Transitioning and Taking Opportunities in Treasury with Tanya Kuznetsova

You love technology, you help create this digital roadmap and you re engineer processes and there's SAP. Is that typical within a lot of Russian companies? Because obviously you had this amazing experience over there. But you know, explain for again for the listeners what was it like when you joined and what was the digital IT technology journey that you guys went on.

As a matter of fact, I do think that Russia, and specifically large Russian business is on top of the game right now and many things contributed to this also. One of them was that they started this journey later on. So they didn't really adopt very early stages of some of the technologies like credit cards only appeared like 30 years ago maybe. But it also turned how the things developed later because adopting newer technology from the beginning made them make bigger progress over time. So with X5 Retail Group being the largest retail company and operating so many stores, technology was the key and the IT budget was really large, I mean the yearly budget. But we had obviously to make sure we're using it properly and investment brings the best results. So very soon I realized that in my role in finance, I also have to be very technology oriented because this is what will enable me to operate as the company grows. Because you cannot stay in the same place when the company is moving so fast. So I would have to think two years in advance, in three years to make sure the place where the company will be in two and three years I will also be there with all the technology and I will be able to enable all the operations.

We're doing a lot of the recruitment campaigns recently and I don't find people saying we want, we want people that are system savvy. But they don't say, oh, they must have it too, they must have Reval, they must have Treasury Express, they must have all these systems, you know, exposure to them. It's more, are they good at different systems? Do you actually look, when you're looking for people, how do you recruit in terms of looking at those people from a technical IT type background and not saying specifically for an IT role, but you're looking at a Treasury manager. How do you assess that when you're trying to bring on good people and things?

I really try to see if the person is adaptive and thinks of himself as one, which is the most important. So some people, from my personal experience, they stay like take adverse kind of attitude. So they just really don't want to get into this and it's fine as long as the person is comfortable doing something else which he's good at or she. But if you want to bring someone on board who will be good with different systems and changing systems. I don't really think you need to put experience with specific systems on your job description. Not necessarily, because, well, unless it's something really, really specific, which also happens. But generally speaking, I don't think it's really, really important for someone to have like two to three years of experience with specific system. Because in a few months you may be moving from this system to someone to something else, to something better, more effective maybe. So what would you do then? You will still have to train your people and make sure everyone adapts. So I really think that the ability to adapt fast is what is really important. Communication skills to communicate if there is any problem and what training is needed when and where. I really believe that the team has to be on board. It's not up to the leaders, only in the organization to facilitate this change management. You really have to get all the people on board and just communicate up and down in this environment of change to make sure everyone knows what they're doing and is on the path to success.