Why You Should Stay Eager to Learn in Treasury with Frank Muusse

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've built 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 I'm joined by Frank Musa, the head of treasury at cna. CNA is one of the leading fashion retailers in Europe. They welcome more than 2 million visitors to their stores in Europe every day. Great quality fashion at reasonable prices for the entire family. Founded way back in 1841, came all the way through from 60s 70s. Looking through a lot of this. It's amazing. While CNA and the world around us has changed, one thing, as they say, you know, a lot of the time that has stayed the same, the dedication to sustainable quality fashion. The entire family. I know that big CNA customer, not so much in the UK anymore, but you know, whenever I get to Europe I always pop in. So it's really good as well. But I'm going to go right back to the beginning for Frank and how he discovered the world of finance and Treasury. We had a lovely chat the other day to go through this and there's some great, you know, stories and lessons from Frank, great crossover past guests and Walters, Klua and various other bits. But let's go back to the dim distant past if you would, sir. How did you all discover it from maybe from your economics degree up to now. Talk us through over to you.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you also for hosting me on the podcast. I've listened to several ones before and it's interesting to hear other treasures speak about their career, their job because actually it is something I love as well, the job I've got perhaps to start with how I actually entered into treasury and also the invitation with the postcard made me of course think about that again. It actually over I think 25 years ago and it was during my high school and at that time I had a side job at ABN Amro at that time and I was working at the guest desk during holidays. So it was still in those times where the majority of the transactions were in handled with notes and coins. So when I was working there and especially after the weekends, then the people will come there to make their deposits or the business people would, would come there and make their deposits and it was me who had to count their revenues over the weekend. That was on the one hand and the other end also issuing not and issuing our money to the customers. But it was very interesting to literally smell the money. And also for myself being in the weekend once in a while to the pub, spent money there. And then I found my own at that time. A ten gilder note back me count the revenue of the weekend. So that was actually kind of my first introduction with the bank. And it was after my study of business economics here at the university in Amsterdam. Of course I did the business finance education there. So there was some touch of economics, finance, banking, corporate finance. That was not an important point in my career or start of the career. I think that raised the interest about the function. But I do have to say after graduating and first work for one of the big four, it was not directly treasury and it was actually a friend of mine who introduced me to Walters Kluwer at that time. And they were looking for an officer middle office. So in a cash management role. And that was actually my entrance really into an. Into a tresvi role. So that was back in 2004. And I do have to say that it was a lovely experience over there being an holding entity, international company listed company with a very experienced group dressurer. So that really gave me the opportunity to learn about the job and also to being exposed to all kind of projects and also the broader area of the Kreski function.

I know that you and I both know the group. Can you just. The listeners say we will put in the show notes the link to the previous episode with the treasurer for Walters Klua. But can you describe the company?

Yes. So it is a publishing company listed in the Netherlands. It's operating worldwide with several subsidiaries out there. And actually it is interesting that that company, it has gone through a gradually growing stage. But also it was a company in transformation from back in those days, mainly printed and subscriptions towards a digital company. So also a company in that sense in transformation. And perhaps some of the listeners might know from at that time the education part that they had. They had famous sensochloria which was called in Dutch the Gauten Boss Atlas. So that was yeah, kind of the standard work at least in the Netherlands for primary education. And furthermore, I think they are well known for their specialized tax and finance and healthcare financial information and all the kinds of information they provide to professionals.

You were there for a number of years and a great way to sort of broaden and a great foundation for your treasury career. Talk us through if you would just briefly what the breadth is. Great breadth of experience. But then how it then gave you a springboard. You and I talked about this previously. Give us a bit of a flavor for that, if you would.

So at Watersluar it wasn't holding structure, so meaning that the corporate office was relatively light with not too many people, but all the corporate functions were there and then the divisions and the subsidiaries or the business units, it had some kind of independency to run their own business. So it also meant at the corporate office, I think at that time there were around 50 to 60 people in the corporate office functions that gave the opportunity to know each other. So it was not too big that you didn't know each other and it was also not too small that it was not touching deep enough and broad enough in the corporate area. Also, when I started as a cash manager or a junior case manager and at that time we had the implementation of IFRS 7 and IAS 3239, which was about the valuation of derivatives and the setup of hedge accounting. And it appeared to be that in my past, during my study I also had a side job at the IIT department and that gave me the opportunity to dig a little bit more in nicker Excel sheets and building macros and these kind of things. And actually in the beginning there was no dedicated software to do the valuations and to do the reporting out. So I could support on building the Excel models for the valuation of derivatives and also for the reporting out the effectiveness testing. So that was one big opportunity from a legislation or from an accounting implementation perspective. Also Walters Kluwer was present in over 30 countries worldwide. So there was a lot of foreign currency exposure and it was literally starting with Japan, going over Asia, Europe toward Americas. So also it gave the exposure and the learning about the different continents, different countries, different currencies, cash management ruling in those countries and also how best to set up cash management in those countries, making use of cash pools in the different currencies in the different countries with different jurisdictions to take care of. That was also very nice about Watersclur. Also they had a balance sheet which included debt and also publicly debt. So heading that exposure to support as well on bond issuances. The group treasurer was a great learning experience because he could teach and facilitate quite broad spectrum of the treasury function. Because the team in itself consists of around six people. It was split between a front office and a middle office and a back office. So I think a kind of standard setup. But with only six people in those functions there was always crossover that you had to support each other. And I think being just getting out of the uniform university, I still had an attitude of wanting to learn, wanting to see. And I think that is actually something I always try to get asking the question why? Why are you doing that in that way, what is the purpose of setting it up like that? Because that gave me the answers or the training or the education to learn myself and also yeah to think about okay, what are the implications? What can I do about it? How can I support. Yeah to have some eagerness about the learning and I will clue as well as another item is that they were doing quite a lot of M and A and that's always, I think as a trustee a very nice spot to be in because it's high exposure projects. A lot of different corporate finance angles come together there. But also the pure operational setup of the treasury function because if you do M and A, you will take over a company. Yeah, you need to ensure that there is a liquidity. You need to ensure that you can make a bank transfers, that you can do cash management. So also with M and a project in itself it exposes your tissue opportunity to learn about other corporates and also on a project basis to integrate them or to improve the setup there and also take over best practices or learnings from that other company. And perhaps as a last component to say what, what gave a learning opportunity there is that also the corporate tax function was in the. In the headquarters and also arriving from tax quite directly. There's something about the transfer pricing of the setup of certain intercompany loans and that was also a driver for another element of the treasury function with the social content wise it was very interesting and also with some turnover of the colleagues there. It also gave me the opportunity to make within the testing department a few moves moving from guest management towards the front office and then also in the end to lead the front office. So that was a very interesting and great learning experience in the worldskiller.

Now as you say, Frank, you were lucky. You know, you got that great breadth of experience things. If someone's listening today and I know that I don't want to run out of time so we're going to move on in a minute. But before we do, what would you advise someone if they're in a more limited environment? You had that breadth of experience, as you said, all the international markets and things and they're in a company that perhaps they've not chosen or has chosen them or they've downscaled and it's not quite as interesting. Is the only way to, you know, escape that, to escape to move roles or what would you. How Would you advise someone who's in a situation where it's not quite as broad, they're not getting the treasury, you know, exposures they want?

I think the, the second thing you could or should do is consider to make a move. I think the first thing you should do is see how you can evolve your own role, your own learning experience, keeping the link with the company where you are in. Of course sometimes the role in itself could be more limited, but I think a combination of one having an eagerness to learn and to do things, keep an open mind on what is happening around you and also willing to make that additional step. So reach out to other departments, to other colleagues, listen, hear, talk with them. The famous coffee chats example given if you just walk around and sometimes you can also learn there or see where you can work together just perhaps to give a few concrete examples towards that is that a lot of companies have lease costs so talk to your procurement department or your HR department because with lease cars there is also a certain element of credit involved because leases for the long term so perhaps you can go there different departments, different exposure rather than trespi only other example could be again in the area most of the times within HR procurements about credit cards. A lot of companies have company credit cards. So it could also be an area that you could explore to widen your exposure to the pure treasury function in itself. And I also think keep the connection with other treas fees with tres fee organizations because they can also give you input on the learning or things that are happening around. I think in most companies they more than welcome you if you would bring your own ideas which you then might have read somewhere, heard somewhere, talked with someone about. So that I think could be a few examples and a few ways how you could make your own job more interesting and broadening as well. So I think in summary it's try to explore your current company, your current role first before directly considering a move to another company.

But also, you know, call us, you know, we offer advice. I've had with someone the other day and they, they called and they said I don't think it's the right time to move. You're going through a tough time from the stormy times. You think it is clear whether a bit later on I don't think they're going to be there for the next five years but I think it's probably a good year's worth of learning before it's probably the right time to move on. I don't know if they'll take the advice but you know, they just asked the advice I gave it. So. So we shall see. But I don't, as I say, I don't want to run out of time. So you then were at Walters Klua then talk us through if you like the next moves because they're really interesting for again the audience listening today.

Yeah. So for me it was, it was clear a great company, great colleagues, great learning. But actually for myself I was ready to make the next step and actually at that moment it was not a possibility to do so because also the company was relocating and after five years together with two other elements, it was for me time to move on I felt. So there I made a move to a KPN which is the Dutch telco to work in there in the cash management role as a first start and then also to build that role further. So I was interested in different company using my experience of few years of experience I had so far and then deepen and broaden the role within akpn. But actually at that time it was very interesting that the CFO with whom I had my last interview left the company company quite rapidly after when I started. By the way, I don't think it's related but another coincidence and also the group dashers which I reported into, they left the company quite soon. So basically at that moment it meant that the role I had, it was led interim by an corporate control, so not by the CFO or group treasurer. And that actually gave a challenge on the content of the role because being part of a group control department it was more focusing on month end looking back instead of what I think is a very interesting component of the Treschy function is not only today and looking back especially also that looking forward situation of, of the Tresci function. Nevertheless KPN was interesting situation that it was doing a lot of corporate finance transactions. So at least twice a year there was a bond issuance, there were repurchases, there was a share buyback, there were dividends programs, they also had the MTN program. So even I have not spent too long within kpm. I had the opportunity to work on several corporate finance projects due to the time where the company was was in. So in that sense it was not what I had expected because in the end I only stayed at the company for over a year and that was not my intention when I when I started the job. But looking back, although it was relatively short, there were several quite interesting projects which I could support.

Yeah. And then moving on let's how did the next roles come up? Because Obviously enroll Phillips. Amazing move.

Yeah, that was actually an excellent move. So it went via headhunter, got introduced with Philips and I was starting at Philips as a corporate finance manager. That was back in 2010 and it was also the year that there was a new CEO, Van Van Houte, and also a new cfo, Ron Vradirags. So it was a great name, of course, conglomerates, great history. But also with the new CEO and cfo, it also meant a lot of changes within the company where they had to happen. Being in the corporate finance area there, there were great projects there to work on. The Treasury Department there consists of over 66,0 people, so really large. But it also embedded a broad range of treasury linked functions like real estate, like pensions, beyond the, I would say core treasury operations with cash management, front office, dealing room, et cetera.

You want to jump in because. And we have listeners from across the world now in Europe, everyone knows Royal Phillips, you know, we know it as a group for many years with a really deep history and things. For some of our listeners, they won't know who the group is. Can you just give us a quick headline of what it was certainly around that time. I know it's evolved as well, but you know, back in 2010 when you joined it, and then over the next five years or so, can you just give it, give them an idea for it sort of thing? Because again, there are different businesses as well, which you'll come on to. But what part of the business were you in?

So I was there at headquarters. So at that time they were organized around three big divisions. There were very much also in electric components. So for instance, in the TV business there were very large consumer lifestyle. They were also having businesses within the chip sector. So perhaps the names of NXP Semiconductors or asml, the company that's now very much in the news. Originally they were also part of the Philipse family. They are now focused on health, health and well being. And actually they started a transformation from 2010 till now to transform the company from a conglomerate with different divisions being consumer electronics, lighting and healthcare, into a healthcare company.

The company was evolving and your roles then sort of, you shifted through these different roles, which I think is interesting for the audience that if they get into a conglomerate, you know, sometimes you go into a mega major and that's it, you sit in the role for and you might make some aggression within it. As you say, you're a period of great change for the group. What was that like for you from a Treasury perspective?

Yes, that's correct. So I started as a more specialized corporate finance manager. So in that area, but with the experience I had also in the operational elements of Tres Re gained that within Woldersflu and kpm. And also yeah, the continuous interest I had to work on projects and to try to learn. I was given the opportunity to develop in a managerial role. I made a step towards Trespi operations and actually had been given there the challenge to merge sub teams within treasury operations and then also there make innovations, make changes within the payments factory that was set up there. And another large project was the SEPA implementation. So I think the combination of working for me then in a conglomerate which also very much focused on a personal development if you would be interested and also if you deliver on the job that combines with experience, previous experience in a broader Trespi role. I think that combination gave me the opportunity to lead the Trespi operations team.

You've been with Philips, although it changed, you may transition to sort of Philips Lighting renamed and things like that. Talk us then through leaving the group and then some of the other moves. Because I want to bring us up today and not run out of time again. You know, the past four or five years, what's been happening.

I was almost working 10 years for the Philips Group. The opportunity came up to start working for Carnext.com, it was part of LeasePlan and it was owned by a private equity. And Carnext.com was a business unit of LeasePlan. So the LeasePlan is the leasing company. And after the end of the lease there is a second hunt and car. So normally they were sold to the market or directly, indirectly. And carnext.com was the start model to actually make a new business model out of those secondhand cars with the idea there is more value in those secondhand cars than we think or residual value within those cars. And we can make a business model around it. In the US you have Carvana and then in Europe the idea was to set up carnext.com so startup scale up company. We directly had substance because the parents being leased plant already had a lot of leasing costs. But it was in a setting that it was a scale up mentality. And that was for me something totally new because I worked for companies which existed for a long time and that was very interesting. That's working for the private equity, working for a scale up. The way how things went were very much different than from a well organized listed company where you have all kinds of policies, controls, there is a cadence, how you do things with Being an in scale up, there are no such kind of policies or ways of working because it's all in development, it needs to be set up. And that was a very thriving time to be there, to end, to support that, to set up the basic facility function there from scratch. So there was literally nothing because yeah, there was only an idea where it started with selling secondhand cars, both from the showrooms, but especially also online. So that you literally go to a website, you search for a car and due to the branding and the history being leased on carnext.com there was trust and based, the combination with online trust, secondhand cars at a good price. People were buying their cars online without having even seen the car. So you purchase online the car, 20k example given and then the car was within a few days delivered at your home. Yeah, so that was totally different environments. I really had to get used that. There was no strict framework or cadence how things, how things work. It was as said, all in development. And I could build very much rescue function how I think it could or should be built up.

I just want to jump in there again if I'm a listener now and this guy's gone from Phillips to this private equity backed group and everything else in treasury terms for you, you walk in there in a mega major Phillips, you know, you've got everything, lots of people around it, what was it like for you to step in there, set it up and things like that. You said you had to be agile, but again, when people are doing this, what was it like for you to sort of step in there and try and influence things and work with lots of people from coming from that background.

For me it was based on the experience. Also setting the structure, setting the organization be open. Notice that a lot of things are not written in stone, can change literally day by day or over the weekend. But you need to have some starting framework where you going to build upon. So also they're starting with the core cash management. So opening the bank accounts for the entities. How do you want to set up payments, collections? How do you connect the bank accounts together? So starting from a cash flow and cash transactions mindset and then making the building blocks around it, that was how I tried to do it. But the changes were big. It was literally that every Monday there were new people starting and it was not just one or two, it were literally 10, 20 or even more people starting every week. So it was really big and expanding. And the people who, you know, last week, yeah, next week you had to work at introductions again.

So you were there for that period of time before then making the most recent move. Talk us through that if you like what happened.

So it was getting there towards a year. And then also it became clear that there would be a private equity transaction from carnext.com towards what happened to BCA. So FreedomPoor auctions to merge the two. What I think in a Treasury function is the great thing is in a lot of cases you only need one treasurer or one treasury team to perform the tasks. And it does not always really matter that much how big the company is because here if you have 1,000 payments or 10,000 payments, the concept remains the same. Also if you have turnover of 10 million or 100 million between brackets, it's just an additional zero. So for me it also came clear in that sense it would come to an end. From the transfer function, I learned for myself a private equity environment is at this moment perhaps not the best environment for me personally to be in. I liked a little bit more structure and I also liked a little bit more longer term, so to say. And then came the opportunity to start working for cna. So where I'm currently employed basically with a similar task set up or build a trustee function. But then again in a company which exists for a very long time, but a company which is in a very difficult market, retail is difficult at that moment. Fashion is even more difficult. And where CNA was coming from, great background history, but it was lacking perhaps a little bit of investments the last decade. So where the market and competitors grew, that was not the case for cna. So it was a company which needs to make a transformation from the way how it is organized towards a nowadays standard and a nowadays setup. So in that sense it was a big challenge. I had my doubts should I do it, should I not do it? But personally I like challenges and that also made me do the step because working for a great brand with great opportunities, but also, yeah, really a lot of challenges because I started the first of January last year. Yeah. And I had to deal with the fact that there was the COVID impact. Yeah Seniors operating around over 1300 stores in Europe and almost from one day to the other, a vast majority of those stores were closed. And although there was an online shop for CMA at that moment, it was very small. So from a Trespi perspective, it was extremely challenging that you didn't had almost no sales from one day to the other, so no cash was coming in and you still have to deal with the payments that you have to make not only for the Employees but also for the merchandise, the other suppliers that need to be paid. So there was a big big liquidity challenge when arriving at the company. So where I thought okay, I going to have a mandate to build a trusty function, invest, spend money. I actually first had to deal with the liquidity shortage or with the liquidity challenge. So that was all hands on deck doing really day by day cash management and supporting there and making judgments about what can be paid, what cannot be paid, how we going to do it. So that was a stressful time but we managed to do it and also with a great cooperation with the shareholder. Once that conflict wave reduced a bit then I could really start on my task on building the Tresky function. So again there it was setting up the entity, the Tresci entity, the banking structure, the bank accounts also then with building a team. And I think that's also a very important element of the treasury function. Of course the people you need to need to find the right people for the job function with the right attitude towards work experience. So I think a lot of times you can use help there because trusty people are sometimes a little bit difficult to find or at least they are very specialized and there are not a lot of treasures around that. Starting there beginning of last year first having to deal with liquidity directly, the COVID impact thereafter. And senior is a family owned business. So getting the support there to build the trustee function and also to be given the time to build the trusty function. So hiring a team currently consisting of the treasurer front of us guest manager. We have a dedicated IT resource and at this moment also interim trustee accountant to also go in a standalone journey of cna. Because CNA as well was part of a bigger group, family owned business assets and CNA was one of the divisions. So to say it was decided that CNA needs to have own corporate function, own trustee. So also we need to engage with our own banking group. So our next big step after building team was to make an advesary selection process. After that also doing the first FX trade on our own balance sheet of the newly set up treasury entity. We did the setup of a payment directory still within a shareholder IT environment. We recently built our swift connection and now we are in the process of implementing our tms. So that also from a technical point of view we can be a standalone trustee. Yeah. And be able to lead in such a. Such a project, such a journey. Yeah. That is great learning experience and opportunity as well. Of course.

And I know that you talked about bringing people on into the team and we touched on it earlier. You're very passionate about education and coaching and things like that. And that's a theme that keeps on coming up in the show. We'll come on, we're going to wrap up soon. But I want to explore that before we get to the sort of. You were giving top tips but you know, with yourself. I know that you, you've done lecturing and various other bits. Why are you so passionate about it? Or give us a bit of an insight to that, if you would.

Well, I always think that you need to challenge yourself and develop yourself. And one of the ways to do it is higher education. It's definitely not the only one. There are much more ways to do it, but I think an education can be a strict way of to do so. So. And also I think I have been given the opportunity to go to a high school in the Netherlands, go to the university to learn there, to develop an analytical skills. So I also thereafter being learning on the job, being in different functions, I also wanted to give something back to the younger generation, so to say or to others, not to say younger, but to others. Therefore, I think that education can be a way of continuously challenging and evolving yourself in a structured way. Plus that I think learning new things can also be really fun. For instance, we also set up in house education within Philips and that was a very nice opportunity to meet colleagues from different countries or different departments. You were doing the same in house, finance, education, coming from different departments. So yeah, you also get exposed to them and yeah, learn from them, connect from them. So you also have the human connecting aspect around it.

We'll put it in the show notes. We give people, listeners go to Corporate Treasury 101. We produce this ebook which I shared with you as well and it's again part of our trying to give back. You know, we share through the podcast, but we also share through things like the ebook with us from the Corporate Treasury 101 podcast and we want to help. So yeah, share the word of treasury, which is fantastic. Again, before we hit the, you know, final wrap up, if you like, we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes. But reflecting back over, you know, your incredible career, what are the top tips for the listeners you would give? Because obviously it's great for yourself because you've got a real connection to people coming into finance and treasury. So you've seen that through to, you know, your peers and the more senior level. What, what are the recommendations you might give to those guys out there?

Well, if I may say So I think that it's very important to keep an open mindset. So don't take things for granted. Always ask yourself the question why, why am I doing this? Or why is it being set up like this? Keep that challenge. Also have the eagerness to challenge yourself, challenge your colleagues and to work together and learn together. So try to go beyond your core responsibilities because I think it can not only be fun connecting with colleagues or the departments, it can also give you that learning experience, not per se, only on the content of the project that you might do together, but also going from a different, different mindset. If you for instance work with an HR department or with an IT department, they could be coming from a different background. So I think that are elements that can help on, on challenging and evolving yourself. Then I think technically you need to keep on developing your analytics skill and mindset and also it is extremely important and you should not too much time on the complex excels or trying to build that, but you need to have that IT literate tool set to be available because you need data, you need info I think to make conscious decisions. Yeah, and I think connect with treasures outside of your company, connect with treasury organizations that are there, I think that are sources of input for yourself on learning, but definitely also on connecting. And I think in the end perhaps, yeah, I should say, but that's more coming from myself. Stay in trusty because at least personally I think it's one of the most interesting areas to be in as it is linked to cash flows and in almost every business activity there is somehow a link towards cash. So in that sense I think Kraski can be a luxury position within a company as you can be exposed to so many other parts of the business cycle and the business setup.

Fantastic looking about there. Be prepared to go beyond your core activities, be it literate, you know, to make sense of it and everything else and and again, let's try to stay within Treasury. I've been doing 25 plus years, you didn't similar time. Well, we would say this and anyone listening, they're on a Treasury podcast, so pretty sure they're going to be stuck in it, but I just find it so incredibly fascinating. Talk to 10 different treasures, as we said and, and 10 different stories every time. So fascinating to me and I think it is to a lot of the listeners. So thank you for your time, Frank, you've been very kind to give us so much. No, look forward to catching up with you soon and any final closing words from you or you know, I think, I think you gave a lovely wrap up there.

But anything else, I think, as said, that's the lovely function and especially with continuous volatility, changing times to be in. Keep the open mind, keep the learning, but also keep the fun in your job. I think important for all of us.

Fantastic. Thank you, sir. Amazing chat and look forward to seeing you soon.

Thank you. Likewise. Have a nice day.

Thanks.

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