This is a YouTube video titled "The Importance of People Skills in Treasury with Senne Van Nieuwenborgh" containing an English interview recorded in late 2019. The conversation features Senne Van Nieuwenborgh and Mike Richards discussing the challenges and key skills required in treasury roles, emphasizing the importance of leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills beyond technical expertise.
I moved in quite humbled.
Yeah.
And at the same time, you know, you go in open minded, very eager to learn, get to know the people, try, try to get a feel for, you know, who does what, who is kind of responsible for what, how, how are the power maps and try to find your way. And of course to, to get the trust from senior leadership is critical. I had that trust, I knew I had that trust, but then obviously have to go in, I had to learn quite quickly and then start delivering quite quickly because obviously all of a sudden you have to manage a team. Some of the people in my team were doing their job for like 10 years or more. You have to earn their trust. I would say that you have to earn their collaboration, but still you have to establish yourself as a leader of that team and you have to build credibility quite quickly. On I've mostly worked in very centralized treasury teams, but obviously, and that's been the case also in my current role, we are very centralized in one location. From that one location we cover the entire globe. And hence you have to kind of also deal with the regional differences in regulation, in payment practices and in culture. And for instance, I was referring to my earlier days when I was still in dao, when we were doing some local financing in the Middle east, which has its own particular nature. I can assure you that, that you talk to banks and pretty quickly you realize that it's not only about credit committees, but also about Sharia committees who then have to give their approval on certain transactions which, which give it a certain flavor, which give it a certain taste.
What are the major pieces of advice you would give to those treasury guys listening and whether that's analyst or more senior, they're thinking actually want to do something similar. What, what sort of things would you pick out from your career if you.
Like, first and foremost, perhaps obviously it does require a certain technical skill set. I mean, let's not fool ourselves. You know, it does come with a certain set of requirements that, you know, the sooner you, you have a good grasp on those, I would say the better. At the same time, I stress very much to everyone who is still early on in their career. Absolutely. Make sure you have them, but don't stop there. I would say there's a lot more to it than just the technical skills. So obviously you need to be able to communicate very well, you need to be able to engage with a lot of non treasury people, you need to be able to engage with the business, you need to be able to be a trusted advisor to people, especially as you progress, you need to be able to communicate with senior leadership to board members even. And as you progress, these things actually become more and more and more important. I mean, technical skill set, as of a certain level in your career will be. Will be assumed, you know, and if you don't have them, obviously you will quickly fall through. But it's about all of these other skills, I would say, that will start to matter more as you progress in the career. So. So definitely don't forget about those. I've met at some point the group treasurer of SAP, the software company. And it's a few years ago, I'm not even sure he's still around, but when he got appointed, he. He had very little experience in the treasury area. And how did that happen? And again, he said, you know, it was more about my background that I have within the company, the knowledge I have about the markets and my personality that was considered to be appropriate for this kind of role. So he had very little technical skills at the time. I mean, I also know the group treasure of Solvay, the Belgian chemical company who used to be the head of ir, you know, and from that background, she obviously knew a lot about the company, a lot about the markets, a lot about all these great things, a lot about the financing as well, but not necessarily that much about perhaps the technical skills. And still, you know, she's an absolute great treasurer and is doing a phenomenal job. And I think these are certain examples that say that as of a certain level, it's definitely not just about a certain technical skill set. You are then also supposed to surround yourself with the necessary technical expertise that you deem as important, and it is more about. About personality, leadership styles and so on.
