The Transition From Treasury to CFO with Topi Jokiranta

Foreign welcome to another update episode if you like of the podcast where I catch up with some of my previous guests. Today I'm talking to Topi Yokoranta very good friend from Retted Group. When we last spoke he was the head of Group treasury back in April 2019. Now he's the CFO. This is one of our update episodes where we talk to some of our treasurers this case three years later and we talked to Top about how treasury prepared him in the positive and some of the negative ways for being a cfo. What it did you know as a springboard episode springboard into CFO ship. Enjoy today's episode. This week delighted by joined by a good old friend of mine, Toppy Jockaranta from where he's currently the head of Group treasury at Retic. As we he showed my enunciation of my Finnish. He's actually finished by background and RETIC is a Finnish family owned investment group with approximately well euro 1 billion of turnover and a variety of different investments. But you know we'll come on to that a bit later. Topic can explain that you studied and then did national service and things and talk us through then and how you came to London, treasury and everything else. So give us a, give us a kickoff from there.

What happens obviously here in Finland is national service is compulsory. Roughly you do a year crawling in the forest and then after that most of people continue their studies after that studied in Amsterdam, BBA degree there, then moved to London and that's really where the whole treasury career started. Never.

And then and you say you moved to London and he thought oh London wasn't too nice. Let's, let's go to Bracknell or talk you through because you actually started at Hewlett Packard and before the show we were saying that we've previously interviewed Connor Ma who used to be HP and obviously there's a few other guys that have sort of gone HP and some of the similar places yourself. But how did that role come about and how did you hear about Treasury?

As part of the studies we have to work somewhere abroad and I happened to do my work training as part of the studies at Hewlett Packard. Through that I ended up just contacting the same organization and they have this European treasury center in the UK and then I just got lucky. I managed to get my first treasury job there. It was cash management. It's really just learning the very basics. But it was great because you know there were many other Shirley Jr. People there and also then some seniors to guide you through for example Corner was there at the same time. And so that was the, the first touch really to treasury systems and money market and a little bit of foreign exchange and all these things kind of started flooding in. That was how I ended up there, through university, really.

And was treasury an accidental choice or had you heard about it before or did you think that's an area I want to be in? Because obviously that was, that was quite a while ago. So it's still not in its infancy, been around for a while. But you know, we said a lot of people get into treasury by accident a lot of the time.

Yes, I think it was half accident. I majored in corporate finance so I wanted to do something to do with finance and I very nearly stayed in Amsterdam. I wanted to have something to do with, you know, perhaps the stock market, perhaps derivatives. And there, there was a possibility to stay there and start learning and work with Optims. But then I thought perhaps I would prefer to work for a real company. So I ended up actually then in Treas. So a half accident, but then that turned out to be a very good accident and I really haven't looked back since.

And then you joined Ray Christopher Regis or talk us through some of the moves then that happened.

That was a fairly busy time. We built some cash forecasting systems there. It was expanding very, very fast. They just gone public. This was before I joined. Just explain Regis.

Yeah, this is Regis, correct?

Yeah, yes, Regis plc. And so it was really just learning to be a public company and really building various pieces of the treasury expanding very fast, some people could say even too fast. And then obviously that was also at the time when, when the 911 attacks happened and Regis had a big flagship office in New York. So that was a very strange time that then caused real issues for the company. And that was a fairly short stint that I did there. But I learned a lot because, you know, really it was myself and Ray and then millions of things happening. And so that was interesting to say the least. But I learned a lot and that was probably the first time when I sort of also understood that, you know, things might also go wrong. Things are not just Sunshine and Rosie all the way through. And as a trader junior guy, I had to deal with, you know, issues with the banks and some pretty heavy discussions during that year, especially the sort of latter part of it. I think it was a good experience in all the, you know, all the horrible things that happened around it. But I did learn a lot and so I, I don't think I'll ever forget that.

And Then you moved on and you sort of by that stage, so you've been sort of treasury manager, stroke analyst. But then you were, you know, you joined Diageo, you know, talk us through the moves and the progression there.

Gaggio was then a role when, when I then wanted to get some more exposure to front office foreign exchange. And really that's where I learned my foreign exchange first time. It was a pretty big treasury, also a pretty sophisticated Treasury. And I suppose that was a very different view in that, you know, we were at the head office doing big numbers, huge numbers of deals. Also that was the entity of foreign exchange dealing platforms. So, you know, things started to get more digital and less phones and more tapping on your computer. And so that was, that was the first piece there. And as I said, you know, that was a big, big Treasury. So you could see a lot of things going on, not just foreign exchange, but, you know, capital market stuff, very large accounting part that was happening there, you know, in the same office. So again, that was a very different treasury, but again, a great ground to learn because you had a lot of people and you had a lot of also senior experienced people to guide you through.

What was Jazzyu like, you say? He was sort of developing there, you know, what, you know, what transformation did you see? Because you did quite a lot of project stuff and, you know, lot of progression for yourself.

I enjoyed it, first of all, you know, it was great and it was a great company to work for. And so I think it had a lot to do with systems, treasury systems, dealing platforms and all of these things. And that had a particular flavor to it. And so I did, I suppose, you know, the first time again there I had to be part of these teams, you know, that implemented these, you know, various systems. We also had a lot of fairly sophisticated analysis there. We, I remember we had a couple of PhD students there all the time running some pretty amazing models. And so it was a very different approach to financial risk and risk analysis and risk management. And I suppose that's really, you know, working at the front office and then a little bit of capital markets there as well, bond issues and these kind of things begins to give you a more rounded view of what are the different parts in a large Treasury. It was pretty high pace as well. It was. Things happened fast, a lot of things, big numbers. And so I guess it was part of the journey where you learn that there is a lot more that revolves around treasury, not just you and your desk and the immediate things. You see how things link together, I.

Suppose, and Then you made the move. You've done three years at Diageo and it was time for the next career move. Is that the right way to describe it?

Cadbury was looking to beef up their Treasury. They also had a new treasurer and. And they wanted to largely overhaul their financial risk management process just in treasury again to do with the treasury systems. And so that was an opportunity which was a little bit too good to decline.

So talk us through your roles there, because you had good progression over what, the next five years sort of thing with. With Cabrillion. Obviously it was changing a lot before. It eventually got pulled out by Kraft Foods and things. But talk us through when you. What was it like when you walked in the door?

The first impression was that it was a little bit stuck in its old ways and the need was there to overhaul a lot of the processes. And that's really, you know, that sort of set the pace for the next year and a half or two. New systems, new risk management policies and, you know, rebuilding the team. And enjoyed a lot. There was a lot happening, a lot of M and A pieced in as well. Some bits sold mainly the drinks business and then other bits thought and again getting a different view where you kind of have to dismantle old processes and, you know, rebuild them again. And that I enjoyed a lot. I also then moved to Singapore for a couple of years to really look after their Asia Pacific area. And it was a regional setup. So, you know, I suppose the head office was obviously in London, but the regions were not necessarily that close to the head office. And so one of the reasons why I moved to Singapore then was to kind of, you know, pull some of the cash management things together, risk management, hedging processes, and if not, establish those. There was a guy there before me who moved to Japan, and so the opening was there. So I kind of just continued what this. What. What this particular person had started setting up. And it was really just getting the visibility from the region to head office. But it was risk management, it was repatriation taking, you know, participating into these kind of projects. It did involve quite a lot of traveling just to make sure that, you know, you understand what was happening in all those countries. Good fun. But that was a lot of traveling because really it was anything from Japan to China, India, and then all the way to Australia and New Zealand. So that was a. There was quite an area.

We spoke to Chris Emsley from General Mills, and he's, you know, down in actually Singapore, is the Asia Pacific treasurer there. And he again talked through the sort of journey that they've been through and establishing new things, I think. What was it, you know, you say you took over from someone, you came in, you walked into this sort of Singapore office, but it sounds like they were doing stuff their own way. Or how did you land there as this European guy that's just sort of, you know, with. And then work with the guys, or what was your ethos around? How did you make it work?

You know, the regional office was set up some years ago, before that, but it was mainly really set up by guys from Australia because Australia was the biggest manufacturing base for the drinks and the confectionery at the time. What really was needed is just going through all the countries, just understanding what's happening in there and how to build up a process, almost like a consultant approach, to understand what's going on, what needs revision, and then implementing the revisions. Of course, you know, then just reporting back to the head office involved a lot of setting up risk management reporting and other things which could flow back and forth between London and the region there. But you have to mix the culture into it. Obviously, when you go to the region and they focus a lot more on the operations, they're not really too, necessarily too fast about what's going on at the head office. It's too far away for a company of that size. It definitely is too far away. And so my role was really just to make sure that the treasury set up there developed and is much more under control when it comes to cash risk forecasting and also various things that, you know, had to happen. There was a lot happening in India, not the easiest country, with all sorts of regulations. There was a lot happening in Australia. Selling one of the drink stations, repatriate, big, big repatriation project which we push through. And so it's interesting to see the regional setup because, you know, it gives you an idea. It sort of reminds you that that's where the money is made. And they're much more concerned about selling stuff, the operations, the manufacturing, everything else, instead of the typical thing that happened at the head office. And so that gave me the perspective that, you know, you really gotta have to listen to the guys on the ground before you start dropping decisions on them and mix the. Exactly. And then you mix the cultural thing to that one thing is, you know, perhaps having a clear idea in your head what to do. But when it comes to implementing something in Japan, in Thailand or in Australia, you have to do it in a very different way in all these countries. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an absolute stunning trip for a couple of years, even though it was pretty busy. Lots of time on the plane and then.

Then you decided you'd have enough time on the plane, it's time to come back to. And work back in the UK or what.

What prompted that really was just a sick. Almost, you know, it was kind of agreed that it's about two years and that that's really what it was. Then back to the head office, and really we continued setting up the regional treasury at the same time, when I was in the Asia Pacific, same thing was happening in America's region, same thing was happening in the emea. And so we had the two other regional treasurers who worked, you know, and did exactly the same sort of thing in all the regions. And of course, by the time I was back, it was much more, Much more in control. And so we could focus a little bit more on, you know, maybe leading it heavier from the. Maybe that's not the right word, but, you know, having a better control from the head office and then focusing on other things you could layer on, like cash pooling and other things which you could then develop. It was just a natural step to come back. And of course, by the time I came back, this takeover talk started with Kraft. First it was friendly talk, and then it turned hostile very quickly. And we know how it turned out, and it was a bit of a shock to all of us how it really turned out. And so before I left the Kraft treasury, I remember right, was in Switzerland and. And then, of course, they wanted to consolidate a lot of the functional treasury work. I decided that that wasn't for me anymore. That was the kind of natural time to then perhaps look for something else. We also came back. We came back from Singapore, just made it back before the. Before our second kid was born. Maybe that was another sort of natural point kind of thing. Well, okay, perhaps we'll. We'll do something else.

Yeah. So you completed your experience there, confection, consumer goods and everything else, and then made another consumer move to retail, so to Tesco. Talk us through that. And then you did Tesco and then you decided to head back to Finland and stuff. But talk with us through those couple of moves.

Yes, Tesco was a little bit like Cadbury. It was a story where a lot more visibility was needed. Instead of hanged regions, they had very, very large businesses in Eastern Europe and in Asia also. Some in the US wasn't that big. But anyway, you know, the visibility in those businesses wasn't necessarily where it could have been. Yet some of the core processes with Tesco bank and the whole cash management and all that stuff was actually very good. And so again it was more of a story of, you know, trying to pull together and understand what's going on in the businesses. And of course it did involve, well, not really that much hedging but you know, a lot to with funding and forecasting and pulling that in together such that you could have visibility and lead it a little bit more efficiently from the head office.

And you were international treasurer there, so you were obviously dealing globally or what were the regions that you focused on?

All the regions really. We had Eastern Europe and of course uk that was big, Asia was big, South Korea, Thailand and so we had team member in Thailand, we had somebody in Hong Kong. Tesco was an interesting in the sense that they also had very large property business. Of course you have to build these shopping malls and what you would have in the UK is the shops. But in China it was shopping malls and it was a massive property business which was booming. And that required quite a bit of, quite a bit of attention because the numbers were big and it was mushrooming. So that was part Eastern Europe was much more established but regulations in various countries make it a bit difficult. If you compare Hungary to UK or Poland to UK then you kind of really have to understand what's going on in the ground. The businesses were really big so you had to really have a pretty grasp of what's going on there. So that was again a sort of a, I wouldn't call it a project but it was similar kind of tasks to understand what's going on there and pull it together for the head office to manage better.

And then you decided to head back to Finland. What happened?

Well, family happened really. By this time two small kids, my wife had graduated. She went back to uni when we were in London and really she wanted to really think about moving back. Working in London would have required a much bigger house, all pairs and all sorts of other things. And so at the end of the day I think it was a mutual decision to then perhaps come back here and also other family reasons. Our parents obviously are not getting any younger. It was one of those decisions to come back and Finland, of course I spoke. Being Xinji was easy in the sense that, you know, it's, it's a bit of a reverse cultural shock, having been abroad quite a long time, but turned out well. What happened next was really just a long two year project for an American company.

Tell us about carestring.

Carestring was the medical business of Kodak. It was basically demerged from the troubled photos and cameras business. But this was top notch imaging business which is to do with the X rays or X ray technology and various imaging technology. And again a very different business in the sense they were present in huge amount of countries around the world. A pretty large business as well, about 2 billion naira turnover. But it was different because most of the clients that the company was selling to was either states or municipalities, authorities. Right. Well really what my reason was to start a pretty big project which was European Middle east liquidity management. So we basically did a European wide project to pull the liquidity and cash management and cash pool together and also implement a new treasury system at the same time. And so that was an all out treasury capability build and that turned out to be quite a project easier because I knew my Ben boss and I had worked with her at the time when we were at cad. So that was interesting because the customer base in the business was very, very different. It wasn't partly the consumer goods, this was now industrial healthcare stuff, high technology. And of course Europe, Middle east was a huge amount of countries and of course the tick was at the time the European crisis was going on. And so when you're selling stuff to Spanish, Italian and Greek state or foreign municipalities, it wasn't necessarily that easy to actually get paid for your stuff. And so it added another tip to it in the middle of all this European crisis going on. Added another layer of complexity to it. The project went well eventually they established the first century in Amsterdam. Amsterdam by the time the project was done, came to a decision that, you know, I don't necessarily want to sit in Amsterdam, just having come back a couple of years back.

Yeah.

So then it was basically time to wrap up that project and then think about perhaps working for somebody else.

So you joined as you say, you're retig your Finnish accent a little bit better than mine, let's just say. But obviously they're private group so I don't want to intrude too much in it. But you know, family owned, private. But what, what can you tell us about the group or talk us through some of their sort of treasury setup if you like.

Yes, indeed. And even though this is a private company, if you go on to our website you will find all the financial statements and everything else just like any public company would publish them. So it's a very open company in that sense. This is a company which started off as way back. This is the now the ninth generation that's running the company. The near history was shipping, tradeship, BT technology and then line my lime date mining. But before that the company was actually in tobacco, alcohol and sweet confectionary. So you know, again they've gone through many cycles of reinventing themselves and so currently the latest change is that it's an investment company holding various investments in the portfolio. The two biggest ones are heating technology, radiators, underfloor heating, various other systems which you would also find in the uk. For example your Micin radiators would be. Nord is the mine, the mining business. So it's basically limestone which you then take and do very compete with it. And it really goes into other industrial processes. Production of steel, construction, concrete, it goes to environmental processes, glass, chemicals, you name it. And so Red Piggy is the biggest European heating technology company. Then Nordkark is the biggest Nordic one and there are various others. Recently we've also diversified to healthcare. So we now hold a very sizable stake in a Finnish private healthcare provider as well as some financial. In the financial sector we hold also a very sizable stake in a fund manager and corporate finance house called eq. These are both listed companies, these two that I just mentioned. So there are privately owned and then there are also stakes and listed companies. There are also various others. And so managing the most of the treasury is geared to service the industrial companies which obviously are about 1 billion euro turnover in more than 20 countries, maybe European centric, but also in China, Russia, Turkey, a little bit of US and of course all the European countries pretty much wherever you would be cheating. Let's say I came in here and really there was a need kind of update the processes, risk management policy and the protection and overall treasury management and competence. A very small team. We are three. But again it's a very Nordic thing that you know, we love technology so it's very heavily relying on extremely efficient systems. And then of course you know, you have some pretty good talent because we can't really hire too many people to stay, you know, somehow sensible with the budgets. What we want here is, is a full in house bank. It's payments and receipts on behalf of those units providing all the foreign exchange, interest rate, commodity hedging services of course, then all the intercompany loans, all the external funding goes through here and supporting the M and A activity which is never ending in this company.

Now you've made, you know, you've had a number of moves, a number of roles within PLCs and public companies and things like that. And then you've Made the move to private. How would, how have you found the contrast? Or the pros and cons, if you like the advantages, disadvantages, you know, how would you describe that?

Public companies are a good. It's a good school to understand how things are done, usually quite well because you've got rules and regulations on what you can and cannot do. Also, the companies I work for were very, very big. And so, you know, those Treasuries were top notch. That was a particular view. Private companies can be. Obviously they range from A to Z. This, this particular one when I joined was probably a little bit stuck in its ways, but the Treasury Department had some pretty good starts with technology and pretty good starts within other processes. Size wise, this is a big company in the Nordics, but this is not a particularly big company, which, if you put it to European or global context, but here we are pretty sizable. And I think things can move very, very fast or they can move very, very slowly. It depends really very much what the owners want and what kind of an agenda the owners want to implement. And what happened here was, you know, again, we had the generational change. Our new three years ago, he was, if I remember right, 36 years old at the time. He was part of the owning family. And then things obviously started to change pretty fast. Completely new gear. And then things started happening very fast. And then the pace has continued over the past three years. Anything to do with funding, obviously, investment. And so I suppose I enjoy the private side because, you know, again, you're very close. At least we are here, very close to the actual owners. We are in the same building. We see them every day and they're very often in the same meeting. You get to see how they think because this is their own money. This is not shareholders money in the stock market. So you tend to see that they can take very, very long horizon in some decisions. They can behave sometimes in a different way compared to a listed company. In our case, it's a strength because we can get into investment cases. We don't have a set exit date. We don't have to behave like a PE fund. And so it gives us a different kind of an approach to investing into new things and looking at our portfolio companies. But then the downside, of course, is, you know, you can't afford to stay and, you know, expect that, you know, now that we're in here, you know, fine, let's just run this business so the same rules apply. You have to reinvent yourself every couple of years in order to stay competitive. And in that Sense doesn't really change. It's not any different to a plc.

And just you talked there and touched on, you know, that they have this ethos around technology and things. Where do you see technology and where do you see the future of? Treasury recently spoke to Ronan from Honeywell and he was talking about AI, automation and lots of different things like that. Is that something coming along to you guys or are you going different direction or what was technology doing for you?

When I refer to technology, it's really using the available treasury system in outbank engine or you use a Finn provider, electronic invoicing when it comes to that side of things. And so artificial intelligence and robotics and all that, not necessarily that takes a bit of time. It can also take a big investment in the sense that at least you need some people to learn how to do that and that teach the others. What we focused on is really taking the products in the market and without customizing anything. I mean, customizations are kind of software. Houses don't really want to do that. And we really have the budget to kind of, you know, take the system and then customize it for our needs. So what we've done is, you know, make the most of the system, but then develop the pay sessions and fine tune the processors so we can get by with three people and service the whole group fully now. Thanks. Just taking the system and pushing those to the limits. We also take it take an approach that, you know, things are very modular. It's not just one system that does everything. We pick maybe two, three systems and then we use the bits from those which are best fit for particular process and then we make those systems talk to each other. And that I think is the recipe that's been successful for us. So, you know, picking three or four core systems using the best bits from them and then just having them talk to each other. And then I suppose we've got some, I won't call it robotics or AI, but really it's some automation which we've done with bits of middleware where we can consolidate and retrieve information and basically turn it into understandable information very fast. So supplementing the systems with some customized things that they are not. I mean, it's mostly Excel based, but you can do a lot in that system if you use clever people to help you.

Just looking back over your career and your history, if you like, one of the things I noticed here was your ethos or attitude to study. We'll come on to some of the people that are there with you and recruitment ideas. But when you're looking, or when you look back over your career, rather, you've got treasury qualification, you've also then most recently studied, you know, relatively recently for an mba. Why go to all the effort? What do you think that gives you? And then does that then influence you when you're looking for people and recruiting, that you've got those things in your back pocket, as it were?

I enjoy studying. It's one of those things where it's always one of these things. When you go back and you have clever professors, it might be going through things that you've studied before, but again, it's a refresher to start with. Second of all, you know, you do always learn something new. So the treasury, the amct, as it was called back then, was an absolutely key thing because it really gives you the theory and the hardcore of, you know, what this whole thing revolves around. So that's actually something I'm putting my team through. As we see, not very common in Finland. Not many people have done it or are doing it in Finland, but these two guys are doing it and I think they will be very, very surprised by the time, you know, they're finished with it. It's a really good degree. MBA was another. It's a completely different thing, you know, where you would have maybe 20 people there from completely different background, top professors from the best universities. And so it gives you a theoretical step, but it also gives you the opportunity to go through problems. You know, if you've got 20 people in the room, you get 20 different approaches. It teaches you that, you know, there are many, many ways of solving the same problem and thinking about various angles. MBA is usually quite a bit of work and it was quite a bit of work, but I enjoyed it because it gave me contact. You know, I know a lot more people and I also understand how the business works in this country. This is domestic, is actually the first single company I work for. Sorry, it was one of the. One of the twists. But NBA gives you a completely different angle. Is it worth it? I think it is. But if you do it, you have to go in the. All in it. No point sitting there for, you know, half of the lectures. And then you really kind of have to use the time and match the time and invest in it, and then it gives you a lovely payback.

Yeah.

By way of understanding things. So when I look at people, as I said, we're a pretty small team, we have to have clever people, but it doesn't mean I have to have people who've been doing treasury for 30 years? No, it means I have to have people who can complement each other and also are hungry to learn things and also take ownership. That's one of the big things which needs to happen in a small team is there needs to be rotation, there needs to be ownership. It doesn't really work. A small team can't.

And how do you assess that if you're, you know, maybe if you're looking for new people and things, how, how can you, how can they prove that they're sitting there in front of you, you interview them but you know, oh, I took ownership of this. Well, yeah, prove it to me. Or how do you sort of get them to, you know, justify, as it.

Were, that that is a difficult one, all of that. I think there's a silver bullet. And first of all you need to have enough candidates, you know, and sourcing is of course one of the things which, where traditionally, you know, you kind of ask for some help from the recruitment agencies. Of course, you know, you get the pretty good pre screening at that point. We used also some recruitment companies for testing these guys, you know, general test interviews and that sort of gives you a short list, references. I did a lot of calling around their previous managers, previous companies, other colleagues who may have worked with them. And so you kind of have to find the pieces of the puzzle. Ultimately, I still believe in the old fashioned interview process. Not 15 rounds, but you know, two maximum three. But if you take enough time and you set the environment such that you can have a good discussion, not necessarily just going through the CV and sort of a formal engineering approach, but you know, having a discussion, talking about examples, completely random things, you begin to get a pretty good sense of these people and what they're like. Are they sociable? Have they had drive? Do they have drives? Why do they want to work to you, this particular company? Perhaps I'm old fashioned but you know, I still think the actual interviewing process has a big part in it. And generally speaking we get very good, you know, treasury is not a big area in Finland. Obviously you only have so many companies that need a Treasury department per se, but, but you get very good candidates. Many engineering backgrounds, also more traditional economics, corporate finance people. And then there is a big flip. Either you work for a bank or you work for a corporate and I suppose it works that way also in London. And so through these, putting these pieces together, you get a pretty good idea on what you're looking for. And then of course you need a bit of luck. Top talent is I suppose relatively easy to find by way of formal education, but then finding that person who's able to take ownership, take things and execute things and, and also, you know, actually then finally being sociable. Yeah, you need a bit of luck. But so far I have an extremely good team and we were very, very lucky to get these hungry young guys who are all of these things that I mentioned.

I think also you take, as you describe it there, you, you know, built up a picture of them, not just a snapshot at an interview, as you said. You looked at lots of different sources of reference, as it were. So evidence from past employers, past bosses or people that you know in common, maybe that then that's how you build up a better picture of them rather than just. All right, great interview today. Thanks. Yeah, offer them the job. It's much wider than that from the sounds of it and it needs to.

Be because, you know, treasury is not, it's not a huge market here in Finland. It's a very specialist area. People usually want to work in treasury, unless they're very, very junior. They do tend to know the basics and that helps. And then what you then have to do is pick from the pieces specific expertises. So one in the current team, you know, there's, there is more of an accounting strength there and the other one is more market hedging and risk management geared. And then we both have to learn these things and rotate and then perhaps I bring other things to the table which I can then teach them. And so it's also trying to find then some specific expertise and strengths which you can put together. But as the team is pretty small, you know, they have to accept it from the beginning that, you know, they will have to do things which they may not necessarily like or it's not necessarily something which is, which is their strength, but they'll get exposure to those things. And that's the magic thing, is getting exposure. I find when you give these guys sufficient challenges, they seem to work harder and really, because they understand they're going to learn the process themselves.

Okay. And as we wrap up today's show, I spoke to Toby before and we, we got permission again to. We'll put his LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So you can click there. That's with all our shows. Someone goes on there, they look at your background, they look at the successful career you've had from Giageo, Cadbury's, Tesco's, Care Stream and now Letic. You obviously got great corporate treasury background. Someone looks and said, actually, that's what I want. Looking back over it. And in summary of you, what would you say, what advice would you offer those looking at it?

Well, the first is a study bit. You go through the sufficient training, for example, the corporate treasurer's training. That's always good. But then it's also looking at the various opportunities. Sometimes be a bit adventurous, somebody offers you things, maybe you have to relocate. That's not. I mean, it's always a bit of a hassle, but it tends to be easier when you're young. And so you should try and do that before the whole family thing dips into the picture. And another thing is, if you are moving jobs, then the next one should be something which is new. Don't move from one job to another where you do the same thing. Always try and find another focus and build around it. Experience in treasury. Because then if you're able to work in all of those different areas of treasury, then that after a while gives you a much more rounded experience which you can apply. Instead of becoming a deep specialist in some area, you're able to approach things in a more holistic way. Yeah, and I suppose that's what I tried consciously doing because it went pretty well. But I did enjoy the ride around the world and I would thoroughly recommend it to anybody if there is a chance, then take up those various opportunities, even though it might look a bit scary or it might not be the thing that you're. You've done before, but then the whole point is to learn new things. And yeah, it's hard work, but, you know, it's very satisfying when you then get the opportunity to do something you haven't done before.

So don't be afraid to take the risk and go and do it.

Absolutely. Yes. Situations change and, you know, economic cycles change, but I tend to believe that if you do your job well, they'll be well placed and if you get this rounded experience, you know, you will do even better.

Yeah. So I hope you enjoyed that amazing episode with Toppy. And that was back in April 2019. Wow. Yeah, it's amazing. We're doing these revisits to some of these past guests where Treasury's taken them, and Toppy will explain to you. It's gone a few places since then. So, April 2019, we talk about fast tracking your treasury career, which is a great segue, if you like, into what happened next. Toppy's on the line with me now. He's continued. He's still with Retic. But, Toppi, would you pick up the story maybe from there to now and we can explore A little bit more because the company's changed, but also your roles evolved. Over to you, sir.

Thanks, Mike. Good talking to you again. Yeah, a lot happened over the past few years. Yes. So indeed a lot of changes happened in the group, Primarily also in 2020, 2021. Having a look at the strategy. It's a family owned company, so the ninth generation who is now in charge wanted to revisit some of their strategy. And when we talk about a family company, we're not talking two or three years, we're talking at least the next generation. What should we do as a company? And so changes happened and I became the CFO of the company. After a few different turns and twists, last year was a big year. We exited our industrial holdings, we sold the mining business, we sold our marine insurance business, and then finally we listed our H Vac business, Burma, which was, which was in fact listed in a de SPAC deal. So that was an interesting, very different kind of approach. It was an IPO basically. But as it was a SPAC deal, it had a lot more new things that nobody had ever done before. So that was a great year of learnings. But it was a great, it was a busy year and a lot of things that I didn't necessarily think that CFO would have to, would have to deal with. Mainly of course, the traditional things. Recording internal, external, of course taxation, but then managing outsourced, for example, accounting and IT providers. I'm not exactly an IT person yet. You have to learn what those guys provide and what things are that they, that they deal with. So you can guide them and you can keep it all together. A little bit of HR stuff. We also own the property where the offices are, so dealing with tenants, property related things. So it's a very wide job description, shall we say. Of course I still take care of funding, risk management, but in a slightly different way. So from the beginning of this year we are a pure investment company, relatively large for a Nordic as, as you know, for the Nordic landscape. And so therefore things like taxation, funding, for example, have changed a lot in their form, in their approach.

And how would you say if you reflect back, we've known each other your entire treasury career and now it's treasury and CFO ship. How would you say that treasury has maybe prepared you for that? Or you know, if you reflect back on what treasury gave you and also maybe what it didn't give you, what were the, what were the gaps or what are the. As you said, you know, you and I have talked, we talked before the show Just briefly, that it has been huge challenges, a wider remit and everything else. And also all this change with the group. Explain to me, if you would, how it is different or you know what, what did you know? What's it done with all these other podcasts where we catch up with people who have made that transition springboarded from treasury into a CFO role where loads of people used to want to do it. They're going, oh no, you're too specialist. And actually I'm now starting to see it. So treasury is becoming an effective stepping stone. What's it been like for you, if you like, if maybe if you just give a reflection on that.

Well, let's start with the strong points, the ones, the certain applicable skills and mindsets that are very good that you can carry over from Treasury. I think one is of course funding and risk management. You still need it as a cfo. Ultimately, even though you might not be directly operating those things yourself, you're still at least morally responsible for your team to carry those tasks properly. What's been very good is that because I dealt with funding and risk management, now the whole funding scene changed from basically borrowing money based on cash flows and no collateral. Now as an investment company changes completely different. It is now based on collaterals. There is no stable cash flow EBITDA anymore, as you would have as an in an industrial company. That's good. You understand currencies, you understand interest rates, you understand economics, at least on moderate level, if you're not an economist. But all those things become important in my role. So those are the things which I have been able to apply directly. What I had not done in the treasury role is overall external reporting. That was a learning curve. Of course, your group consolidated financials, the whole audit process. Of course in treasury you were part of the audit process and part of the financials, but it wasn't the whole set all the way from the beginning to the end.

Right.

So that's one thing where it would have been great to have more exposure to those things. But sometimes in treasury that's impossible. Depends on the company. And the other one is taxation. Taxation is something you understand in treasury in relation to treasury instruments and how realized and unrealized things come through in your P and L and what you need to do with them. But when you are a cfo, you have to take responsibility for all of the taxation. That's the income taxation, capital gains losses, value added tax, VATs and interest deductions, all sorts of other things. And the whole of the transfer, pricing which you still need in many, at least in a group where you've got many subsidiaries. So that was the thing where I probably lacked most knowledge. And how do we solve it was well, we have the big four companies, your typical consultants who can then help you and you can draw on that support. And the agreement was then that we will simply use those relationships, deepen them and then ask for substantial help so we get all those tricky things solved upfront and we don't have to get surprises along the way. And maybe, maybe a little bit more legal work as well. Not just treasury related funding or typical treasury contracts, but everything flows through my desk. So a little bit of the same thing applies with attorneys, you know, different offices. And so we've got good relationships with, with a few and we liaise with those guys heavily in order to make sure that all the legals are in good shape.

Toppy, you touch on there that you didn't have input to the account start to finish because it's, it wasn't your role before. But you know, you've identified that as a, not necessarily a skills gap by any means, but sort of an exposure gap if you like and where, you know, so if, if there are people listening and we, you know, we try and educate these, you know, junior guys, more senior guys about what they should be thinking that they're listening now, they go, wow. And it's always great content with you because you got such clarity of thought and, and then you're lucky to be listening to this. Everyone listening. This podcast is free. We should be charging for this amazing content. Don't worry, we're not going to charge. But joking aside, like, you know, you look, looking back, you know, and again, someone listening, they might go, oh yeah, well, I should. What advice are you giving? These aren't the takeaways. We'll come to those in a minute. But what are the pieces of advice as you know, again, maybe in reflective mood, you sit back in your armchair. Not with a whiskey yet, maybe later. Vodka, you gave me some amazing finished vodka before. So remember drinking that? That was very nice. But in general, what would you say to those guys listening that, you know, they should think about doing or should they do other placements or they should, you know, you know, try and get involved in this, this, this or what, what would you sort of recommend to people that's the right way?

Yes, it very much depends on the organization. If it is a large organization, then there are many opportunities. And I think the first thing is put your hand up and say, I'm interested. I'd like to volunteer participating in projects, be it M and A, be it funding policy, a little bit on the financial statements, maybe notes to the accounts. Try to get involved. Ask if you can be involved because that's how you get the exposure. Treasury is slightly technical and and I often say that it goes both ways. When you step out of the Treasury Department area, that's usually where understanding of treasury dissipates after that. And so you understand those technical things, try to get exposure to other things which are around you. Maybe some of the tax things if there are projects going on. But, but some of the obvious things where that come treasuries way often would be M and A projects, transactions, big reorganizations. Get into those teams if you can because they give you great insight into how the company works. And that's where you begin to get understanding of what other things happen around you in the company. And you get that exposure which is not necessarily 100% directly in your job description.

Yeah.

Or your responsibility. But in a good organization, if your boss or some other departments understand and they want to collaborate, then grab the.

Opportunity because it's also as you say it's going to. You're preparing yourself, you're building. You know, we talked about treasury in the past being a foundation, sort of many areas but sometimes it lacks specificity, you know, and actually having that skill set exactly as you described there, that get out of your comfort zone. But also having someone like yourself that's in that role, cfo. And having been in treasury, you've been there one day and you've definitely got the T shirt. So it's something that people can definitely learn from. I mean you've been very kind. We jumped on this last minute really to have a great catch up with topics. Who's kind for this time? But again you gave some great takeaways in the previous episode. But on top of that we're three years later, we've been through pandemic. You know, you may be reflecting on that and everything else. What other things would you maybe re share with the audience that they you think they should be doing? You know we touched on a little bit of that but that and or you know, your reflection go, yeah, I wish I'd done this, wish I said this.

What are your thoughts over the past three years? The, the whole pandemic was. It changed a lot of things and I'm not really sure how to guide people specifically but what I did take away from that period first, the pandemic, nobody really knows what's happening and then a bit of a financial crunch happening because nobody knows what's happening. And then realigning a lot of strategies and policies after that, of course, is kind of natural. But what I would say from my transition from treasury to CFO is be prepared to, if you do that step, you're going to have to be involved in many, many things which aren't really directly in your job description. It's a general management director role that involves a lot of things that just happen to come along and you are pulled into many things. So keep an open mind, be very flexible. That's one. And I would say plan widely. I suppose one of the things that I took away from the whole pandemic thing is let go of some of the old ways. You don't have to sit at the office every day. You can think slightly out of the box, and not just with regards to where you sit and where you actually have your laptop any given day, but how you do other things. And I think some of the good things that came out of the past two, three years was that people are a lot more flexible on ideas, development and how to approach things. So I guess keep that flexibility, don't let go of that and, and focus on. Still focus on the basics. The basics don't go away. Decent risk management, prudent funding, think ahead. So, so that's fine, but leverage on the opportunity that the past two, three years have provided. Of course, now we've got, especially here in Europe and especially this side of Europe and Finland, the Ukraine crisis, Finland potentially joining NATO, all that stuff is changing the mindsets here in a different way. And it does weird things to risk appetite and it does weird things to your approach, how you deal with the next five years and how you make your business model robust, all these shocks that come across. Try to find the good outcome in the sense that, well, use it and leverage it to improve the processes and improve your thinking about, well, how do I deal with this in a flexible way and in a. In a sensible way, not just for the next two, two weeks or the next quarter.

You know what, if you're listening today, you should be thinking, number one, to definitely get toppy in your network. He's an amazing guy to have there, but some of the stuff there, I was just, just listening and listening and, you know, the one that keeps you let go of the old ways. Oh, my goodness. I mean that. That'll be the subtitle, I think, for the update episode, you know, because it's so powerful. I'm just grateful that you were able to share such amazing nuggets. We should send a bill out to everyone listening today. We won't, but next time we see they can be buying the drinks because you're giving amazing value and I'm just very grateful. Literally, I can't wait to see you and it will be fantastic. But that's when you've carried on sorting your house out and everything else, all the other things you have to do alongside a mentally busy job as a cfo. So thank you for your time. We'll put Toppy's details in the show notes and yeah, you'd be lucky to have him in your networks. Everyone out there. So thank you very much. So you're a star.

Thanks, Mike. Have a good weekend, mate.

I do. Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's 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 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 as 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.