What It’s Like Working In Private Vs. Public Equity With Peter Russell

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. Delighted to be joined by Peter Russell, head of treasury and investor relations at Travelport. Now, Travelport is a global technology company which makes buying and managing travel better for everyone, as they say. They're a travel commerce platform. Massive group, net revenues over two and a half billion dollars in 2018. Headquartered actually in Langley in the UK. Over 3,700 employees globally represented in over 180 countries and territories. So truly global group, originally listed on new stock exchange, recently gone into the hands of private equity, which Peter can talk you through that transition as well. Now, actually, I'll let Peter describe a bit more about his career and Travelport and everything else about it, but if we do go back into his history, we were just saying before the show that I've actually known Peter since the turn of the century and he always thanks me back in the day when I actually moved him from Diageo to Enron, but he still speaks to me and we still meet for the odd beer or three. So, Peter, enough from me as ways. Let's take it back maybe as far as your university days because you did an engineering degree and they thought, I know, I'll go into accounting or talk us through and start that early start, if you would.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. Thank you for that, the introduction. Yeah, I mean, I always been sort of more of a math and science person and embarked on an engineering degree at Warwick, which I love, but back in the late 80s show my age, I decided that engineering in the UK was, wasn't really a career for me. And back then the big Six, as they were, did a fantastic job of recruiting young undergraduates like myself through milk ground. They snapped up scientists and engineers and took them in to train as auditors. So I went to train for kpmg. I wanted to get another good qualification under my belts, not really knowing what direction I wanted to really go with my career. So I did that. I'd admit I wasn't the. The best auditor in the world or the keenest auditor in the world, but I was really glad to get the qualification under my belt and then started to think, well, what next? So I left KPMG and joined a subsidiary of Rabobank, really just as a financial accountant. And it was then that I discovered the world of Treasury. My then Boss who was the finance director was studying to these ACT exams and I sort of looked over his shoulder one lunchtime and asked him what he was looking at, what he was studying. And it was almost like a light bulb moment. I thought, ah, this looks really interesting. I think I could sort of move my career in this direction. And especially at the beginning when you're looking at the study material, it was kind of more back to that sort of mathy sciencey world. I came from learning about derivatives, the capital markets, etc. And so I started looking for a role which would take me into treasury. And as luck would have it, I managed to get a job as a Treasury accountant at what was Grand Metropolitan before they merged at the Guinness and formed Diageo. And I remember at the time that the person who recruited me said, we don't care if you don't know anything about treasury, as long as you know your double entry, we'll teach you everything you know. That was a fantastic routine and I think even back then they were struggling and we can talk about this. I struggled over the years to get, I guess, good, qualified chartered accountants into the world of treasury because it seems as a very, very niche way to go. But I'd certainly encourage anybody thinking about it to go for it because it's a great career.

Talk us through Diageo. How was the treasury set up at Diageo and what did that, you know, because you made some moves, you were there for five years. How did it change and grow and things like that?

Well, I mean I joined still Grand Metropolitan and at the time Grandma owned a portfolio of companies there, Burger King, Pillsbury Foods and a whole load of drinks brands. And we were based in central London. There was a team of probably around 20 treasury professionals and plus direct assistant. So I started there as treasury accountant around about the time as we were a company was looking to merge with Guinness, which had a similar size treasury function. So maybe you talk about both those treasury functions which merged to form the Diageo treasury function. They both had sort of corporate functions. So you had FX dealers, interest rate dealers, people looking at the group's debt. You had a team of treasury accountants, back office team, doing all the payments and bank recs, et cetera for Treasury. And then you had a team who looked at the wider global treasury issues, so the in country issues, local facilities, etc. The model was markedly similar for both Guinness and Grand Met. So with the treasury teams merged, I was lucky to survive that because obviously not everybody could keep a job in the combined entity. So we were probably, I think at one point sort of approaching. I think I once added about nearly 30 personnel in various forms formed with Diageo treasury team. So I went from a Treasury accountant to being a Treasury analyst to do more than that around the interest and the debt, etc. And then I managed to get a role in the digging room in the front office in the fishbowl as it was back then, the enclosed dealing room. Yeah, that was fantastic experience learning how to deal and back in those days it's all telephone dealing. I will admit I've never done a transaction, an FX transaction, for example, on a. On an electronic platform. My last deals were done by phone. I've done. Talk about, in terms of my career and where I moved on, the sort of. The volume of FX dealing in subsequent companies is probably a lot less. Any dealing I've done has been sort of over the phone on an ad hoc basis. That's something which clearly the world of treasury has changed in terms of technology and the way we do certain sort of transactional dealing, but we can get onto that, so it's a big team. The front office experience was fantastic. And as a result of the merger, I then got the role of FX risk manager, the group. So big role in the first six months were very focused on merging the two treasury functions. Now that was a big job, a lot to be done with slightly different approaches, both companies to the way we did our various pieces of FX hedging. But we got there in the end and then that sort of formed the basis of my role for the next couple of years. So really that was the formative years of my treasury career. From treasury accountant, learning the debits and credits and how to account for certain instruments, through to the analysis dealing with the debt side of things and then through to the FX risk management, which I must say has actually been. That of all things at Diageo is probably the piece that's probably followed me throughout my career. And wherever you go in treasury function, some of them have very little FX risk, some have more. But it's always the trickiest thing, I think, to not just for the people within treasury to understand, but wider colleagues within the finance function. So if you can understand FX and the accounting, I know the accounting's changed, it's really tricky and actually ever there's anything that comes to bite you in the world of treasury generally affects losses. So if you can get your head around that and then you're doing well.

And is it the exposure management and the changeable Nature of that, that's always the issue.

I mean, that's what we say about the world of corporate Treasury. Doing the final deal is easy or funding. The really important thing is understanding the underlying exposures from a obviously a risk market perspective, but also how they feed into the books, into the financial statements of the business that you're managing the risk of. And quite often those exposures aren't just given to you on a plate, you've got to go out and find them. And that's one of the things I've tried to do in the different companies I've worked at, is you start and you inherit a certain amount of knowledge and information maybe from your colleagues or predecessor, but you've got to go out and really do some digging. But when I was at Travelex, although that's a massive FX company, the foreign exchange was kind of in two separate buckets almost. One was call it the commercial fx where they did cross border transactions for clients and that was run by a big team of FX dealers. But then you've got the underlying risks that the business is subject to, whether we call it the cash and kill the stock in the bureau de change or the underlying business and the way it operates. And one summer, myself, one of my team at the time, Patrick Archer, who's now at MoneyCorp, we sort of undertook a summer of an FX review and went through the various balance sheets and bits of the business and unearthed exposures that we kind of knew about but maybe weren't managing as effectively as we should have been. And it's kind of the leftover, call it the boring stuff that nobody's really interested in, that's really important. So I'd always encourage anybody in their career, whether it's looking at the interest rate risk, FX risk or other commodity risks that the business might have begun. Be curious, don't, don't assume that you know it all and you know, if you've got a little break in your calendar or this time when you're not quite so busy, you know, go and do some digging and go out and speak to people in the business, get.

Stuck in sort of thing and then, well, you know, going back then actually to that time, so from the lovely Diageo and drinks business and everything else. And there was this recruiter that came along with this very interesting role at the time, although.

Dodgy guy, Dodgy dude.

Well, you know, very, you know, and everyone knows about it. It's a household name and for the wrong reasons, but we came up with a role at the time it was. It was quite a curious role. I remember sort of trying to talk to some of the people directly and meet them and they were like, oh, it was too busy. But we got this role with this sort of diverse industrial company, Enron, and I approached Peter and. And Peter, you went there and, you know, talk us through that. It was only for period of what, nine, ten months, but wow. And then you were there.

Thanks, Mike. So, yes, you brought this fantastic opportunity to my attention, actually, back to. I was at Diageo. I was wanting to. I knew I had to broaden my career. I mean, Diageo was a fantastic training ground, lots of exposure to different areas, but I knew I'd sort of be narrowed into this sort of area of FX risk management. And I was thinking about broadening my experience in this role. Enron came up and one of my colleagues at the time at Diageo had been going on about this fantastic, innovative company called Enron that I'd never heard of. And about three months later you came along, Mike, with an opportunity and I thought, ah, I've heard of them. And joined them in the late autumn of 2000, I think, when their share price was at the height, I think very quickly I basically realized I'd made a mistake, one of those career mistakes, I think. You and I had a chat. I wanted to keep my head down for a bit, but long story short, after various conversations with you and other people I knew, a couple of colleagues back at Diageo decided it was best to move on. I think having made that mistake, you sort of got to get on and do something about it, which is why I moved on to Deloitte, really, just to find my feet again after that and work out where I wanted to go next. It's funny, over the years I always put Emeron on my cv. I'm quite happy to talk about it. It was an interesting time. And actually, looking back, I've learned more, believe it or not, by reading some of the books that have been written since then, because London, although London was a big operation, the key decisions and the fraud that was committed was all driven by the people in Houston. But the guys there were a lot of very clever guys, came out of investment banking. Lots of good people at Enron in London who suffered from that collapse with no fault of their own, and people like me. I was still relatively early in my career, I was. I never thought at the time there was any fraud being committed, but I do remember thinking their profits don't match their cash flow and they're Chasing cash flow. And I remember saying to my wife, this is all going to unravel at some point, but thinking it would unravel sometime in the future. Just like a company that's been over trading, not realizing until later what had actually been going on. And the slightly sort of strange thing is I've sat in meetings in London with some of those guys who went to jail. The, the then treasurer, an ex Anderson's guy, went to jail for several years. There was another guy, the right hand man of the CFO went to jail and I think, oh, you know, I did meetings with these guys and a few lessons learned. And I think one of the great things about companies I've worked before, but also particular after that experience is, you know, the CFOs I've worked for, they've been really explicit about being open and honest and about the numbers, about communication and where I'm at now. You know, we got a team of financial reporting accountants who are scrupulous about how we approach the numbers. We make sure that, you know, we do the right thing. And I think a lot of good people at Enron who I think unfortunately got sucked into whatever was going on.

Yeah.

So anyway, live and learn and you move on. You and I are still speaking many years later.

Well, again, I remember we spoke about it, you know, the description you gave me, you said, well, I just don't know where the money is, you know, I. E. Because you couldn't see that clarity. And I think as you say there, that since then finance has changed and been, you know, a big warning sign at that stage. But yeah, where's the cash? You know, making sure it really is there. And I think that's one of the key lessons learned, I think. And then you joined Deloitte and that's a place where you really get to know, you know, lots of different businesses and see under the bonnet. What was that like, making the transition to there?

It was good. I had to think about it because having left profession as an auditor, I was sort of unsure whether it was the right thing to do. But it was the right thing to do. It was great at the time working for Derek Ross at Deloitte, great sort of corporate treasury advisory function and as you say, exposure to different businesses large and small. Again you get sort of that sort of broader look at the industry and what's out there. So that was a good experience for a couple of years. It was slightly different turbulent time as well. It was sort of, we were sort of just, I guess post.com bus obviously had the collapse at Anderson's as a result of the Enron debacle. Anderson's team in London or the UK merged, merged with Deloitte. So, you know, there's a bit of turbulence and like in all businesses, but good bunch of people who joined the team. And I only stayed there for a couple of years because just really by, I guess by luck, my sort of first deputy treasurer role came up. The role at what was Alliance Unichem. And as I say, every cloud is a silver lining. Having moved from Enron to Deloitte, there was then this big focus on accounting for derivatives. And I always, I'm pretty sure that it was IAF 39 that got me the job originally Alliance Unichem, because I had focused on that and wanted to make sure I really understood it as a Deloitte consultant. And when I went to the interviews then treasurer David Mallock was asking me about this new standard and my experience around implementing it. Although I know he was a qualified accountants, he was too senior to get his hands dirty with that sort of thing. I was the person who was brought in as his number two and that was the focus of my first sort of 12 to 18 months to make sure we could evaluate our derivatives and get the hedge accounting right. But that was a Deloitte experience. Always look back on positively and still got some great people from those days. The building blocks, the next part of.

My career and talk about that part. So you were then moving into this sort of leadership role? And I spoke in previous podcasts and spoke to Adam Bukadida from Etihad Airways and we talked about his transition. And again, there was a question I was asking Luxembourg about making the move from being a contributor and a person helping out as part of the team and, you know, doing your job to actually becoming a sort of manager and making that transition. And you'd made. Started, made that move, you know, with this role of deputy treasurer and then acting group treasurer@Alliance UNICEF. You then were starting to manage people. What are you like as a boss or what was it like then? Sort of.

Yeah, that's a good question. I think say more broadly, I, you know, you begin to get conscious that as you say, you're becoming more than just a contributor and you need to think longer term, more strategically about what you're doing, how it fits into the business. And some people it's, you know, I might have an overnight. I remember thinking over the years, I sort of sometimes reflected on it and I sometimes went from this almost kind of, we Call it a guilt feeling, you know, when you feel you're doing real work. In our line of work, my line of work, when you're sitting in front of your computer with a spreadsheet doing some analysis. And then sometimes it becomes more of a role where you need to step away from the spreadsheet and your desk and go and talk to people. And sometimes I think, oh, am I doing real work here? But you are, because actually you need to build on your knowledge and your technical skill set and then work out where you go in the next six months, 12 months, 24 months. You know, to be frank, you want to build that up over time. And the way I did it was partly by observing other people around me. Some people do it well, some people don't do it so well. And this is where I think sometimes a lot of corporates are not quite so good as maybe the professional services firm in terms of education. But you've got to grab those courses or speak to mentors in the business and, you know, work out how other people do it. And actually becoming more of a delegator at the right time is a skill to learn. You know, when do you delegate? When do you do it yourself? And I think the key is, and sometimes it's a, you know, it's an investment in time, you're best off to getting good people in around you. There comes a time you got to work out that balance between kind of letting go and letting somebody else do it under supervision. And I think that's a really important skill to learn to develop. And I'd say if you're at that sort of point in your career where you're starting to make that move and change, look at other people, but also go and courses help in order to learn how to do it. You know, don't be afraid of asking to go on a coaching course or being coached, etc. And I've certainly been lucky enough to have fun with that. And it really helps. You know, top CEOs in businesses are always being coached and, you know, don't be afraid to ask for that and, you know, say, look, I need some development in this area or that area in terms of, let's call it the soft skill, because that's the way you will develop your career kind of in the second half of your career, building on the technical skill set.

And then the business itself was going through some changes, Alliance Unichem. And you know, perhaps described for the. You've got audience members across in Europe, across in the US as well. And you know, further afield who don't perhaps understand or know the business. You know, what was that like? So you'd made industry sector moves. You Diageo in the drinks industry, lovely industry, we like that. And then consulting and things like that. But Alliance Boot and. Or Alliance Unicam as well. Can you describe that, perhaps?

Yeah, sure. So Alliance Unichem, when I joined it was predominantly a wholesale of pharmaceutical products. So where effectively Unichem was looking to expand into the pharmacy side of the business, grow more on that side. I think Boots, probably fair to say, had been retrenching from it, had been trying to grow globally, but had not been that successful, but still a fantastic brand, especially in the UK. And so the two came together to what were Botsy75 companies really focused on the UK and Western Europe at the time, I'd say between the two of them, although alliance unit became, interestingly, had some US dollar private placement debt swapped into euros and pounds, which I had to do hedge accounting for. And so these two FTSE 25 companies merged and became a. I think it was a FTSE 30 company turnover, around £7 billion at the time, two big operations. And for me that was a fantastic experience. I was acting group treasurer, the alliance unitechem side of things. I worked with the then treasurer of Boots to arrange bridging finance as the merger went through. I guess the key role there was to post the merger was to merge the two treasury teams. And the decision had been made that the corporate functions were to be based in Weybridge, where Alliance Unicam had its corporate functions based. And so we were lucky to have a couple of individuals willing to relocate from Nottingham, where the Boots treasury function was based. We also did a lot of recruitment there as well to grow the team and then decisions around what TMS to use, etc. So that was a interesting time of working on everything from the deal structure, working capital forecast through the merger, new debt facilities through to just the practicalities of day one. How do you get a merged treasury function to work on day one? Different cash pools, revolving credit facilities, change control issues, etc. Etc. So it was a great experience to go through that.

And how do you do that? Because again, people will be through that. You've got one of my questions written down. Here's treasury function. What was the definition? Was it right, where's the cash and everything else? Or where's the risks? Or what were the key defining features?

Well, of course you've got to go through and plan for it, so you don't turn up on day one and go, where's the cash? So maybe stating the obvious, me and the guys in the light tunicam team, we work closely with our new colleagues to be on the boot side. And you just got to work through several weeks and months in advance planning for day one. So clearly there are effects. Although there's a merger at the top code, there are still two sets of operations, albeit you've got to look at is there any change, are there any change of control clauses? Will that impact any of my debt facilities? Will the credit risk change? So although there's no change of control, will lenders be less willing to offer an overdraft, et cetera? So we work through practicalities, how do we work our pools, etc. And you have to have a plan and you work through ground up from the cash, the funding, the change of control, what facilities do I have? And then you get on the phone to your banking group and you know, for a lot of them, they want to stay with you because they see it as an opportunity. There might be one or two that want to leave because of pricing. For example, you suddenly were able to drive even better pricing on our banking facilities. And so again, you just work, you have to work through all of that as a team with your, you know, both sides. Always virtue possible if it's big enough, get a project manager. I was lucky enough to have a guy who joined a cfo, brought in a gentleman to work with us. The wider finance function, not just treasury, but it sort of forced us into planning and going through all the issues in detail for day one. So some of it was just real practical, as you say, where's the cash? Will we have these facilities? And it's making sure that everybody is aware of what's going on. So you know, all you, your relationship managers at various banks know what's going on and how you're going to operate on day one.

And then you made the move. Well, post merger and everything else. Then you joined Travelex in your first full treasurer role. What was that like in the step up there?

Great, great opportunity. Thanks to you, Mike. It was a group treasurer role and I wanted to set myself that goal of becoming a group treasurer. Now Travelex at the time was owned by private equity by Capacity Partners in Europe, a global business probably at the time, if you were to look at the market cap, it would be like in the foots250. But I was talking to somebody else the other day about this. You can't. The same with all finance roles. You can't look at the market cap and say how complicated is that treasury functional role going to be? When I joined Alliance Unichem, they were a FTSE 75. There were three, four of us, four of us really in corporate at Treasury. I joined Travelex five years later as good treasurer. A smaller market cap business, Footsie 250, but a truly global business like Travel Court. Not to be confused in terms of the name. I had a team probably of people who had a Treasury hat treasury title globally of about 20 people. And I remember walking along the strand on my first day thinking, can I do this? Am I a fraud? And sort of deep breath and you walk in and go, yep, you just got to go for it. And great experience. I joined at the time in 2007 just as a little signs of the credit crunch. Northern Rock had hit the news. The business had been under private equity ownership for a couple of years. We even had a small project team gearing up for an ipo. But within probably six months that was disbanded. And we all know what happened next. But no, it was a fantastic opportunity and I think one of the various lessons learned there and we can talk about maybe talk about the credit crunch in a minute. But with such a large team built up over years, one of the things I had to do quickly was work out was team the structure, the way we did things, I guess fit for purpose. And sometimes it's no disrespect to your predecessor, but times change and you got to look at how the team is. So over probably a period of a year or more, I managed to slim that team down to about 10. Focused predominantly in Petersburg where credulously still have a big operation and the London corporate head office. And you know, some of the roles out in the businesses got absorbed into I guess payments functions or shared service centers. I didn't need separate people doing treasury stuff. It was really sort of of local shared service function. And so what I was able to do was then focus on a smaller team that was able to deal with the treasury risks that I was tasked to manage. And yeah, so it was a fantastic experience. Over seven years I was there and saw about three different CFOs, about three different CEOs, mostly as a result of the fun and games we had through the credit crunch. But again that taught me some some great lessons about managing risk, managing your cash and liquidity. I guess there was a lot of disbelief I think when that those events.

Started to unfold and to just dig into that. And you mentioned that before and that was one of the things noted there, that what was the difference like? Was it cap in hand when you were going in the credit crunch days or was it just more what was it like?

So various lessons learned. When I joined Travelex was committed to acquire. It was a B2B global payments business based out of Washington D.C. and I remember joining in the summer and sitting in some calls with a couple of our banks. They were starting to get a little bit edgy about what was going on and was suggesting you might want to delay this acquisition. And one of the lessons I learned from the then CSO John Martin, who's now CEO of Ferguson, he said, look, one, we are legally committed to acquire this business.

Why wait?

If there are going to be choppy waters, we need to get on with it. He was absolutely right and we got on with it. It was a $450 million financing. Unfortunately, the banks did suffer as a result. They had underwritten financing and it took them a long time to syndicate that debt at a loss. But as a company we were obliged for our shareholders to get on with it and we did. And, and it was actually the right decision not to prefer A to do it. We got that under our belt. Then in 2008, I remember as things got even nastier, Lehman going and et cetera, we undertook a huge credit risk project because Travelex was. Not only did it have lenders cash to manage foreign currency to hedge, but a lot of our commercial partners work with banks. We either bought physical currency from banks or, or we use them to transfer money globally electronically, globally cross border payments. And we had the residual, the residual of a traveler checks business, a big deposit with some key banks. And we had to embark on this project of really getting our arms around where all our risk was. And some of it there was very little we could do about it, but we knew about it and we could monitor it and we could at least be aware of where the risk lay. But that was big piece of work. And then we did with certain riskier banks where we didn't have to leave funds in overnight. We undertook a policy of sweeping overnight. So there's a lot of consolidation. But I guess it taught me a lesson of really to understand where your risk lies and not to be complacent about that.

Being very active.

Yes, you're very active. Be proactive. The other lesson I learned was documentation. So in I think the first half of 2008, we had some interest rate hedges maturing and myself and the CFO decided we needed to put in Place some pay fixed hedges for our debt. This was all sterling debt in the uk. There were signs of, believe it or not, rates going up, oil was on its way up, inflation was on its way up. In, in the early part of 2008, myself and the CFO, I read a paper and it went to the board to propose that we put in place these pay fixed swaps, which we did, transacted those and lo and behold, about a month later, rates collapsed with the rescue packages that were being put in place to inject liquidity into the system. And I was sitting with these swaps very well out of the money, thinking, what on earth have we done? But I was able to go back and look at our rationale and our reasoning and we documented it and it was board approved. And you know, with hindsight, it was not the right thing to do, but with the foresight we had at the time, you know, and the way we documented it and got board approval, it was the right thing. You know, nobody shot us for it. It was just one of those things, you know, we then simply took some mitigation action. But that's one of the other lessons. As you become more of a manager than a leader within the treasury function, apart from the people side of things and the soft skills around the leadership, you've got to make sure you understand what your authority is, always involve your cfo, those decisions and the board, if you need to involve the board and make sure you know where you stand with your delegation of authority. And that was one of the first lessons I had from back then. And it was kind of with relief that I sort of read through, through what we've said and thought, fine, you know, we can't be shot for that, not in retrospect.

And then that role, you sort of move through that role, you know, I wanted to sort of get into most recent role Travelex Global Exchange Group and things like that. Maybe just describe because some people say Travelex, Travelport, what similar. You know, they're very different.

So perhaps, yeah, for the listeners, yes, very, very different. So they both involved in the travel space. But a lot of listeners will obviously know Travelex. They might not know all that they do or have done, but yes, in the money exchange, both electronic and physical. Travel Court is a technology company introduced at the beginning. We are travel Commerce platform. Now some people may have heard of us as a what's called a GDS global distribution system. But our technology and our competitors technology was really built by the airlines in the 70s in order to distribute or sell Their routes, their tickets on a sort of international, then an international global scale. And then in sort of the 80s and 90s, the airlines decided that this really wasn't core to what they do. They're there to sort of run an airline. And so those businesses were sold off in various forms. And Travelport is the amalgamation of kind of three underlying gds' commerce platforms. And basically it's a technology where in a really simple way, airlines put all their routes and itineraries into our system. And travel agents in all their forms go in and system for the traveler, look to see what routes are available at what prices and then are able to book that for the traveler.

So Peter, more recently you've gone private equity to public and then the process going back to being private equity, what implements that process and how's that then impacted on treasury as it were? Because we were saying before the show has been quite a challenging time.

Yeah, so it has, I mean one bit maybe to add is in terms, again thinking back to my travelex experience, travel Port, you know, again the key is again this goes back to sort of leadership. You've got to work out have you got the right structure, the right people in your team, the right location, the right technology. And so one of the things that I started before the IPO thinking about, but then implemented post IPO was again consolidating the team. So the team when I joined we had a small team in Atlanta as well as a team here in the uk in Langley. And I realized sort of after a while, a road, a great team, really good people in Atlanta didn't really make sense in terms of a look forward treasury structure. So with the use of technology and also matching the business model here, which is quite a centralized approach in terms of the way we contract globally as a very focused corporate team here in Langley, it made sense to focus with the treasury team here. So the team was consolidated into a core team here in the uk.

And then looking at the future, you've gone through this process and where do you see it going now? What's happening for you and treasury in.

Treasury alluded to before, we try to make ourselves more efficient, effective in terms of the use of technology. It's not always that easy and always deals like this that come along that take you away from the day job. But I know in the background my team has been working on process improvements, nibbling away sometimes it's lots of small steps to improve what we do. And so some of it is just, you know, business as usual, getting more effective and Efficient the way we do things. Stepping back with our new PE owners, cash flow is even more of a focus. I mean the luckily and this is a lesson I learned from my travelex days, my travel port and got a great team here who were already doing a lot of this. We, I mean I know the group's cash balance on a daily basis. Some of that reporting has been a bit clunky in the past but especially with the implementation of our, what we call our banking simplification project with two core banks we get electronic reporting of balances globally on a daily basis. So I know where the cash is in what currency on a daily basis. And we have each day a report goes out. This is a requirement for our new owners, but we have that ready to hand. And also of course when you're managing the close of the deal and there's fees be paid and there's a fund flow, you want to know that you've got enough cash on your balance sheet the day of close to make all those fund flows. Looking forward there's going to be a lot more focus on short term 13 week rolling cash flow forecasts. We always had a Treasury as well as a financial planning cash flow forecast but really there's going to be even more of a focus on that as the debt burden has gone up and the interest bill has gone up significantly. So we need to make sure that we can fund the debt servicing. So that's going to ready as a key focus of the team. There's also a switch. I had an investor relations hat on pre close. Obviously we don't have any public equity investors now but we will have lender calls to deal with. So me and my team will lead that obviously working with our financial reporting and planning colleagues. And one of the things we're looking at now is what's that going to look like for our Q3 reporting. So there's a lot of housekeeping post deal making sure we are still diligent, effective, efficient. The control environment carries on. Although we were SOX compliant as a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, I think we as a business, although we had a painful implementation of SOX in the first year of public company, I think we all recognized having got through that it was actually a good thing to go through. It forces you really to look at your controls and it does unearth areas luckily not within Treasury I might say, but within the wider business as to where better control, segregation of duties are required. So we as a business will be carrying on with that. Something we as a Treasury team, we focus on the control environment as well. So a lot of it's business as usual saying having an effective, efficient function, especially in an environment where, let's be honest, you know, cost is a, is a factor.

And so, you know, with yourself and you know, managing a team throughout what has been challenging period, you know, going through all this, what's been key to you and coaching, mentoring that team, what has made you get them on track.

So like, yeah, I think trying to be as open and honest as possible. Now, clearly there are times when you signed a non disclosure agreement, you can't say too much, people always get an inkling of what's going on. But when you can bring people into the fold. One of the lessons I learned both at the previous company but also here at Travelport is don't underestimate your team. Bring them in when there's a big project, utilize, leverage their skill sets. I am not the world's expert on payments and cash management, believe it or not, I know quite a lot and I know what I don't know. But I know who the experts are on my team who really know how to get through that awful KYC and AML that you have to do these days. All the documentation, etc. Bring them in because you need their support. And so I think key is when you can say, lean on your team as much as you can and try and be open and honest with them and, you know, hopefully you'll get their support and they will be engaged, which I found here.

So just you as we wrap up today's interview, you've got all this amazing experiences and as we'll put in the show, notes and everyone can connect to you via LinkedIn if good for you, good for them and everything else. But you know, looking back over this amazing career, you've had these really interesting experiences by private equity. What are the summary tips? If someone is looking back at that says, actually, do you know what? I like what Peter's done there, that would be great. Some of the bumps and stuff and the scrapes with the enrolls and all that malarkey and then all the way up to now, what's the overriding tips you would give or the pieces of advice you might share with people?

But I guess back to the beginning, get qualified, prove that you got that sort of technical ability and you will. You know, the treasury exams have changed since I've done them, but I think they're even more relevant. I found them exceedingly relevant when I did them, having done the ACA The Chartered Accountancy. I'm proud of the fact I got through them and I did them, but I found the treasury exam, you know, very relevant for the job. So to do those go on courses, really understand the technical aspects of treasury and your role in that. One of the things, I think, because I found it so interesting, I hardly quite enjoyed doing the treasury exams, although I was glad I got through them. Just I got through the MCT just as my first daughter was born and I bowed I'd never do any more exams. I haven't done any more exams since then. But get a good foundation in terms of your qualifications, then I'd just say, I call it be intellectually curious. I've moved on because I wanted to learn more about other areas within treasury and also the wider function. My roles have been quite wide in recent years. I've done a financial controller role at Travelex, I've always looked after insurance, I've done the IR role here. Be open to new ideas, embracing new opportunities and be curious. And also don't be afraid to take risks. When you go back to my Enron days and then subsequent, you know, sometimes in your career you've got to be honest and hang around for ages, but you're not necessarily going to get that promotion. So don't be afraid. If you want to get promoted to move on and take a risk, move to a different company. I always remember I got an excellent piece of advice from a guy called Phil Bentley, who was the treasurer at Diageo when I was there, and he moved on to be a CFO and then a CEO and etc. And he gave me a little pep talk once and said, you know, Peter, you've got to look after your career. Nobody else is going to do it for you. And that sometimes means taking those tough decisions to move on. So, as I say, get qualified, be intellectually curious, you know, be prepared to take some risks with your career as well.

Exactly. So. And yeah, so study, be curious, but don't be afraid to be brave, but with the right risks, you know, and manage your own risk portfolio. And, you know, when you're doing that, the only person really can look after you, your own career, is you. Really?

Absolutely.

Perfect.

Absolutely. Yep.

Peter, great to chat to you today. As I say, we'll put Peter's LinkedIn profile in the show notes, so have a look there, connect with him and just. Thank you very much for your time today, sir.

It's been great to gather and you, Mike, thank you.

Movie.

Thanks.