Why Learning is Not a Luxury in Treasury with Mina Nasif

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. In this week's show, delighted be joined by Meena Nassif, the Chief Visionary Officer at Beacon Fin Train. Mina is also on a voluntary basis, the MD of Partnerships for the AFP from the us. But in simple terms, Beacon fintrain are one of the leading providers of financial learning and development across Egypt and the MENA region. They provide an array of different professional business and financial training services. I often see Mina popping up on my LinkedIn stream, giving the latest class or bringing lots of treasury professionals up the curve as it were. And you know, it's great to see and that's why I reached out to him because I thought, wow, this is something we, we do cover and we talk about on the podcast a lot of time. But actually Mina really focuses in on that. So I thought that was something we should, you know, bring up if you like. But he's got a practical background, you know, he's come from treasury and finance and then got into this and that's what we're going to explore on today's show. But as always, I'm going to shut up. I'm going to Mina, talk us through his background. Take us back to the very beginning if you would, Mina, and how you first got started in finance, then you discovered the wonderful world that is treasury and then bring us up to date. So over to you sir.

Thank you, Mike. I've been in the corporate treasury career a long time ago, that was 2006 and I did start to touch base with the profession in Algeria with a company called Al Swedi and then I moved back to Egypt to be a part of Coca Cola bottling Treasury team like the assistant treasurer of the bottling company. And then I did move to one of the leading construction company here in Egypt called OCI and also the treasury team. And I did move out of Egypt to Saudi Arabia with a company called Al Gihaz holding that was mainly a leading company in an energy construction field. And then I get back to Kala. I was the group corporate treasurer for a company of the Kala group called Taka Arabia. And recently I did surrender being treasury staff and moved to be an advocate for the AFP and also do the thing that I in love with which is financial training. This is from the practical side Academically I do train for the CTP since you can say graduation year that was 2006. So I did train for like 15 years. Back in love with the profession and the treasury career path. My dual profile is between a hand on experience in corporate finance and treasury and also to radiate the treasury knowledge for the new generation and to the existing Brechner in the region.

That's been amazing. You've given us a real whistle stop tour of your background. But you've had exposure to corporate treasury over the past 16 years and I just wanted to dig in from your background if you like. You started as you say in Egypt and then through the UK and then back to Egypt and then Saudi Arabia. How has it been? How has corporate treasury has it been different if you like. What I mean by that is when you first started and then we had our pre call if you like and you talked about where Egypt was in those times through to how it is now, how have you seen treasury and if you like, as you're walking along through your career, you've gone through these different countries. How has it evolved? Is it that it's always been about the cash and all the way through or how has it changed if you like?

Well, to answer this question I have to tell you that in my opinion I think the corporate treasure is segmented to three clusters. Like 50% of the successful corporate treasures is the relationship. So if you are able to deal with different culture, speak a different language and shake hand with what we call it the market norm in several areas of the world, you will get to use it and will shortly plug in at a several environment. So you can say 50% of the fun of the journey was to build a relationship with a multinationality people, different mindset, different culture base and managing a team with a multi diversity cultures and 25% for the hand on experience. Because the banks is different from a country to another and there is what we call it, a banking practice. If we are comparing London banks to Saudi Arabia banks to Egyptian banks, there is a lot of similarities and also a lot of different culture based or what we call it, the people from the origin country can speak the same language, a way of being out of the country. So if you are able to blog in quickly you are able to speak the same language and my segmentation, the third part which is due knowledge. So I did equip myself with the CTP and I've been able to block or assign the right treasure products across several countries based on the know how inside the curriculum and speak what we call it a global cash management language. So if you are speaking to a bank and ask for MT940 Swift version, it is the same worldwide. And if you are asking to have an opening swift code for like MT700 to open a swift for another bank, it is a global language, it was fun. And also the diversity is a value added to accept everyone. The real challenge I think moving between several countries was to deal with several culture because it is a challenging to have like a 7 or 8 nationality and the same team with what we call it a different characteristics. However, I think this is the real value added of the journey to deal with different people and jump out of the comfort zone.

And you say that was sort of. So 50% relationship, 25%, you know, the sort of. And what was the final piece would you say? Or was that the final.

The 50% was the relationship, 25% for your hand on experience of the profession and finally the 25% with the knowledge.

Right.

So if you are building the right treasurer profile I think you have to be a people of relation, you have to be a people of values. I have five main value that I do believe that the successful corporate treasurer must have in the bucket. Like integrity, being centric to the job, team effectiveness, accountable and at the end self explanation with the bank. So if you are building the relationship I think you can open a lot of doors with the bank. If you being in a participation with your team to do the job, not being an executive in a closed office that will grant you the most recent hands on experience and finally being equipped with a globally cognized certificate or credential that keep you up to date with the most recent product worldwide. So I think this is the recipe that I got between several countries and I think this is what makes the treasurer speak the global language. I think.

And you talked about there and you've just alluded to it that you, you are focused on this training environment and that's a key thing for you and teaching and coaching and things like that. What persuaded you to do that? Because again for the listeners when we'll put at the end of the show we'll put in your LinkedIn details but they'll be able to see that you have this, you know, Beacon Finn train sort of background. What persuaded you to move more from you know, treasury per se day to day to actually, you know, giving that coaching and you know, improving that knowledge for the, you know, again one of the things we said before the show was certified, you know, or qualified. What the difference is, can you just give us a quick sort of run through of your views on that as it were.

It's been a long time when I did attend a course of appropriation for the CTP and I felt that it's kind of self satisfaction to learn the others what is the right key to open the door and how to do the job. So since I start training the others for passing the CTP or being qualified enough to understand the corporate treasury between derivatives, hedging tools, financial planning, analysis, cash management, forecasting and a lot of other, what we call it, a non static topic, a dynamic real finance challenges. So I felt a self satisfaction from learning the others how to do the job. Since I did start learning ctp, I do enjoy riding the stage, speaking about its curriculum and have a kind of storytelling about the situation that I have passed through and how to solve the right solution, how to pick the right product with the bank moving between several companies and have a kind of success stories, restructuring kind of long term debtor syndication loan, the big project usually experience so that it is a kind of happiness to tell the others how to solve their problem inside the corporate that they have. So I think I was pushed by the passion and that's why we call it beacon to guide the others toward the right way to follow. We call it beacon to radiate the know how of the profession of corporate treasury and other financial art. A way of being static or standardized in respect to the standard. I didn't fit for being an accountant maybe for a month and I resigned because I didn't like to be like doing the same repetitive job and instead of thinking out of the box, so I break the ice quickly with the people with a similar characteristic like me. So I think I was driven by the passion to move this knowledge forward for the emerging markets like Egypt, like the Middle east, because we're still far away of the American market, the European market, English market, usually the product or the global transaction banking services appear in the market after a while it being born in the state or the Europe zone. So I think it is kind of fun to tell the others about the future driven by passion and feeling the responsibility of upgrading the financial acumen here.

And why is that so important? I mean I think I, you know, I could give you an answer and things like that. You, but you're the, you lead that, you know, do you see that? You know, when some of your pupils, you know, they sort of graduate, it's, you know, is it for cash? Is it for themselves? Is it for you know, what are the reasons people come to you and say, right, well I'm going to train with Beacon, you're going to get me through this. We just talked before the show that you're coming into big training season bullets. When you're sitting with those, do all of them come with different needs requirements or is it, you know, or they're actually all wanting a pay rise or they're all wanting this knowledge, what is it they're doing?

There's a lot of dynamics to answer this question. The first one is the knowledge itself because the emerging market is feeling thirsty and hungry for this kind of knowledge. I think the mature market does not feel the the crucial part of this knowledge because it is a day to day activity for let's say the American market. However, in the emerging market it is very seldom to find the right caliber like the right piece inside your machine speaking the global language or speaking multinational language. So this is the first angle. The other one is they are driven by changes moving from traditional finance background to the digital one and believing in the future change. A lot of profession did disappear and a lot of skills start to appear on ground and there is a gap. So I think the people is acquiring the most recent knowledge like the CTP to fill the gap. And finally the companies itself, they are recommending the staff to be well equipped with the CTP or whatever the global credential that might help them to speak the global language and to be moving from being a cost to the company to be an asset. Because usually the finance team is a cost cutting target in the critical situation like COVID 19. However, if you are the brain, not the muscle, I think I will retain you insights. So being the brain, that means you are a visionary person, a strategist person or someone who think how to solve the problem, not a part of the problem anymore. So this three angle or the three dynamic did create the demand for learning the CTP or other financial credential. Believing that people started to be admitted that learning is not luxury, it's not a luxury anymore, it is a kind of investment. So simply moving from being consuming the budget of training for just a training and instead the real investment. And I think I have a proof of concept here. A lot of banks, a lot of company did cut the budget of learning and development toward the list priority topic and focusing on the financial part because they do believe it is a part of investing in their team. So I think the three reason or angle that I did mention is the real endeavors or what we call the motive toward pushing the people. And I think, Mike, I have to mention that Beacon is training like 200 to 250 CTP candidates every year, introducing them to the markets. And they are by the way moving between the Middle east and Africa region and mainly between Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirate, Qatar, Kuwait and Omen.

So if, if someone's listening today and you know the number of people who are qualified by exam, we also have people who are qualified by experience. And there's a place to both of those and things. And in, you know, in the past we had not conflict but somebody said well I've got as much experience as that person and you know, but they've got the magic bit of paper. You know, they've been through a formal program. How do you sort of answer that or sort of calm them sort of thing or you know, how do you compare the two?

If you like the famous question is the. Is it important to be qualified or certified and usually answer the people with this question with an example. It is like a bird, you need the two wings to fly. Simply being certified is not a replacement of being treasurer with a hand on experience. You need to have the right space to apply. What did you learn theoretically or even you need the academic framework that qualify you to being inquired and to be in the nice reputation inside the markets with a globally certificate program. So I cannot vote for being qualified instead of being certified. I think the question is usually is not applicable or not in a what we call it comparison because it's like a bird flying with two wings. You need to be qualified and also you need to be certified. And you cannot live with a one wing to fly.

No, exactly. And I think it depends on the audience and some, you know, sometimes we have it where people who are qualified and say well we want this, must have this. But then we also get the. I've had other bits where one of my clients sticks in my mind. He's not qualified in anything but he's got all that experience. And he said that. But I want my team to be qualified just because I wasn't given the opportunity because his previous companies wouldn't pay for it. And it was, you know, and it was very frustrating to him that he couldn't get it through. But as you say, I think it's about self development and improvement, isn't it?

Yeah, sure. Learning is an attitude and it's not a task that you do for one time and forget it. It must be a daily activity. I usually say to the learning that you have to keep the reading Like a habit. You have to invest like a one hour or two hour of your daily routine reading whatever you are doing to read. You have to keep an eye on the market and another eyeing the job. I think it became a must especially during the very fast packed changes. After COVID 19 the corporate treasury became more digital. And it is not enough to be a classic corporate treasurer and instead you have to speak the digital language, the fintech language, the blockchain, what we call the financial inclusion and a lot of dynamics. And by the way I think it is very important to be an open mind person to understand and accept the change inside the function itself.

You mentioned there about COVID and we've been through this and the sort of digitalization and then hopefully going back to that real world and meeting people again as we pass through this. Where do you see treasury itself developing? You're seeing it firsthand and you get to see some amazing people in front of you. You're training them, you're coaching them at different levels. What are you seeing from them? What are they saying is coming back in Treasury? What do you mentioned about digitalization which is brilliant but where else do you see treasury growing and developing?

I think Jim Cates did speak about the most recent changes in finance while he was a guest on an annual conference of big in the last year. He was saying that surprisingly a lot of future skills may be out of finance like critical thinking, problem solving, self management, working with other people remotely management communication activity, technology use and development, what we call it physical abilities for being working from home and managing, controlling a big team remotely. That's a new challenge that all of us did go through. So this is the first side of on a personal skill base like the new skill that treasury will need to acquire. So it's not about understanding corporate finance. You need to be more open to have what we call it soft skills for the finance people. So this is about the team, about the profession itself. The banks started to be More digitalized because COVID 19 did accelerate change toward the future. The currencies might disappear and the real physical banks that we usually know might vanish. I can give you a kind of insight about the Egyptian market. We start to accept a new reality here that there is a lot of non bank financial institutions like consumer finance, leasing factoring and theft institution also. So the market is changing and the profession itself will start to be more aggressive toward change to be digital. And understanding the classic finance function is not enough nowadays. And that's why I do encourage a lot of people to learn A global curriculum, or what we call it, a most recent update in the profession will keep you in a good understanding with the changes happening. And also I think moving from the relaxed corporate treasury before COVID 19 to the aggressive change and fast pack change that happening nowadays will create a new level of financial muscles and financial brains that will add a value to the profession itself, opening a gate to speaking like a coding language or a Python language, and also understand the new kind of risk. You know what a lot of companies started to use an EBITDA appropriation, which is earning before interest and tax depreciation, amortization.

And COVID 19, just going, reflecting on one of the points you said there about this sort of constant, I think it has been. Covid has been doubly, you know, yes, it's been challenging people, as you say about people working from home, that new ways of working. But it reminds me of, you know, I gave a speech actually at the AFP conference a few years ago that. And the point I made to the audience is that if you just did your day job, which was very difficult because some of them are in very stressful situations, but that doesn't matter, you know, in a way because everyone's under stress. You know, lots of people are doing this. These guys are like sort of looking at me going, well, what are you saying? And so. Well, it's like when you go to the airport but you're standing on one of those travelators that takes you to one of the gates, but actually you're going the wrong way. And they were like, what do you mean? It's. Well, if you're just standing on one of those things and you don't do anything, you just stand still, you're actually going backwards because everybody else, if you like, is overtaking you. They're keeping on walking forward. Your competition is other treasury professionals. Just by doing the basics, you're going backwards. You know, this is one of the key things I think you've alluded to and we, we both talked about this before the show is about this, this gaining of knowledge and continual development is so key. And I think, you know, that has been blooming hard on a lot of treasury professionals throughout this very challenging period. But as we come out of that, yeah, people throwing themselves into training, brilliant. But what other things do you think that people should be thinking about? Is it, you know, getting back with partnerships and getting back with different people that they should meet or what are the sort of things that you're seeing people doing or where do you see the next three to six, maybe 12 months. What are you looking forward to? If you like.

I think we. We all got a hard time. I can call it a hard time during COVID 19 so the corporate treasury usually responsible for allocate the required resources during the what we call it, crisis and to finance the business continuity plan. I think the largest business continuity plan I think in the history that was during the terrorism attack that happened in the United States for Bank of America. I think we have to be the security side of the business allocating the required resources and plan for the worst like under promising and overachieving because it wasn't easy, especially for the emerging markets. Believe it or not, the state and United Kingdom did succeed to decrease the what we call it, the cost of funds to the negative level. However, in Egypt we did not succeed to decrease the base rate to the negative level. So simply it put a lot of pressure on the economy to pass through the hard time. I think the lesson learned is to be prepared, moving to be digital, preparing for the new normal. It might come back, you never know. I think we have to move to be fully digital, building skillful team skillful from the finance perspective and from communication perspective because it was like it was sudden being in an office and now everyone is in a separated room. We don't see each other, we're just calling each other. So I think it became popular to have your son appearing and saying hi during a zoom call. So the business environment itself being affected. I think we have to be more prepared about the lesson Learned of the COVID 19. Our non traditional treasury function is leading the other finance department Being non traditional, being flexible, being understanding the other department challenges like tax, like auditing, like accounting. So simply I think it is a time of change. If you are asking me specifically what is the most crucial part to change is to have a Treasury management system. You have to acquire a solution that grants you more flexibility, a wider insight, a consolidated position and all above being able to open and close account remotely. Believe it or not, and I know what I'm saying is not a luxury for you Mike, but it is a luxury in the Middle East. If you are asking me how many company in Egypt have a Treasury management system I can say easily not more. 20 company. Surprisingly a lot of company and a lot of bank is still working in a very classic and traditional way. So if you are seeing tms, they are asking what? What is the tms? The current challenges will push the market toward speaking the global language. Because at a certain point of time the borders between country will be not existing, the bank will start to work cross border more. So I think have a TMS is not a luxury also. And usually I ask my learners, if you have a kind of business proposal or a company trying to head hunt you, please ask them during the interview, do you have a Treasury management system or an appetite to acquire a one or not?

I mean, you say that there are a number of companies. I don't think it's just the Middle East. I think there are some UK companies I've spoken to and some in them, you know, across Europe. And it's, it's still a wide range, you know, and it's still shocking. Sometimes there's a UK company, I can't say their name, but I know that this got quoted to me from a consultant and he said, he went in there and he was talking to their treasury manager and they said, yeah, we've got a really great treasury management system. All right, what is it? And he said, yeah, it's called Excel. And he's like, what? Really? Like. And she was like, yeah, yeah, this is what we use. And it's really, it's really robust. It's really this. And he was like, sort of just his eyes and chin dropped down and he was like, right, it's not robust. And you know, he said, you can, we can write. Okay. And it was. But it's just different people's acceptance of things like that. So, yeah, it's. I think it's a wider problem, if you like. So I wouldn't just put it, but. Exactly. I think that's a good question for people to be asking me. I don't want to run out of time today. So what I want to do actually, and, and this is what I was going to. We do on every show and you may have heard before, is if you look back and we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can then click connect with you. And there's so much more. We could keep talking for many hours, but we try and keep it a sort of half an hour or so on the show. If you look back over your career and people looking at say, oh, do you know what? I would, I'd love to have a career just like him and things like that. What are the main tips you would give, you know, give us today to take away with people? You know, I think that's, you know, a good tip about, you know, when, if people are going for interviews and stuff, but if they're looking more at you and say, actually I'D like some to follow in his footsteps or want to do a similar thing. What tips would you give to people listening today?

One word perseverance. That's it. If you'd like to follow my tips, you have to keep the perseverance. However, I do believe that every one of us is unique. I don't encourage others to follow me and instead of build their own stories because usually there is no one way of success in whatever, maybe the corporate tragedy. However, what I'm trying to say is you have to keep trying knocking the doors. Don't stop learning. Keep yourself passionate with whatever you would like to be in the future and just keep yourself in learning cycle and that's it. One day the door will be open.

You said you just came up with the one word perseverance, but actually as you say, there's far more in there. There's perseverance, but there's also having that passion for learning which you truly embody with a lot of the activity you do. So long. May that continue, sir. And yeah, people can connect with you. They can see your company, they can see the expertise you're giving and passing on to people. And as always, it'd be great to have you in their networks because they'll be able to see, you know, firsthand some of the posts about the coaching people and leading them and things like that. So keep up the good work sir, and thank you for your time today.

Well Mike, it is a pleasure being hosted by you good self and thank you for you and your team also for preparation this podcast.

Pleasure sir. Many thanks. Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen to the show from. It's totally free and means that you'll be the first to see each and every week when we release a new show. And maybe whilst you're there, you could even leave a quick review. Reviews and ratings are among the most important metrics for a podcast to effectively rank. And as you can probably appreciate, the podcast is a lot of hard work to produce every single week. It'd be amazing. Just take say 20 seconds, leave a quick review of my amazing guests and their great career stories. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I can't wait to see you soon.