Treasury Career Corner LIVE in London

Foreign welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. As you know, each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession to go into next. In this week's extra special episode, which we recorded live in London at our recent Treasury Career Corner live event, I interviewed not one, not two, but three amazing treasury professionals at the peak of their careers, talking about how they achieved success, challenges they'd faced along the way, and then we finished up, as always, with great takeaways and where they see treasury profession going to next and what you should do to grow and develop your career. To add on to that, once you've listened to the podcast, you'll think, God, I'd love to come along to a great live version of the show. Well, you can bring it back to London in 2024 on the 18th of April and 21st of November. Drop us an email if you'd like to come along. We're also taking the show on the road, so we've got a global tour, so we're doing it across in the US and we're doing it across Europe. Get those dates in your diary in London. If you're not, let us know and that you'd like to come along and you're a listener, you're going to get priority entry. That's one of the things. That's one of the things way I can say thank you if you like, but on this week's show, you're going to hear me interview Winnie Lee, Group Treasurer, ppd, previous podcast guest. So you can go back on that one. We'll put that in the show. Notes De Pari Chawler, Treasurer at Moody's Corporation, and Matt Cornwall, Emmy, head of treasury operations at Chubb. As I say each and every week, enjoy this amazing special edition show and look forward to seeing you all guys soon. Good evening, lovely people. No, no, that's not the way we started it. I know we've had a long day and there is free bit, there's not free beer, there's sponsored beer by lovely Darren. Darren, put your hand up. Right, that's the last time a Newcastle guy gets a round of applause like that, isn't it? Except for later when he's handling three beers, so I'll do that again. Good evening. Ah, we are awake. Thank goodness. Right, thank you for joining us. It's amazing to actually see all of these happy smiley faces post Covid this thing Called in person. A bit weird. So who am I and why am I hosting this? Extremely big head, as you can see. So I run the treasury recruitment company alongside the amazing Craig and Katie and Carly. We recruit you guys, move you around the room and then send out a bill. That's essentially what we do. Do it for 25 years. Recruit treasury analyst to group treasurer. This is not said as a sales pitch, rather why I'm here. And I've managed to persuade these three amazing treasury professionals to talk to you guys later on. And we'll do through the rest of the session, we will talk about and have some Q and A from you guys. If you don't ask questions, you're foolish. You've made all this effort to come here on a workday, see how much of a workday it is tomorrow and ask the questions. Now, one of the reasons people have actually asked me, how do I get a lot of my knowledge through talking to treasurers each and every week. Started a podcast from my shed five years ago. Thought we'd do 10 episodes. We're now at 300. Subscribe there. It's on all platforms. But the amazing thing about it is I've learned so much. We're talking to over 300 treasurers and Winnie's been a guest and Topali and Matt will be persuaded later. That's another reason for the free drink. But topics of discussion tonight, we're going to talk about how these guys have built their treasury careers, what part has education played, what's been key to their success. We'll later on, we'll also talk about, funnily enough, hybrid working from home. It's not going to be dominated by that, but that's obviously top of mind. We'll do the Q and A. You're going to have some great questions, please. And then we'll have some takeaways. So firstly, we'll kick off with an introduction from each of these lovely people, starting with Winnie, over to you.

Right. Hi, everyone. My name is Winnie Lee. I'm actually a group treasurer for ppd, was part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. It's a New York stock exchange, you know, listed the company about 140,000 employees worldwide, produce about 45 billion turnovers a year. So the net income is about 8.4 to 10 billion US dollars a year. So the company is very big and we're operating many, many countries and territories. So the treasury side is very exciting because lots of exciting places you operate, which is fantastic. And from my mind, I really work with the company for PPD for 18 years now and then time just flies. And then from the beginning the company was listed company and it was sold ourselves delisted, sold to PE company twice. Then actually at the end sold to our supplier Thermal official. So been through all of that and also in 2020 just before COVID actually we listed ourselves just before selling to Thermal. So I never actually have a dull moment working in PPD and my background is accountant and I was trained in Arthur Anderson and Deloitte and also working in the media company before. So working many countries which is actually keep everything exciting. Over to you.

Hi.

Rivant Deepahali Chawla I the treasurer for Moody's Corporation. So for those of you who don't know and sometimes I feel I have the need to explain, it's a risk assessment company. So we know Moody's is more prominently known for the ratings business but we also are huge provider of analytics in terms of trying to help the organizations and to assess the risk and take intelligent decisions based on that on the tools that they that we provide them. I've been with Moody's for nearly five years now, prior to which I have been pleasure of working with Hewlett Packard, General Electric, Capital side and Huawei. And I see some representation from some of those companies here which is great to connect again but go into more detail on my on my career journey as it progresses. But glad to be here and looking forward to an engaging evening.

Matt, over to you.

Thank you. My name is Matt Cornwall. I'm the head of treasury operations at Chubb. Many people get that mixed up with the lock company. We're actually not that one, we're the other one. We're the largest property and casualty insurance company in the world. US parent and about similar to Winnie. $45 billion in revenue and probably the largest company I've worked for. As part of my role I look after essentially the transformation program, something called T Treasury Transformation. We have a standardised payment architecture globally that we now have in 35 or 55 countries. That's a payment factory and many in house banks on a regional basis. And my job is to enforce and ensure that standardized architecture is rolled out in the company. And that's on top of everything else that's related to treasury operations and bau. My career started as an accountant similar to Willie again did that for about nine years. Found it far too exciting really. Left the dark side to join treasury probably about 15, 16 years ago. Worked with quite a variety of companies. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be in the insurance world and married an Essex girl. I'd laugh at you, to be honest, but it's a bit of a cliche and certainly enjoying it. I've been at Chubb about two and a half years now and have worked in the retail sector, FMCG and media. There's probably one I haven't worked in actually and really I find that certainly some of the topics we're going to talk about today I think will really explore. The three of us have had some very different routes into treasury and I think it's important to share to the younger members here and also show there's many routes into what we do.

So we're going to kick off with, as you see up here, education and qualifications and things like that. Now, any of you that were at the last session, I see a few familiar faces. We really went very proact and lots of education and we've got some differing views here as well but also one thing I would state is we're very pro education but in the nicest way we don't care where it comes from, whether that's from the US Association UK across Europe they do some great education but each of these panelists has got different not views but mix different attitudes. We start off with Winnie, education wise, obviously qualified accountant. What else have you found?

Yeah, so I obviously I did a BA in Finance then actually did a Master in in Management Studies, then acca, then actually you know, ACT training as well so actually done various different qualifications. I find that you pick different things out of your education journey and also the sometimes it's not necessary about the content. I still remember when I first studying BA in finance doing accounting is completely different to now so not necessarily about the content but what the skill set you learn from the education, the discipline you learn which is actually really carries you very well in the organization and then the communication presentation and also to sometimes in order to present a complex situation in a very simple term to someone who might not understand treasury that's quite important. All these things is actually make the way you are and then also how you get from the education is depending on you as well when you recruit.

Just before we move on to party is that something you look for all the time or is it a nice to have, must have or what do you think?

I think it's nice to have I have mixture so I had a mixture of people fully qualified and then knowing what is in the theory in the books and then they can relay it but may not have chance to practice it. I also had people who never actually been in any first degree, didn't even learn everything in banking industry own treasury world literally learn from just experience. But I think the end of the day is dependent on the person. If that person is curious, always want to learn no matter from the books or from the people as long they're learning and they actually also use their learning to add value to the organization then I think that's, you know that gave me a tick.

Yeah Deepali so my background is I'm a math honor graduate with an MBA in finance. Along the way, you know, as I've worked through the organizations I've taken on different trainings, certifications, did my CFA level one but that's another story. Didn't manage to get through to all the levels for various reasons but I somehow agree with Vinny when I am looking for someone in my team, definitely looking through and doing the first pass filter I would say having certification or qualification will get you through to the interview round and even land you the dream job. But what you make of that really is up to you. You know in terms of like I never had a Treasury qualification per se so all of my learning is hands on experience with work and I was, I've been lucky to where I've been exposed to all areas of treasury mix of organizations in terms of the, the industries as well. So it has just been a great learning ground for me like that. But again I would say invest in your career in a way that you think best. You know, if you feel a qualification would give you the confidence, would empower you to be able to, you know, go into an interview with all that confidence and get you in the door, you should definitely go for it along the job as well. If you feel that you know you're missing out on the next opportunity just because there is somebody alongside that again, different circumstances I would say it's a nice have not a must have in the sense of how you develop your careers as long as you keep your growth mindset I think that is so important and I cannot emphasize enough. I think that's one thing I keep reiterating with my team Mike that you know we, we can only either we can keep validating for ourselves, you know, that we have all the knowledge and you know, keep proving that within the same knowledge bank to what we have. And that's one way of saying well I'm successful. The other way is stretch yourself, explore, challenge yourself and learn. And I think that's a development mindset which I feel is so important. So, again, if qualification, like an act or anything else, helps you with the journey in getting to that level, then definitely please do invest your time into it and go for it.

Just before we move to Matt, I just wanted to ask you, when you're looking at someone, you know, we do the podcast each and every week and it's quite weird. Although we host it as a Treasury recruitment company, we avoid recruitment another time because we don't want it to be about this. About your career journeys as treasurers, you've heard it, and things like that. When you're assessing someone, you know, you're first looking at their cv, resume. How are you then looking at that person? What's jumping out at you? Is it that growth or what you're looking for?

Yeah, I mean, depends on what level we're hiring at. Right. So that's, again, one important factor. But let's say I'm looking for somebody who's starting treasury analyst. I would just look for, you know, what are the basic qualifications a person has in terms of degree? I would definitely push to call somebody for an interview if it's a starting sort of level position for the person. And again, I feel that the amount of learning you can provide and the ground you can provide to somebody in that space. Treasury is one thing I would say, you know, when you're looking out, because we're also trying to develop a lot of our teams in what we call global business service hubs. It's all about. Treasury is still a very niche finance sort of domain. You know, not if you go and talk, tell somebody, like, I'm a Treasury professional, you know, like a layman. You, you would have to explain what does treasury do. Right. You still have to explain. It's easy to say I'm a finance professional. Right. Okay, that, that's, that's easy. But I think we are in that space to where, you know, we have that niche to be able to capitalize on. Right. So to answer your question, yes, I would look for somebody who has maybe a good grade, good scores, has done something, even if it's outside of treasury, has done something in tax, but willing to now get into Treasury. Why not? Right. I mean, it's all about the analytic mindset and what they can bring to the team.

Matt, over to you.

Yeah, I think I can build on some of the themes there. I mean, personally, I, you know, obviously I was a chartered accountant for a while and then took my ACT exams. My view on qualifications, I think it sits in the middle here, really, that it's better than a nice to have, but not a necessity. I mean, if I look at my team, even including my boss, none of them have an ACT qualification. That says a lot. And, you know, on top of that, I think really, qualifications are passports to just get to the next step of your career. They can accelerate it, they can open doors, but they're not always the absolute necessity. And really, you know, really what de Pali was saying, I was agreeing with a lot of that, that we've got someone starting as an analyst position next week. If I think why he was successful in the interview process, it was because, you know, he wasn't the most qualified. He wasn't the most. The one with the most board experience. It was his curiosity and his willingness to grow his mindset and. And really grow as an individual. I put a lot of value on that and. And that's really important. Probably we'll touch on some themes of that later, really.

But.

Okay, we'll kick off with de Pali. This one key to your success. You know, if you look at some of the moves you made throughout your career and, you know, people can look at you, and again, I'm sure there'll be lots of LinkedIn connection requests later. Don't worry, you can block some of them. That's all right. But joking aside, people will look at that, go, you know, I want a career like that, or like Matt or like Winnie, if you look what were some of the steps you made, or some of the audience here, they should be doing the same.

I think the most important thing that I have embraced in my life and my career is being vocal, really. I've made my ambitions, I've made my aspirations known to my managers, to my mentors, to my network, to HR all the time. I probably have done it to the point where sometimes they call me alpha female. I don't know. It's just that just have that need to make sure that people know what I'm about. And that has helped. Right? I mean, I just don't feel, you know, sometimes people say, oh, great, he was at the right place. She was at the right place, the right time. No, there is nothing like a right place. Right? You need to create your place. You need to create that time, and you need to control that time in your career. And for me, it's all about never be shy, take your challenges. I think one of the things I've done very early on, I've been with hewlett Packard for 11 years. I started as a Treasury analyst and I moved along within the treasury team doing a lot of projects, you know, I am not, I wouldn't say I'm tech, tech geek, but took on the role of treasury system implementations, you know, balance sheet, hedging, tool reengineering. Because I just thought I need to learn, right? So learning is very important and I think with that, if you need to make horizontal moves in your career, do that. I mean, sometimes growing up vertically is not the answer to growth. It's all about learning, getting a broader, wider perspective. End to end. Treasury is all about cash. I'm sorry, but I just feel it is just that, be it protecting that cash, generating that cash, increasing that cash, whatever, but I think it's all about cash at the end of the day and if you can get yourself to get the end to end view of that, please go for it. And again, network, right. I would like to think that I invest in my career through networking. It's great when you enter into a conference and you can say hello and greet people and spend time with them and they know you, you know them, right. And it's amazing to see a lot of you here who have known, you know, some good success stories around the room as well. But it's all about networking. You know, you need to be out there investing that time. There'll be 10 reasons why you cannot attend an event like this, but there's always going to be that need for you to be able to make time for that. So.

And we'll pass across to an exceptional networker in Mat and he is because I was at Euro Finance, we were catching up for a coffee and I walked away and I was talking to Craig back at the office and I said, you know what? We were doing our panel. Winnie had said yes. De Pari thankfully said yes. I was like, great. I said, who else? Do you know what? I had a great conversation with Matt because he was a great networker and we were chatting, but bar that other keys to your success or par that.

I'd need to point out that was before the beers arrived as well.

Then it was an exceptional network raft.

Thanks, mate. Yeah, I mean, everything to Parti said I was nodding to as well. But I mean there's other areas I put a lot of value on and that's empathy in one word, your emotional intelligence. I think treasury now is so much about building relationships, whether it's your banks, your vendors, your team, your boss. If you really know how people tick, if you know how your team ticks, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, you play them to their strengths, then you have a very powerful team behind you. Equally, if you know what makes your boss tick and that isn't always easy, you know what to deliver when, how he works. Empathy and emotional intelligence is so much more important than it was 20 years ago. And same with vendors and there's some in the room. If you have a sales team in front of you who understand what they actually want and can offer you and your banks as well, if they understand you as a customer, you have a lot better relationship there and everything clicks and everything works a lot better. So I'll keep it succinct. I mean, that is one amongst many other points that are going to be raised.

Winnie.

Yeah, so well said. And you know, echo both of you, your points. I think one more thing I probably want to add is understand your business and where they're coming from, the direction they go in and also be the one to help to formulate the strategic direction of the company and also design certain things together with the senior leadership team. And also, you know, hands up when opportunity comes. My career, for example, we did a lot of acquisition in China and then there's opportunities for doing the merger acquisition and also integration. Then I had my hands up saying, you know, I go, what's the content in China? Then I have to persuade my husband who is a lawyer, he wasn't really that happy with the choice, but I did. I took my young family and my husband to Beijing. We lived there for some time and then it was a great opportunity at the end when looking back was good. But then when you first doing that was quite interesting or reverse culture shock and then that was quite interesting. Also from a background more from the southern China and the temperament might be different. So although you speak the same language, but actually the way of contact business is different but you actually truly put yourself out there and then literally take the risk. And then I was actually finance accountant starting off and then finance director managing US and then Europe, then Asia pac and then the fact is actually the company was listed very wealthy for lots of cash in the balance sheet. But suddenly we're about to sell ourselves to PE company and then the fact is actually we know if we sell the pe, we need to set up a Treasury function and no one in the company is doing Treasury. I was the finance director, I was always interested in treasury. So I say I do it. I registered with act, I learned act, no one else doing that. There is an opportunity. I haven't moved many companies but there is an opportunity within the company. Grab it and Then don't be afraid to say yes to opportunities.

Yeah.

I'll add one more point, which is, I think Vinny just brought up, which is very important, I think, especially because, you know, for all the females here in the room, I would say that. Right. I think it goes for. Actually, you know what, it's for everyone. Let your ambitions known to your family equally. It's not only your workplace, your managers, your mentors, but your family needs to be with you on this as well. You know, as Vinny just said, there are opportunities in your career for projects, for secondments, for anything. Right. Where you would need to move, you would. And I think as females generally, our first thought is, oh, how would the household run? Right. How would the kids be managed? How would this happen? How would that happen? You have to work. Sometimes you just need. If the opportunity is so good and if you are so passionate about your career, things will just fall in place. Sometimes you just need to go for it and. But again, you can only do that if you have the family supporting you. So. And thanks to the whole diversity mandate these days of the organizations that it's getting easier for some of us to take those steps and, you know, be there at the, at the SLT table.

So I feel a bit guilty moving on to the world of work and hybrid. Obviously it used to be, you know, five years ago, a description of a car that was the only time you'd ever heard of it. Now, if you haven't heard of it, why not, you know, working from home, we're going to talk to the guys about it, but I've literally gone New York, Barcelona was talking about it and then, you know, just finished off in San Diego. And that was the main topic of conversation, particularly with the US about, you know, the blended ways of working. What I'm going to ask each of the panel is to talk about maybe pre Covid during and post their experiences of it. And then just a couple of takeaways maybe about how they see it going forward. We'll start off with Matt, come back round to Winnie and then through to Pali. And I'll also interrupt as well. I do that sometimes. Matt, over to you.

Well, if I talk about my current arrangement, it's evolved into something called a three plus week. So we have to be in the office three days a week. And when there's a bank holiday or a train strike, which happens in London quite frequently now, you still have to come in three days. There's a big essence of being there face to face. We, you know, we're an insurance company, we have underwriters, brokers. There's a lot of business done face to face and I agree with it. I think I'd go mad if I was working five days a week at home again. And there's certain reasons and history for that when we were in lockdown. But certainly now I think, and I speak for my team as well, that they prefer the hybrid environment. I think we all have the need to treat people like adults and trust them and have the ability to be able to shuffle and move your priorities. And I think there's a bit more of an open thinking which is good nowadays. Are we going to move to four days a week? Probably that might happen next year, but if I conversely move it to. When I joined Chubb, I actually joined the job in lockdown. It was horrendous because I first day at work, I went down to the office and that was it. I was like, right, don't know anyone, don't know a lot. And yeah, and then I think there was a team call, organize an hour in. And there were 12 faces I'd never seen before. And I had to say something intelligent, you know, that I would never recommend on anyone. And then even, you know, our CEO is a very assertive individual in the us and he was chest thumping and three months into Covid was saying, right, everyone, back to the office. We are a work from office company that was obviously in the us. They've had their issues there with a lot of people left jobs in the US and sure enough, a lot of expensive actuaries and very qualified people left the company for competitors. So I think the message there is get the balance right. And I feel personally at the moment it feels good, it offers benefits and I think just to finish off, we do organise team days in the office. There's quite a lot of rigorous structure over how we operate the three days in the office. But I think if everyone goes in, eyes open again, you treat people like adults, not children. It works. And I think it's all about being open and communicative on that.

Just before I pass to Winnie what I was going to say, I was speaking to a group of treasurers, 16 of them yesterday, and we were talking about this very topic and actually I had Steve Rosenthal from Broadridge Great podcast with him, global treasurer there. And he talked about was as they based in the us, as they were coming out of lockdown, everyone was starting to come back into the office. Come on back, come on back, come on, we'll give you free pizzas. And things. And you know, that didn't really work. You know, it was. But what he was discovering himself, he was got a bit of a travel into the office. He was then finding that he would sometimes go into his office and then close the door and then he pop out lunch, grab a coffee, say hi to a couple of people and then come back and they realize, why am I doing this? What is this? You know, there's no interactions, no collaboration. Treasury is a very collaborative discipline. You guys all know this. But what they've started to move to and this, they've got three, two, two, three. They don't really in a nice way care about it. But what they do say is that when you're in the office, be in the office for a reason. Intentional plan, I think they call it planned intentionality. Sounds very high fluent. It's not. He said, don't just come to the office because the office is here. Come to the office for the reason, to see your colleagues, to train someone, to coach them. Now, I know that during. And pre. During, you know, we've. Winnie and I talked about this on the podcast as well. But also in general, you've seen some interesting results, haven't you, for your company?

Yeah, definitely, for sure. Obviously my company is a service. PPD side is the service industry. So literally provide service to the pharmaceutical company. So in nutshell, after Covid, you can work in home the whole time. However, we did recruit people during the COVID as well, which is actually, as your story is saying, literally joining everyone just virtual. Right. So for someone first coming into a new team virtual, it's really hard to build that relationship. It's not the tool like when we used to be working in the office. And however you try to train, however you're doing the team, how you doing the IM is that, you know, that relationship never built. So literally, you know, we have people during the course of a pandemic who joined in the beginning of the pandemic and then actually left within the pandemic. It's actually quite a significant number of people doing that because you never get to build that team structure and never really truly get to know each other. Even we had some. The social course. We had a social team course together. We don't talk about anything relating to work, just talk about social. But it seems not quite get to the point you can't have that face to face value. So in our organization really is actually we give people the flexibility they want. Let's say a train strike or someone's washing machine being delivered Feel free to work from home. However, at least come to office once or twice a week minimum. No matter what your arrangement is, no matter it's a hybrid or remote or office. But then actually you get a chance to interact and have lunch together and also try to talk about the things you can't do on a virtual team call. And then obviously for treasury, everyone knows when you design lots of documents. So utilize those time do that. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think, I think the main message is from our company. I think is right. It's actually value the face to face connection value that. Do the intentional coming in, maybe block some time to really just say hi to people, get out of your office rather than just on, you know, zoom all the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I think you covered my, my points, Mike, very well. So I think from where we are, and actually I'll take a step back even pre Covid, I think it is an organizational culture. I think you know, where I remember my time with G.E. even then, you know, we weren't in the office five days a week. I mean working from home wasn't like, you know, a hush hush thing. Like you wouldn't leave the office and people say oh, half day or whatever. Right. Like it was acceptable, it was respected. If people have commitments they need to go for or you know, work from home for a certain 10 to attend an event in the school or whatever. Huawei on the other side was a complete different organization. You have to be in the office five days a week unless really something is, you know, falling apart. So that was that. And then Moody's again same. You know, we were working from home at least once a week even before COVID So now we have totally different stand which is top down, is heads up and heads down. So if you are in the middle of a month, end quarter end earnings, board meetings and you have to be working those long hours, no one expects you to be in the office. You can just work from home. And of course if there is need to collaborate, so we have collaborate with purpose and that's what we call anchor days. You know, we, we are, we're not mandating one or two days, but we're saying please try and be in the office at least once, if not two days a week. You started off at three lunches. That hasn't worked after evening socials haven't worked. So we've just said, you know what, come in because you feel the need to come in. And again, I have been into office where I am just closed doors of my office and just on zoom calls. And I not particularly have a good commute into Canary Wharf. So I am all for making sure that people are coming in as an. I have globally. The team is spread across. I'm not meeting them in person anyway. So they're all working from different regions, different time zones. It's all based on trust. And I think that's the message that the company has or the senior management has for the employees. It worked then, it worked during COVID It should continue to work now as well. I won't get into all the implication it has on the real estate business and all of that. That's very sensitive. And, you know, as much as we are impacted as a company because of all of that, but, you know, we. We still feel that probably that's the way forward now. Interestingly, I've had instances where all my hires have been during the COVID times. And, you know, yes, it has been seamless not coming into the office. You know, the technology is. We have made sure our technology team has, you know, has the. All the capability to onboard them in a seamless way and everything, all of that. So we're investing a lot in technology, refurbishing our office spaces, making it all very collaborative. But to Mike's earlier point, I think Winnie mentioned, what does it mean for hires, Right? It's a mix. I've had somebody who joined and left in two years, great talent, but left because new treasury analyst, right? Wants to be in office, wants to network, but, hey, there's no one in the office. Even if he's coming five days a week, no one's there to collaborate with, you know, left. And then I have people who, if I'm trying to hire, the first question is, would you offer flexible work arrangements? Would you expect us to be in the office five days a week or three days a week? And it's a mix. It depends on, you know, what your job profile is. You know, have you already had that work experience? Have you already had that joy of networking, engaging? And now you're sort of in that middle sort of level career of the treasury career that you are okay with. A bit of mix. So it depends. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, Mike, to be honest. I think to each organization, their own is what I would say.

Our panel's got some great takeaways for you guys soon. We're gonna have Q and A coming up shortly. There are a couple of things I was gonna add. I've recently been recruiting in the U.S. one of our clients, and it's been a weird campaign. They are four to five days a week in the office. Pretty challenging. They're saying, oh, yeah, we're going to probably move to three days a week in the office. Maybe, maybe. But our chairman's a bit more traditional. I approached 152 candidates. We got down to 20, and then we got eight who were willing to go to the office. But the weird thing was the actual process before that. And actually I realized, you know, if someone had come to me and said to me, flexible working five years ago, I said, flexible working. I say, flex out my office now. If I did that, I wouldn't have a team working for me. You've either got to change and embrace. And this is one of the things I would say to you guys. If you're, you know, wanting to hire people or if you're wanting to coach your team, you've got to embrace it. You've got to change. Not them, you. This is what happened with this client in the US And I was telling them, I said, look, the situation I'm facing, all these people were coming back to me, these candidates, and I'm used to people coming back saying, right, tell me about the job. What are the responsibilities? What's the salary? How's it going to develop my career? And maybe the working style might come later. No, the first question back was, as soon as came back, said, right, but what's the working from home policy? What's the flexibility? Is it, you know, is it remote? And I was like, well, no. And then, then they were like, right, what's the salary? And what do I do? What's the job again? And I'm like, right, okay. And actually, what the ones that were saying, I want remote, it must be remote, it must be this. I thought, you know what? You're not right for the job. Treasury, by its very nature, is very collaborative, you know, networking. That's exactly why you guys are here and you're proving it, you know, and the free beer. I know, thank you, Darren. But that aside and joking aside, that's one of the key things. Now we can go to Q A. We've got a bit of time. The other thing I was actually going to throw to the panel is a slightly different question. Again, I was asked on this conference last couple of days about data, data analytics. Was everyone going to be a data scientist? Is everyone going to be like this? And I was like, no, not so much. And they were like, said a lot of treasurers are translators of that technology and things but it is the thing, you know, we were talking about it again, border euro financing, blockchain, this and da, da, da. And it is a rising thing and lots of AI and everything else. And they said to me, what did I find? You know, am I being asked to ask, you know, recruit you treasurers and treasury professionals, am I being asked, you know, data, are you more strong with that and everything else? I said, no, not really. And they said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, it depends on the cfo. And a practical story about that is one of my treasurers, if you like, who's now, you know, become a active candidate, if you like, because his CFO previously was, look, go out, check the technology, be our root guide, you know, look at blockchain. Do we need to implement this now? The CFOs changed. New CFO said, mate, you're the cash manager, make sure the risks are managed and that's your job. Thanks very much. And he's going, right, I'm off. And he said, look, there's, there's one end of the extreme, the other. I was going to ask the panel, you know, do you see as a rising thing, maybe coming to Winnie, first of all about, you know, are you seeing more technical systems? Is that a key thing for you guys or is it a balance or what are you finding?

So we're always considering, and then personally I'm always interested in technology and then also automate and you know, my team, you know, maybe it's because my passion on this, my team seems to share the same similar passion. And also I think even you hiring people in the beginning, you try to find someone at least not afraid of system, afraid of the automation, not afraid of, you know, which is actually quite important. So once you have that mindset already, then you literally can face whatever potential automation will bring, old AI or anything. And then we also have a partnership with our various different technical team in the organization. I literally planted the few people in different departments, IT department, we have, you know, something literally deals with anything AR related. So we had one partner from that with treasury and the financial system team with treasury, the person's job, solely supporting Treasury. So then we actually partner with the technology team and anything we see, actually maybe we can tweak it slightly, make it better, then we keep on doing it. So then actually it's become a gradual change within the organization that everyone actually benefited at the end. They don't see as a huge change and not scare anyone, but actually, is that change made? Yes, exactly. And everyone actually really Enjoy it and everyone see that our treasury function is always out there looking forward for the organization. Look the next thing and something else.

I'm going to pass it to Paulin and then Matt. But before we do and I don't want to run out of time, we come into Q and A so it's your turn you lot. So wake up again particularly I'm looking at a few at the back. We'll have Galom and Hersam in a moment. But Deepali first of all for the.

Technology very much I think as Moody's as a company we have fully gone and even all of our, I would say earnings. A lot of questions are just focused on technology investment in technology, data analytics. As if artificial intelligence wasn't enough, we have generative AI, right? I mean it is just going at such a fast pace and you know we in treasury so company wide there is a mandate to where bonuses are being linked to how much you contribute to technology. Right. So that's the level at which we have taken it. And again it's not to scare people, not to say, look, not everybody is a data scientist, right? Not everybody will be. Somebody has to hold the shop, somebody has to do the day to day and the operations. But if you are willing to go in that direction, learn like I have people in my team who are being participating in Power BI cohorts every year, in AI cohorts every year. They're investing a lot in trainings. You know, one thing which came out of the pandemic and was so important is digitization. We cannot shy away from the fact that never ever has there been a more pertinent need to be in control of your cash, where it is, you know and have, I hate to say real but near real time data, right? Available to you cash for forecasting. I mean it's at the forefront, right? I mean it's a topic I get questioned in every board meeting. Now you know, why do you have so much cash international? What's your cash flow forecast? What's your working, working capital? I mean cash was cheap. We had access to free cash, free money. It's no longer the case. If there is a pocket of cash in your organization sitting somewhere, tap it. I mean who would like to pay 5.56%, whatever your rating is. But it is a tough discussion to be had. So it is very important technology not only I'm not talking about tmss, I'm not talking about payment aggregators, that is equally important. But taking a step further, what we are doing in our as treasury is trying to put all our policies in sort of a co pilot, like a research assistant, so we can get all the answers, leverage some of the generative AI space in that, in trying to get that. Because there has to be a start somewhere and we need to simplify and de risk ourselves.

I think going back to Euro finance, we joked, if you took to heart, half of the sessions were about AI and we're all going to be out of a job in five years. I don't think that's going to happen and I don't agree with Elon Musk either. But I put it out there, AI will be an enabler, it will be a tool, it will help us, it won't be a replacement. That's my view. I might regret saying that, but talking about, you said about the CFO story, I think it is about who drives a strategic direction and really a lot of my job is to stay at the forefront of payment and receivables technology. I do a lot of that and I don't think at any point in my career technology has never been moving this quickly. It's overwhelming sometimes to try and stay at the forefront of that. But it goes back to the earlier points. It's about wanting to grow that mindset, that curious mindset. I think if you have that, then technology certainly is a friend and something that you should really embrace, not be scared of it. And then finally going back to the insurance industry I work in, we have something called Chub gbt, not chatgpt that everyone's heard of and is amazing. And what it actually is an environment that is ring fence from Chub GBT because that scrapes data from everything and anything. But we have a secure environment that we can actually interrogate our own AI robot to talk about anything to do with insurance, but it's protected. And that's really the important point, the data security. So yeah, and I think really I'm excited about what we'll be talking about in three, five years time. I think it's an exciting time to be in Treasury.

Really I think that's a very valid point. So it is not about adding more people. I think it is again, as I'll go back to my comment earlier, it is about investing in the right technology. So, so setting up, setting up the right foundation, so liquidity structures, right cash pooling, getting a cash concentrated in house banking. I mean a lot of these things would come into play to where, you know, it's all about the moment. Even if you have a new acquisition, even if you have, you know, something new portfolio to add, you would not want to spend all the time looking at it at an entity level like. But you look at the top of the house and try and make sure that you have all of that view. You know, you're absolutely right. I mean Treasury's role has changed a lot since the pandemic and you know, we thought pandemic was over and then it was Russia, Ukraine, banking crisis, I mean it's nonstop, still ongoing. Right. So the reactive mode is long gone. Right. We need to be stress testing our models all the time. Investment capital allocation, you know, it doesn't work. I don't know how many times going up into any meeting with your CFO or your CEO, you know, you have to refresh the models, right, on the day, oh, the yields have gone, gone down again, oh, the equity market has come up again. It's never ending, right. It is just a crazy time, but a good time, I would say, right? It's showing us where we could potentially what all we can think about and I think that's the approach we are taking is invest now. So you set yourself to succeed if situations like these become a norm now, what is it? So, you know, it's not necessarily for me about adding more people in the team but, you know, making sure we have the right infrastructure, right technology to support us.

I'm going to pass to Winnie and then Matt. One of the things I was just going to chip in with and I think it's interesting actually, this is where treasury can earn its keep, prove its value one and this is where you guys fit from it 20 years ago, you know, plus when the act was starting, it was great. We're specialist treasurers, we can get pay rise, we can get paid a bit more. Brilliant, brilliant. But then they put baby in a corner, they put Treasury. Oh, they're specialist Treasury, Yeah, treasury just look after it. And then you guys have spent 20 years trying to get back out of the shade to actually, you know, be front and center. And Winnie, I know that you pushed. They talk to you all the time. Sometimes you don't answer the phone, you're like, leave us alone, what's it like for you? And then to Matt, yeah, I think.

You need to be trustworthy, partner to the senior management team and then literally have them knowing you, someone they can trust and have a confidence in and relate any problems. So I totally agree with you. Get the framework right and get everything set up, then everything is working, the engine is moving. No matter what's going on then reprioritize, prioritize. What's happening with the Russian situation was hard. Suddenly my team, I have to point couple people become sanctioned specialists. So we're developing something and then we have to drive the entire organization. Over the weekend I wrote policy on sanctions about banking and make sure every single department work together with treasury, make sure we're watertight. There's nothing going to be, you know, have issue on. So it's actually you have to react to situation yet plan for it. That's what you say plan for it, but react to it and then just keep calm and there's things happening and let's make life interesting. And then with the war in Israel as well and then we have to issue something out very quickly. From a Treasury standpoint, how are we going to mitigate potential risks? What happens if the bank is not working and what happens our employee get infected? So all sorts of different things and we creating various committee and deal with that. And a good thing is actually if you have good position in your company, whatever happens, they always include you in that committee, especially for committee. And then you actually have a way to help direct the company where to go. That's really helpful. Yeah.

And we're going to have probably time for one question because these guys have got some great takeaways for you guys as well. But Matt, for you I'll try and.

Keep this quick but I joined treasury about six months before the global financial crisis. So there was certainly a lot of volatility then and I don't think it stopped really. I was also treasurer Travelex during the COVID times and the lockdown and this will probably be a whole session in itself to explain what happened then.

We'll get him on the podcast. Don't worry, we're not letting him go because I can hear the calls popping out there.

I understand. Yeah. So within three months, our Swift Service Bureau was two weeks away from going into production. It had a data center meltdown. It blew up and then that was 2019, New Year's Eve. I was a bit worried. I woke up and I had 58 messages, emails and missed phone calls. We'd had a global cyber attack. 2000 servers from New Zealand to the West coast, the US all got infected within six hours. The company took about four to six weeks to get back up on its feet. That's a whole other story. February, the end of that month. This is 2020 now. We had a very high profile corporate fraud at the parent in Dubai. Three very large banks all lost a number with well, had nine digits. And then of course, what happened in March? Boris got on the TV and said everyone's in lockdown. We were intrinsically linked to the tourism and aviation sectors. All planes are grounded. Within about eight weeks, 90% of our revenue evaporated. How do you run a business when that happens? So you know, as I said, there's a lot more detail to those stories. That was all in about nine months. And it proved to me that one, you need resilience. Two, you need exactly what, what's been said about building strong foundations. But at the end of the day there's some things that are going to happen you just can't predict. And you need what I said earlier, that strong team behind you, flexibility, really understanding how people tick to get through that. Because when your back's against the wall and there's something that you have no means to practice or put into business continuity plans, you really have to do think differently and agile and flexibly.

Any other questions or should we do takeaways? We'll, we'll let you have that one. There you go.

Just one quick question, hopefully. What are you each doing about climate related risk disclosures? Does that sit with.

Who wants, who wants to take that first? Climate related issues.

So we as we have a full on business just linked with climate. We acquired RMS which is risk management on the climate side and we are heavily on the ESG mandate generally with what we are trying to do in terms of our products and offerings as well. On the climate particularly, we publish our TFCD report as well. So we have all of that going on the disclosures as well. How much are we involved directly with that? I would say not to a very great extent in terms of being completely linked with all the disclosures. And that's more still a commercial thing. But on the ESG side what we are doing to the ESG mandate on sustainability, I think that's something that we are taking a bit more active role on like trying to get all of the, you know, scope three emissions, scope one, two, three emissions and all of that and linking that to our facilities and potentially looking at issuances as well at our corporate level. But disclosures is particularly more towards our, you know, the, the actual ESG team. Who's managing all of that?

Winnie or Matt, either of you?

Yeah, it's very similar, very similar story. We got full disclosure but we have a specific department deal with it and then we collaborate with them and then if we want each rebound, we also talk through with them together. So literally the company is very, very, you know, careful with all these environmental related issues and then we pay a lot of attention to it, so we have a special department for it. And then treasury collaborates.

Yeah, what we're going to do is pick out some takeaways. We'll start with Winnie's. Maybe if you just choose a couple of those which you think probably stand out, you know, people read through the rest.

Yeah, I think know your own company is, you know, what make people tick, as you say and also how the leadership team, what the strategic direction you want to do and then automate what you can do and then your team become value add. Then your team's never going to be treated as a shared service center in any way. And also make things simple and logical so people can follow. I think that's very important. And network. Yes.

I mean I'm just going to add on to what Winnie. Plus I would say invest in yourself, grow, growth, mindset, very important. As I said before, don't be shy. I mean there is no good way of doing a particular process question. You know, you never know, you might be the one who is turning transformation journey for the company as well. So do share and again, don't fake passion can only long as last, you know, it cannot last long. So if you be passionate about what you do, just try and keep up with everything, you know, learn. Because learning is not only by qualification. You know, I think from my perspective, you know, reading publications, listening to podcasts, I mean there's a wealth of information out there and there's never enough day hours in the day to keep ourselves informed. It gives me the confidence, it gives me, you know, the empowerment to go and talk, you know, with my C level execs. So I would just say, you know, keep learning, keep growing.

I went for a few more left field comments to be honest, but you know, let's take the second one there. I always say, and I, I often have many peers agreeing eventually that your best relationship at work is your boss, he's your mentor, he's someone who's probably controlled your workflow quite a lot. And again what I said earlier, if you understand how they tick, you often have a good relationship. And that's, that's probably the most important for me personally. Very close second is, is obviously the team and then you know, it's other things like your location, your salary, what's a working from home policy, you know, and you know, how do you do that? It's a bit tricky. You can, social media is quite powerful now. You can look at that. But also even talk to your banks. They often know this person and even peers as well. And it comes back to the networking point that we said. I've talked about it already. Don't underestimate the power of emotional intelligence, EQ and empathy. I really am a big advocator of that. And then, sorry, I was waffling on a bit about my times at Travelex, but resilience was certainly taught to me then that, you know, to finish on a lighter note, we, we had a call where we literally thought we'd have to turn the lights out and make 11,000 people redundant, close a business that had been around for 50 years. I came out and sometime during that chaos, my wife even had a baby. So we had a 12, no, nine month year old and a three year old. They were sitting in the paddling pool. It's a Lovely summer in 2020, if you remember. Sat with the wife having an ice cream and I just thought that's what's important, not this. And resilience and being able to put perspective on things is a really key skill, I think. So I'll finish on that point.

And so the takeaways by the big head, again, first of all is being here today. It would have been much easier, you know, to be sitting at home not making the effort and not making a connection. I mean, yes, it's great. And yeah, we joke about, oh, we can have some networking drinks and things. Actually making the effort is investing in yourselves and there'll be some empty name badges out there who haven't bothered. It's just too difficult. Oh, but you know, getting the train, all this by making the effort. You should reflect very positive yourselves because you're investing in yourselves. And that comes then to your elevator pitch. That's one of the key things when you walk out of here, people are, you're going to want people to be interested in you. You're going to want to network and connect. Networking for some treasury professionals, these amazing people here is natural or semi natural. They worked hard at it, so they can talk to you very clearly. But it's the time it takes you to ride an elevator to tell about your story. I'm Mike, I run the treasury recruitment company. This is what we do and I can help your career. This is why you want to be in my network. Then each of these treasurers has just told you for the past half an hour, 40 minutes exactly why they should be in your network. The other with that is you can take notes. Chris Fulton, great guy, Prior cashman now, great treasurer. He actually one day said, oh, give me a second, and went off and took some notes when he's talked to someone. So when you meet someone tonight and you think, oh, yeah, I need to look them up, either take a quick photo of their badge whilst they're looking. Yeah, don't be weird. I'm not pointing at anyone in particular, Royston, but maybe take a picture of the badge. I think, actually that's someone that, you know, I would like in my network and follow up and do that. And as I say, after all, you made it. There you go. We'll all give a round of applause. Actually, I'll ask for Craig, wherever he is. There we go. Great. Have you got the bits? So I'll say a big thank you to these guests. They're not going to leave just quite yet because we do have a thank you gift for them and then also for you guys. Yeah, make sure to, you know, look after Darren, he will go. Shake his hand. Yeah, yeah. Do count your fingers afterwards, because he is. Yeah, we know what it's like. See, no expense spared. There you go. I don't know where we got these from, but anyway, big round of applause for my panelists, please. So I hope you enjoyed that great treasury career quarter live. Looking forward to doing more of them throughout 2024. Drop us an email if you'd like to come along to any of the London events, the US or the events across the Europe, and see you soon.