able to see from your LinkedIn profile. But as you reflect over it and you know, if someone's coming up to you and you know, one of your members of staff or whatever it might be, what tips would you give them? You know, this is in the show the other day and it was quite interesting. It was the founder of Alibaba and someone had said to him, him, you know, and he said, oh, you know, he asked this terrible question. He said, oh, you know, what would make you successful? And actually he turned around and said, no, forget about the successes, talk about the failures. Where have we failed? You know, that's the thing to. Because that's where you learn more things from, you know, so, you know, trying to look, reflect back on that. And I'm not saying your career has been incredibly successful, but what I mean by that is, as you reflect on it, what are the, the key tips that you would give to the audience today? The takeaways? Guys, if you want to be in my position, this is what you should think about. What would you say, sir?

Well, the question is always what is really the definition of success? Everybody has to define it by himself and find a way what it really drives and makes him work hard. You need to enjoy what you're doing. You need to enjoy resolving problems or challenges and having intellectual discussions. That's what I do. And talking about things which you need to find new solutions. And what makes it successful is that you're open enough when doors are opening, that you take this door and you go through it. And that sometimes is you're getting out of your comfort zone. But that's how you learn. Sometimes it's really important that you get out of your comfort zone. The younger you are, the more experience you should try to gain because eventually that makes you more competitive and that's where the difference and differentiates yourself to others too. But the end is you need to like what you do and you. Because then it's not working. It's part of your life. And you know, when you go international, you meet other people, you work in international environment and people behave different and so on. So that's what really drove me and helped me in pursuing my career and doing the job. And I'm trying to do my best every day and sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse and yes it's right. But what's the failures? How do you what do you learn out of your failure is very important as well because that's what you think and that's what you remember because we all learn out of failures where we didn't do a good job and what can we do better? But at the end of the day, don't let yourself dragged down by failures. Just move on and see it as an experience you have learned of and can actually give this and provide this information to others as well so that they don't make the same mistake that you have made.

Thank you, Wolfgang. It's been amazing today sir. And yeah, we'll put your details as I say in the show notes, been great and yeah as I say can't wait to see in real life for a beer someday very soon. So thank you very much sir.

Thank you Mike. Have a nice day.

Thank you. Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And if you you can probably appreciate the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce every week. It'd be amazing. Just take say 20 seconds, leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait to see you soon.

2030. You can't do everything by yourself. You need to find different ways and different partners as well. From let's say financing perspective, treasury environment perspective that can help you to achieve that. Right? Because it's just not everything putting yourself on the balance sheet. It's more how can you do certain things, asset light as well and having the right partners. So that's a big role from the treasurer's perspective. Besides, what kind of organization you have behind, do you really need to have three departments front, middle, back, office or what kind of department structure you have going forward as well using all the processes and systems and you are being one agile organization and closer to the business in order to influence Them early enough. And I give you another example when you are talking about commodities, when the isa, when you, and it's a bit late, if you just come in and you realize that the commodity prices go up and the usages of certain materials is only automotive driven, maybe you need to think about much earlier in a circular economy with the engineering, with the purchasing department together, what kind of opportunities you have in order to take out risk as well. Because treasury is only the end of the value chain to, to manage risks as well. So that's basically what I see going forward where we contribute value in a much earlier way by setting certain standards, having a governance rule but as well necessary when you go out of standards as a business partner.

Well, we, I've avoided talking about COVID You know, in a way we're so, you know, as we start to move out of it and things like that, I think just before we wrap up today's show, I just wanted to sort of, sort of touch on it and ask you again because a lot of the guys out there listening will go look, you know, how have you guys got through Covid? What's it, what's it been like for you? And you know, I read when I was doing the research before I was looking at some of the, you know, there was conversations about you E payments and how you'd, you know, try to smooth that process and various other bits. So I didn't want to deep dive in it. But how did you cope with it? You know, you went into it, got through it and now we come out the other side. What's it been like for you guys? And then will sort of, you know, approach give some final top tips to the people listening. How would you, how would you touch on that?

Well, I think it's a challenge for everyone, right? So when we went into it it was a big shock because I was like, is it the black swan? For me it wasn't the black swan because I was in Asia in 2003 when there was actually the SARS happening. And when I saw this in the first news coming in January, I had a few questions as well to our asset managers what we are going to do and what kind of of risk model we have in place. And I think there was a big surprise for many. But Porsche itself, we were in a, let's say unfortunate position that our business model is a very strong because we are in luxury premium segment. On the other hand, we are a company which can actually act very, very active and very quickly with the board together we made decisions Very very quickly and acted accordingly very we reducing costs and focusing very much on cash flows as well. So that was very helpful from the liquidity perspective and we found out very very quickly that we have a strong liquidity base and unfortunately we are doing very well from the profitability perspective. And the biggest challenge on the other hand is and we were very good positioned as well as how you actually we went from today to tomorrow basically in the home office mid of March last year and we didn't really have big hiccups and from a Treasury perspective it was very actually smooth and we could work everybody from home. So the IT folks did a fantastic job being prepared and having us on home office VPN accessibility and so on. So we had I think a very good leadership team and made the right decisions on that one. Nevertheless I think it's the longer this lasts this has implications on how do you lead teams and being efficient but not so effective because we are digital discussions with teams or whatever medium you are using is very very agenda driven. But we miss the site discussions and I think it's from the innovative perspective it cumbersome how do you drive certain things through because you don't have the opportunity sometimes to get into discussions which are not agenda driven. That's sometimes very very important and that's what I miss on the other hand is if you hire new people.