Variety in Treasury Careers with Richard Luke

Foreign 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 built their careers, where they are now and where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next this week's show. Delighted to be joined by Richard Luke, the treasurer at Spirit Energy. Now, Spirit Energy are one of Europe's top independent exploration production companies. As always. I'll get Richard to explain a bit more, but they're oil and gas within Europe. 40. We're coming off 46 million barrels of oil. We can explain it or you can explain it. 33 fields, loads of different things. Combination through Centrica and another business partner, Bayern Gas and stuff. I'll get Richard to explain that again. We had a bit of a chat before the show and we've exchanged some things. He sent me some notes the other day when he was watching the football, which was great. Really nice that he thinking about it this much. But I think it's fantastic you get someone like Richard on the show. We're going to talk about the variety you've had in your treasury career, Mr. Luke, but as we do every week and we'll get to other things about treasury and stuff, let's start off by taking you back to the dim, distant past and you brush off your brain cells post university. Although you did do a banking finance degree, so that was a good start on how you discovered the wonderful world of Treasury. So, sir, over to you.

Well, firstly, thanks, Mike, for inviting me on the podcast. This is something new for me, casting my mind back. Yes. So I did do a banking and finance degree at Loughborough and that gave me the opportunity, within the degree for a year out, a placement year, and I think I'd recommend that to a lot of students. Really helped me refine my thoughts about where I wanted to go into finance. A lot of the people on the degree wanted to do investment banking. I think I was the same as that at the time. That's where the money was in London. Come on. Yeah, So I looked at treasury, so there was a year out opportunity at Tarmac in Wolverhampton in the Treasury Department. And that was my first kind of experience and knowledge about Treasury. I mean, even though I did a banking and finance degree, treasury wasn't mentioned. Corporate treasury wasn't mentioned. So that was my first foray and that was ideal. The year out gave me great experience. It was ideal. They even paid as well, which helped me in my final year at university. So that was great. And I went straight into it into the treasury dealing, treasury analyst role, got involved in FX cash management, interest rates and even kind of learned about the treasury qualifications. So I didn't have accounting qualifications as such, but treasury really interested me. The practicalities of treasury, just for the.

Again, for the listeners, you say Tarmac and it was a place for you. But what does Tarmac do as a company?

So Tarmac, as in the Rhodes, I guess initially they invented Tarmac and they were a heavy building materials company. They were a FTSE 250 at the time. And what happened with those guys is that as soon as I graduated I was very fortunate that they were in the process of demerging. So when you demerge, naturally you need two treasury teams and Carillion was part of the demerger. So that demerged and Tarmac was left at the end of it. And literally the week that I graduated, Mike, I got a call from the treasurer of the new treasurer of Tarmac saying we've demerged, we're looking for a Treasury analyst. Do you fancy the job? And that was again very fortunate for me and set me on the road to Treasury.

And when you went in and that that new role, newish spun out company, was it one of those where you're allowed to have separate new systems or did you inherit the old ones? Or what was the sort of. You got in there fresh faced as much as you could do post uni, you know, what was it?

It was pretty basic stuff, Mike, at that stage, it was 25 years ago, I guess when I started. So at that stage it was spreadsheet based. Lots of the stuff was pretty manual, didn't have a TMS from what I can recall in my memory. So it was, yes, spreadsheets, a lot of analysis, kind of essentially putting me at the forefront. So I was dealing with the bank straight away from day one, which again was a kind of a function of the fact I'd had a year out, they knew me, they trusted me, I could get on with stuff without being kind of overseen to a large extent. So yeah, that was that and it didn't eventually, unfortunately, a theme of my career, Mike, and I think a lot of treasury careers, is that treasury is the first thing to disappear when a company gets taken over. So there's a lot of demergers and mergers and treasury is the new company wants to take over the cash, wants to take over the debt and the risk management. That's kind of at the forefront of their mind when they're coming in following the demerger. There was a merger. So six months down the line, or a year down the line it might have been. Tarmac was small enough to be snapped up by someone else. So I, at that stage realized there was limited future because of what I said. Treasury is first to go at Tarmac. And I looked elsewhere and that's where I found the role at Vodafone. So I moved from the Midlands down to down south on my own and, yeah, moved to the first role in cash management of Vodafone. So that was a great career move for myself. You know, I got exposed ultimately, over the five or six years I was there, to all the elements, all the sub teams at Vodafone, I mean, because they were a big team even then. It was a big company even then. Yeah, they bought Mannersman just, I think, the week before I started. They have sub teams. I don't know if that's the case at the moment, but they have a cash management team, they have a subsidiary financing intercompany team and they have a capital markets team. And I was really fortunate to move across the team. So I got straight away, variety in my career for those five years. I had the variety of the cash management on sitting on the front office desk, managing the cash, managing the fx. Then I moved to intercompany, I had the exposure to that and then I moved to capital markets, which, again, was a completely different area that I hadn't been exposed to before. And again, broaden my horizons, gave me variety, which I've been following, fortunate to have throughout my career.

And you made that move from a FTSE 250. And again we'd, you know, Richard has gave me some great briefing notes and, you know, so for future guests, please feel free to give me briefing notes because it's really good. It means I'm going to dig into detail quite quickly. But you'd gone from tarmac, FTSE 250 to Vodafone, I think of that. They were FTSE 5, you know.

Yeah, they were probably the largest company in the world at that stage. Yeah, it was mental.

We used to deal with them and stuff like that, but. And so you did that and then you made a couple of moves and, you know, keen to sort of explore all those, because. What's the word? So you had a mix of different industries, so you had building materials through Telco and then energy and stuff. Give us a quick whistle stop of some of the other moves you made.

The benefit of Treasury, I think, is that you can apply to different sectors. It's not so industry specific. So you can get experience in different sectors and like you say telcos, pharmaceuticals for a long time. I'll come on to that. Some of the heavy industries, heavy building materials and now energy sector. And it doesn't really matter to an extent. There are specifics in some of these industries, you know, specific financing arrangements. You can get where I am now and in different industries. But generally, you know, as long as you understand the supply chain of the company, you are, you could kind of. You can adapt. You get it as you go.

Yeah.

So yes, I went from Telco to British plasterboard in Slough. Unfortunately with the theme of my career they got taken over by a French company. So that was very short lived but it was a great, great team. I went from obviously Vodafone which is kind of set of sub teams to British Festival which was. There was three of us at the time. There you go, treasury, this is you. You're now responsible for the whole thing or not me directly, but within the team we were responsible for the whole thing. And plasterboard was completely different. You know, I got, I mean commodities, we didn't necessarily have commodity trading at Vodafone but I learned that to make plasterboard you need to crush gypsum.

Yeah.

And to crush gypsum you need a lot of gas. Gas was one of the commodities they were exposed to and so they did gas hedging and so I took a bit of an interest in that. And also when we were taken over by the French company, there was the implication that we had to unwind a lot of the things we've done over the. Well, the company had done over the last ten years or so. And that's a new, another kind of variation in my career that I've been in companies that buy companies and I've been in companies that are being sold.

Yeah.

Now where we're being sold, it was a bit demotivational. When you've kind of built up a interest rate swap portfolio like six months before and then you told okay, anymore you're gonna. Luckily it was in the money, but obviously that was just fortunate. But I had to mine the whole thing that I put in place when I got into the company, when I started that company. So that was a bit of a shame. But another learning, you know, you learn how to win wine swaps when you, when previously you'd only learn to put swaps on, you know, it's all different stuff. So moving from there, BG I was there for. I had to find another job For a while. So I did a temporary role at bg which was great. Again, exposure to back office function. So I hadn't really been involved in back office until that point.

What was it like running the back office there? Sort of, you know, a lot of people go, oh, back office or not so sure. And controls.

Oh yeah, well, it is a lot more control driven naturally, that I've had controls previously. But yeah, it was a lot more in the banking system set up, you know, linking the systems to the Internet portals, the banking portals and so on, and making sure there's no errors, error checking, bit more diligence and so on on the audit side. So that was something different. Again, I don't think. It obviously naturally wasn't my career going forward, but it was another interesting area that I think fitted well and probably benefited going forward, where I ended up that had that kind of diligence in the background that I needed at that role.

And then you. So you'd have building materials, telco, a bit of energy and then pharma.

Yeah, so that's it.

How did that contrast, you know, with. You've got, as you say, you just talked there about some of the commodities which drives a business and again, people listening, some of them will be working for a building services company and then you're suddenly farmers. Totally different in treasury or similar or just different drivers.

Different drivers, absolutely. And I guess Shire was an individual company at the time in that. I mean it was big to start with. I was fortunate to get the role there. It was big to start with and just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger by acquisitions which were essentially used the leverage of their cash flow from a product they bought years and years beforehand and they leveraged on that and that and essentially bought a company every two years on average, I think. And they were not small companies, it was billion dollar companies every time. And the two companies they bought, one company every two years wasn't the only company they were looking at. They were looking at five or six to get to that one that ultimately paid dividend and they followed. So it was constantly active on the acquisition trail. And acquisition are quite good fun for Treasury. I think everyone probably knows in the treasury world in that you get involved in probably the merger agreement up front, then the financing, the bridge financing potentially then the taking out the bridge financing, the hedging, interest rate stuff, the FX exposures. So it's completely all encompassing an acquisition itself. And even following the acquisition, there's the natural merger of their teams into your team and systems into your Team and processes into your team. So it's a full and all encompassing time I spent at Shire and yeah, very valuable. And again, major focus on financing ultimately and various projects. I mean, ultimately my role was head of treasury funding and projects and the projects. Word was just because I couldn't think or myself and my boss couldn't think of a better name really. It was just seems to, yeah, we thought of that probably. I was like funding and other stuff, but it was anything that could be captured by treasury, essentially. So stuff like share buybacks, we did the acquisition funding, we did credit card tenders, cash management tenders within all of.

Those, and particularly say the external financing and funding and things like that. What's your sort of checklist? I know you'll work this out with the treasurer and everything else. You look at someone else or is there a specific routine you tend to follow and say, right, these are the things we're going to get right, let's get the cash right. And as you say, you were obviously acquiring some of the companies, so that would be driven by the acquisition. But what I'm saying is, from your position, did you have. Right, today we've got to focus on this, this, you know, next week we're going to focus on this, next month we've got to do this. Or how did you approach that from your level of role? Again, this is for, you know, advice for people out there in the world.

It was difficult to plan, to be honest, because there was so many things in the pot at the same time and you weren't controlling the timeline. You know, the BD team are controlling the timeline, so you just need to try and get a hold of the timeline and get a plan. So a lot of my role was planning kind of, you know, building up a project plan, allocating time and people and, you know, other teams to it. And then, you know, every week I'd throw away the plan, say, okay, I need to change the plan to this, and this is what we need to focus on. So it was, yeah, it was really, really varied and yeah, really stretch the kind of, you know, the mental and the kind of, I guess the thought processes and to make sure that you didn't drop the ball anyway, because that would be the worst scenario. But yeah, we never dropped a ball and everything went through fine. And ultimately we made a $32 billion acquisition and financed that with the biggest bond issued by UK corporate at the time, a $12 billion bond, which we won, prize it, we won the deal of the year at the act. And my team got commended as well in the Corporate Finance Award. So that's where we ultimately ended up. I guess the lesson that I learned through that was you need to be pragmatic and just adapt, I think is the main thing. And just be on your toes at all times, I think is what I would say.

And when you say be, what do you mean by that sort of say, being pragmatic. And again, you know, how do you define that in your role as assistant treasurer? Is it just that you come in one day and you might be throwing a curveball and everything else and not. Not getting worried about it, or is it just. It is what it is, we might get bought tomorrow. So you just got to deal with it.

So I think you learn, I think it's a learning process that you get that how you adapt and how you deal with third parties interrupting the process. You know, it's going to be banks or it's going to be lawyers primarily. They've got different objectives to your objectives. You just need to try and meet somewhere in the middle. And if they throw a curveball, you just need to be ready and kind of think about different options. What can we do in this scenario? What are the options? And work out how you can position yourself or the company. And the best way that we can be, you know, adapt to this situation because you're not in control, it is out of your control. But you can prepare and put yourself as in your career, you can. You can't really control your career to a large extent, but you can put yourself in the best position you can get. You can study and get the qualifications you can give yourself, look at people and take traits from people that you that you think are really strong and kind of just yourself. But in the end there is a lot of fortune involved. All you can do is. It's the best, I think for yourself and the company.

I mean, you very fortunate mentioned study. Actually. I was going to dive into that actually with you more to do with also your treasury team around you. You're very pro study. I know. Because what's driving that for yourself? And also we then very much sort of encouraging other people to do it in the team. And if so, why do you think that's such an important thing?

So I'd study, I'd capture with the ACT exams, which I think have been really practical, really useful for my career and that's just the basis and Fundamentals is a study which gives you the opportunity to lear and to develop secondary to the study. So I definitely recommend the ACT Exams and the mct, fct, whatever they're called now, I definitely recommend going through that process as just as interest, I mean, if nothing else, and it does give you kind of an understanding of the financial markets, how the world works, I think. And if you don't agree with it, you can adapt your view as well as necessary. Some of the things you can challenge in the mct. And I remember doing that a number of times. And that's the benefit of it, I think. The treasury exams, I think, are really valuable.

Yeah, I would say exactly who it is because the story will explain why. But I know that one of my friends, clients who I've placed and everything else, he got his mct, got a prize winner actually the past few years and so did really well and everything else. And he. I know that he dedicated a lot of his time to actually doing it, even though he's got young family and did all this, got through it, did it, put it. And he said on the sort of the Monday or whatever, he said, finish. And he put everything up on the shelf and he was starting the role that I placed him in on the Thursday and he thought, oh, that's good, you know, put those and gather a bit of dust for a couple of years that's, you know, really got squared away. And then on the Friday, the new company I placed him with, they had to issue a profits warning and he literally just went back into his study and got the book back off. He went, right, what do we do now? And you know, not that he couldn't do it, but it was more right, what are the things I need to look out for? What's the checklist sort of thing. And what might I've forgotten about this ratio and da, da, da. And he was like, I didn't realize I was going to, you know, start doing it like within five days we saw, right, we still drink together, so we're still friends. But did you find it sort of prepared you in, you know, for some of the curveballs as well?

Yeah, no, I think so. I mean, it was a long time ago.

Like I said, I started way back.

When I was at Tarmac.

I think I passed it in the early 2000.

So it was time ago.

Yeah, absolutely. It does trigger things in your mind and even the website and stuff, the treasurer's website, just some of those things on there do help you trigger. Trigger thoughts in your mind and link things together. So, yeah, I think that that's a really good resource there.

You were Shire again, so Shire Pharmaceuticals to there till A couple of years ago, then perhaps just again for the listeners, I explained a bit at the top of the show, but where you are now and a bit more about your current role and the differences there.

Shire was one of the companies that.

Well, I think the day one, when.

I started at Shire, well, 15 years ago, whenever it was, there was rumors.

They were going to be acquired. Mike, I was like, oh, my God, I'm rocking a hot, you know, fryer.

What is it? Frying pan into the fire and stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

And that, you know, we weren't taken over on day one, we were taking.

Over in year 13. So somehow or other it took 13 years for the company to be taken over, but they were taken over by a Japanese company a couple of years ago.

And within that kind of.

It became clear that probably just before that, that the treasury team, they wanted to move to Ireland and I wasn't really up for moving to Ireland with a young family. So I said, thank you very much, I've done my time, I'll leave you to it. And left Shire then to look elsewhere. That stage, the natural progression for me was head of Treasury Group treasurer role and this role at Spirit came up when I was at Shire. But yeah, so I applied for the role there and like you mentioned, it's essentially a merger of Centrica's EMP business with Bayern Gas Company, and that was in 2017. And we kind of merged those two companies. And the thinking at the time when I got the role was potentially ipo, potentially sale, didn't know what was going to happen. So I was brought in, I think, with the view to get involved in the financing of the ipo that kind.

Of fell away a bit with gas prices.

Gas prices fell considerably and oil prices fell considerably. And I guess the thought of selling a company or, sorry, ipoing the company, I guess wasn't a good idea at that point in time. So Centrica and the other shareholders held off and they've held off for the last couple of years while I've been there. That's given me the opportunity, rather than the financing, to move on to other things, to build the team, to build the people, processes and system, looking after the fx, cash management, everything.

Treasury.

And over the last couple of years was probably not quite two years, but.

More or less two years.

We've implemented a Treasury system, we've really streamlined the processes, we've got proper qualified team in place, really good people, really strong team, really happy with that. Again, very fortunate somewhere along the line, but we've implemented a tms which has meant we can cope with the fact that we are fewer people doing more stuff.

And what's that been like sort of bringing in throughout the weirdest year of our lives really.

So we started, we started in January, more or less implementing.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

Anticipated all this, obviously.

Of course we did, we all did.

And so in whenever it was, we.

Would just started and essentially we hadn't really got to grips with the treasury system until lockdown really. And I thought, oh no, is this going to work, this implementing a Treasury system from scratch during lockdown.

But in the end it has.

I mean there's benefits to the fact.

That we are all at home. You don't necessarily need face to face interaction when you're implementing a TMS as long as you've got teams. I mean that's been a godsend for us to get it working, but didn't need face to face, literally people to people interaction. No time wasting getting to the office. It saved me a couple of hours every day. We can share screens easily, share some of the things it does easily. And some of the teachings from the provider via teams have worked quite well, I think. So we've managed to do it. We've started in, like I say, February, March and now we are using fully this automated treasury system that automates our FX deals. It means we're more robust, we've got controls that we didn't have before, less spreadsheets that we had before. It's very spreadsheet. But going back to my time at Tarmac, it was very similar to that, very spreadsheet centric and in my eyes, very risky to base your whole treasury accounting and dealing on spreadsheets is not the way to go. So that was the first thing I recommended when I came in that we get a TMS so quickly, got the budget quickly, got a tender in place and decided on the provider and we're now up and running and it's working very well and giving us a bit of breathing space that we didn't, we wouldn't otherwise have had. So it's great.

And what's that been like literally team wise, you know, how have you. We were always on an ACT panel recently and someone said, you know, how had I seen it change? And one person had mentioned before, which I didn't, I don't think it was actually as valid as they said. They were like, well everybody's Zoom window or Microsoft Teams window is exactly the same size so they have as much face time with the treasurer as their deputy treasurer. Well, that's not actually the case because, you know, you're not having the same conversations, they're different conversations because you have different levels of experience and different questions to ask. So I said, actually, it's less of that. I think there is a greater openness and lots more communication, which is great. But one of the other things is more junior staff. They're looking for advice and they're looking right. There's no one there, looking left. There's no one there because they're working from home. How have you handled that? Or, you know, how have you focused on the sort of the people management aspect versus process or the technically stronger, you know, how have you sort of, you know, focused on that yourself as the treasurer?

Yeah, I think the team need to be comfortable. They can get access to you at all times, I think, one way or the other. And the chat on teams has been quite good. Richard, can you give me a call or I need to speak to you straight away. I can recognize I need to have a chat. So that works well. I think it's good to have. We have a team catch up every week with my team and then a broader one with a corporate finance team, which I think keeps you sane that you're not just sitting in the front computer all day, every day on your own. Got some other people that some of the people are in the same predicament, I guess, is what you learn. So it does keep you sane. Having that regular interaction. You need to get out as well. I think it's recommended get outside. I don't know what it's going to be like with the weather through the winter, but yeah, you need a kind of a refresher. You can't be sitting at your desk all day on zoom meeting or team meetings and stuff. You need to have a break and get some human interaction, I think. But yeah, I think teams work quite well. I mean, I'm used to working from home anyway. I did it a lot in my recent past and doing five days a week wasn't a big stretch for me. Some of the team has found it a bit more difficult. But I mean, generally the consensus I think, is that the treasury, it works quite well. I mean, I can't really imagine nowadays why you would need a Treasury in the center of London and require people to come in every day or even hardly at all. I think there was a big benefit for treasury teams moving out of London. At Shire, we were in Basingstoke. I mean, we got some great people in Basingstoke, a really strong team I think that was a function of the fact we weren't in the centre of London. We didn't have to keep moving, moving people around. People weren't leaving and then new people arriving. We had a steady, really strong people, the best treasury people that were in the local area. And I think that should be a thing that treasury team should think of. More flexibility in location. Cheaper. It's cheaper out here, Mike.

Yeah, just going. So going back into the people aspect there, did you find there was less, also less competition? You talked to there about maybe less competition to take people away. If you're in London there's. There's five other Treasuries looking for someone of similar. But in Basingstoke there's not. Is that right?

That's pretty much it. We got stability for that reason and I suppose we were in the fortunate position. We were a large corporate, growing corporate with a really varied treasury team and I think a lot of people were interested in working at Shire, so we probably got the best that you can get in the Hampshire and Berkshire area potentially. So I guess maybe not the same for a smaller treasury, but still there are a lot of skilled people on the M4 core corridor or south and stuff that don't necessarily want to commute into London. That work well for us and I know it's closest to the banks, I guess is the argument, but the banks are. A lot of them are working from home as well now, so you're not going to meet them. So yeah, I think something for, I think treasury is to think about and.

Just not the sort of banking aspect but more looking at perhaps the future then and the future development from there. How do you see it developing? We're talking maybe treasury systems or the different things Again, I sometimes talk to the cfo, sort of pushing the treasure under the bus, but more the treasure out front of things to sort of say, look, can you look at this blockchain thing? Can you look at this different idea? What are the things that you're seeing that, you know, Treasuries are having to deal with? Maybe they didn't before, but this is the advice of people listening. Guys, listen to this. Don't do this or listen to this. This is something we're thinking about, you know, what are you thinking?

Well, I guess the couple of recent things I've been thinking about is, well, negative interest rates, I think is. Has come to the fore in our world where we have surplus cash to deposit. I don't think shareholders or directors really want to be sitting on cash that's getting rid of their shareholder returns and making their balance sheets reduce in value. It's not efficient to sit on cash anymore. Borrowing is going to be cheap. So what are people going to do? Are they going to spend the money on capex? Are they comfortable enough to get rid of the cash, their security blanket that they had before, even though it's costly to help hold cash? There's a bit of a thinking around that, I think. And the other thing from, I guess from a specific to Spirit energy, so carbon trading, carbon credits, I mean, with the environmental changes and so on in the world at the moment, I think if you want to be carbon neutral, you might have to pay for it. If carbon credits are going to take off, the market for them is going to take off. You might need to work out your situation in regards to hedging yourself. That's another thing that we're doing is coming to the fore, I think, in our thinking at Spirit and just don't.

Know if this is the right question, but where is that stuff coming from? What I mean by that is carbon credits is coming at you. As you say, you brought in the treasury management system. Do you think it's just the evolution of treasury and that it's becoming more closer to finance or is it just much more that this is the next evolution of treasury sort of thing?

Yeah, you're probably right, is that we're a risk management, obviously resource, treasury, and it's anticipating what the risks are going to be. I think you have to look at the world around you and see where it's going and that's, I think, what you need to do. Constantly look at where the rest of your company are and whether you're in the right place or not, you know, whether you should manage them, whether it's costly to manage them, whether the senior directors are, you know, comfortable with taking the risk, the board are comfortable with taking the risk. So, yeah, you do need to have a handle on. You're never going to anticipate everything, are you? I suspect we wouldn't anticipate a global pandemic, would we? So, you know, hopefully there's nothing like that, but, you know, there is. You know, you can't anticipate everything. You just need to kind of take a educated guess, I guess.

Yeah, I've talked about it before and there was this sort of ship analogy. You know, the key thing I saw that treasurers were doing a lot of the time was, you know, having the telescope, having the binoculars, looking to the future whilst, you know, the Captain might be the CFO just, just sailing the ship and just making sure it just keeps going. But this, oh, by the way boss, this is what's coming down the line sort of thing. And these are the things. But exactly as you say, there's going to be unexpected things, but it's a way of treasury proving its value as well as much as anything. Being that active risk managers as well sort of thing.

Yeah, for ourselves I guess as a oil and gas company, you need to work out what gas prices and oil prices are going to do, whether that's going to have an impact. I mean we've got. But we're just focusing Spirit Energy on Northern Europe. We operating and operated assets in UK, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark, essentially those 33 producing fields you mentioned. So we are kind of dependent on the oil prices and gas prices and the production that can be maintained from these licenses we have in these territories. That is essentially our remit as a company.

That's your driver and things and just going, you know, not coming back but just looking at team wise. You said you slimmed down and stuff like that. But you've managed a number of different teams of people and I know you and I have spoken about different things. You know, we'll go into your, you know, career advice and you know, the wrap up in a minute about, you know, we put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. But before we do that, I was just going to ask you when you're managing coaching teams and things like that again for the listeners, what's your sort of, of your checklist but what do you try and do? And obviously there's, you know, you talked about propensity to study. You'd studied. You say to guys, it sounds like guys, get some study under your belt. That's a really good thing to do. Or what are the other things when you're managing coaching teams that you try and instill in them? Again, for the listeners, this, you know, people are trying to take advice from this and they'll, you know, you used to have a commute to work, they don't have a commute to work anymore. But hopefully people are still listening. We've still got good numbers. What are you telling people to do? What's your coaching methodology for that?

That.

So I'm personally not a great one for a specific mentor, but I think there is some value in recognizing traits of people you respect and drawing them on them. I think that's quite important. So it might be four or five different people recognizing the valuable traits and Applying them to yourself, I think that's, that's something to consider and also make sure you're fortunate. So essentially I don't know how you do that exactly, but you know, you do need to kind of get your position yourself correctly. But in the end there's a lot of fortune in the game being in the right place at the right time. And I think when I recruit it's getting people on the same wavelength as you. You know, you can have a variety of different people with different perspectives, different skills, different backgrounds completely. But you need to have some way to communicate with them and some kind of wavelength that you can both recognize. That's, I think the main thing. I think that is undervalued when people recruit. I think a lot of companies look at testing psychometric tests and doing the days and whatever they do, monitoring people over a day and how they react to different situations, that's all great but in the end you want someone who's smart, who knows what they're doing, qualified and can communicate. And that's the wavelength thing. If you get someone the same wavelength, it's so much more valuable for the short term, medium and long term than any of the other things you can recognize a psychometric test. That's, that's probably what I would say.

Would that be your wrap up advice today? Anything else? I mean you, we talked about studying. As I say, we're in the show notes, we'll put your LinkedIn profile so people can connect to you. If, and again you can reject them. If they're not in treasury and you don't want them, it's fine. But if, you know, if you do, and the thing is that. But what sort of wrap up notes would you give to people listening today? Because it'd be great to rattle through a lot of that. But what are you, what are you telling people?

Well, I think people who listen to this probably know that treasury isn't boring. Yeah, there's a lot of variety available in Treasury. No different size of team, size of companies, industries. You've got levels of seniority, things change, companies merge and demerge and take the opportunities when, when you can take them. I think is probably what I'd say brilliant advice.

Well, Mr. Luke, amazing to have you on the show today. I know we'd.

Hang on, Mike.

Well, pleasure sir, and look forward to. Well, once we are out of this crazy pandemic, maybe doing the odd beer or coffee, you know, not in the same glass obviously, but it'd be great to see you and you know I think a lot of people get a lot of value from today's episode. And, you know, it's all about those snippets as well. So thank you very much for your time, sir.

Been fun. Cheers, Mike.

Thank you, sir.