This is a YouTube video titled "What it Takes to Have a Successful Treasury Career with Michel Bekkers" containing a monologue by Michel Bekkers recorded in April 2019. The content focuses on treasury management, emphasizing the importance of cash flow, risk management, employee engagement, integrity, and passion in building a successful career and company culture. The speaker discusses commodity risk management and the critical role of employee ownership and values in corporate success.
Cash flow is what matters. Cash is king. You've heard that before. You hear cash is a fact, profit is an interpretation. You know, that's, that's Treasury. And so preaching that to the rest of the corporation is very important. And it's only logical then, you know, that you include risk management into that same conceptual framework. Commodity risk management was not something that was really pursued at biochemical. And we figured, well, you know, we manage all these interest rate risk, foreign exchanges, equity risk, pension, all these risks that 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. 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 getting to 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 that, 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 must be. The most critical part is that really people feel that they own what they are doing. And so engagement for me was the most important things. If you don't have engagement, you're not going anywhere. 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, you know, that, you know, that companies will hire and prioritize other things in a person. But I personally believe integrity. And instantly, number one, then obviously, you know, 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, you know, 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. I've never seen anything like it. Adidas, you know, everyone wears Adidas. You don't wear Nike on campus, you know, so there's an absolute passion for sports, There's a passion for the brand. So that's something you need to look for as well is the passion for the company or the passion for the culture of the company. And then, you know, I would probably say, you know, yes, you know, you get, you know, your educational background, your experience, your knowledge, those are very important. And then they're also must haves. But again, none of this is going to work without showing very clear integrity.
