Treasury Career Corner Live in Luxembourg - With Johan Claudot, Winkie Choi & Benoit Scholtissen

Hello, it's Mike Richards here from the treasury recruitment company. I hope you're enjoying the Treasury Career corner. If you are, great news, perhaps you'd give us a rating on itunes or wherever you consume your podcast content. This means that even more treasury professionals can benefit from finding out, or by finding out about how treasurers have achieved their career goals. The link to rate our show will list at the bottom of our show notes. And please remember as well, the show itself is as much about you as it is about us. There are specific questions you want us to ask or there's feedback you want to give. Please drop me an email. My direct email is mikeresuryrecruitment.com inventively enough. But anyway, that's enough from me.

Let's get on with the show. Good evening, Luxembourg. Okay, well, we'll do that again, shall we?

Good evening, Luxembourg.

All right, we are away. That's it.

Just checking. Firstly, I want to say thank you very much to our panelists this evening. Without this motley crew, this evening wouldn't be happening. We wouldn't be hearing all about their careers and how you can copy them. Basically, that's what this evening is about. So my name is Mike Richards. I'm a global treasury recruiter. I know many friendly faces, no unfriendly faces.

Quite nice.

We've got Francois here. Thank you very much, Francois, for hosting us. Many round of applause for transfer, please.

So I'm going to actually allow the.

Panel members to introduce themselves rather than me, talk through or paraphrase their backgrounds. But I just wanted to explain to you why we're actually doing this event. Basically, I've been talking to treasury professionals for the past 20 plus years and I love talking to them all about their different careers, about how you all do the the same job. You're all de risking your company's money and looking after your company's money. But as we were talking to the panelists before, everyone in here has this similar title, treasurer, and you do it all in exactly the same way, with exactly the same tools, in exactly the same fashion.

No, you don't.

Everyone does it differently and it's fascinating to me.

And we were just talking about some.

Of the differences there as well. And what I wanted to do was bring it to life. So actually I started to do a podcast, weekly podcast, called the Treasury Career Corner, where I interviewed treasurers from across the globe about their treasury careers, how they got started, how they see both themselves and the treasury profession going and developing, and the future for treasury, if you like. And that then led to bringing it to life a little bit. So we did an event in London and a couple of people I've seen here actually attended it. Really good evening. Explain these people how they got their careers and what happened and now thought bring it to Luxembourg. And we're taking it around other places as well, to the States as well, to see how different Treasuries operate, things like that. So as I say on the podcast, that's enough of me talking, let's get on with the show. Perhaps if we start to my left, just introduce yourselves where you work and then we'll jump back into the beginning of your careers. Just when we get to the end and stuff.

So, Ben.

Well, okay. Benoit Koltissen. I'm a group treasurer for Aparam. Aparam is a stainless steel producer based in Europe and South America for industrial facilities and a distribution network around the world. It's a turnover which is depending in the year and the volumes and the price of raw materials in the area. Full five or six billion dollars or your equivalent. And we're about 10,000 people in the world.

Hi, good evening everyone. I'm Winky Choi from Amazon. I am the head of EU treasury here in Luxembourg. I don't think I need to explain much about what Amazon does. It's like everything, anything you need to know. You probably can look into the website to know what our size. But we do have a very large base of employees around the globe. Is about five, almost 600,000 people around the globe.

Good evening everyone. So I'm Johan Clodeau. I'm working for Blackstone Real Estate Europe. I recently joined them two weeks ago to be frank, heading the treasury team. It's a new function here in Luxembourg and basically I oversee all Europe and Asia operations. And basically Blackstone is, they call them as the largest real estate fund in the world. Basically we focus on operations and Blackstone in the US or in the UK are doing, let's say acquisitions and investment for short term and long term views, depending on the portfolio. And here in Luxembourg we really do the follow up and the administration of all the flows that are managed by Blackstone.

So what we're now going to do.

Is just go through some of the early careers and how these guys got into treasury and how they've grown and.

Developed and things like that.

So Benoit, you originally started with Umicore, is that right?

Correct.

And how did you get into finance? You graduated Umacore and then discovered Treasury.

How did it work?

Yeah, well, graduated and started actually A few months as a professor assistant at university and then went to Umicore where actually I did my thesis and I was happy to join them because it was part of what they call a management training program which was a series of short term assignments and I was more focused on community trading at the time. And I did one of these short term assignments in treasury which I found very interesting. So it's a combination of treasury and commodity trading was excellent. And then this is well the first step let's say in treasury at that time.

And it was an accidental step or you planned it or you just.

No, no, no. I was part of the finance department of the group and it was a natural move to go in treasury focusing more on foreign exchange risk management specifically.

So you got your first start Winky, you had a very planned start into treasury said before it was the thing you said right from the day go or how did it happen?

Totally accidental. So I was actually starting with a systems group supporting our treasury and accounting finance basically that was never thought of much of treasury other than the fact that I because I was able to talk in the language of both business and systems. So I helped them to rebuild. At a time back in the US I was working for PayPal. No, actually even before that I was working for back then called Federated Department Store which is now called Macy's. It's kind of pretty large department stores in the US So working for the financial services I had run the system script and the databases development, run the actual imaging systems for the benefits group at the time and set up a new call center of 200 people in Bangalore, India remotely from Ohio. And so that was where I started. And then when I moved over to PayPal I was put into to support because of my also I have a dual degree in finance and system. So I was able to kind of help to support the treasury as well as finance happened to they run into an issue with the money market fund systems and that's where I kind of joined in and helped them to build it out. But as we learned they don't quite understand how to talk to the engineers and I was able to translate two things and kind of able to bridge the gap. And at the time the treasurer basically said that we probably want to pull her in because she understands the background as well as the front end and able to kind of articulate back to the business folks. So that's how I started back in the U.S. johan.

So basically I come from a financial background but. But I fell into Treasury a bit by accident also basically I wanted to, you know, when you exit university, you don't know really what is the business world. And I wanted to work for corporates. I am from the region, but I didn't want to work for banks, I wanted to work for corporates and really to be faced against really real life or real activity where I thought banks will not bring me that. So I started my career in consulting business for ENY and basically I stayed there one year. After one year, quickly discovered it wasn't for me. Basically I was not steering my career the way I wanted. And basically I left and I had the chance to work for RTel with Francois where basically I was very curious about treasury, but I didn't know anything about treasury, about what was the content. And basically I started really as a junior and then grew in the department by doing projects and learning what is a Treasury department. And frankly I've been doing so for almost 15 years now. And really I love it. So it's really, there is a combination in this role that is very, very interesting and that's why I'm still in that field.

Why was it so interesting? Why was it treasury that got you?

Basically there is this, you can be considered as an internal banker, but it's more than just banking. You need to make the bridge between the internal needs and your internal partners, but also with the external partners. And you need to kind of balance this to provide the service towards basically your company and your internal partner first. And basically there is this mix of business understanding it, let's say negotiation, because you have also a lot of negotiation with the banks and it's quite mixed. So it's what I enjoy.

Basically you talked about then translating treasury, those non systems and finance into those treasury guys. How did you go about it? You know, you're relatively early in your treasury career to perhaps talk to, you know, older treasurers or older treasury staff.

How did you get through that was common sense. You understand what's important to them. So from treasury perspective, they look at a lot of time it's risk and economics and then from a technology side also looking at risk. So as long as you understand what's important to tell you, you kind of articulate how to get to what you need. And then at the end of the day, if a decision needs to be made, if you lay it all out pleading black and white, I think it makes it very simple for everyone to understand how the decisions, how do you come about the decision? So whether it's technology or it's finance, because ultimately if you look at the numbers, they both are saying, they could be saying opposite things. But if you're saying, hey, this is the opportunity cost here is X and this is Y, then if they can't compromise, someone about them will be able to make a decision. And that oftentimes I find it pretty easy to communicate, as long as you understand that you find a common ground when you speak the same language. And that's where I kind of started with how to approach that. Take that approach, starting from a risk perspective and quantify it.

A similar question to you, Benoit. You started in treasury and then moved on and got a good promotion to Mattel. Aklaw Mattel. You say it better than I. Talk us through that role or that progression.

Yeah. The last assignment at Umicore was more, as I said, on commodity trading. And I had an opportunity to join Arcelor, which was the first merger actually. And there I focused much more on financing, which was something pretty new for me and was a huge restructuring to be done. As you can imagine, when three large group are merging together and I mean, it's been a very, very interesting time. A mix of culture, Spanish, French, Belgian, German, merging all together, you can imagine then in terms of culture, it's pretty different. We've been very successful at the time. And after that assignment I had an opportunity to build up something new for Ocelot, which was not existing in relation to community trading. And then I moved to Paris to develop their community trading desk, which was something which was inexistent. And basically it was a fantastic experience. And we've been growing and growing. And then the second merger happened with metal to want to create Arsalo metal and a new culture came in and a complete change of mindset. Much more financially driven than engineer driven as it used to be in the former steel companies in Europe. So all in all it was a fantastic experience. And maybe to complete what John was saying, I think we are at least internal banker. But more than this, and on top of what he said, we are very strong advisor, business enabler. We advise the business on what are the best solutions. With a different mindset as a banker, obviously, which is more technical and more efficiency driven than, let's say, making money, basically. And in that sense, the job of treasurer is something that you invent yourself every day, basically. There is no one single day which is the same. You more or less try to improve, to develop new things. And this is really enjoyable and I love it as well.

You did seven years then in that role.

Yeah.

And then you were just Talking and we were just mentioning about banking. You were then tempted to the dark side. You went to join Dexia. How come you made a move to banking?

Yeah, well, there was a mix of for personal reasons and professional reasons.

We'll stick to the professional ones.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it was at a time when well, many banks wished to be in the community trading business because it was driving a lot of value and generating a lot of opportunities of new business on the corporate side, also on the private side, all kinds of structured product. And Dexia at that time was still considered as one of the safest bank in the world. It happened not to be the case, but it was one of these bank which was still growing and growing. And then I proposed them a project and we started the project. Unfortunately, the timing was not super good. It was in 2008 and as you can imagine, it's been very tough. So somewhere I had a chance to live the bankruptcy of the bank, which is something which is unique in a professional life and which is plenty of knowledge to keep in mind all the time that this trust that was existing between the banks does not exist anymore and that your credit can deteriorate extremely quickly. As a treasurer, this is something which is very, very important to always keep in mind.

I was going to ask. And you made the moves and then you switched back as we come onto into corporate. But what was the difference in culture like? I mean you've touched on it there, but.

Yeah, well, the thing in a bank you are very, very specialized. You focus on one line of products and you focus on this and this and this. And basically intellectually it's much less interesting to be honest, than working for a corporation. So I had an opportunity. ArcelorMittal had decided to spin off its stainless steel division. And this is probably also a once a life experience is to create a corporate treasury department from scratch, exiting from a very large organization, ArcelorMittal and to create everything to provide the same kind of services to our internal clients, but with different means, obviously. And I must say it's been a fantastic experience. I will not come back on the entire history of Apparam, but. Well, it used to be low credit company, now we're an investment grade company. It's been a journey which was fantastic. And from, from a Treasury perspective, from a high leveraged company to a very low leverage company, touching plenty of financing products and plenty also of hedging structures. And so it's been a fantastic experience.

We talked there. You've obviously worked for a lot of European groups or based in Europe and things. But with your career winky, You've worked with PayPal, Amazon as we talked about. But how have you found the sort of progression you got to. You started in the US then you made the transition with PayPal to Europe. Talk us through that move if you like.

Or that was also accidental. That was at PayPal. I was doing a lot of projects when I got into the treasury which includes also the FX big efforts engine at the time they were looking for folks that they're also building out a bank in Europe, in Luxembourg specifically. And so they need to build out the team. I was employee number nine in Luxembourg and kind of bring the knowledge and culture out here in the new corporate office. And at that time we are a bank, but it's a bank within the corporate which it means we are essentially setting up a lot of new financial products for our customers. So it's not like a bank, but we still have the banking regulatory requirements reporting that we have to support. Which helps me to understand from a bank perspective what are the constraints are. But never left the corporate challenge and the workload that comes with it. So that's really how of that transition comes along. And that was supposed to be a two year assignment as an expat, but eleven and a half, almost twelve years later, I'm still here, not as an expat, but as I'm local.

And how does it contrast between the US culture of treasury, treasury culture and the US approach to treasury rather to European and the approach over here?

I think the biggest difference for us is is that corporate America still sees that the center of universe is still in the US which means that you will have depending on what time zone your corporate is, you're going to work late hours. Decisions oftentimes still defer back to the US So you will have to work extra hard over communication making sure they understand what's happening. They're not quite understanding the difference especially in Europe because there's so many different countries while they have a single currency they don't understand every country might have different requirements. Especially even as simple as opening bank accounts or the kyc all the documentation. So someone from the US have never exposed to the process procedure in the European the Eurozone. They're going to have a culture shock and you will have to explain to them why things would take longer time and why there's so many holidays. Those are things that it would take time to get used to. But it's a learning, right? So you manage expectation. I think that's important. It is our job to make sure that your headquarter understands what to expect and why. And you constantly need to challenge on your side. Can things done quicker, more efficiently as well.

And then you made the move from PayPal into eBay or how did that come about?

That was because I was kind of done with the banking side and they see that I have. I don't like to take no when an answer. So apparently that fits very well in the corporate ebay culture where they want to get things done and it's kind of always in a challenging mode. So I tend to kind of push the buttons quite a bit and they want me to head over the corporate side and that just happened to. I was there and then we kind of share the same office because eBay was. PayPal was part of ebay family. So I had the. Basically the. From the PayPal actually I went into ebay, the corporate and for YMIR and then heading international when we split between eBay and PayPal. So I took over the EMEA as well as APAC as well. So that talk about work hours that you start from the morning and for APAC and then you got the European time and then you have the evening to catch up with the us. So that was actually quite challenging. Yeah, yeah.

And you know, Han, you made the move rtl, entertainment industry and TV and all that stuff and you made the natural move into building services. So how did that come about? Or was it just. Hang on, it's just Treasury. It doesn't matter what industry. I mean, how do you feel about that amongst the other panelists as well?

Yeah, well, indeed it is rather treasury, basically the industry is key because you need to understand it being a treasurer. So you. Because the. The service. I like to say that we provide services. The service might differ, but there is some routes that remain. But you get to adjust to the business workflows and services which are required. Yeah, I made the move not because of the industry, because I wanted to add a nice opportunity with a new challenge and. And basically I wanted to grow as well in terms of responsibility and new projects. So that's the main reasons why I moved at that time. Not because I was particularly interested in the industry, I wanted to remain in the corporate environment. But yeah, so it's true that it's not a natural move. I didn't move to a competitor or. But I remain in treasury nevertheless.

With some of our US clients, when we're dealing with them particularly, they say we want someone who has building experience and making that move or FMCG and things like that. When I deal with a lot of European clients, it's less so they go, actually I want a really good treasury person that's had cash management or exposures or fx. I mean, just asking you as a panel, do you think it's role of relevance to have sector experience or. It really doesn't matter. Treasury is treasury, wherever you are. Yes, it's useful or what are your thoughts?

Yeah, it depends what's behind Treasury. Basically, if we talk about financing, probably the way financing is being organized is quite similar, let's say across large multinationals. Now when it comes to more specific feature like risk management, for example, this is a bit specific. For example, in the metals and mining industry where I am for a long time now, you need to know a bit about different markets, which are pretty unusual, probably in the Amazon world or in the building world.

So.

So in a sense, yeah, if you want to be successful at least you need to gather the skills to understand about that.

Just to comment on it. Basically, let's say if it's just to do copy paste, I wouldn't have really been eager to change because of course you have some fundamentals of your work. But let's say there need to be also the challenge to learn of a new business activity, but also maybe of other treasury requirements. So you always have, I think, a foundation which might remain or might be duplicated from what you did before and then the opportunity to learn and to exchange and to learn from the team, let's say, because it's not only top down learning, it needs to be also that you learn from your peers or from your colleagues. And I think, let's say the treasurer is not the only person working in the Treasury Department. So you are working with a team or you set up a new team. So it's important also to find the right skills in your team so that you can move on and build a new Treasury Department. You are, let's say, required to do so. For me, let's say there needs to be. Let's say you cannot jump into the role with no knowledge at all. But let's say we all grew in our role and I think that's what makes it interesting and challenging when you move to a new company to get to know new things.

I think from my experience is that with the industry knowledge it helps to shorten your learning curve to get to your job and do it. But ultimately is your ability to learn and your attitude that kind of take it to the long, more of a long term view. I Wouldn't say that I know everything about Amazon because we are everywhere and we've done a lot of things. But you've got to be able to learn, try to find ways to learn about that particular industry or that particular line of business very quick to help to address the needs, the risk assessment and funding, for example. So I think it's always as this gentleman mentioned, it's all learning curve, it all depends. But I do believe it would help a great deal if you do have some background to get started quicker.

Okay. I just want to quickly get this across to talking about how the size of your team and everything else. And one thing I get a lot of feedback on is balancing the day to day pressure that is on you guys as treasurers and the demands that your CFO is sometimes making or knocking at your door and saying that we want this one, this plus also, you know, your treasury analyst is knocking your door and people management and things like that. Perhaps the size of your teams and what's your attitude to sort of the advice?

Perhaps people are looking here and say.

Well I'm actually a new manager or I'm managing a team coming up and things. What sort of are your go to ideas, you know, do you have goal setting or what are the things that you guys are thinking about? What's the size of your team?

We're probably a specific animal in Luxembourg in the sense that we are really the corporate treasury department of the group based in Luxembourg where we manage more or less everything except for South America and specifically Brazil where we have a team because of exchange controls, we cannot manage offshore. But for the rest, we manage pretty much the rest of the group from Luxembourg. So we are seven at the moment. We used to be more. I do not desperate to come back to his initial number. But at the moment this is a sign of the team and well, we are a very operational team. We have a small trading room and people are really interacting with commercial people with a group on a permanent basis. And this is a team of three. And then we have a team of three which focus on what we call treasury operations, which is everything but trading, let's say, and myself focus more on the financing side of the group. Yeah, so that's the way we're structured for the moment.

And managing those team or coaching those team members, you know, how do you fit in? You know, what's your attitude towards people management, as it were?

You should ask. No, I mean I trust people I work with. I have two senior persons in the team, very good people with a Good experience, experience part of the team for a long time which is somewhere also a good feeling of their trust towards me. So they are very independent. We catch up obviously on every key points we need to decide together. But they are very independent in their work.

Kind of the opposite. We are not the corporate. Right. So we are the think of it as a regional treasury center. The team has five, probably will continue to expand but as a Treasury we have from global cash management we have about 40 somewhat people. Then we got the risk team and we got the capital market team. So it's quite large organization obviously because of the size of a company how we manage I same as I trust my people and I think that's very important. And you do let them fail. You try to guide them as much as possible but you let them fail knowing that they have done their best and you will back them up. I think that's important. We can't do everything perfectly. A lot of times we make decisions based on what we know at a time and obviously things could change but we learn as we go. I think that's the attitude we need to take and making sure that don't make the same mistake twice.

Yeah, don't do it again.

So basically. Well, it's a pretty new team for me but we are 12 people and basically it's focused into. It's split into two teams. One more focused on projects and basically the reorganization of the department. We are three there and then let's say nine other people more focused on treasury administration. There is really a lot of focus on cash management and making things work. More than 40 banks, 80,000 bank accounts spread everywhere. So quite heavy workload there. A lot of manual process so far. But basically the idea is to really kind of revamp the organization and the structure to make it more strategic, more with let's say not from a pure admin and let's say resultance from the business but really taking a more proactive view in terms of bank relationship, bank management, really the management of the treasury supervising let's say in terms of risk management also. And let's say there are a lot of intercompany loans and transactions which are going back and forth and treasury was to some extent not that much involved so far. So basically I'm really challenging the structure right now if I can say from my previous job because that's what is the fresher. Basically I worked in a smaller team of five where I was heading basically treasury operations. For me that was really key to kind of at some point if I was working on projects, which I had already done, to kind of more coach my colleagues so that they get the chance to learn as well. I think this is really important not to be everywhere and you are present, but you try to coach, so you try to let them do so that basically they learn also on the spot and you are very frequently more than happily surprised. But you let them fail as well. I agree. But let's say it went quite well and I don't think the treasury should have, let's say, always like lots of people in the department, I really see that more as a supervision role and guidance and that's for my new role and we'll see if there will be more people. But it's not the main objective, I think, but the supervision and the guidance providing, let's say, treasury knowledge. In an organization sometimes that has not had a treasurer on board before, basically challenging the way they do things can be good. That's what I'm trying to do.

Looking at the panel here and as a group we combine sort of 60, 70 years worth of treasury experience, expertise.

Mostly from them at the numbers up.

Yeah, no, no.

They'Re not that old. It's all right, careful again. But we can just take it. You, you joined PayPal way back, you know, in 2004 and you've seen obviously treasury evolve a lot in that time, but also you've worked for blue chip corporates who are at the forefront of that a little bit as well. You know, some of the things that they're doing. How have you seen treasury evolve over that time, you know, since you first walked in the door? You know, sometimes I talk to people on the podcast as well. And so, yeah, I remember picking up a fax and sending off and then you say to kids, they go, what's the fax? You know, through to now, it's straight through processing. Now it's everything. Is it all of that? Are we all going to be replaced by robots or is that what's happening?

Well, I think we're certainly heading that way. It's less of what we think about ourselves, is how our business partner, the business thinks see us. I think in the past, I think most of the companies, or I'm sorry, the departments will look at treasury, is you go to them if you need funding, you need bank account opening or any issues that they might have about payment. But what they now starting to see, and maybe just this is our job as a treasurer, is that we are business partners. Ben Wah has mentioned their strategy. We need to be in the front of it, including the M and A. So I think they have forgotten treasury actually play an important role. The technology piece is given its automation is given. What we see today is if you're still using the manual process, that might continue for a while but we certainly are moving towards AI. There's a lot of machine learning that we are doing now. We do have our service center in India, but I don't see that's going to be permanent. Anything can be done manually, can be replaced. It's just a matter of time. So we need mentally, we need to be prepared for that stage to come through in our lifetime and then we will really take a step back and take this more strategic role when it comes to business development expansion.

What do you think about the future?

Look, I think I completely agree with Winky on these manual tasks which still remains for certainly will be automated in the near future. In Apparam we had to do this transition pretty quickly when we exited Arsenal Mittal. So we made that at that time in 2012 this challenging choice of going for a pure cloud based system. SaaS as a service, it's been kind of a challenging choice at that time and implementation has been pretty tough. But what we see where we are today, basically we could be only happy of that it works. We might not be happy every day, but globally it works fine. And when I see what we do with such a limited number of people, I mean we are more efficient if I can say, as we used to be in the old organization. And I think this trend will continue for certainly and we will push for it at least to have not less people but at least the same number of people focusing more on more intellectual analysts, more things that will drive the business more efficiently rather than only doing manual tasks.

You talk about the people aspects of it. Obviously I run the treasury recruitment company and that's why I see front end when I'm talking to clients such as yourselves wanting to recruit candidates maybe that come from this room, people coming up through their treasury careers, looking at your recruitment ethos is each of you and things like that. You know, you've talked there about intellectual ability being the key facet for the future. Maybe you know, over to yourself, Johan, you've just joined a new team, you know, recently recruited into a new role. So you've been had that first end, you know, hitting you. What's your ethos?

Let's say I think you have to try to be always positive because you can face some challenges in the treasury, that's for sure. But I think People need to be curious, they need to be willing to face new challenges. But in a team you need different skills because I need some colleagues also who are happy to do the day to day. They don't all want to become project leader or be the next treasurer but let's say is to find the right balance in your teams so that you can compose. But I definitely think they need to be taking ownership of what they do independent of the level or the type of job they are doing on day to day. Then basically depending on where you are sitting, I think you should be curious on really taking ownership of what you are doing.

Winky when you're recruiting.

What?

Well maybe it's different as well when you are recruiting because obviously it can be more challenging for people in different industries and things like that. I know that in the past I've recruited for or spoken to the Amazon treasurer and things and I said oh you know, I'm a recruiter. And he said yeah, we don't need you. So yeah, cheers for that. Yeah, that's really nice. Still bought him beer though because you know, he simply said, you know, a lot of the time the put up, you know, here's the job vacancy. Oh yeah, here's 500 applications. Do you get the similar thing over here or what's your ethos around recruitment as well?

I don't get the 500 because I asked the HR to scan through those for us. We don't have the bandwidth but yes, we and don't take it personally, we don't need a recruiter because we do get a lot of candidates who would like to join Amazon. They have no idea what they are getting into because we are very demanding and one of the things that we do look at is we first actually want to make sure that you're coming from. You have been stretched before meaning you have done with a large volume projects and then leaderships taking a role, leading ownership, owning the projects. One of the things that we do, many things that we look at. One of the things we do look at is whether or not they demonstrate the leadership principles within Amazon. So ownership is one of them able to take risk and so it's less of an issue for us. But from what I do look at is yes there are certain depending on the job itself. I do look for people with not just analytical skills but communications strategic role that they have done before because as I mentioned earlier, if you can do the checklist, you know, cash management, et cetera, that's great, that's given. But what is above and beyond what is your capacity to do something we haven't done before, getting something new, take risk. How do you deal with conflicts? Because you're going to be working with tax and legal and those are favorite words that we have that oftentimes we are in. We contradict with each other. How do you deal with those conflicts? Right. So those are the things that we look at in the skill sets. It's kind of like the soft skills that we're looking for rather than technical skills, because those are actually already given. We do expect that. And that's what's above and beyond.

And how do you measure or assess those? Because if they're soft skills.

Yeah.

You know, hard skills, boom, they're on the paper.

What about we do once you pass the technical assessment? So the HR probably reach out directly and kind of talk through. They are pretty well trained HR folks for treasury, so they know what to look for once they understand what they kind of passed the first round test and we'll bring them in for interview.

I don't know. Not so much to add to this. Well, in appram, we did not hire so much, actually. We had a very good, strong and stable team for a long time until people wanted to evolve and some of them left, some of them changed inside Apparam, which is also a very good sign when people can move from treasury to another part of the Finance Department, then something that I can add. Well, and it's part of the soft skill and it's something which is key in my opinion. Treasury, somebody must be absolutely rigorous and a certain ability to absorb some stress. We are in a very operational department. Every mistake can have tremendous consequences. So in that sense, being extremely rigorous, and this is a key point on which I insist all the time is key, in my opinion, in a Treasury position.

One of our previous guests actually made a very similar point. They said, don't ignore the small mistakes.

Exactly.

Because it won't be long before they're a big issue.

Exactly. Exactly.

Now, what I'm going to do, open the questions on the floor in a moment. But just before we do, just to explain what will happen is we will, you know, close off the questions and the panelists have kindly agreed that if you at one stage want to copy or emulate any of the people on this, careers, accidental or otherwise, and whatever you might think if they, you know, people here are looking at your careers and they want to have very similar careers themselves, the one piece of advice you're going to give them. So we'll come on to that In a minute. So that gives them some thinking time. Questions from the floor. What do you guys want to know or ask the panelists? Quick as your own chance to get your own back. They've answered everything. That's it. It's amazing.

Winky, you said one of your challenges in dealing with the Americans is particularly them understanding the whole extra. What are you doing next week? Next week's a new holiday.

What holiday?

Thursday.

I didn't put it on my calendar actually, so I know it is kind of strange, but like yesterday apparently is the holiday. So Labor Day.

I hate that.

Yeah. So, yeah, Labor Day, because I work in the U.S. i came from the U.S. so Labor Day, I always remember September. So now it's happened in May. And I'm not used to except the fact that I do have kids at home and they remind me that they don't have school. Therefore it's a holiday in Luxembourg. Yes, you have to juggle and do manage. So what I did is the compromise is I don't work during the day and then I kind of catch up in the evening where the call actually usually starts. So I kind of hopped on some of the important calls and let them know that, hey, today's a holiday. But I do respect that we need to catch catch up certain projects. So you kind of have to have a work life harmony on yourself. They cannot and they should not expect you to work during the holidays. But you do know that certain things you just. Everybody's waiting for you to kind of keep their progress going. So you kind of have to make a choice. But I'll make the time up somehow, find another way. Maybe on Friday evening I'll just take off early and do something else. But that is a challenge working with American company when you're not in the.

U.S. yeah, you mentioned as well. Sorry, go on.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to add on this. I mean, in treasury, definitely, you need to be flexible. And this is also something I say to the teams. I mean, I don't want you to be in the office to do hours. Right. You do your job when you have to do it. And if you have to go back to work even late in the evening, it happens. That's also the beauty of Treasury. Basically, you need, you know, to have the capacity, I mean, to go back into your job at any time. And, you know, days off, official days off, we always organize a permanence so that services are continued to be rendered to countries which would not be on holiday at the same time.

Currency holidays.

Well, you are not the only one in the boat. So that's important that there is also kind of organization in the team to oversee the different projects when you are off. I've learned through my career to delegate more and more and to be able, when I am off, to take my time off. Indeed, I was checking sometimes a few mails, stepping into some calls, but that should be limited because you need to also grant some ownership and responsibility to the team because otherwise if you always concentrate on yourself, then they might be frustrated as well. So for me it's trying to find the right balance as well, to kind of delegate and step in when it's required. But it's not always required. Definitely in my view.

Other questions, everyone's very happy.

Maybe a comment from my side, I think that and I don't know if you share the same view, but too interesting in our job. So when you compare the other finance function, I think that our function has evolved much more over the last 10, 15 or 20 for those who are in the profession for a longer time. So I think it's challenging. We have a lot of challenges. You mentioned the global financial crisis, all the consequences, regulation, etc. We were last week with some of you at the risk of laboratory. And so we talk about the challenges. So it's exciting. Challenging, but it's exciting. So I think that it's great in our profession compared to the other finance function, where I do believe that zero was less visible in their job apart from the technology behind. And even the technology in our specific function is quite developed with a lot of applications. And the second thing that I've noticed also in discussing with other associations, it's great to have an association because we talk to each other what is not necessarily the case in other finance professions. I do not see my colleagues from accounting consolidation, the CFO talking to their peers. So I think that it's great that we have this kind of community and it helps us also to grow to exchange. We have some discussion with some of you for new job challenges or to recruit or could we at association give some support. So I think it's two interesting things that I don't know if you share.

The same view, but it's clearly the curiosity. I think treasurer are curious to exchange with their people years and frankly, let's say there are some of the basic treasury items which need to work. Let's say you need to handle proper bank account structure, cash management. That's the basic and you will find that in every organization and sometimes it's quite strange to see that it's not that optimized or that all the systems are not always in place despite we are in our IT educated environment. But it's not that straightforward for all organizations. So once the kind of basics are done, I think let's say finding what let's say are the new challenge or the new best in class solutions, I think it is really important to get involved with the treasury associations. So exchanging with Pearson, that's quite stimulating. And indeed I made most of my career in treasury. So basically I've been acquainted to this quite young. But it's really important, I think, to come out of just your own environment because you have to learn a lot from others, I think, and to bring it to your organization afterwards.

One of the things I talk about on the podcast and I asked treasurers is about the future of treasury and we, you know, we touched on their automation, we talk about all the other things. Now people in the audience are thinking, well, that's all very well, that's what's coming at treasurers, CFOs sometimes are saying, look, you're my treasurer, can you assess this for me? I've got all this other. So you do that and they push you out in the forefront. Right, right in the forefront a lot of the time, even if you don't want to be out there. But there's a lot of people then asking me and you know, perhaps wanting to ask you guys, what should they be doing for their, themselves, for their resumes, for their CVs? I was asked a question just a couple of days ago from someone saying, look, I'm thinking about studying about cyber war, cyber warfare, cybersecurity. Everyone's going on about it and you know, in all the conferences with you as treasurer sitting there, you know, what advice would you give again to the people in the audience that are going to, right, should I go off and study a qualification? Should I go and get more interpersonal skills, do some training on my softer skills as a manager or what are the things that when you're looking to bring people in and, or looking at a team thinking, I need more of this or this is what we need more of as a team. Any of you. That's good. I've got them all thinking and they're all like, you didn't put this on the cards. I know.

I would say it's getting out of your comfort zone. You can't really plan. Yes, there's a lot of technology going out there. Be aware what's going on around, especially with the customers. What I've learned is that I think your customer will trust you more internal customer if you know more than they do about their business, about their risk, about their challenges. So one of the closest business partner we have is payment folks. While instant payment, for example, it's not really big for treasury per se because we pay the vendors, et cetera. And yeah, it's wires, ACH or sepa but the AP side of things is especially with different region fixed on India they do payment on delivery. Someone deliver an Amazon package, I want to pay the courier right there, right then by phone. They don't have a bank account. So you've got to be ahead of understanding where we think we're spending, what the challenges they might have. You got to go ahead of that curve. And on top of that you got to work with the banks. Sometimes the banks are not aware. What. Well maybe because it's where Amazon. So they're more willing to work with us in product development. We oftentimes tell the banks what we need to have from a bank structure. Virtual accounts. Virtual on virtual meaning I can have a single account and that can be virtual to different jurisdictions. Right. So they have challenges on their side. But I want to tell them now this is what we see. We would need you you go find a way to meet those qualifications to the requirements. We start brainstorming. So I think what we would be looking for and get ourselves ready is don't be afraid to think outside the box and really talk to people, even not just within treasury, but your customers and their vendors completely outside. And how the other industry may be handling certain things that are different from your own industry because they might have something similar or they may doing something totally creative that you're not aware of.

Yeah, well, I would certainly not advise anyone to try to copy a career whatever. I would certainly recommend young people to try to gather as much experience as possible, a broad experience, diverse experience in different areas before making a choice to specialize in something or even to apply to a more global role. Yeah, and I think one of the let's say weak point between brackets which is often highlighted is skills, soft skills basically. This is clearly where I would recommend really young people to try to get very well trained and to be very confident in their soft skills. Because finally ultimately it's all about human relationship and this is super important for the success of a team.

Yeah, it's something I raise myself. Would it make sense to make or to study a Treasury qualification on top of my studies? Basically I never did it. I think it can add value when you are young, if you are very interested by this field of business, let's say of finance activity, it can be interesting and it gives you a better chance to enter the treasury world. But let's say I learned along the way and I think that's also very interesting and a good chance to get to learn on the spot. But again, you need to show that you're curious and you need to have the chance to work into corporates, which are in, let's say, changing mode, basically. So it's one of the reasons why I changed. Also my initial career plan, it was not meeting my expectations. So I think you need to know yourself as well and what you wish to achieve. Let's say don't target to be the CEO or the group treasurer on your first day after university, but let's say to know what is important for you in life and at work. What are your expectations more in terms of, let's say, responsibility or areas that you want to explore rather than being focused on. Okay, I want to study this. So for me, treasury qualifications are nice, but they are not. Must have to be frank.

So Benoit said. So, you know, the takeaway there is obviously get a breadth of experience before choosing the specialize. Be curious. I think we'll take that one and get out of your comfort zone. Thank you very much. I know that I can hear the chinking of glasses out there. Hopefully someone's not drinking our wine, but they might be. We'll get out there in a moment. I just want to thank all of the panel for today. Now, this will be. We will be reposting this. If there's bits you want to hear about on the treasury career corner, that's our website and everything else go there. You'll find a number of other interviews with other treasurers as well. And some of these ladies and gentlemen may actually be in there in the future as well. Thank you very much. Panel, put your hands together, please. Thank you. Thank you very much.