The Role of Tech in Treasury with Royston Da Costa

Hello, it's Mike Richards here from the treasury recruitment company. I hope you're enjoying the Treasury Career Corner. If you are great news, perhaps you give us a rating on itunes or wherever you consume your podcast content. This means that even more treasury professionals can benefit from finding out, or by finding out about how treasurers have achieved their career goals. The link to rate our show will list at the bottom of our show notes. And please remember as well, the show itself is as much about you as it is about us. There are specific questions you want us to ask or there's feedback you want to give. Please drop me an email. My direct email is mikeresuryrecruitment.com inventibly enough, but anyway, that's enough from me. Let's get on with the show. So, welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about how they got started within treasury, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going next. In this week's show, I'm delighted to be joined by Royston Acosta from Ferguson plc. Ferguson are a FTSE 100 company. They're the world's leading specialist distributor of plumbing and heating products, serving businesses in the us, UK and Canada. As I say, they're listed on the Stock Exchange doing extremely well. But I've known Royston for many years. We first ever worked together or I recruited for him back in Seagram days, Vivendi. We first started his career and as I say, let's get Royston straight into the show. Royston, take us back to the dim distant days, brush off some of the dust and tell us how you first got started in Treasury.

Mike, thank you for this opportunity. I started my career working for a merchant bank called Liverpool Joseph in the City in the early 80s. It was my first experience of working for a bank. I really came across my first treasury job that British satellite broadcasting, known as BSB then, but currently known as Sky. Very small team, just myself and the group treasurer, Richard Brook. I remember him well and interestingly only we were using spreadsheets in those days. The main kind of focus of the role at the time was really to ensure that we managed our exposures. We had a bit of debt. Therefore, typically if you imagine a company, a satellite company, that's a couple of satellites up in the ether that they had to sort of insure and to fund and it was really making sure that the shareholders that investing in nbsp at the time, their funds were being managed efficiently. So there was a lot of interaction with the banks and the rest would, I'd say, would be mainly internal reporting and dealing with finance. And obviously we're looking to. It was a startup in those days, so it was very much trying to ensure that the. The funds that we're receiving in from the subscribers were being invested and obviously used to repay some of the debt in a much as effective way as possible.

And then you made a move more into a finance role at Gillette or what prompted that?

The opportunity at Gillette came up, which was actually kind of convenient because it was around the corner from the sky offices. It was an interim position where I was involved in intercompany reconciliations for Gillette's group. So it gave me great insight into the operations they had globally. The head office headquarters in Boston, the offices in the UK which Gillette, Corn and Knightsworth were significant for managing the international operations in that respect. It certainly gave me an insight, I should say, into virtual relationships and how important it is in treasury that you're able to communicate and persuade stakeholders, particularly when it comes to trying to extract cash out of some of these very challenging areas. And Gillette being the company it is, it had operations literally all over the world. I began to support King Arthur Lee, sort of, they are in walking pens and paper, making those sort of products. So I was kind of involved in that problem for about a year, year and a half before I joined Polygram.

So talk us through your journey at Polygram and for some of the listeners that won't, you know, won't understand those days, you know, back in the days of records and I know that stuff.

I mean, this is. This is quite, you know, it's just. Yeah, like you say, it's quite amusing in some ways. You think back, I mean, all this time I was really working in spreadsheets and there were no tms, there was no trademark magnet solution. And certainly when I joined Polygram, it would have probably been the first time I came to. Came across rather what could crude version of what the early tmss looked like. So Polygram was a music company, sort of branched out into films later on. So Forwarding the Funeral, one of their successes, they partnered with Channel 4 on that, but they were 75% owned by Philips and then they were eventually acquired as they. By Seagrams, became part of Uni Universal Music and then today they're now part of Vivendi Universal. But the time when I joined, they were using bank of America's IT system and it being international treasurer, which is now IT2, part of Wall Street. But it was very crude version of a networking solution in those days. Basic, but worked. They had their back office based in the Netherlands and I was based in the uk. We had a small team again cash manager, foreign exchange manager. I was a trade analyst and a group treasurer. I did quite well there, I would say because I basically after two years I was promoted to foreign exchange manager pre Euro days. So we had a number of European currencies that we managed, seven currency pools. In fact I supervised one person in that particular role. And then later on I was promoted to treasury manager. This is just before the integration with Seagrams took place.

And with that role itself you then sort of. It was much more advanced, technology wise and perhaps a lot of it's peers rather than competitors talk us through how different they were in terms of. As you said earlier, they had a netting system and things like that. But what does that mean to these guys that are just have always been used to a Treasury management system but you were quite advanced in that sense.

The way that the music business worked. And certainly in terms of polygram, they had subsidiaries all over the world and artists that were international. So you can imagine any artist today that has that international exposure meant that in each of these territories, in each of these countries they would generate royalties. And you know, some people often ask, you know, how do these royalties actually work? Who gets what percentage? And typically it's still true, I believe that the artists themselves get a very small percentage of that overall fee. But anyway, we won't go to that at this stage. Just to say at the time that we were looking after, or I was looking after the, the netting system, there were 24 countries, they were based in, 97 participants and savings of up to $2 million per annum that were realized. And what all that did from a netting perspective, it allowed us to offset what payables and receivables we had for each territory centrally. We as a centre company, if you like, would look at all the intercompany payables and receivables. So as an intercompany payables driven netting system and it meant that we could manage our payments much more efficiently by netting them off by territory. And then when we had whatever the net outcome for each of those territories in the central report, we would then trade that externally with a bank. So that would typically include not just the royalties that sometimes were due for some of these artists, but it also included foreign exchange requirements that some of these territories might have or interest payments, all those kind of transaction flows that could be included in netting solution. And it worked really well.

And you were there for coming on 10 years when how did Wolseley come about and explain who Woolsey are?

Before we go to Woolsey, I just need to explain something else. So although you say you're right and say I was there for 10 years, I actually joined Polygram 93, but then in 98 Seagram acquired Polygram and became a spirit and wines wine business. And that period was very critical for my career actually Mike, because actually, funny enough, that's the time we met.

Yes.

When I joined Single, you went with correctly.

God, yes.

And it was a tough time. It was the first time in my career when I began to really, you know how people talk about, you know, they test your. You test, you find a situation where you test your limits and you begin to realize how much you can handle and what's what. And it was great. I mean, I mean it was hard, but it was, it was also a very good experience for me. So for a period of time, for probably about a six to eight month period, I was literally wearing two hats because what we were trying to do is integrate two large companies. They were talking from a Treasury perspective, admitted the team was quite large. We had about 25 people, but some of them were consultants. But we had a front Midland back office in the front office. My recollection we had five, five, six people just on the front office side. So for that six month period we were literally running two separate operations. Sigmund had a TMS solution called Sungu. Polygon had the bank of America.it version but obviously that migrated onto the Sunguard system. It was tough but we got through it and I think it was, I'd say it was a success. It certainly also gave me that exposure to not again, another international company, but in a wider setting with say 20, 25 people in the whole team. And also being owned by an American company brought the an additional dynamic. Although I worked at Gillette, this was much more interactive with the US parent company based in New York. And some people can relate to this. When you're working in a situation in a company like that, you do end up finding yourself working to the US timeframe than the UK timeframe. So imagine they finished work at typically at 5 o' clock their time. We were probably still in the office at 10 o' clock our time. It wasn't pleasant but you know, we had to be done. What happened then was the Bromfin family owned Seagrams decided they wanted to sell off the Music part of the business. And in fact what they did is they split the spirit and wines and that was sold to Diageo and Pernod Ricard and the music business was sold off to Vivendi. And Vivendi already had a Treasury function in Paris and they were much more, let's say, broad brush in their approach to managing risk and exposures. They definitely looked at the 8020 rule. In other words, 80 exposures being hedged was more than sufficient for them. Whereas Seagrams had a different approaches. You know, anything that moved would typically be hedged from their perspective. So they had a smaller team in Vendi and they didn't, you know, the team in London effectively will make redundant. I think just one person was taken across to Paris from the whole team. So that's when I came across Horsey in those days, which is focusing today. It was an opportunity. It was different for me in terms of Steve Woolseyworth Foot Company, now Footsie 40, but I also saw it as an opportunity to kind of create and effectively devise my own kind of, and to some degree, the function, the operational function I was working. So I was really brought on to be responsible for cash management and to manage the group's day to day FX exposures and deposits and intercompany loans and so on. So that was done extremely manually in terms of all done by a spreadsheet. And it was quite incredible to think that back in 2002 a Footsie 100 company and we were no different to any other company at that time, we're using spreadsheets to record the sort of transactions we were recording and we took something like an 8,9 billion pound turnover company at the time. And it wasn't until about five, six years later after I joined that we introduced our first TMS solution. And that also was the reason for that, for that decision was driven off the back of Regulation IAS 39 for hedge accounting. Again, kind of gives you an idea of how treasury functions. It's not always been the first thing on treasurer's minds in terms of implementing technology. If it ain't broke, why fix it? It's kind of the theme that comes up time and time again.

And when you've been looking at treasury and your role, how have you prioritized it? I'm talking about, have you been sort of banging on the treasury door saying, look, we need to do this and bring this in or what's been your reason for, you know, bringing in technology?

It's a good question, but it's almost it does make me smile now when you think of today. And it's hard, isn't it? Because we know that, you know, if you look back five, 10 years ago, you're absolutely right to ask that question. In fact that was the very question that would be in top of my mind to my treasure. But today it's, it's comical thinking those times because everyone's accepted, I think, or most people accepted that technology is the way forward in whatever business you're in and in terms of trying to be competitive and getting the edge and so on, so forth. But to answer your question, I go back to what I said earlier. It's always been about what do I need to do primarily in terms of my role to make sure I'm adding value. It could be to do with technology in most cases has been, but not necessarily always that. Because treasury, as you probably appreciate Mike, it's about the process a lot of time it's making sure the processes are efficient, secure and cost effective. Obviously lots has changed in terms of technology in the last few years. Particularly I like to draw this statistic to your listeners minds. Before the year 2006, none of these products existed. And these are just a selection of the ones I'm sure most people recognize. The iPhone, iPad, Spotify, Netflix, Uber. You know, I could go on a list of quite a host, a list of others, but the point I'm making here is that these are companies today that everyone recognizes and interacts with and accept as normal as the norm. So therefore it also kind of highlights the fact that we have moved, times have moved and only thought what's 12 years, 13 years ago, these companies didn't exist as much as we talk about technology and it's part of our lives and treasury, as much as individuals, we are not technical experts, we're not IT experts and it's important to bear that in mind when we think of things like cybercrime because IT are very much the experts when it comes to looking at cloud based solutions and security and all that good stuff. We're treasurers and what I think we are called to do, and this is what I've always looked at and this is getting back to addressing your question is what is it that we need to do or can we use in terms of either be it a technology or beta solution, or be it a process that will enable us not only to do our job better, more efficiently, but add value and at the end of the day, always, always have to be conscious about security and ensure that we protect, mitigate the risk to our companies, the companies we work for.

And when you're doing that, when you're implementing this technology, are you wanting a return on investment insofar as you bring in technology and it's saving us the cash on, you know, you might bring in say FX or you know, for your foreign exchange, or there are various other systems. There are other systems out there, or are you wanting clarity over your risks or all of the above? How do you sort of split out the return if you like?

Great question again. So there's my approach to any solution, technology or otherwise. But mainly technology is for pillars, if I can put it that way. Define what we look at and where do we implement it or not. Number one, visibility. When I say visibility, I'm not thinking of just cash management visibility and where our cash is, I'm talking about visibility of every transaction within Treasury. So your risks, your flows, your controls. It's getting that visibility that historically we've never had the opportunity to, to have. Even our businesses are doing at a local level because we're fairly decentralized business connectivity. So important. This is part of the future proofing landscape that we have at Ferguson where in terms of the systems we have, we believe they are future proof to connect with as long as the other system has up to date technology and be integrated. And the name of the game for us and for me is automation. That's what's driven a lot of what we've implemented again at Ferguson since we've had new Senior Management in 2010. Security goes without saying. It has to be a secure system and solution. And we don't just. I just don't mean that it sounds good. I mean, you could say like a Google and Amazon, they're secure. I mean the large companies are bound to be secure. We go through a very lengthy process. I said lengthy in terms of detail. Looking at the contrast, looking at the certification around SOC1, SOC2 compliance and obviously internal audits involved, IT experts involved, we do all of that. We do the pen testing. You know, we have to get make sure that in terms of our group's requirements that these systems meet those requirements before we can kind of put the business case before I see it through. And then in terms of efficiencies, which is kind of what you initially asked for, but I want you to be aware that for us it's not just the cost savings, because that's very much part of the business case, but it's the whole four pillars. And I would say in terms of technology, it's not always the first thing that you would be able to demonstrate as a business case in terms of implementing the technology. I would like to think that most solutions that are implemented will give you a cost saving. It has to in terms of being more efficient. But there are cases where those cost savings aren't particularly not easy to quantify. And what I mean by that is today, if you look at companies, like I said when I first joined Wallstone, they were using spreadsheets. And you try and argue, or if you wanted to argue what you should be using a TMS solution, the first question they'll have is, well, why do I need a TMS solution when a spreadsheet is just as good? It does what it says. I don't need the sophistication of a system and why do I need that cost? My response be simply this today's world, with the amount of regulation that's come up and will come up, and the risks that we run in terms of cybercrime, I don't think you can afford not to look at a ideally cloud based solution. And the reason I say cloud is because I believe the clouds offering a lot more security, frankly, than other potential solutions I've looked at. This is the big area I feel that we're looking at next in terms of Treasury. It's whether you want to use the different terms that are banded out there like big data or AI, etc. Etc. My view is that data is, and they do say data is the new currency, but my view is that data is the key to helping us in terms of treasury manager, sort of improve cash flow forecasting. It's just in terms of how do we get that technology and the right solution to harness, or I say harness, but to collate that information in a simple and efficient way, usable fashion. That's what we're doing with our US colleagues.

And when I've spoken to other treasury guys about technology and the rise of it, one of the things that seems to have come through, people have been saying for quite a while, oh, we're going to be replaced by robots and all that malarkey. But in actual fact, what we found, and certainly our discussion, is that, let's use a UK example. If there were two treasury analysts, dealers who were doing their roles and they were particularly focused on some of this cash management stuff and things like that, and they would say, oh, well, they're going to be automated out of their jobs. They're not basically what they are. A lot of the tasks that they might do, you might find A cost saving, because you'd have two 40k people. Actually the same job will be done by one Treasury Manager at 60K. So you've got an immediate cost saving of sort of two people doing it, but one person, yet greater focus on that one person and then technology helping them do their roles. Have you seen that sort of as a direct impact into your role and the department and things? Because I think you said before, we had a call before, that you guys are doing more with the same amount of people. Would that be right?

That's absolutely right, Mike. And my view, I feel very strongly about this, is that technology.

Come on, a strong opinion, let's get on the show, come on.

Technology does not, in my view, certainly when it comes to treasury, replace people or role, it replaces processes. I think that's the key to remember, I mean, look at my career and what I did when I first started off and frankly, a lot of the companies I worked for, apart from the Seagram situation where there were two companies being merged, the average size of teams have always been around five. That's what we are here at Ferguson Treasury Stores, certainly generally, most companies that have treasury functions have generally been around five, six, maybe 10. The point I'm trying to make is that we've always had to manage the responsibilities that we've had within treasury, almost regardless of how sort of big or small the company was in that respect. If we got some more work, we just had to kind of take that flex. What's different now, in my view, is for this that where we've had processes like downloading statements and downloading market data and the very manual process that you're requiring someone to press a button to download that information, you've got technology that does that for you. And yes, there's a time saving. So therefore you could argue what do you do, that person, or a role that person has is purely doing that. My view is that in terms of what we've done at Ferguson since I've been here, we've not lost, we've not made anyone redundant because of technology. And part of the reason is because as the company's grown, because of the fact that the technology we've had is future proofed us, it's enabled us to actually deal with the growth the company is experiencing. But more importantly than that, in my view, it also then allows us to go into the business. And that's the bit where I think we really add value or potentially add value, because we're then partners with our business. And this is talking about Ferguson being a fairly decentralized type of business culture to stand by them. Often the expertise we have, but also often the support that they require when it comes to either looking at the new technology or implementing something that they feel they need. So for me, it's about the fact that treasury has had to evolve and I don't think in terms of the historic view that some people have had about the fact that roles have to be done in this way and they have to be pressing buttons. And if we don't have that person pressing the button, then we're going to, well, you know, lose people and so on, so forth. I think it's the question of recognizing where do you want to get to if you want to stay competitive and you want to move forward and you want to make sure your future proves you have to recognize that technology is a facilitator as long as you recognize it and also have a roadmap for your, for your treasury function so that the people that you have can be actually, let's say, developed and trained into. Instead of just pressing that button to download that data, they could be interrogating the reports from the businesses about their.

Cash flow forecast, making intelligent decisions as a result of it.

And then just one other thing to mention, Mike, very quickly, the act issued a slide on one of the training courses about a year ago, which I picked up and they're quite happy for me to share that, which lists 23 different areas of a company that a treasurer could be responsible for. And this I think it's been a dramatic or significant factor since the economic crisis 2008. What that means to me is it stays. Well, there's a number of things it states, but at least this I can say there's no question that Treasuries major stakeholder for the business today. I don't think many, many people would argue against that. But the other factor to bear in mind is as a result of that, I think since the crisis and the fact that the credibility of treasury in particular has increased with the board and the cfo, the treasurer and treasury functions are being given more responsibility for areas that I would say historically have not sat on the treasury burning their remit. Exactly. And a few examples of things like almost like investor relations, pensions is probably a bit more. Again, this is the part where I say technology is so helpful because taking care of the more routine, mundane tasks, you, the treasurer, the treasury function can actually really focus on those areas that add value and make us more competitive.

And is that slide publicly available? Yes.

I can send that to you what.

I'll do if it's all right, we'll include a link to that slide for anyone listening in the show notes so you guys can have a look at that. Royston, you just talked there about treasury as a whole and everything else. And this is about you, this show as well. What would you say has been key to your success? What's your personal ethos within you about? Right, I've got up today, I've gone in. What are you focusing on each day or what's your each week, each month? Where are you going in your treasury journey as you was in Royston?

Yeah, it's a question. I mean the fact is that what I've done so far, I've been fortunate in terms of the companies I've worked for, in terms of the people I've worked with, and in terms of my boss, Phil Scott, who's been very supportive of my role here and in terms of the digital strategy I'm responsible for in terms of treasury, for our group. So driver, without wanting to repeat myself, are those four pillars I mentioned to you earlier, but in terms of me personally as well, it's really looking ahead and trying to recognize and capture those, whether it's technologies or solutions that will benefit our group business I work for primarily, but I'm always about also looking at where it could make life simpler for people and our business. I mean, I'll give you an example. Historically, when you work in treasury, the there's quite a disconnect there, I say, between what you did in treasury on a day to day basis and your customer, your end customer, whether it was a B, Sky B or Universal Music or Seagrams today, I think in terms of treasury and any other part of the business for that matter, in a company like ours, you cannot afford to ignore that the man on the street, the woman on street, are looking for a particular level of experience or service more so than just a product. And so in terms of treasury, if you think of payments, customers public want to be able to engage with us in a seamless and effortless way. That's what I think people look for, I certainly do. So from a Treasury perspective, we're always looking, I'm always looking for solutions that would enable us as a business to be able to provide that service. And in some ways it's internally, but in a lot of ways it could be externally as well in terms of how we collect cash, how we allow our customers to make payments and all that good stuff. And so that's kind of What I'd say too, in terms of what am I looking for, it's from a personal base. I want to try and make sure that in my role I'm adding the value and capturing those sort of future proofing solutions that are out there that makes sense for our business. And so certainly from a company perspective, I would like to think that we as a group will benefit from that and my colleagues around the group would sort of benefit from that and recognize and be able to share, you know, sort of. That's another good thing about Ferguson Group. We believe very strongly in sharing best practice internally.

I sometimes ask at this point, you know, as we approach the end of the podcast, sort of a bit more recruitment, focus about people, focus on what you look for when you're recruiting. But it sounds like you've got a pretty stable team and there's been limited sort of recruitment, unless you've not been telling me, which, you know, you should have been calling me. But when you're recruiting or when you have recruited, what's been your recruitment ethos?

What are you looking for?

You looking right? Show us all the, all the qualifications under the sun, please. Or, you know, what makes people stand out? Is it their personality, ethos, approach to Treasury, Any of the above? What do you look for in people?

So I think I would have to say from a Treasury perspective, because we are not saying we're extra special, we should be set apart from everyone else, but there's a certain level of skill set that I think you need to have when you work in treasury and Paramount, obviously certain qualifications go without saying, you know, whatever profession you choose to work and if you want to progress, you need to have the appropriate qualifications. But very much alongside of that is so important is someone who can, who's able to work with other people. And I just mean work in a glib sense, the word. But in terms of being able to deal with different cultures and different personalities, what you can't have is someone who's shy in terms of not willing to go out and meet with their colleagues or certainly third parties. We deal with a lot of banks. You have to be. And of course, some of the work that we do, like, you know, sort of, let's say foreign exchange trading and that sort of thing, you have to be fairly bold, very confident, do that type of transaction activity. So, you know, for me it's. It's very much making sure that the person is, as the usual kind of cliches come up, rounded. I think it's also interesting in this day and Age. You probably come across this quite a lot, Mike. It's very important, I think, that we approach it with a. The diversity debate very sort of strong. And I think inclusiveness is much more kind of the theme that's used nowadays. But I think it's quite important to recognize that because McKinsey, the global institute report that's been issued for the last five, six years time and time again has demonstrated scientifically how a diverse team generates a much higher return on investment than one that isn't. I think all that sort of is saying really is that you want to make sure that your team has different skill sets, let's say, and obviously in the whole mix you want someone who's open to technology as well. Because I don't think today, and I don't think you have an issue with that, frankly, particularly with the new generation or this current generation zone they've grown up on. Yes. I mean mobile phones. Was there anything before then? Is the question you get asked when you speak to that generation. Certainly my daughters, all in that. So you want someone who's able to interact with technology and I think that's the general expectation when they come into the workplace anyway.

Okay, we've touched on this a little bit just before we wrap up. You touched on the future of Treasury. Obviously technology is the future and everything else in development that we've talked about that strategically and you talked and touched on automating payments, increasing visibility, cash flows and things like that. But we've got other things, got blockchain, you've got AI and everything else. But where do you see treasury going to in the future? If I'm recruiting a treasurer position five or 10 years from now as a recruiter, what's that? You know, what am I going to be recruiting for?

To be honest with you, this is something. And again a brilliant question because I am again key to highlight this. We talk about technology, as you say, and we talk about blockchain AI. I don't for one second believe that we lose sight of what treasury is still in terms of its core values about you. We're still going to need treasures and treasury functions that can manage the risk, around the liquidity management, around the FX exposures, around the sort of cash flow forecasting. None of those areas will really disappear. I think in terms of the way that companies operate. I think the big difference will occur in terms of what will the future treasury function look like. Overwhelming thoughts, kind of envisaged in some ways because I always sometimes kind of take a step back in terms of context and scale and it's a bit sort of out of context potentially, but world's population is 7 billion and in terms of number of people that actually have access to the Internet, just under 4 billion. A lot more people have access to smartphones, about 5 billion. The reason I'm saying this is, Mike, because simply this, the degree to which people companies have access to a global market is huge. From where we are currently and coming back to the question in terms of treasury to where we will be and potentially in terms of what could be achieved. So I could say in say, let's say 10 years time, let's say the Ferguson treasury team, I could still see as kind of the same number of people potentially, but there's a lot more surrounded by a lot more technology in how we interact now. That's the key in my view. So if you take your. And that slide I was referring to earlier, there's 23 different areas. I don't see a lot of those areas changing those responses still be there. What I do see is how we manage those responsibilities, changing the tools that you use, tools we use. And then it comes down to question of speed, accuracy and who does it well and who does it best. And this is where some of the banks will need to up their game and they are doing that already as far as I can see. So that's the kind of thing I'm thinking in terms, and you say about recruiting for the future. I don't see your remit changing in terms of the core kind of competencies that you would need to look for in a treasurer. You would definitely need to sort of see the mindset being different in terms of the openness to technology and being able to adapt and to be able to be more dynamic and agile. I think that's unfortunate. For sure, it's not a bad thing, but it's something that is beginning to focus more and more companies in terms of what they're looking for. But I think in terms of how that team will look, it's just going to be the environment, if the environment is going to change.

And Royston, you've obviously had some of. You weren't recognized, so I know that you're not blowing your own trumpet as such, but there have been awards, you know, you've got things through the banks that sort of said, oh, well done for doing this and some of the other, you know, providers and stuff. What sort of stuff have you got? You know, this is your chance. I know, you know, you're naturally quite a modest man. But tell us some of the awards you've got and things, because obviously they're recognizing the work you're doing.

Yeah, thank you, Mike, for asking that question. But it's. You're right. I mean, I don't particularly want to blow my own trumpet, but I think it's worth, for your listeners at least, being aware that sometimes, you know, I talked about how not to be afraid of getting involved and not afraid of rolling up your sleeves. And sometimes it's nice to know that doesn't go unnoticed. Certainly in that respect, I would say some of the areas, and I feel kind of proud in some ways that I've been invited to sit on a corporate advisory committee of one of our partnership banks, sort of specifically around technology. And also one of the treasury event organizers asked me to join their advisory board, but also then being recognized by TMI's Corporate Award in Treasury Innovation Excellence for Future Proof and Treasury, because obviously, at the end of the day, let's be clear, this is not just me. It's always about working in a team and also working for a company like Ferguson, who've constantly sponsored and supported me as much as anyone else that works in the team and for this company. So it's good to know that it's hard work, but it's also good to know that this doesn't go unnoticed and you do get rewarded for it at the end of the day.

Yeah. And you get the recognition. And you get the recognition. Yeah. It is worth doing. Someone looks back at your career and they go, actually, that looks pretty cool. You know, all the way from Vivendi through Ferguson and some of the stuff you've done, if someone's wanting to do, replicate yours and say, actually, that sounds like the sort of journey I'd like in my career. What final words of advice would you give?

For me, it's about determination. And again, not just better and not giving up. I would also add to that, especially in Treasury, I've found you cannot afford to not roll up your sleeves and sort of get them to get your hands dirty. And by that I mean what I've found in most of the roles I've been in, I've had to do that. And it's. Regardless of what I started off as a treasure analyst or when I got to managing the operations at Seagrams and in my current role as System Group Treasurer. Small teams, inevitably you're going to have to do that anyway. But it's not just that. It's about having that mindset that no task or job is beyond me doing because of the fact that I happen to have this experience and I'm at this role. And the same goes for all of our team, including our group treasurer in that camp maybe five, ten years ago. Because as treasurers, we're very concerned with it. We cannot afford to be too cutting edge or bleeding edge, as they say. But I think in today's world, you can afford to be not saying risque or, you know, sort of try something that you haven't tested. A lot of that takes place anyway. When I say try, don't be afraid to try new things. I mean by looking at the solutions that out there. Don't have to subscribe to them on day one, but you can try them. You can. They have these, what they call sandboxes for a lot of the solutions that you.

Oh, yeah.

And once you've satisfied yourself and gone through the due diligence I've described earlier, you know, we'll see Oyster practically.

Jeffrey Royston, thanks for your time. Today you can see Royston at a number of different events. He's installing the virtues of technology and actually properly links it in with treasury, which is fantastic. And yeah, as I say in the show, notes link to Royston. He's a great guy to know and I'm sure you'll see him on a stage somewhere near you. Thank you very much for taking today's show, Royston, and look forward to the future. The future's bright and full of technology.

Look forward to it as well, Mike, and thank you for this opportunity.

Pleasure.

Thanks very much.