Why Trying New Things is the Best Way to Learn with John Cloherty

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. This week's show joined by John Cloherty, the group treasurer, NCC Group. Now, we spoke before the show because NCC Group are a global cyber and software resilience business operating right the way across the world, advising global technology manufacturers, financial institutions, the lot. They're actually headquartered up in Manchester in the UK, got over 35 offices, 2000 people globally and they advise 15,000 clients worldwide about cybersecurity and everything else. John will get to that later on in the show and tell us all about it. But again, I've known John for many years, one of the stages at cousins with my favorite Imperial leather soap brand. Love that. That's how I first met John many years ago. But we known each other as I say. But I want to go right back to delve to the very beginning where he got into finance, accountancy and then discovered the world of Treasury. So John, as always, it's over to you, sir, it's your show.

Well, hi Mike, and thanks very much for the invitation. Pleasure. I suppose I'd go back to when I was studying my A levels and thinking about going to university. The advice I received them was to study something that you found interesting or that you enjoy. Now I think that advice is still very good advice today, despite the fact that it was given before the time of tuition fees came in, I guess. And for me I chose to study politics, so completely non financial in nature and had a great three years at Sheffield University. But it wasn't so great when it came towards the final year and thinking about what I was going to do after university. And it was, to be honest, only a friend of mine who was studying business studies who informed me that the big accounting firms those days, certainly because we're talking about the mid-80s, were taking non relevant graduates, as many as they were taking relevant graduates. And I really knew nothing, almost nothing about that area. But I'd always fancied myself as being reasonably good with numbers. I'd done a maths A level for what it was worth, but to be honest, I really didn't know what I was getting into. I managed to secure a job with KPMG and if I'm honest, I think the main reason why they saw me as a possibly interesting candidate was because I'D spent the summer between second and third years at uni traveling and working through North America. And so they thought, oh well, okay, he's not just ticking boxes, he's actually got something about him, he's going to do something. So that was how I started and I did probably what you'd call a standard ACA training contract in those days. And looking back now, I'd say that's probably still a really good starting point for many careers in finance. It's very structured, they invest a lot of time in you. They don't expect majority of people to stay too long, but you get quite a lot out of it. I think it was quite a good way out of university and into work as well in those days. It was probably the last couple of years of when they had the big intakes into the accountancy firms. So the social side was great. Everyone was studying, working hard and working during the day. So it was a good segue, I think, into the world of work. I stayed in total KPMG six years, I think. But how I managed to make that as long as I did, I managed to secure a number of internal seconds just to get different experiences. So corporate finance to do due diligence for acquisitions, insolvency work and then some of the internal departments, marketing and training. The last second I did was to clients and in those days it was Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, now AstraZeneca. They were looking for support for a couple of big project implementations for systems SAP and Hyperion. And it was once I was there I was at a client for more than a couple of weeks, as you were as an auditor. I spent a few months there that I came to the conclusion that practice was really no longer for me and I needed to move out and move into the world of industry. And so that's what I did. I took my first role was with a now defunct organization, BNFL British Nuclear Fuels limited Which is government owned and it's in the nuclear industry. I guess nobody else was really going to touch certainly back in those days, well within 10 years of the Chernobyl in 86. So it was an interesting place and it was sold to me at the time as, yeah, we're going to make this organization much more corporate. And there was quite an influx of ACA types, experienced finance people coming into the business. So I thought, yeah, I'll give that a try. Went in the normal route as a group financial accountant. First step from practice into industry. And that was all going fine. A role came out at one of the sites One near Chester. I went for that and I got that role and that was a real step forward. I felt for me, because that was putting you on the site leadership team, representing the finance function, with total responsibility for a finance for that site, proper finance team. And that's where I'd say I learned the nuts and bolts of running a finance team. That was a really good experience for probably just short of three years. You get to see things differently out at site. You're no longer at a head office, you can see the politics involved. Things are not so clearly black and white. There's a lot of gray out there when you're working in day to day operational things. So I really enjoyed that and learned a lot. And I was brought back to the corporate center for a business analysis role which was much more strategic in scope as part of one of the divisional leadership teams. And that was interesting. But it didn't last very long, probably less than a year because the head moved on and the subsequent person who came in to run it decided he didn't need that team. And so that's where I found myself at a crossroads in terms of where to go. I said, well, you're clearly doing quite well. You should be able to find yourself something else to do within the business. It's a large enough business to do that, I suppose. But I looked at my CV at that point and there were two obvious gaps. One was tax and one was Treasury. I'd never been the most fond of tax, I'll be honest, I didn't particularly enjoy the tax exams, etc. And I had spent some time with the group treasurer in my earlier role as group financier accountant. And he was a great guy, really got on with him and just went over for a chat and he said, yeah, John, come to treasury, you won't regret it. Got loads of stuff for you to do. It was that fortuitous nature of how I fell into Treasury. Just thought, okay, I'll give it a go. And to be honest, one of the best or luckiest decisions I think I've ever made in terms of my career. I probably describe myself as an average accountant, but hopefully a bit better than that in Treasury.

But when you then you were in government owned, so not civil service the wrong way, but sort of government owned organization and treasury there and then you've done all the commerc stuff that you have. Was that evident at the time? Was it slightly different ethos?

Would you say the culture was different? Yes, for sure. I think this probably just wasn't the push or the pressure to keep moving things forward. I think in the world of industry these days, it's adapt or die, isn't it? I don't think there was that much of that attitude in those days in the government owned nuclear industry. It's fair to say it was changing a lot at the time. There were a lot of structural changes and it obviously became a bit of a political football as well. So it was difficult to compare. But it was unique is probably the best way to describe it.

And then you progressed and joined Westinghouse or they're obviously related. Talk us through those moves because you made some interesting company move you and I talked about on our Pre podcast called A Variety of Different Industries, all related in some ways but with different drivers. Talk us through those moves and how that came about.

Again, it was lucky. I'd been in that treasury role at BNFL for about a year. In the background, the business had bought Westinghouse Electric, which was an unloved subsidiary at that stage of the CBS Corporation in the us so it was a very small part of their organization, but it was seen as strategically important. And I was offered the opportunity to go to their headquarters in Pittsburgh and basically become the maternity club for some treasury manager there who was going off for a year. And that was really difficult decision. This was a couple of months after 9 11. My wife at the time was a working woman and it was very much I would be going on my own. So it was a difficult decision to make. But in the end I thought it was just too good to turn down. I thought I'll try it. Why not try? How bad can it be? If it is, I can always come back. Because it was a second and turned out, never regretted it. It was fantastic time, the people were great and it was a very different environment. American treasury certainly back in those days is very different to what I call British Treasury.

I've experienced that more recently and I see that all the time. But what do you mean by that?

It works in different ways. It's a continent, it's not a country. So they have the things like lockboxes to get or minimize the float of money in the system, which is almost a science over there. And I think their approach back in those days, because this of course was pre the 2008 crisis, the US banks were, were very bullish, very aggressive and looking to sort of take over the world. The bank of America, the cities of the world. It was an interesting time. The guy I went to account there for was again very different guy. At BNFL was very traditional, whereas the guy in America was actually a Chilean fighter pilot. And it just brought a completely different approach to work and life in treasury and much more proactive, almost aggressive in terms of taking the function forward. And so you've just been exposed to that. You learn a lot by osmosis, if nothing else. So that was great. It was only for a year and half of that year. The afternoons ended up. Although I didn't realize at the time I was planning the future because we were building a European treasury center that was needed for the Westinghouse Group, try and bring two disparate sets of businesses in Europe together. And again, this wasn't that long after the Euro had come in, probably only three years or so, something like that. And basically we planned for this European Treasury Centre and I came back to the UK and ran it initially. The key project there was to get these surplus disparate funds out of these pockets in Europe, send it back to the US and repay debt, which sounds very simple, but it takes a lot of encouraging to say the least. And that's where the people side of the job really comes to the fore. I was having to go and meet all the European FDs around the group and the MDs as well, many occasions to convince them that this was a good idea to give up their cash that they've been working long towards and accept an intercompany loan instead. That was a great experience, as I said at the end of this comment, that became my role. I ended up doing that for probably another couple of years, gave me lots of opportunities for travel and understanding that the success of the project was built really around those good relationships that I'd developed during that time as well. I did my, I said my one and only treasury exam. I sat the International Cash Management Certificate as it was in those days, which I did find in. I got distinction. That was great. And then the next question was immediately, are you going to go on and do the next treasury exam? And in the end I decided against it because, well, two key reasons. One, I had two young kids under the age of three, but also I saw there was a lot of overlap with some of the accountancy exams that I'd done before at that stage. So I just put it on hold at that point. But I've never needed or necessarily had the time to go back and do anything more about that. I suppose at that point that was really about setting up a new treasury center then. And I didn't know, of course, that that would become a recurring Theme throughout my career I've done that a number of times and probably come on to those now. After that role I realized there wasn't anything else internal to do. The group treasurer role was basically disbanded as such and therefore I needed to look outside for another role. And I got a role with a metals recycling firm which was a privately owned, family owned entity who were looking for someone to set up a new treasury function. So it sounded ideal to me. I'll bring the skills I'd already learned but would be the number one within the organization from a Treasury perspective. And the CFO was really keen and that came across and so I accepted. Unfortunately, the CFO didn't last probably three months before he moved on. The next CFO lasted probably almost till the end of his probation period and he moved on and effectively the support to make the changes that I'd been brought in to do waned and there wasn't a real desire to do that. And so I managed to achieve a few things. We did an RCF renewal and we put in the first treasury policy for the organization. But it was clear it was going to have a short shelf life from my perspective at that point. So then it moves completely to the other end of the spectrum and joined PZ Cousins. Pizer Cousins are FMCG PLC in the uk but with large exposures to Africa and Asia. I think 40% of the group's revenues in those days were from Nigeria. So that brought new exposure with currency, emerging markets. So opportunity to again bring together a Treasury function. There's been aspects of treasury being done by different departments within Finance and this was an opportunity to bring it all together. But from my perspective it was the attraction of something new again. And as I say Africa and Asia, I'd never had any exposure give that a go. And what's key there for me was where was the organization up to in its evolution in terms of treasury being a complete change of the board of change of guard and probably a new 40 year old average age board was installed and they were looking to grow the business for the first time. This was an organization that had never borrowed money from a bank. But the new board was looking to make acquisitions both organically and inorganically and to grow. So they needed some treasury expertise. So it seemed like a good fit.

Again we sort of quickly move through fmcg. Can you describe again for the all listeners the sort of products you did? Because that's as I say, that's how we first really connected. I spoke to you before but you really connected there and how that then impacted on the activity he did within treasury, as it were, and what sort of flow, some of the challenges, how did that work?

Okay, so Peter Cousins was largely a soaps business at the time and traditionally soap had been bar soap. And as you mentioned, Mike, Imperial Leather is one of the core stable brands of the business. Not just in the uk, it was known internationally. And I think when I left, Imperial Leather was being made in Indonesia and Nigeria. I don't think there was any factories making it in the UK anymore. But as time went on and we made these acquisitions, business wanted to shift from these relatively low margin commodity type goods into higher margin products. So the first acquisition that we funded was the sanctuary business based out of Covent Garden. So things like the fake tan, that kind of thing, the Saint Tropez, that was a separate acquisition but one after. So these were much more high margin items with perhaps lower volumes. And so it brought with it a different type of customer, it brought a different kind of marketing required for those products. And that was quite an interesting time for the business understanding that shift because there was a real mixture of different types of people within the group from the old pz, if you like, to the new pz. It was a really interesting mindset and particularly because they'd never borrowed money previously. The concept of having to comply with facility covenants was just a new concept completely. Other challenges as a Nigeria, I mean it's a huge country, it's 1000 miles wide and it's 1000 miles tall, it's enormous. But it's a managed currency environment which is very volatile and can be subject to zero notice, government intervention into the market. And it's heavily, obviously reliant on the oil price. So what you're faced with, there is a lot of uncertainty and actually limited tools within treasury to help mitigate those risks. I was there through the 2008 crisis and we saw our way through that. I think that was as difficult for everybody for us as it was for everybody else. And we also had a business in Greece and we went through the sovereign rating crisis there.

You really pick them, don't you? You're like, oh, let's do Nigeria, let's create, ah, is there anywhere else we could have a couple more challenging currencies, please?

And that's what made it so interesting. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were some difficult days, but it really was a variety. And again, looking back now, that's what I've enjoyed the most, I would say about treasury is a variety. I've been exposed to. And I think that's partly because the organizations I've worked for haven't been enormous. They've all been large multinationals, but they weren't so large that each element of treasury was segmented or siloed. So you weren't just going to be a dealer or you weren't just going to be a middle office reconciler. I got to see large parts of the business from the corporate center that spanned all aspects of treasury, which is great.

And then from there you've been there a number of years. And then I said this earlier on in the show that you move through some different. There are some commonalities but some distinct differences as well. Different sizes of companies a bit. But then how did you then move on from there?

Yeah, I think I was being there probably about seven years and then an unusual opportunity arose. You'll know this better than me, Mike. There's few companies in the northwest of England with corporate treasury functions these days. And so what tends to happen is when one treasurer moves, you tend to get the domino effect and a few move around at the same time. Well, absolutely new, genuinely new job as a treasurer came up for a very long winded story. But the group was Convertec who were private equity owned medical device manufacturers. To cut a long story short, the PE house thought they'd done a deal to sell the business on the back of that, decided to get rid of all the corporate functions that were going to be replaced by the business that was the acquirer. But unfortunately the deal fell over at the last minute. But they'd already got rid of all the corporate functions so they had to reinstate these functions. And one of those was treasury which had been based in the US and the only treasury person that remained in the organization was somebody based in Chester near the shared service center. So they decided to rehire a based round Chester. And that's why it was an opportunity for me based in the Northwest. But again it was very much setting up a Treasury function. Again it was recreating a Treasury function without any handover or any knowledge. So that obviously brought its own challenges. A new CFO was brought in probably I think a month after I joined. And what was really key for me at that point was to agree with him what the immediate deliverables were and expectations. And it became clear straight away that cash visibility was a real problem. We could only see cash one week ahead at that point and we had leverage of more than four and a half times. So cash forecasting suddenly became king and it was the most important project that we could put in. And it made a huge difference to give visibility and some control back to the organization. So it was interesting because it was very PE focused and therefore you would think cash was very high on their agenda. But because they thought they'd sold, probably the eye was off the ball at that point. So instead they decided to go down the IPO route. And that took place, I think two years after I joined. Again, you learn tons going through that kind of experience. It's very intense period. New banks were refinanced at the same time. And it was actually quite helpful in terms of getting some of the global processes to standards that you would want. So for things like the FPP report, we had to have these processes in place. And from the treasury perspective, when I was trying to build it, again, that was very helpful. But I guess the biggest lesson I'd say most of us who were involved in that IPO walked away with was don't forget the PE house is not interested day one after. Because there was no plan for that really. It was all about getting to the ipo. An example, in treasury terms, all the banks that had been used for the refinancing were the PE houses. Relationships. The organization as such had no relationship. Those banks. So we had to build those from scratch. And with a couple of billion dollars worth of debt, there were a lot of banks involved. So that was again a real eye opener. The business was having to get used to that new world of meeting quarterly consensus targets. So there's just never enough resources in that scenario to take on all the added new tasks that you weren't doing before the ipo. All you can really do, I found, was to prioritize the risks that were there and keep clear regular visibility with your board. That's. That's all you can do.

I mentioned this for the listeners. You know, I let John and I had a pre call. I knew that. I've known John. He make an amazing guest, which he is doing. And it's great. And this is one of the reasons I shut up because it's actually nice to just hear you. It was great. You just all that identify the risk, do this. And sometimes on shows I sort of say, oh, give us your checklist and stuff. And you're giving us a lot of those natural checklists. I think a lot of treasurers in a similar situation or coming into that, they go into it, right, okay, where's the fires? Okay, we've put those out, right. This is now today. Let's look at the future. And just as you mentioned it there, and I didn't want to interrupt, but I thought it was worthy. You started to identify those risks. You've done that, you've identified them. How do you then mitigate them going forward? Or what's the future ethos for some of that stuff?

I think the fundamental is to get a policy in place. A lot of times I've walked in and you'd be surprised at the size of the organization that don't have a Treasury policy or have a page and a half, that's a Treasury policy, which really is neither here nor there. And if you can get the board to sponsor that policy and be supportive of that, and then you know that everything that you're doing has to follow from that, it has to be in support of that policy. Cash visibility is an obvious one. Documentation, again, it sounds simplistic, but housekeeping. Have you got all the signatories up to date? Do you find when you actually really need to do something quickly, that all those signatories have left the organisation? So finding the right levers to make those changes is really dependent upon having the support of the board. So I found that being close to your CFO is absolutely crucial. Knowing the direction they want and the slant they want to put on things, and where it sits within that other myriad of priorities is absolutely key. I think, for me, and it probably represents me, is keep it simple. At the end of the day, you don't need to overcomplicate these things. A lot of them can be relatively straightforward. But document, make it clear, port feedback and keep that loop going on a regular basis and you'll fairly quickly establish, I think, the credibility of the function.

You were there for a number of years. And then talk us through your next moves or bring us up today, because I don't want to run out of time today, because I think we've got a couple of interesting areas to talk about. Yeah, that's probably the best way to put it. But bring us more up today.

When Covid struck, for example, I was working as the interim head of Tax and Treasury at a oil and gas workforce solutions organization, again in the northwest of England. That was interesting because they were operating again in, let's call them, emerging markets, but I think it might even be lower than that. Some of the Stan countries out in Asia, and they had an interesting model. They had relatively tight leverage covenants, but the way their business worked was that as they started a new contract, working capital requirements increased. And so as Covid kicked in and Things started to close down. It actually eased their initial issues with their headroom. As business reduced, their headroom grew. So everyone immediately is asking, well, that's great news. But then of course, you come to the bottom of that curve and you're thinking ahead, oh, actually that's going to upturn at some point, hopefully, because the business has got to come back. And then, oh, now what? That headroom isn't necessarily going to be enough because we're going to have to have all this kicking in at the same time. Whereas in the past it had grown steadily over time. So all new covenants or new headrooms needed to be negotiated with the banks, et cetera. And once again, not unusually, cash forecasting came to the fore. And what I found there was that they were using a very old spreadsheet that was an industry and keeping it up to date in itself. So we quickly abandoned that and implemented a bought off the shelf system which we implemented within eight weeks. That made a huge difference to having the confidence in the numbers and the speed of saying, well, if this changes, can we run on sensitivity? Whereas before that could take you a couple of days, you could now just do that in passive A button. So that was hugely significant. And that was part of a period where I did some contracting work. But as you said at the start, Mike, in December last year, in the middle of the shutdown, I joined NCC Group. And not as a contract, but as a permanent role as their group treasurer. Again, it's going to sound monotonous this, but they had a relatively immature treasury function. They hadn't really invested in that part of the business to that point. For me, the attraction was again, another completely different industry. So that's interesting of itself, but it's the fact that it's such a fast moving and growing industry. Cyber risks now, as everybody knows, are never out of the news. Everybody's subject to those risks. Even the issues of working from home brings more risks to every organization. I thought it was an incredibly interesting organization organization. And I met with the CFO and the group Financial like them both enormously. And it was a really easy decision. I think a week after I joined, I ended up signing an NDA and there was an acquisition sort of just starting to get underway. So the first six months have been really, really interesting, really full on. We've refinanced, we've done the acquisition, we've put in a new cash forecasting system. Again, actually the same one as I put in in the previous organization, which makes it a little easier and have recruited a new treasury role. So first time we've got a second person in Treasury. So if I go under a bus tomorrow, it's not the end of the world for the company at least.

We'd miss you and I'd be careful both ways, sir. Thank you. But joking aside on that, we talked about this. You work for a technology company, cybersecurity, the future. The future. But treasury management system wise, as you said, you'd heard some of the other podcasts and we talk about it a lot, some people, it's a key thing and everything else. Describe that for us. Maybe.

I don't know how unusual this is, but I've never implemented a TMS in the 20 odd years that I've been in Treasury. I think it's probably largely down to the organization size and the volume. It's a very hard case to take to your CFO to say I need you to spend 200, 300,000 when treasury isn't necessarily quite at the top of his priority list in that sense in terms of his risks or his assessment of the risks. So similarly, I've never had in my treasury team a separate front office, back office, middle office. The treasury teams have been too small to do that. So you work around it and you put in mitigating controls to help eliminate those risks. But you read the books, the textbooks, and you should really have all this separation. In reality, that's not always feasible or possible or even desirable in some organizations, and I know lots of organizations I've worked for would never support the investment that that would require.

So how do you assess if you're right sized for that? And you talk there very, very well about the need to have controls, effective controls and separation and all those things and compliance. But where does that start and stop in your mind? Is it a number or is it a complexity, a turnover number? Where, where does it start and finish for you? You've got this amazing experience over many different industries. Where do you judge it, if you like?

I think volume of activity, of throughput and complexity are definitely two aspects of it. I go back to knowing your board, I think knowing what they need. Some boards know exactly what they need and they're very savvy when it comes to treasury issues. All the boards I've worked with are not, and they're looking for advice. So I think you give them, if you like, the textbook advice, this is what ideally it might look like. This is what that translates to in terms of this organization. And when they pick them back up off the floor at that point you say, well, this is how we can manage it. Somewhere as a halfway house between what might be the ideal and what's actually practical and affordable for the business.

What other areas have we not touched on? Do you think you'd reflect upon some of the listeners today? This isn't the top tips, we'll come to those in a minute and things like that, but you meet lots of people at different conferences and you've gone to these sessions and you are you sitting there sometimes scratching your chin going, really, do you need to be doing that? We talked about technology, we touched on that and everything else and obviously you've got through a pandemic. We're a bit bored of talking about that, I'm sure. What are the key things that you see coming at you as a treasurer that you think people also need to be thinking about?

I think everybody wants to automate as much of the heavy lifting, transactional type stuff as they can and that's where I think technology can really help and add that value. So the old 8020 rule, you can spend only 20% of your time doing that kind of side of things and the other 80% adding some value. There's so many issues floating around in treasury at the moment. I guess the latest one I picked up on is the ISO 20022, a new global message payment format that I think the banks are describing as the biggest change in 30 years that's coming towards us next year. I think end of next year it's going to be in place. So there are lots of things coming along that we have to do and comply with and some of those are forced on us by things like the rules and regulations that the banks are changing and having to comply with. And that obviously affects us corporates as customers. But there are others where the industry itself is changing. I guess we probably won't recognize in another 30 years time we won't recognize it. It'll be so different again. But I think despite those changes, I would still go back to the core. The core principles or fundamentals won't change. Your job really is reducing risk and volatility. Obviously no speculation allowed. The old sly principle, security first, liquidity second, the Neil third. Making sure you do the fundamentals. I don't think when I started in KPMG I really truly understood the value of a good bank reconciliation. But as I've got older, those fundamentals I just think become more and more important to me. I think if they're done right it means you can focus on other areas but if they're not there, you really are going to struggle.

Exactly. That is going to make life impossible. Really?

Yep. Indeed.

We're going to wrap up today's show, as we always do, with a link in the show notes to your LinkedIn profile so that people can connect to you. If you want them in there, don't bother. If you don't want it, that's fine. We've talked around everything. I knew it'd be just like this and great show and really enjoyable. But if you were to maybe if you're advising some of the guys internally or externally, and they say, oh, you know what, what advice would you give us? You've been these number of years in treasury, you've talked about how it's going to evolve over the next 30 years and be unrecognizable. But certainly for the short term, if you like, certainly before then, what sort of advice would you give to people either entering the profession or a bit further on in their careers? What's sort of the takeaways you would give them?

The big one. For me, although I think I've been very fortunate in some of the roles that I've had, I think just say yes to opportunities. Opportunities. That variety is key, I think, in treasury because you can work in one treasury function and it can be very slanted towards debt management, say, or cash management. If you do get opportunity to do different things, you will see and experience different ways of doing the same thing and different subjects. Completely throw back to my time in Pittsburgh. I think that's good advice. If there's a chance, why not give it a try? I don't really think you've got anything to lose and I don't think any experience is wasted. I'd say exams are great, but I don't think they're necessarily critical. It's horses for courses. What best suits you and what other experiences have you got that can substitute for that? That might mean it's not as important for you, but again, they're never a bad thing to be able to put on your cv, that's for sure. The ACT is hugely respected. I think one thing that stuck with me, one of my CFOs told me, was we were sat down and we were talking about subjects. I can't recall it now, he says, you do realize, Sean, don't you, that as of now, it's just you, me and this whole organization that know this, nobody else does. And that hit me hard, that one. And it was a key to transparency, making sure that everybody understands and is starting from the same base point of understanding. Don't use information as power the wrong way, if that makes sense. Use it to share and to enlighten the organization. And it goes hand in hand with integrity. It has to, it really does.

I think that's fundamental to when you and I first connected years ago. It's that opposite way of thinking, I think. And there's certainly many years ago there was that ivory towered mentality, wasn't there? Oh, I'm in Treasury, look at me. And the problem was that was great and you got the premium salary and everything else, but then people didn't talk to you. You were the treasury dude sitting in the corner. Yeah, that's good in some ways. But the problem is you don't get involved in lots of stuff. You lose that. That specialness is only special for a short period of time. You've got to integrate yourself, sort of thing you do.

And if you now ask me difficult questions about what NCC does from a cyber security aspect, from a technical point of view, I'm going to struggle to be honest. But I don't need to know that. What I need to know is the operating model of that business and what the key elements in there and particularly the levers that might affect cash flow and things like that. Technically, no, but you've got to be close to the, as well as the board, you've got to be close to the business in terms of what they're doing and where they're going. Otherwise you can't be that true business partner that you always aspire to be.

Yeah. And that's the real value in that partnership approach. So amazing new it would be John, amazing to have you on the show today. Thank you for your time and been lovely and as I say, we'll put your details in the show notes and people connect to you if need be, if not, don't. That's fine. I can't wait to see you in the real world at some stage for that. Catch up here and we'll, we'll talk more treasury stuff. So thank you very much, sir.

Thanks, Mike, you're very kind.

Thank you, sir. 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. Review 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 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.

Sa.