What it Takes to Have a Successful Treasury Career with Michel Bekkers

You are listening to the Treasury Career Corner, brought to you by the treasury recruitment company. In today's show, you're going to be hearing from Michelle Beckers. Michelle is the former group treasurer for Adidas Worldwide. Today you get to hear from him about why he believes cash is a fact, profit is an interpretation, and that's all about Treasury. He and I talk about why in order to have a successful treasury career, you have to define for yourself what makes you tick and then find it in your role or find a position that really resonates with you as an individual. If you listen more towards the end, you'll hear a little bit more about what he describes about that.

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Also, please remember we recently produced a short Friday podcast. This is where I talk about all of our exciting new plans for the rest of the year. Please have a listen. It's a good one, but as always, that's enough from me. Let's get on with this week's show. Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. 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. In this week's show, I'm joined by Michelle Beckers. Michelle is Belgian by background and he's got a Treasury career journey that's taken him from originally in Belgium across to the US Then back over to Germany and then he returned to the US So he'll talk us through all those different moves. But originally he started his career at the Belgian bank KBC in Brussels, where he first discovered Treasury. So, Michel, if you would talk us through how you discovered and found the world of corporate Treasury.

First of all, Mike, thanks for having me on the podcast. Probably initially I wanted to work for a bank. I ended up working for a bank. Eventually I thought working for a bank was a little bit too specialized because at some point in hours, really working on one specific product in one specific currency. And I was doing other things as well, but that was the main thing I was doing and I wanted to expand my horizon and eventually I joined the corporate treasury because for me, running a corporate treasury or being part of a corporate treasury, you get to do so much more than just dealing in a few instruments. And that's how I got into Treasury.

And how would you heard about treasury at that stage? Was it something, so you were in the bank and then something came knocking or they were a client of yours or how did you hear about it?

Quick question. I worked with treasury people because I was working for the new issue department in the capital markets. And obviously when you work in capital markets, you make proposals. You make those proposals to treasury people. So I was already talking to treasury people and somehow I was asked to join a Treasury team of Dow Chemical because I was talking to Dow Chemical in terms of financial proposals. And I think we had a good relationship, and that's how the step was made. Eventually, I joined the Dow Chemical treasury team in Belgium. They had a coordination center, really meaning that they were coordinating all the trade activities for Europe in Belgium. And that's how I made that step.

Tell us about Dow Chemicals. Why were you attracted to that group or what did you think of them? Because you were there for a number of years, so obviously grew with the company. So.

I did not join Dow Chemical because they're in the plastics and chemicals business. That is perfectly clear. I did not like chemistry very much. However, it's something that I would also advocate to young people as well. It's the culture of a company, I think, is most important. We see what they do is also important. But the culture of the company is very important now. Like, you know, the way they looked at risk management, the way they looked at opportunities. Treasury was very much run as a profit center. I liked that idea at the time. It's not right for everyone, but I liked the way they looked at risk as an opportunity. Not something that should necessarily be reduced at all cost, but it's something that can be optimized. And I like the philosophy, I like the culture. And Dow Chemical, which was as entrepreneurial as it gets, and that attracted me very much also, obviously was an international company with lots of opportunities to have cultural exposures to work with many people in the world. And I truly enjoyed that. And I worked for Dow Chemical in that Belgium coordination center for five years. I'd like to think I did something right because they asked me to go to the global headquarters and I guess my career kept building from there in 95.

And what was the switch like? You know, going from European Belgium, you know, that's, you know, your background and everything else, moving across to the US Quite a culture difference and things.

For me, it probably was not because even as a younger kid, you know, I was spending a lot of time in the United States. My parents or my particularly my father had business connections in the United States. When they told me to learn English, they sent me to the United States to learn English. I still didn't get the American accent. You know, it's something that I always was connected to the United States. And so for me, coming to the United States really didn't feel that different. However, you know, obviously there's a very big cultural difference in particularly when you compare to Germany. Germany is a very rules based society view. It is more of a principles based society. And that probably fits me better a principle based society. So the move to the United States for me almost as a natural move.

And when you say principles, what do you mean by that? What do you mean intrinsically by principles versus rules? The difference?

Well, I have a very simple example. This is a cultural thing, right? If a German is a pedestrian and he needs to cross the street at 2am in the morning and there's a red light and there's no traffic, he will basically wait until he gets a green light across the street. An American says, you know what if it's 2am there's no traffic coming, I think I'll you do a little jaywalking here. And so it's for me the flexibility of the mind. You know, that's very critical. You know, if something doesn't make sense, you know, then maybe it needs to change or something needs to be done about it, you know, that makes it more sensible.

You were very much at the, you know, the head office of Dow Chemicals. What was the sort of culture like there at that time? I'm sure it's, you know, all cultures, big companies that have changed over many years. But what was it like? You were leading financial risk management and you were doing North America and then you became global director. Talk us through those roles and the.

Culture there, the culture at Dow Chemicals, very process driven. Everyone was working on the same systems. I'll give you an example. It was running on SAP, a specific version. The entire company was running on the same system, no exceptions. When an acquisition was made, everyone was forced to work on the same system. So very process driven. Because in the chemical business you just need to be really good at managing processes. So that kind of attitude also was present in finance. You know, we need to be great process managers. We need to manage global processes. When it comes to, for example, bank account management or cash management, it was already in those days unthinkable, you know, that you would have a bank account managed by local managers. So truly everyone needed to be on the same system, the same cash management system, the same forecasting. So there was transparency, there was consistency. That was very important to Dow Chemical to have a great process. Truly a company that was thinking in terms of global processes is because it's more important to manage a good process than waste your time in managing exceptions. And I have seen some companies where they waste a lot of time in managing exceptions or variations to the process that in the case of biochemical experiment, a lot of credit, you know, it's something they were masters at.

Look through your background, one of the things you were talking about particularly was that you, you did this sort of business investments and you're very much involved in that. And look at innovation within commodity risk for the group and stuff. What was that like back then? I know, you know, again, some of the guys listening are talking about the past, you know, five or 10 years. There's been a lot of progress there. But you know, you're talking back sort of 15, 20 years, you know. So how did you guys approach commodity risk management? It sounds like they were managing a very holistic, wider basis. I think from the sounds of it that.

Exactly. I think you're hitting the nail on the head. You said holistic basis. Enterprise wide risk management is something that we've talked about about 15, 20 years already. And it's not the enterprise wide risk management from a compliance perspective where you have a corporate risk map with all the risk owners and so on. We identify the probabilities of something happening. So it's not the compliance issue. But we really thought enterprise right risk management was very critical. You know, from a strategic perspective. If you're in treasury, you manage risks. And those risks are not just, you know, your net foreign exchange transaction. Those risk, you know, they include capital risk, they include funding decisions, they all have strategic risk. And you make decisions in a probabilistic way because they're in uncertain decisions. And so we really wanted to leverage that type of view across the entire corporation. Because in the end, trader is the one that says cash flow is what matters, cash is king. You've heard that before. You hear cash is a fact, profit is an interpretation, that's Treasury. And so preaching that to the rest of the corporation is very important. And it's only logical then that you include risk management into that same conceptual framework. Commodity risk management was not something that was really in pursuit at biochemical. And we figured, well, we manage all these interest rates, foreign exchanges, equity risk, pension, all these risks. But we're not doing anything about commodity risk. And it probably is the biggest risk that we have as a company because we purchasing feedstock and that eventually does become chemicals and plastics. But it's an enormous, enormous exposure. And so we realized that we truly need to do something about our commodity risk management as well. And it's not just in terms of hedging, but also in terms of physical plants. And if you don't mind, I think this is important because it makes the connection to the business. In a chemical process, you crack feedstocks and then you get ethylene, propylene and all those wonderful byproducts. You can crack different feedstocks. But if you have what you call a flexicracker, you can crack bicycle, you can crack propane, you can crack naphtha. And depending on the value of the byproducts and the cost of your feedstock, you can actually change your feedstock mix. But those plants are much more expensive. So for me, that's like an option. It is like a physical option. You have an option to change feedstock and depending on what the outcome is for your derivatives and the value of your derivatives, your byproducts, your ethylene, your propylene and so on. And so that, for me is a logical thing where you say, you know what, let's think about this. Is it worth having a flexicracker which costs, say, 100 million more than just a regular one feedstock cracker? So that's where all that comes into play is what is the value proposition of that type of flexibility and optionality in your physical assets?

And within that role, you headed up a team of 20 and you had, obviously other people report to you across the time. Leadership wise, what was your sort of your management style, would you say?

For me, the most important thing is your employees need to engage. So the engagement thing I think is critical because I don't think if there's a lack of engagement, you can't really get into a certain direction. And so it's always compliance versus engagement. And so for me, the most critical thing was always engagement. How do you get engagement is, you know, by giving people a sense of ownership and is done in many different ways. You know, compensation wise, goal wise, it needs to be consistent. But I think, you know, for me, the most critical part is that really people feel that they own what they are doing. And so engagement to me was the most important things. If you don't have engagement, you're not going anywhere. Obviously, that's not specific to Treasury. That's just something that, that applies to probably every leadership field.

Yeah. Because then you moved on to a heavy leadership role, heavy lifting role, if you like. So you'd made that because you've been Belgium, you gone Midland, Michigan, and then said, oh, I know, let's go, let's go to Germany, you know, how did that come about? What was the. And as we say in Europe and the way we think, the correct way is Adidas, Adi Dash and everything else. But you joined the group. Talk me through that. How did that come about?

That's about that opportunity that we talked about is really going for the opportunity to develop further. And at Dow Chemical, my logical next step was to be the treasurer of the company. I was identified as a candidate, as one of two candidates, actually. The person I stayed at, Dow Chemical now is the trader of Dow Chemical. So good for him. However, that happened after I had been with Dow Chemical for nearly. With Adidas for 10 years later. So at some point, you can't just wait for an opportunity to come your way. The opportunity came up. I was contacted directly by Adidas. They contact me directly and say, hey, we're looking for a new treasurer. Are you interested? I wanted to be the treasurer of a company, preferably Dark Chemical, honestly, because I was really happy in my role. I was enjoying my life and work for Dow Chemical. But the opportunity was something that I just could not let pass. I think I would have had regrets the rest of my life if I had not said, you know, this is something that I want to do. I'm also very much into sporting, into sports. I'm a very active person. Obviously, you know, it's a more interesting and passionate product than chemicals and plastics. And it's just a totally, totally cool company to work for. Adidas, you know, they're in Germany. And as I said, I enjoyed living in Germany and I absolutely loved going to work every single day that I was with Adidas. So that's something that I'm very happy with.

And how did you make the move back in terms of, talk about, on a personal level, you know, you, you taught and that's one of the reasons I explored it. You talked about being principled, led, you know, within your leadership style maybe and things like that. And then you're joining a German headquartered company and you suddenly back into a rules led environment. How was that transition for you living in Germany?

It was definitely rules based. I can spare you all the details, but that's something I truly struggle with for all the nine years that I lived there. Again, that's my life in Germany. However, my work in Germany, I don't think was that rules based. I think Germans or the, you know, they prefer rules, but I don't think the company that I was working for was that strict when it came to rolling out. It was sufficiently flexible. So that was Fine. For me, it worked out. One of the things that I thought was truly having a major impact is that we started new things with Adidas and that is the entrepreneurship, right? We, we basically brought on board new instruments that had never been brought used before. We put up new structures, new processes, global processes. We set up a pension fund. So for me, that's all within that spirit of go explore if it works, make it happen. And I really enjoyed that. And there's a lot of value that was created with this many different innovations, those new initiatives that I work in treasury. And that eventually led to something that I thought was probably one of the best recognitions I've ever had. It's not an award, by the way, from some treasury organization because of best in Process management. But the best recognition always comes, I think, for your peers or from your own company. And I was actually asked to take the responsibility for global real estate and global facilities management. And that's a pretty large responsibility, but also the same thing. If you look at the global portfolio of real estate, whether it's leased properties or own properties, you look at warehouses, you look at office space and retail space and all those things, there's a lot of decision making that needs to be done in that space as well. And you can apply some of that same thinking to the real estate organization. And I think we've done a lot of things at Adidas that also reduced the cost of real estate. And that's something that I felt a great appreciation for and also gratitude for my perspective and was given the response from the global real estate and facilities management.

We talked to Joel Campbell from H and R Block on actually last week's show, by the time this comes out. And one of the things he and I talked about was when he joined HR Block, it was, he was given a 90 day plan, or 90 day window, if you like, to go and learn about the company, go around the group and then come up with his idea. And he's really grasped that and really enjoyed that. When you got to Adidas, what was the makeup of Treasury? How is it structured and what, what was your before, during, after? What were you aiming for? You know, you got there. What was the makeup of Treasury? How was it, Was it decentralized or, you know, give, give the listeners a bit of an insight?

Yes, well, when I, when I joined the Treasury Department, I was specifically told, we're not hiring you because we have a crisis in Treasury. That's always a good thing to hear. Having said that, when I arrived, you know, I did feel Like I made a step back into time because I mention with Dow Chemical, we wanted to be the best. Whether it was chemicals or plastic or finance or treasury, we just wanted to be the best. We wanted to have leading processes do new things. At Adidas, things have not moved along in the same way. And it was very much a decentralized organization and there was a lot of low hanging fruits in terms of, for example, cash management. We were sitting in Germany, but someone in the friends is managing the French cash and you don't have the visibility of the bank account, so that's low hanging fruit. So one of the first things that we did is really integrating all the global cash management and I think it became a very, very good process. The same thing with foreign exchange and all those things. So what was not lowering hanging fruits is that realization for cash management, for the value of cash. As I said, cash is king or casual effect. Profit is an interpretation. When you work through a large organization, people cannot be responsible for the cash at a legal entity level. People in the world managed in the world, people that manage sales in other parts of the world. And so there's always a little bit of a conflict of interest between optimizing cash and maybe optimizing another scorecard. And so that was always a balancing act between saying, hey, we need to optimize the long term cash flow picture of the company versus optimizing scorecards. It's almost a natural conflict, but it's one of the most difficult ones to solve. Another one as a conflict that treasury has very often as well is with taxes. And I'll give you an example if you have. I'm just saying hypothetically, you've got a billion of cash sitting in China. And I'm thinking a lot of companies are having cash sitting in China. There's a lot of withholding tax that you need to pay to the Chinese government if you want to repatriate your cash. And so the treasury guy say, well, we have a foreign exchange rate because we have a billion in casualty renminbi and if they lose 10% of its value, they might not hit the P and L, but it's a cash till we should because we repatriate less cash. The tax guy may say, well, that deteriorates my tax rate. And so you always have a little bit of these natural conflicts and you need to grow into a little bit of a balancing act and need to do some things that make sense.

So you had a centralized cash management policy and you were bringing things together on cash as you Talk about that. But you also centralized your FX management and managed that centrally. How did you implement that across as a group? Because I know that there's quite a few groups out there trying to systematize it and use various different things. But what was your ethos? How did you manage those risks?

The risks that we managed were interesting at Adidas and very particular to Adidas because, you know, you're in product cycle that is based on seasons. So whenever, you know, there's a season, you know, for whatever, footwear, apparel, you know, you have a new series of products and you do want to lock in the production price. Now, as you know, you know, there's a lot of sourcing in countries. You know, out there in Asia, it's not in dollars, and so there's a lot of sourcing that needs to be done in other currencies. So from that perspective, we wanted to lock in those prices, at least keep the business whole and tell the business or the salespeople, hey, here are your products for this season. You know what the price is in your local currency and you want to fix that for them and say, now you go and concentrate on selling as much as you can so they don't have to run the risk of production costs or the risks of the foreign exchange. So the whole idea is to let the commercial people do what they're best at, and then the financial risks or whatever other risk, the production risks were basically managed by different teams. So we kept the business whole, if you like. We kept them whole and said, don't worry about it. They were fine with that. At least they had a protection for foreign exchange. We did that what we call billing rates, it's like an internal hedging rate and say, here's your billing rate, no worries to you, we'll take it from here. And so that's an example where the business said, yeah, that makes sense, that's cool. We don't have to worry about foreign exchange and we'll let you guys handle it. That was a change because it made sense from different perspectives.

You mentioned there, it's slightly outside of treasury, but just in general terms. How many were in the treasury team globally?

It's actually a question I was never able to answer myself with a strange that may sound. We had a corporate treasury team only in Germany, and the treasury team was about 20 people. However, we had finance people in many different countries and they were not reporting directly into Treasury. However, some of them might have been doing 100% of their time, dedicated 100% of their time on treasury, however, just the reporting line was into local management, not into the treasury team in Germany, if you include those, I would probably say about 70 to 80 people. Credit was not managed by Treasury. That's not such a big issue either. And because there's a lot of retail business as well. I've never been able to answer exactly how much time everyone in the world spends on treasury activities because they were not basically full time employees reporting to the Treasury Department. But I would say probably 70 to.

80 people because one of the reasons I ask is so you're managing that. And then when you took over the real estate piece, as you mentioned earlier, that was a huge team of 600 plus a big leadership role. Again, you know, it comes to your leadership style and things and you know, some of the guys out there, they'll have lots of different things coming out of them. How do you manage all those guys?

Brazil? Interesting you should ask because I ended up spending more time on real estate than on treasury because I believe treasury interesting, because I believe, you know, after all those years, you know, with treasury, we had our processes well defined, well under control, well understood. And so there was a team of great professionals I was working with and I think they were managing very well. And if I were spending 40% of my time on treasury, that would be a good number, I think. But it could sometimes drop to 30 or 20% depending on what was happening in real estate. Real estate was a still, was kind of the world that I stepped into Treasury. It was still a world, you know, with very old process, old systems, a lot of decision making in many different places. And so it was a lot of change management that was required in real estate. And so I was very occupied with defining the new organization, new processes, new types of decision making into real estate as well. Also in terms of systems and, and external support, we really redefined the entire real estate organization. So I'd spent a lot of time on that.

You'd been Belgium, Michigan, Germany, and then you decided to make the move back or what led to you sort of deciding to move back to the U.S.

It'S something that almost came in a natural way as well. I have been the treasurer for a number of years, responsibility for real estate in terms of career ambitions. For me, the next natural step, as was the case with Lauer Chemical, with me, wanted to become the treasurer, I wanted to become the CEO at Adidas. @ least some thought I was a very strong candidate. There was somehow an expected change in leadership and you know how it goes, you know, new Leadership, new ideas, new directions. I did not become the next CFO at that point, you need to make a decision for yourself. Okay. This is actually the end of my career. We have family, kids, grandkids in the United States. You know, at some point you need to reprioritize things in your life. And we said, you know what, we really enjoyed this. It's been really great in terms of career development. That's probably the end of the road for me. I don't want to ride stressed in the sunset and stay around for that reason. And so that's why we made the decision. Probably this is a good time for us to return to the United States and concentrate and other things that are more important.

And you made the move back and you've been doing some consulting stuff as well before we sort of explore a bit more about that. I mean, just tell us a bit more about that role, what you've been doing for people.

Actually, I've been working with a number of corporations and it's interesting. They're mostly based in Alaska, not all of them, but mostly based in Alaska and how a stranger may sound to the Belgium moving to the US I'm officially a resident of Alaska, have been for many years. And I have a lot of connections in Alaska. And I know the native corporations, and it's a whole story by itself. But basically the native corporations are investment vehicles. They own a lot of land, they own a lot of resources, but they also have a lot of investments in other countries. And those native corporations are several ones that have asked me to work with them. It's a whole new world for me, is absolutely fascinating in what they do. They've asked me to help out with their acquisitions because you're looking at acquisitions and some of the due diligence from other finance perspective, some of the negotiations and so on. And I think, you know, in the roles that I've played in my life, you know, I think I can be of great value. And they keep coming back to me for, you know, more assignments, and I think that's very rewarding for me. And so I work with the, you know, with some of these companies, you know, on acquisitions and due diligence.

Looking back over your time, you've managed teams, you know, from small to large and everything in between. What's your ethos around recruitment? You know, obviously you're on the show hosted by US treasury recruitment company. What do you like when you're recruiting? Are you looking for a certain fit or is it a blend of technical skills? All of the above or what you know, I'm recruiting for? You say one day and you say, right, this is my ethos around recruitment. What would, what would you say it is?

For me, the number one thing is integrity. No integrity, there is no opportunity. So I think some core values are of absolute critical importance. And I sometimes believe that companies will hire and prioritize other things in a person, but I personally believe integrity. And instantly, number one, then obviously there needs to be some type of cultural fit. It needs to be a passion, because attitude is very important. So there needs to be an attitude at the company, say, hey, this works at a sporting goods company. By the way, it's unbelievable. The passion I've seen for a brand, I've never seen anything like it. Adidas, everyone wears Adidas. You don't wear Nike on campus. So there's an absolute passion for sports, there's a passion for the brand. So that's something you look for as well is the passion for the company or the passion for the culture of the company. And then I would probably say yes, you get your educational background, your experience, your knowledge, those are very important and they're also must have. But again, none of this is going to work without showing very clear integrity. That's always a tricky thing. You cannot test that in an interview for half an hour or an hour. So you have to make a little bit of a leap of faith when it comes to that. But I think after you have some experience in recruiting and you ask the right questions, I think you can probably pick up a few things. You know, when the person gives an answer, you know, just to make something up, that doesn't really make a big impression. If you don't know the answer, tell me you don't know the answer. Or you can actually make a, you know, intelligent guess and tell me how you got to that conclusion. That's fine too. But making something up probably is a sign. I go like, okay, I think you need to be, I need to be careful here.

So looking back over your career, you know, 20 plus years, how was treasury when you first walked in the door? Started doing it, you know, 30 years ago. Really, you know, back in 87 through to now. How has it changed? Where do you see it going next, would you say?

Well, of course, it's technology, right? The digital age, you know, when I started working for treasury, you know, you know, we had some screens, but the whole connectivity, the speed of things was totally different. So you fast forward. Everything is global, everything is connected, interconnected. Now you have instantaneous payments in Europe, whereby it takes only seconds to transfer from bank account to the next bank account. You have blockchain, which I believe is going to be of so much value to financial contracts or contractual agreements don't necessarily provide the next new currency in the world, but it's so much potential value in blockchain as well. And so obviously, technology has completely changed how the treasury is being handled. And somehow in treasury, you need to have that confidence. You need to have some type of affinity with technology and development of technology to survive and to do well in Treasury.

Okay, and then, you know, looking to the future, what are you looking forward to doing? You've obviously got your company and, you know, you're advising a lot of other companies, but what are you doing next?

Yeah, it's a question I ask myself as well, Mike. You know what I do? I mix, because I think I told you, right? I'm still a very active person. I feel very fit. I have a lot of energy and I want to do many things. I know what I don't want to do, and that is what I've always done. Working for big companies with a lot of, you know, you know, sometimes big company politics, you know, everyone knows what those are. You know, everyone will tell you, you know, they want to. Want to be political, but, you know, it is part of life. And so I probably, you know, find it more satisfying to work with, you know, a native corporation company, you know, smaller companies that have really, really looking at you, hey, you've got something, you know, that we cannot have access to, you know, because, you know, whatever reason, they don't have the resources or the ability, you know, to attract. And so for me, it's been very satisfying, you know, to work, you know, with companies, you know, that, you know, have a passion for what they do, you know, where, you know, the big company politics, you know, don't really play a role. But there's not always that conflict of scorecards, you know, that needs to be managed, because there's always that as well. So for me, it's been, you know, a direction that I really enjoy. I, you know, could imagine myself, you know, working full time, but that's not really the most important thing, you know, the most important thing for me is, is that I do something, you know, this, you know, of value. I add value. I can be of value to companies, whether that's through a contracting agreement, you know, whatever it is, full time, you know, it doesn't matter. That's the direction I've chosen to do. So I know what I don't want to do. I'm open to all the new things as well. As long as there's some new aspect to it gets your attention, I'm open to that. Yes.

Okay, let's. I want to wrap up today's show. And you know, we spoke about this before. If anyone does want to reach out to Michelle, you will put his LinkedIn profile in the show notes so you can connect with him. And, you know, you make sure maybe talk about treasury matters or some of those ideas and some of those roles you might have or people might want to talk to you about. But if someone looks back at your profile, they're going to see this really great career you've come up through. Dow Chemicals, financial risk management. Amazing. And then you were the group treasurer until recently of Adidas and someone earlier years of their career, they go, oh, that's what I want to work for. We're currently doing some work with Nike and it's a great brand. And you know, people go, oh yeah, I love this. But you know, there's some great treasury learning to be done there as well. With yourself, what would you say? You know, and looking at Adidas and it gave you a lot of stuff, but you know, if they wanted someone wants to do the same as you, what final words of advice would you give them, as it were?

And the thing, you know, when someone starts a career, it's something that I haven't really done myself is, you know, look at the full scope of responsibilities. It's not a given that you need to work for a specific company that is probably in proximity of where you grew up. Open your scope of reality, expand your horizon. Think about all the opportunities out there. There's large companies, there's small companies privately helped publicly, help for nonprofit, maybe smaller initiatives, private equity. And I think a lot of young people, and I'm including myself, the. Their scope is too narrow. You know, what they want to envision. But define for yourself what really makes you tick. And then you're very lucky, you know, if you find a company, you know, that actually is exactly meeting your personality, your attitude. And so I would probably say, you know, for younger people, look around and define for yourself, you know, what makes you tick. It's not necessary, you know, that you need to find, you know, the big corporation, you know, you know, with, with the international setup and there are other companies out there, you know, that I think provide very, very nice opportunities, very nice challenges as well, to find someone.

That really resonates with yourself as a person.

I would say Absolutely. Right on. Right on.

What a great way to wrap up. So find somewhere that resonates with you. Nice little we'll put that as one of the catchphrases on one of the pictures as well that people see.

So.

So, Michelle, thank you for your time today. I think it's been really good one. I think we, you know, it's good because some of the weeks we bounce around different areas. But I think with yourself, it's just got this natural flow of your career. So I really appreciate your time you spent with me and with the listeners today. And as I say, if you want to connect with Michelle, connect to him via LinkedIn. And, you know, hopefully you'll have some other interesting stories to share.

Wonderful. My pleasure, Mike. Thank you.

Thanks for your time. Cheers.