Treasury Trading to Smelting Furnaces – A Treasurer’s Journey Into Industry

This week we've got a double bill for you. We've got Eric Holtman, the group treasurer Cole Coma joining us on the show. But as it was a much shorter podcast, Eric and I just wanted to catch up. I've known that for a while. I just want to talk briefly about his treasury career. Given the length of the episode, it doesn't really qualify for CTP credits.

So what we've done is recorded that.

Maybe more for our UK and European listeners or maybe for the US listeners if you. You might find it interesting. Let's have a listen. It's only about 15, 20 minutes then what we've also done is we published our Treasury Career Corner live session at Textpo at this year's Textbook Conference in San Antonio with three amazing treasurers, Jeremy Reedus, Denisia Stewart and Martin Van Steenpop. That's a full episode and you can still receive your CTB credits. So enjoy maybe the tumble bill or just enjoy one or the other.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession. Going to next. Let's get on with the show. In this week's show I'm joined by Eric Holtman, the group treasurer, Elco Wire. Headquartered in Helsingborg, Sweden, Elko Wire Group is a leading manufacturer of copper and aluminum wire products serving industries with high quality solutions for energy transmission, rail infrastructure and electrical engineering. With decades of experience that committed innovation, sustainability and delivering tailored solutions across Europe and beyond. Elaborate operations in Sweden, Germany and consist of five different business units Rod wire strands, High voltage rail and specials.

But I'm going to get into that.

With Eric later on in the show. Eric, if you would. We had a chat before this previously. How did you first start in finance and Treasury? I know that you started in trading a while ago, so give us the origin story if you would. Over to you, sir.

Yeah, so the background was that I did law and business studies. I thought I was going to be a corporate lawyer from the start. They sometimes attempt to study some business and finance on the side and I did that and I realized that the business of finance more interesting and more fun than.

Yeah, that's.

And the law side of it. After doing my military service I did my double degrees and moved from south of Sweden to Stockholm. We started a family and I got into trading at at the time I did seven years there starting as a junior basically Bookkeeper, helping out the head traders, keeping track of risks and everything. I eventually moved on to get my own risk manded and ran my own books, moved on to another bank after the financial crisis. Nordea, this is the biggest Nordic bank. And I eventually moved from Stockholm to Denmark to Copenhagen to their head office. I did five years with Nordea commuting over this, the famous bridge that many of you now are aware of.

But you were doing all this trading and things, so it was a good introduction to the world of finance trading. What's that like as an environment? What's the. How did that prepare you for the world of treasury, if you like?

Well, it gave me the market knowledge and market expertise that I so sought after in the corporate world. With larger corporates and larger balance sheet, they eventually have to start managing their financial risks. So I took the knowledge and my expertise from the markets and I. Yeah, that's how I got into corporate treasury instead.

And then you moved into spa banking. If you can explain who spa banking were, that was a fresh start or fresh role. They didn't have a Treasury. What was that like for you, setting up a Treasury at Spa bank? And who are they?

Yeah, so Spar banking is a small independent savings bank in the south of Sweden. When I joined, it wasn't really a. Like a structured treasury function in place. The processes were there, but there were scattered on other functions and roles in the bank.

And how did you. Then when you go in there, you've got a blank sheet of paper you're in. But you're in a bank, there's a regulated in.

Yeah.

What was that like and what frameworks did you have to put in place?

Well, I started by mapping out where the risks were, like liquidity, rate, risk, funding. And from there I had to build the basics, cash flow forecasting, get risk policies in place, get the routines for managing the daily liquidity and the funding. And then it was also like more of a background work where you set up proper governance and reporting and so just making sure that all the decisions were transparent and supported and properly documented. Very hands on. Yeah, very hands on, but. And also so rewarding to just watch it all blend together.

And you've gone from. So you've gone from trading and market risk per se and then you become more of a controller of that risk, being the treasurer and everything else. Someone is listening today and they're thinking they might get offered a role in a bank. Do you think it's a good place to be? Did that really help you? You've done the trading bit, that was great. The front office then you've done more of the middle office type function by actually leading the treasury there. Is that a good place to be, do you think that really helps you as a Treasury professional?

Yeah, absolutely. It also depends on what you want to do. You want to be like staring at the screens, being a trader, following the market, then do it.

So then you'd, you worked in the bank and then you thought, right, it's time for a corporate treasury role. Elco Wire. I know that you. We had this great bit when you got to Elco Wire and what the forge was like and things. Can you talk us through the transition and getting into corporate Treasury?

Yeah, well, I meant just to round off the Spar Banken in years. Like the big task at Sparbanken was that they had a mortgage book with an external partner which had to be moved to a new partner. So what we did was that we took on the mortgage book partly on our own books. We had to fix the bridge financing for this transition and then eventually moved the mortgage book to a new partner.

Right.

And this was the main task during my years there. Once we had done that like mortgage book transition, that's when I felt like my work here is done.

Yeah, Time for a change.

Time for a change. Exactly. And that's when Elci Wire popped up on my radar. And what was most intriguing there was that, well, yeah, one build a Treasury function from scratch again. But I also really liked that they were a big player in the copper market. So that was a chance for me to learn commodities, physical commodities.

You'd done financial markets all the time. You've done finance. Finance and banking. Treasury. So you joined Elkoway as the treasurer. But that was the shift, if you like from banking to corporate Treasury. What's been that, how's that felt? How is that different if you like and how have you partnered with the business?

Yeah, so corporate treasury is. It's different and it's not. But your perspective widens, you're still managing risk. I mean that's, I'd say that's the main task of a treasurer but now it's just so more, much more embedded in the whole companies in the operations and the strategy. You really need to move from this like short term perspective and a short term performance to get the structure in place to have a longer term impact.

Yeah.

Because you're moving from that trader to protector, aren't you? And that you're looking after the business and then partnering with the business.

Exactly, yeah.

And then I know you gave me this sort of great example of Alco wire as a business itself. You talk about there's copper and everything else. You went to the forge. What's the operational side of Elco wire? What's it? It's a bit different. You walk into a trading room, it's like that. Slightly different. What's that like?

It is. I mean, this is one of the things I really like. So it's heavy industry, but it's also like modern and we're working very hard on sustainability, making carbon free copper, for example. And it's pretty cool because the whole entire value chain is visible when I go, when I take the car to work in the morning, I can see the vessels docked outside the port and I know they have X tons of copper on board, or hopefully they do. And we have like literally a burning furnace with the copper being loaded. And then on the other side of it you get this really high performance. Wires, power rail networks and wind power plants, subsea cables and everything. It's. Yeah, it's quite different from being in.

A bank trading room. Is treasury, if you like, sometimes misunderstood by the business? Do you think it's, do you think it needs to change how it partners with the business and things? I know that in the past, on a recent podcast I had, one of my guests was treasury went off into the corner, was the specialist area and now it really partners with the business, comes back in the mainstream. How do you do that? Or do you think it's been misunderstood?

The best way to add value for a Treasury is to be in the middle of strategic planning, not just reacting to whatever crisis pops up and doing the daily firefighting. We need to be as a Treasury, you need to be like a proactive communicator in that perspective.

And I know that you talked about making treasury really relevant, haven't you getting the where organizations, where treasury is not really front of mind. How do you push treasury to the forefront? How do you make it relevant, if you like, without annoying people or forcing it?

Yeah, well, you need to meet people where they are. You need to start understanding their priorities. It doesn't matter if they're like sales or operations or procurement or supply chain or whatever. And then show how treasury can support them and how you can add value to them. Just as an example, explaining how the FX risk is going to impact what they do and the importance of really capturing it.

And how do you do that with the business? Are you just giving them the numbers, really showing them or when you're talking to fx. I know that I've spoken to some Treasuries and they do like a corporate treasury 101 and they go around and they give explanations of Treasury. Is that what you guys do? How have you done it?

I haven't done that, but that's actually a good idea. I tried to be like a regular speaking partner, but many of the stakeholders have just put in a regular weekly meeting. The risk is obviously that it's going to be something that you. It's done just for the sake of it. I mean, the whole point is to absolutely, yeah. Add value.

In your previous role at Spa bank and you covered everything from risk to investor relations in this role. In your current role, I know you've got lots of different priorities and lots of different hats you've got to wear. How do you make that work?

It's that cost unbalancing between the daily firefighting and having your eyes on long term, long term goals and the structure. Just cliche. But you need to focus on what moves the needle.

Yeah.

But then again you have a. Somebody's yelling somewhere because there's a crisis. You need to deal with that at the same time.

Yeah. As you say. I know that again, you talked about how you're quite strategic with your time as well. How do you do that sort of thing?

I tried to be just. I'm one of those annoying guys that sort of block my calendar for. To not get interrupted. Right. But it's. I mean, it's the only way to get that time.

Yeah.

It's. I mean, I can't just sit around waiting for emails to drop in and for my phone to call and then. And just solve other people's problems. Yeah.

You've got to do strategic planning as well. Exactly. As you say, deep thought, something. And I know that we've also talked. How does treasury improve moving forward? What do you think treasury needs to do? Better sort of thing. You've been there and I go to conferences and things like that, but. And we talk about this. How does treasury get better over the years sort of thing and get improved.

I think a big challenge is getting away from this. I call it the firefighting, the reactiveness and then trying to be more, more proactive. You need strict frameworks for what to do when things happen and that goes hand in hand with like a scenario analysis.

Yeah.

If A happens, what do we do? If B happens, what do we do? I mean, if you have, if you have this, the framework and the structure in place, then there's no need to panic and get stressed, you just follow your framework and then you're fine, you don't even have to, you don't even have to ask questions, you just do what you're supposed to do.

And I talked to a global treasurer yesterday and you mentioned it before about being a good storyteller to the business and to explain things not just with investor relations, external, but also that helps you with your influencing. Didn't you? You and I talked about that.

Yeah. Now it's like I mentioned before, be close to your stakeholders.

Yeah.

It could be formal meetings or it could just be dropping in their office, exchanging a few words, see what's going on, what's the latest being being present.

And obviously there's a company, corporate, you're a commodity, you're linked to commodities. So you're a big part and you're a part of it, a key part of the supply chain. There are tariffs, there are political tensions, there are things happening. How are you planning for the risks that are coming along in that world? Because obviously every day is different, unpredictable and things like that. What, how do you plan from it?

Yeah, that was actually something that surprised me when I started at an like this physical commodity market like from a coming from a fixed income world. These methods market, they are incredibly illiquid and fickle. Yeah, but that's again you come into this scenario planning, let's put it, that's at least that's how high how I manage. Yeah, these challenges and you're looking at clear mandates and follow the framework. It's really more or very much like hands on. Yeah, it's not a theoretical framework, it's just if a happens we do that. And yeah, like I said before.

Yeah and you're saying about commodities there. So hedging is a big thing for you and for you as a company and you've done the trading side of the balance sheet and now you're hedging. If you like seeing on the corporate side of the fence. How does that work for you guys and how has it changed?

Yeah, that's a big difference from my previous role as a trader. Now everything I do is about risk mitigation. The risk is, I mean the challenge is to define and capture the risk once, once you are aware of what it is, it's all about just reducing it. Yeah, we're not expected to run any FX risk or upper risk or any kind of risk. That's not where we are expected to make any money.

Obviously technology and systems. And I know that you're in the middle of an SAP project at the moment. You know, what are the challenges? Does that throw up sort of thing? What are the things that you've identified as a treasurer?

Yeah, it's. That's quite an interesting challenge. You realize that your systems are only as, as good as the data going in, garbage in, garbage out.

Yeah.

So we're working on aligning our processes and how we work with our ERP throughout the system.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, for me in my role, I try to automate as much as I can to free up.

Time and we're not that far off the end of the show sort of thing. But I just think for you, you're a Treasury leader, you understand the risks. You've understood it from the banking side and now the corporate side. How do you, as a leader, when you're understanding the risks, how do you share that around sort of thing?

Yeah, I think that goes back to what we talked about before, but trying to influence things not rather than just being in like an authoritarian.

So it's more sell. So it's sell. Not tell. You're not trying to write. This is where you're doing it.

Yeah, that's a good way of expressing it. Yeah.

And then, so, as I say, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and looking back over yourself sort of thing. You've been a number of years in treasury as well, both banking. What advice would you give to yourself or to the listeners today sort of thing.

I think, I mean, people can do this differently. But as I think made it clear by now, I think it's good to build the relationships. You don't win in treasury by like always being the. Or trying to be the smartest guy in the room. It's about being trusted and being involved, getting involved in time. That's a. I think that's a good way of doing or doing, you know, being a treasurer and in general, I think you just need to, you need to like what you're doing, stay curious.

Yeah.

Don't get comfortable and don't get caught up with like small technicals. Keep your eye on long, longer term goals.

Yeah, brilliant. Well, as I say, thank you very much. So we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes and I'm looking forward to seeing you when you're next over in London. Be lovely to see you.

Yeah, looking forward to that.

Great stuff.

Thank you, Mike.

Thanks, everyone.

Pleasure talking to you and you.

Hope you enjoyed this week's episode just as much as I did recording it. Now, don't forget to subscribe on your usual platform with that Spotify Apple podcast wherever you listen to your podcast so you never miss a future episode. Want to stay ahead in Treasury? Fantastic. Sign up for our newsletter. There's a link in the show Notes. You'll get instant access to my Pay Review Action plan for you treasury professionals. Free guide to help you prepare for salary negotiations. Maximize your salary at your next pay review. You'll also get early access to our 2025 Treasury Salary Trends White Paper. And if you take part in our salary survey and as well@treasurysalary.com we can send you our January review of salaries as well. And by signing up to the newsletter, you'll get access to our cv, resume templates, career tips what could be better? It's amazing.

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