Travelling the World through Treasury with Brendan Boucher

Having worked in gsk, very international group, that was a strength given the experience that I, that I'd had and something I'd already enjoyed. It's not just about the, the occasional travel to some interesting places, but just the daily contact and interaction with, with colleagues from, you know, all parts of the globe. I really, really enjoyed that. So the international aspect was a bonus. It wasn't something I was absolutely looking for at the time. The more I thought about it, I thought this is a, this is a great opportunity, but, you know, a leap of faith. You know, I think there are a lot of people that would say, yeah, I'd like to work internationally, but to do it as part of a change of company and a change of industry and a change of job level, in this case from, from 80 to group treasurer, takes a little bit of courage. And it was a step into the unknown. And sort of looking back on it, that whole experience was probably the most challenging of my career and probably the most rewarding in my career in sort of equal measures. And it certainly requires a strong stomach to take that on. You have to be prepared to be out of your comfort zone. That's the number one. I knew going to work in Vienna and you going to work in Dubai at the time were going to be different, but I couldn't articulate how they were going to be different. And you just have to be open minded and there's going to be some setbacks. My boss, when I'm moved to omv, was a very experienced CFO and he said, you know, you're going to go home some days and say, what the hell have I done? Why did I come here? And you know, my last day when I left the office, I was sat with him. I said, I remember, I remember you telling me that. And there's plenty of days where I've gone home saying, you know, how are we going to deal with this situation? This is, this is stressful. But there isn't one single day I've gone home and said, I regret making the move to come here. So I think that's, that's kind of the attitude you have to, you have to have, you're going to have some setbacks. It's going to test your resilience and, you know, test your sort of your family and your support network. Because this may sound like a small point, but you know, moving, if you've grown up in an area, you've got a network of family and friends around you, suddenly overseas, your only network in my case was my wife. So you know, you become all things to each other and you know that that could be good, it can be bad, it can certainly sort of test you out but it you know brings you is a sort of family close together because you're more reliant on one another to help through the sort of the ups and downs and I think that's what it is. You have to expect that the ups will be a bit higher and the downs might be a bit lower. Changing jobs might sound scary. It might not be the easiest. The easy thing might be to do is to stay put. But I found it hugely rewarding as well. It's a steep learning curve each time you make a move, particularly if you're going into something unfamiliar but something if you adopt it with the right attitude, one, it will benefit your career significantly and two, you find it hugely rewarding. You just have to be flexible and accept the ups and the downs.