Tools for Building a Sustainable Treasury Career with Larry Tolep

FOREIGN.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. This week's show, delighted to be joined by Larry Tolep, the vice president and treasurer at Volkswagen Group of America. Now, Volkswagen Group of America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen ag. As many of you you will know, one of the world's leading automobile manufacturers and largest car maker in Europe, manufacturing plant in Tennessee which houses a lot of the U.S. operations. But you, you guys know the brands. You've got Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini as well as Volkswagen now founded way back in 1955, headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. You know, again, what an amazing group. And I've got, you know, Larry on the show today. He's going to give us a good great run through of his background, lots of diverse sort of moves before then discovering the wonderful world that is treasury, which I think again, for some of the people listening today is going to really give you an insight to the to him and his background. But as always, and I say each and every week, I'll shut up. Now. It's Larry's show. Larry, if you would take us back to the beginning of your career and how you first discovered finance and then you moved into eventually a bit later, Treasury. But over to you, sir.

Sure. So after graduating from Duke University with my mba, I started with my career. I knew when I was in college and in grad school that I had, I guess my interests and maybe my acumen related to more finance. Had a job at Xerox Corporation. I worked there for 14 years, corporate finance, but really moving around and taking on different roles, different FP and a role. I worked as a controller for a product development team. I also moved a little out of finance and worked in forecasting, worked in price. And then I went over to Kmart Corporation. That was a challenging time. I got there pre bankruptcy, went through bankruptcy, was a finance director in charge of certain merchandising teams. That was very different for very different business, retail versus let's say a manufacturing company. And it's very fast paced. But I then had an opportunity to move into treasury, did a lot more, I would say more into corporate finance, a lot of planning that related to flow forecasting, balance sheet. P and L dealt with a lot of our credit facilities.

Larry, just sorry to jump in there, but when was this? What sort of year was this when you first discovered treasury, and what attracted you?

Well, I think I always had an interest in Treasury. I just had never been in it. And this was kind of a blend over. It was an opportunity. And I think sometimes you don't always claim your opportunities. They just kind of come about. That would have been around 2003, right? 2002, 2003. And then I had an opportunity to become assistant treasurer, really more on the operations side. Dealt a lot with armored cars. On the payment side, credit card was a big part of retail. I was there for a couple of years.

Again, sorry, Larry, to jump in. You sort of moved quite quickly into Kmart, as it were, and things. Can you just explain? Again, you and I both know it and, you know, but some people might not know because what was treasury like for Kmart and who are Kmart? You know, again, a lot of people will know, but we have global listeners, so.

Yeah, sure, sure. So Kmart, Laura, retail, I would say, fits in the Walmart, Target type of arena. At the time, there were a lot of stores and it was more general. It had, let's say, hardware, sporting goods, just all different varieties, very much like you would see at a Target store. The challenges with dealing with it on Kmart. And be honest, I wasn't in that particular role that long. We came to a where Kmart bought Sears, and when that happened, there was going to be a consolidation. I chose not to move forward and move into Chicago, and that's really when I went over to Volkswagen. But, you know, you were dealing at that time with a lot of payments. So the credit cards were a big part. When it wasn't very different than Volkswagen. It was all very national.

Right.

So I didn't have, for example, dealing with foreign exchange, but I was dealing a lot more with CAT than I would right now. So it was a very different, different business. You had a lot of stores. You had money from those stores that needed to be consolidated and collected. So it was different challenges that we had prior to me moving over to voc, Volkswagen. And like I said, Volkswagen was very different. I've been at Volkswagen since 2005.

Larry, again, so can I can I check you? So you'd come from retail to Volkswagen cars and automobiles. What attracted you at the time? Or was it just the, the next move in your career or what was the reason? Because again, we'll have listeners today going now, Volkswagen, Wow. You know, global brand and everything else. Was it the same back then or what was the sort of attraction for you moving from retail to automob?

Well, I think careers take a funny mention. Once there was a decision where Kmart, with the consolidation of Sears, was going to move to Chicago for personal reasons. I decided I did not want to make the move. And then I was in that situation that many people get into, which was I needed to find a new job. I was going to base things off of my skills, which was now treasury and General Finance and with an opportunity at Volkswagen. So I don't know if it was just, oh, I wanted to get into the automobile business as much as at the time, to be honest. I needed to find, you know, a company that I thought I would, I would fit well with.

Yeah.

But I needed to also find a job.

So, Larry, that sounds like an amazing move to join vw, but. And you just mentioned there that did you. Was it choosing the company or the people or the way they ran Treasury? And you love that. You know, I sometimes say to people they don't move jobs because, oh, they do a great cash management system. That's why I want to be there. I said it's a combination of all those things, obviously. But you know, what, what else was attracting you or what did you see for your career when you joined at the time? What was the, what were the big things for you? You know, that was back in 2005, but maybe talk it through and then we'll, we'll explain to the listeners how you progress your career because it's great career progression from there. So, you know, what was in, what was the attraction there?

So when I did the interview, you know, I met with a couple of the, I met with the treasurer and I met with the guy who was the head of funding. There was just the way the interview went, you felt this bond, this communication, very open. It wasn't a, was it meant to be a high stress interview. They were clearly asking questions to understand and test my knowledge on treasury and they were also testing me from a standpoint of how I will fit in with the group as well. Not a very large group. Treasury corporate treasury groups are usually not that large, but they gave me a sense for how they're looking at where treasury is going to go with Volkswagen, our connection with the parent company at dwag. I think there was a lot of just, I can get, I hate to say a gut reaction, but I like some of the major projects that they were talking about doing. I liked where I thought the group was going to go and I liked the people. It just all fitted down to it. Yeah. When it comes down to it, though, the people is more important than pretty much anything else. I mean, people don't quit jobs generally because of money. That could happen. But people are looking, and their attitude and all is really more about the culture and the way they interact with their managers, the way they interact with their team. What is the environment like? I can tell you that one of the things I feel like I've learned over my career more than anything is really watching different managers and seeing the things I like and then having other managers and seeing some of the things I don't like. And I enjoy building teams and finding the right people that fit. And that's the way I felt when I joined. And I look at things with people as being, how do we interconnect? So there are people that I've hired that are, let's say, more junior, that can be right out of school, couple of years out. Sometimes. Right now they're like, ooh, you're the treasurer. I can't really call you. People pretty much figure out soon enough that I will call them. I will just be. Let's chat. How was your weekend? How are things going? Always call me. Always feel that there are no levels where you can't call me to talk about anything you want. And so we really build it as a. As a very well coordinated, collaborative team. I always feel very proud that we do a lot of, I would say, employee satisfactions within Volkswagen, and year after year, our team is at the top, even if we have different people. And I think it's just the environment that we create and the opportunities that we give people. And when I joined Volkswagen, I felt that was the same. It was told to me, if you compared Volkswagen and maybe some other companies, you don't go through a whole lot of levels wagon in the U.S. it's not that large to, let's say, one of the big three, where maybe you're going from level to level to level. No, we're all close. So, you know, one of my first days, I was meeting with the CEO and the cfo. It was small enough that you felt that you were not just part of the team, but that you can make a real impact with the team.

And, Larry, you know, we'll come on to it later on in the show a little bit as well. But you in those days and the CTP and the association for Finance Professionals, for those guys listening, some of you will know them, A lot of you will. But the U.S. association of Treasurers basically support and provide education, do a great Conference every year and look forward to Philadelphia later this year. But on that, that was a time when you then you did some study and it's one of the things you've sort of you give a thumbs up to and support people doing. You would that in that early st you were starting that study. So what was that like for you in the early stages of your career? You're doing CTP as well. Why is that a passion for you, would you say?

It was really when, you know, I've moved around with different finance jobs and it was really when I was at Volkswagen and now all of a sudden I was in this role. I knew this was going to be a longer term staying in treasury and I said I need to make sure that my skills are really up to date. And I wanted to kind of set that as a precedent for the team. Yeah, I studied for the ctp. I learned more about the association for Financial Professionals. It's a tough test and in fact studying for that test, I learned a whole lot of things that maybe I didn't know before did look to get involved. The AFC was in Bethesda, Maryland, so it was pretty close. I started to get to know some of the people there. They invited me to be one of their people in their treasury advisory group. So one of the things that I feel is real important is you continue to learn. And I usually go whether and think that I'm not the smartest guy in the room and that there are a lot of people who know more than I do and I want to learn from them. There are changes that are going on, treasury in particular, where I want to go learn more about, you know, and be on the forefront about what is changing. Because if you're not in the forefront, you're going to be left behind with the team that I have right now. Now I've had multiple people who've now gone on and taken their ctp and they're also looking to advance their career. And it does say something when you have it because it's telling you that you have a certain level of credibility, you have a certain level of knowledge. And frankly for those who are, I have a lot of people more in their earlier stage of their career. It gives you a little bit more of a competitive advantage from a standpoint that, you know, if you want to grow your treasury career, great. Hopefully I keep you around at VW for a long time. But the reality is, is that people don't stay at the same company their whole career and sometimes I may not have the opportunity to bring somebody up to the level they want to. There's just so, you know, jobs go where as you get up to higher level manager jobs, there are less of them. Prepare yourself so that you know, you're able to, if the right opportunity is there, it may be that time that you move on to something else. And I think that getting the ctp, getting yourself to be more and more knowledgeable gives you that opportunity because you need to protect yourself as an individual from a career standpoint.

I think it's a valuable point you make there, Larry, that going back to one of the things you said about. I've sometimes said to people when we Talk about their LinkedIn profile and we talk about their social media and we talk about some of the things they're doing to improve themselves. Studying, for instance. If you don't do it, I think, you know, people sort of said, well, you know, I've got, I'm really busy, everyone's really busy. But it feels like to me, sometimes one of those travelators you see at the airport. But the problem is, it's like you're facing the wrong way and you're slowly going backwards because everybody else is walking, you know, just to, you know, just to stand still. They're just walking forward and that's it. But you've got to walk quicker, you know, and that's one of the things that will turn up the speed of it for you, going in the right direction, that when you go somewhere, I've got my ctp, I've got a rubber stamp, you know, that I've got a certain level of experience. But then, you know, some people, that's it, they're done. But as you say, you've then sort of supported the work of the AFP and you've encouraged others to do it, sort of, it's about, you know, helping those other people do it as well. So I think that's invaluable.

Yeah, no, I think it's one of the most important things I tell people is you, you need to keep developing yourself and you need to keep learning. There's a lot of different ways. I mean, CT people go and they get their MBAs on my team, it is you need to go ahead and prepare yourself for a much longer career and that comes into learning. I also have people more from an IT basis, continuing to learn visual basic, utilizing macros. I mean, the more you have well rounded that you consume more and more and you're more knowledgeable, you're going to have a longer career.

Amazing. And so Talk us through then the progression. Because I don't want to run out of time on today's show. We keep it about sort of half an hour, 40 minutes. But you then were there for you know, sort of 10, 11 years as the assistant treasurer, you know, developing, treasury growing and things. You took the next step. So maybe bring us into that. You know, you got progression. Talk us through that, if you would.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I kind of want to give credit. We all. Sometimes skills will take you so far, and sometimes it's good to have people who will be in your corner and help you. And the guy who was the treasurer I became friends with, he was an expat from Germany, and we became close, and he was my advocate that when he was going back to Europe, we always had expats as the treasurer. And he talked to the people in Germany. He talked to the current CFO at Volkswagen Group of America. He thought that I would be the right person to become treasurer. And, you know, that was. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to push as hard as he did. I like to think he made a good decision. He and I are still close. We, you know, we still with Volkswagen out in Europe, and we talk all the time. But I think it is also an example of, once again, how you learn from others is the idea that you have people that can be there and they can help you with your career. And that's kind of what I try to do with a lot of my people as well. But I got there one. Yes, I believe I did a good job. Yes, I believe I had a very good reputation. But I think in some cases it is being and having the right connections and certain people going over and above and helping you. And it really is. Maybe one of the themes that I try to do as a manager as well is really helping people, even if it is helping somebody out of my group, that if their interests are something else, that I would be an advocate for them for another department inside of vw.

And Larry, how do you do that? You know, I just, you know, I think this is a great part of the show, you know, but how do you do that without. Without doing the other. The opposite way around, saying, I want to help you get another job. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. I think I'm doing quite a good job here. Thank you. I thought I was doing all right, boss. You know, like, exactly as you said and we discussed before the show. You're there to support people, and that's what I love about Treasury. You can move through it and it's a very collaborative discipline. How do you do that when you're. When you're the boss of people? So I want to help you get on there. What tips would you give to people? How have you done it?

First off is I know everybody on my team, not just my direct managers. I go down to everybody and we have conversations and everyone's different. I don't try to tell somebody where their career should take them. One has their own idea. So I have one of my top people who was in treasury was with me for a number of years and his interest was to get over into controlling and he wanted to expand more in that direction. He'll be a future cfo, no doubt. And so there was time, like, if there's anything I can do to help. If it was talking to the hiring managers over there, sure, I would do that. He knew I would be fully supportive of what he wants. Taking that personal interest in people, one is, I think I have a very happy team and it's not pushing somebody out, it's where do you want to go and just helping them to be able to get there. And also be honest if where they want to go. In my group, I don't see the opportunities there. I also honest with them on that side. So I think honest relationship is very important. But when you do that, people are happy. They know that I am there. I'm not just. They're not just a widget in the team that I look at them as a person. I look about their interests, both from a personal standpoint as well as on the professional side. That reputation gets out. So when it comes to recruiting people within the company, our treasury team has a very good reputation. And I've heard before that people know it, so they want to join. Right. So it all kind of goes in full circle. And for me, I look back and think about how others have helped me and it's one of the most satisfying things to be able to help others with their career. And sometimes it is, okay, you're doing this job and now we get them moved and promoted to another job within. Within the team.

Yes.

Give them the opportunity to continue to.

Expand and it's a way of paying it forward in a way, isn't it? As well. It's not all altruistic. Exactly as you say. Because, you know, also helps yourself because you know, if you help those people exactly as you say, people then start to knock on the door, can I come join you or have you got any opportunities? We'd like to in the nicest way. You know, you're robbing me of work because it means that I've seen it before. I've said, actually no, we rotated this person in. They came and joined us. And you're like, oh, I didn't need to go external. And you keep some of the knowledge and someone comes in and brings with them a different aspect but they actually know the group as well. So really good way to do things. So definitely worthwhile.

And Mike, I would also say even on the external. Right, so we'll interview people. When I interview somebody, I always tell them that the interview is a two way street. Yeah, it is. Of course I want to understand to see if you're a good fit for us. But it's really important that you ask the questions to make sure as I'm talking to the applicant to find out if this is the right spot for you. I said, too many people go into interviews and they feel they need to just sell. Yeah, but you need to make sure you buy as well. You need to see that it is a good group. And one of the things I have is I encourage people to talk to others on the team that they can find out what is it like to be on the team, what is Larry like as a manager, how do they see their career evolving from a standpoint of the opportunities been given to them. And so not just internally, but externally as well. We do, we have a lot of success in hiring good people. But I think I have used not just talking about experiences with others, but I've let others. This talk can be part of the interview process and just sort of going.

To a slightly different direction and it's one that you and I talked about that you hold many hats there in the group. We're not going to get into in depth stuff about bw, but it's more that you have a lot of different challenges and. And again lots of other treasurers have challenges. I know we did our pre podcast call and you. And I said that through it to you and I said, look, you know, how do you, how do you do it? Because you were saying, well, I do this and I do this and lots of different multiple challenges that come at you. How do you balance those out? Or what are your again, people listen to this for sort of their tips of success. And you, you know, you are vice president treasurer of Volkswagen Group of America. What's that like for you?

I think one it comes back to and I think a lot of people will say It, Right. It comes back to the people and the team. Yeah. So as I may have other departments over and above treasury or I may be treasurer for multiple companies over and above, just Volkswagen Group of America, you know, some of the subsidiaries. What helps is I don't feel like I have to watch over everything that's going on, stay very well connected. We have the conversations. I pick and choose certain areas that I feel I can have more of an impact. But I also have to trust that people on the team are doing what needs to be done. And so we have regular conversations about where it is. They also know I'm a pretty hands on guy. So I like to get into the details and they can talk about the details about something that is going on. They also know that no one should ever be afraid to tell me about bad news. I don't want anybody to ever hide it because that's when problems really could arise. So people know that, you know, if something happens and they do make a mistake that they can come and we talk about it, we figure out where do we go and what are the changes that we need to make. So there's a certain level of empowerment that is given to everybody, but also with an idea that we have a very high level of communication with that can get involved in other departments and provide a lot of leadership. And I think most of my other managers appreciate the fact that they can get into low level of detail and explain things and I am interested in hearing about it. And so they're not talking to me just at a very high level. But we'll get into some of the key projects going on, give me a status, I may give them some feedback, but I'm not micromanaging either. And so there is some balance on the whole thing.

And Larry, I want to dig into that just too deeply but a little bit more that again, some of the listeners today might be young managers. They might be, you're the treasurer, you know, you're quite relaxed in your own skin, you've been there a number of years. But if they're a junior person, they're an analyst manager, they've got a concern or something like that. Hang on, I've got to go. Yes, it's nice to be, you know, being Larry, being quite nice, relaxed person. But maybe they, they're dealing with a boss that isn't quite, you know, as open as yourself or they've got a nervousness. How would you sort of coach someone in that situation and say, right, this is what, how you need to present it or how would you do it? You know, what, what are your, your thoughts on that sort of thing?

Yeah, well, first off is I'm not that calm a person, but I think I've become calmer over time and it is a recognition that, you know, I've learned and grown over time myself. And you do have people who can be a little more excitable and you do need to learn and know how to manage your manager. There are managers that really, you need to make sure that they know far in advance about what are the issues. There are those who really don't want to get too much involved in some of the problems and you just need to make sure they're all resolved ahead of time. About how much communication, too much or too little. There isn't a nice, clean, easy answer, rightly or good or bad. I've had some excellent managers. I've also had some managers that have been very challenging work for, you know, the best I can do with those that are more of a challenge is not let it get to me too much and try to work on understanding who they are and how they'll react to different things. I wish I had a nice, clean, simple answer answer for that one.

No, we don't. And it's a. And apologies for throwing it at you out the blue. I think it's key, if you like, because there are people listening today that are in that situation going, wow, I hear you. But, you know, how do I do it? Sort of thing, and actually getting that. And in a way the answer you've given is brilliant because it's. There is no easy answer. You know, if there was, it'd be, yeah, yeah, we've got a problem here, boss, thanks very much. And throw it onto their desk and everything else. It's not that, is it? You know, it is sometimes difficult. Sometimes there will be one of the ways that I've heard about it and sometimes it's taking the emotion out of it because people get quite attached to these problems and get. Well, I said, hang on, let's work on the problem. It's not your problem, it's our problem. And let's, let's try and come at it and let's just try and deal with it. Or it could be, yeah, it is your problem if you caused it. But okay, let's work towards a solution together. I think that's the, the essence of being a decent leader, someone like yourself, really. And from, you know, I've got that from talking to lots and lots of my clients over time. And I think You've maybe you found the same sort of thing.

You're absolutely right. There's not, there's not an easy, an easy answer. And yes, I would agree taking the emotion out of it, it's helpful. And then like I said, you know, you just have to kind of recognize who you're talking to and there are, there are those who are very emotional and then you need to stay calm. So funny thing, my, my boss, he, he, he can get quite excited now. We had a great relationship but his personality was that way and my personality was a little bit that I can get excited and what my wife told me that I learned to calm down a lot working for him because it wouldn't work if we were both excited. So I needed to change my way of doing things in order for us to. And work well together.

Fantastic. There you go people. That's a nice takeaway from today. I think that's, that's as much, you know, one bit of value. I mean before, shortly we'll get towards the end of the show and wrap it up. But before we do that and we've been through some, you know, testing global times at the moment and everything else and you know, we could go on about that for an entire show but we won't do. I was going to come back to yourself, Larry, looking, thinking about, you know, the future Treasury. You've been, you know, treasury for many, many years now. But there are lots of different things. As I said to you beginning, you know, before the show started today, I saw Larry's commented on, about various topics like fraud and different challenges. But as you sit there or your boss is saying that can you look at this, look at the future? What are the challenges coming down the line? You think for treasury that your peer group or, and or other people need to be thinking about, you know, that could be anything and everything that other treasurers. You go, as you said, you do a lot of A P committees and lots of things there to help people. What are you guys talking about? What is the next big thing? You know, we've got cyber, we've got lots of other stuff. What are the things that, you know, are you on your radar or you know, you think people need to think about?

Yeah, I mean one of the things is there's always to push on, on efficiency and automation and that is not going to stop. I mean, I think back to dealing with Excel spreadsheets back when it started and we would print out bank statements for different banks and put the information in in order to get to the Cash positioning, dealing with a lot of checks. And you now look over here and we have an ERP system where everything's connected between and accounting. In our global treasury system we've created an in house bank. We deal with just so much more than we were before. And even there we've gone in and started where even with our ERP system we sort of pushing buttons a lot we've written scripts so that things would be automated and processed without you know, with less and less manual intervention we have found ways to incorporate macros into our process so that things would move a lot faster. And so I think moving more and more towards automation is key. That would be one. The second thing is going to be payment rails are changing and this comes back to knowing and understanding and not every company needs what all the changes are but everything's about moving faster. So not long ago, the other year you know we moved pursuit same day ach now you go to the idea of instant payment. Think we're going to go one day fine. That you know, we think of banking hours of being what 9 to 5 and 6 when the Fed's closing that's going to change. It's going to be 24, 7. We'll get to the point where everything will evolve and move so much faster and we need to be able to be prepared. And I think about how I walk around as an individual and maybe I hold some cash, maybe I don't because I hardly ever use cash. And so everything has changed. Checks are pretty much a thing of the past. Yes, we have some but more and more it's minimized to the whole thing. So I think that is one. And then with digitalization comes the potential and you brought it up of fraud. And one of the things that we spend a lot of time is ensuring our processes and our controls are in place and we test them and we make sure that we do what we have to do to protect. We go through. I've had banks come in, we've done it ourselves with different acts of reminding everybody about a fraud. What is the latest about where things are coming from, what things we can put in to protect ourselves. And as we move towards more digitalization there's more possibilities that would be at the other part where when it comes to that that I have to be is that the world is also changing where everybody needs to come into the office every day. And we learn through Covid that that wasn't necessary now that was, it was great that we had put ourselves in a position that we got printing out Documents and everything now were, you know, Swift, Mt 940s or Mt 942. Everything was working through our treasury workstation where we didn't need to be doing all this printing type of stuff and working from home. It worked fine. We were able to do it just, just fine without, without an issue. I was always part of my business continuity plan about what happens if we can't get into the office. And all of a sudden we were there day in and day out working, working from home. The issue now is we have worked on we will bring young people in. We were working through our treasury workstation where we didn't need to be doing all of this printing type of stuff and working from home. It worked fine. We were able to do it just fine without an issue. I was always part of my business continuity plan about what happens if we can't get into the office. And all of a sudden we were there day in and day out, working, working from home. The issue now is we have worked on, we will bring young people in, we will look to be training them. And with this new hybrid environment, we need to make sure the training is still in place. So especially when we come to our processes and our controls that we don't get to any gaps because gaps will lead to potential issues. Yeah, yeah, maybe my, my few things.

Yeah. Well that's, I mean and is that your wrap up? I mean we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. Obviously Larry, I mean it's great and I think you, you self wrapped up. I usually say, well that's it and give us your top tips. But those sound to me like any sort of the top tips that we give to people each week. But you know, for you, any final closing phrases or things that you know, you've got. The podcast gets downloade of times each and every week. But any final things that you want people to go away with. Right. Actually listen to Larry's podcast. That was really amazing. Final bits of advice or you know, any words of encouragement you give for those guys out there listening.

I mean one thing that you see is that things are changing, including jobs and therefore it comes back to continue to learn. Don't know the job you have today may become obsolete. A new job may be developed. So continue to work and focus on skills so that they're transferable to different types of jobs. Not everything goes according to plan and you want to make sure you have the skills to be able to move in different directions.

Love it. Yeah. Be agile and ready for, ready for that next move. Because the one thing that is a constant and that's change. And you know, you've got to be ready for that. Amazing. Larry, thank you very much for your time today. I know that a lot of people will put your LinkedIn detail in the show notes so that if it's right to have in network, feel free to connect with Larry and, you know, vice versa. But thank you, sir. Some great, great tips there. And I think that a number of people, you know, it's about the study, it's about you. And you know, and we talked about great, great takeaway. So remains for me to say thank you very much for your time today. So look forward to seeing you hopefully later this year at the afb. You'll be wonderful to catch up.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. 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 to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there, you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And 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.