How Treasury Technology and External Support Drive Strategic Change

0:00Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast, where interview Treasury professionals about their Treasury careers. Each and every week I'll talk to treasures about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves in the Treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. This week's show, Delighted by Join by John James Dunn, the founder and principal at Elevate Treasury Advisory. Elevate Treasury Advisory helps organizations transform Treasury into a strategic driver of enterprise value. Founded by John James Dunn, he is a former group treasurer and former president of the IACT and lecturer in corporate Treasury with the Institute of Bankers. John James and his team at Elevate Treasury support CFOs, Treasurers, finance leaders and boards in optimising liquidity, reducing financial risk, strengthen governance and enabling digital Treasury experts. John James, take respect to the beginning with you. How did you first start and finance the Treasury? Thanks Mike for the opportunity to speak once again. Like many Treasury professionals, I fell into Treasury.

1:00It's a term you probably have heard on a lot of your podcasts. I finished university in 2011, which was the height of unemployment following the financial crisis. And to be honest, the only job offer I had was Treasury. So I joined IBM on a internship, on a rotation programme. And I was actually made permanent to the role after six months because I immediately went in and I started to improve processes. This is a team you're going to find throughout the podcast. Made permanent, I rotated, completed the internship and then I moved into the dealing room. And to be honest, in the early part of my time in IBM, I actually hated Treasury. I hated the BAU, I hated the manual elements of the process. But as I moved from, let's say, payments and the cash management into the dealing room, that little bit more decision making gave me the hope to actually say, I actually want to stay in Treasury. And when I moved into the dealing room and your execution as well as billions of value transactions on a weekly basis, I actually taught I peaked in my Treasury career.

2:02So early on, even though I think it was like 22 years of age, how it was the wolf of Wall Street, but then I saw this started to think a little bit more broadly about my career. IBM obviously, fantastic organisation, very mature, Treasury function over 250 people in Treasury at the time. I always found that I was finishing after last one to 3% of a process that I was improving or that little bit of improvement. And I wanted something that was a bit more transformation at the time. And that's actually when I decided after three to four years that I would actually make the move and step out of IBM. Right. And just before we'd step you out on that, I was recently talking to a candidate who, and it's going to be one of our newsletters, where he's quite early on. He's probably 18, I think he's actually 18 months again into his career. And early day, I'm thinking of moving. Oh, I want to get back into, I want to do a front office. I want to do this some time. I think that's a good thing to do. So I'll write great, can you move me? I said, well, no, not yet. I said, you don't know enough yet. I said, because it was also more about adding value

3:04to the organisation. He was like going, it was being quite selfish, I think about it. And I wasn't being rude. I said that I think you need to give back more, as you say, finish those processes. Actually, learn more and also the breadth. When we talk to that for a moment, I know you and I have talked about that. That's a key thing, isn't it? You're sort of doing your foundational work. Can you find? Yeah, absolutely. You have to build up that high performance over an extended period. If you do it once, you prove you're capable. If you do it a few times, you prove that you're reliable. And then you build up your brand value that you are someone who delivers over and over again. And it's not just a once-off. You have to have a little bit of patience. Yeah. Will you then talk us through the next wave? Yeah. And this is one thing that also is going to resonate throughout our discussion is neckroaking. I managed to build up a network within the ICT relatively early. And I was connected to an opportunity in Graften Group. So unfortunately, I didn't actually go through a cruder to move into Graften Group. It's all right.

4:04We were in the Netherlands. There were. It was Graften Group. So Graften Group are an international building materials group. So if you think of in Ireland, the of Warty, Shadwix, and UK at the time, Bill Bays now disposed, Selco, et cetera, and in order European geographies as well. So they were very well settled on treasury strategy, fund raising, et cetera. But their treasury operations was quite undeveloped at the time. They didn't have someone full time in that side of the business. So I joined as the first dedicated treasury professional. I had a relatively clean slate in front of me. I brought in an FX hedging program, implemented their first TMS. And I was an early adopter of Microsoft Power BI back in 2015. And I think that Power BI had actually only just been launched. Yeah. So jumped on that and got a huge value out of the BI analytic side of things. That's really where I got my teeth into the transformation side of things. And as you know, I got to hook an IBM thought it was going to be a career.

5:05It was when I got into the transformation inside the things. I was like, wow, this is definitely something I want to pursue going forward. I went when I was in Graften Group, that kind of transformation was recognized without a smith award for best cash management solution. And I received two nominations for the real IT awards, which are IT industry awards. So not treasury. This is a separate industry award nominated, but didn't win, which I still think is a fantastic achievement. So BT actually won one of the categories. They had 200 people, seven bigger budget. They were all left to smear meters across the UK. So it was really David, one man band versus the light. So I was delighted to be there. And obviously winning the Adam Smith award is probably kind of the highlight of my career today. And what challenges did you face when you came in with this? I know that again, data led thinking, inter treasury data systems and things like that. Was there more business as usual approach? Hang on why you're doing this stuff?

6:06Or was everyone in on board with it? What was the situation? In fairness as a senior leadership team, they fully backed the concepts that I want to bring in. It was more the people at roughly my level or between myself and senior leadership that I had to bring them along, take them on the journey, explain to them why they're doing it. And I typically would focus on initial early wins, to try and show people and demonstrate, well, we made this little improvement. And at yield, it's something significant. Imagine if we do it on a bigger scale. And just try to bring them along the journey, involve them in the decision making, rather than just telling them, this is what you're going to do. And that is not just a head office, but that's really something that I like to apply across the whole business. I've often seen a lot of finance teams dictate to the underlying business units. Do this, report as to you on this day, you have to do it here at the guidelines. Are you trying to build a tangible relationship up with the business units? And also bring them on the journey and show, well, why is treasury important to you? And for those business units, I would typically say,

7:07you guys make the money and I'll manage it. And give me some practical example, just talk us through how you would approach that sort of thing. Again, if someone's listening today, they're making more junior, they're still learning, learning treasury. And they're given the responsibility for this. How did you win hearts and minds? Yeah, so it's probably a little bit harder now post-COVID, but prior to COVID, I actually got out and kicked the tires. I went to every single brand across the group, UK, Ireland, into Continental Europe. I visited at least one branch within the brand because some of these brands have multiple entities. And I made sure God, I would choke everyone's hand, introduce myself. And they might have only been 30, 60-minute meetings with the finance team walking around the stores, trying to understand the underlying businesses. Because if you don't understand the underlying business, how are you going to be a business partner to them? Like if you get 20 million in today on the cash pool, you need to understand why you got came in, what's the impact from the business? If you're hedging a year forward,

8:09why are you buying your sellers? The quality of the company using those US dollars for if you aren't able to answer those questions, I would struggle to believe that you can be the best business partner to those businesses. Yeah. And that networking impression, I know that that was one element of the help to you for more senior leadership as you moved on to the next role and things like that. But is that what you would say, network, or what other things? Yeah, network is a huge, huge piece of the puzzle. Like you need to go out, we spoke earlier about building your internal brand value in terms of being someone who delivers, but you have to do that externally as well. Go to events, go for coffees, go to the Treasury Career Corner, for example, and really just try to increase the breadth of people who will say, JJ, Mike, great guys, have a chat with them, do an interview with them. Other things that I would recommend are, I suppose, get a good mentor. So back to DAI, CTA, again, there's a fantastic mentorship program that's something that helped me as I progress my career

9:10will circle back to that, get a good coach, if you can. There's kind of maybe a couple of things that I piece together is be curious, be self-driven, and be someone who's reliable. And if you can piece those altogether, you can really be someone who is dependable, deliver results consistently. Yeah. And then from there, what was your next move? Because how long were you at Graftern, you say? I graftern, roughly about six years. I think I've to top them head. OK. Welcome to next. What happened next was actually I went and got my mentor. And I said to my mentor, I want to be a group treasure. Work true with that mentor in terms of boxes that I need to take on my CV. And there were three big boxes that I needed to shade in a little bit more, give them a firm take. And that's when the opportunity at DCC came along. And I actually knew the group treasure, true neck-roaking. So that made the interview more conversational. HR had to jump in a little bit to try and put a little bit of structure on it, but it was more of a chat. So that that really helped us, was break down those barriers as you're going into the interview

10:11and be a little bit more relaxed. And who at DCC for the audience again? DCC now are an energy company. But back when I joined, they were in healthcare, technology, or more of a clunglamorous. And they were focused on kind of Europe and North America, in particular. So I joined DCC. I think I was maybe the 14 to 15 person in group treasure times, so much bigger unit. And I focused on treasure, control, ownership, people management, and funding as well. Items on my CV that I really wanted to firm up a little bit, to ultimately position myself to become a group treasure. Yeah, pulling the breadth of things. And you went in as a group treasure controller. Yeah. How different was that to some of the other roles, as you said, you're done your front office back like, yeah, me, I've done a broader role. A grafting. So in my first week in DCC, I think we acquired, I think maybe two businesses. I made an extra few hundred bank accounts. So I knew that I was moving into a faster pace team. And a one thing that really impressed me with a DCC is the pace at which they integrate

11:13as acquisitions. Because once they do an acquisition or onto the next, or onto the next, there's no kind of, let's sit back, let's take, let's integrate, and then move on. It is a bit of an acquisition machine. And you were just talking there about your mentor taking the spik, you were then also in sort of softer skills way. You were moving from delivery of work to actually then leading others, influencing other people. What was that like for you or how did you do that again? Was it meeting people over a coffee or what else? Yeah, so as I joined DCC or Joron Culver, so I actually didn't meet a lot of my colleagues face to face for a roughly a year, I suspect. And I'm moving from that kind of delivery mindset and graft and to kind of managing and hiring and managing a team. I suppose I'd develop my own leadership skills a little bit more. I'd always been used and we mentioned a few minutes ago about influencing people indirectly. They don't report you. So now I was in a position where I can actually directly influence people and I developed a kind of coaching

12:14and mentoring leadership style, which is probably no surprise, giving my continued reference to it, where I'd hire someone based on the potential, I'd bring them in, I'd sit with them, I wouldn't micromanage, but I would sit with them and bring them to the processes. In great detail, but once they're comfortable, I would stand back and give them full responsibilities to own their role, take responsibility for it and bring it forward. Absolutely, I'm there if they have a question, happy to jump back in, but once I hand it over, they're controlled, they need to get satisfaction from delivering the process from A to Z. Yeah, you're done. And then, how long do you do that? In DCC for a couple of years. It's a very strange time, obviously, being in COVID. So it didn't quite get out to kick the tires and forcing, like I did in my previous role, but look, we all have to adapt to that point in our careers and that point in our life. Does what came next, I know, but you can explain to the audience. Yeah, so again, my neck or neck was head-hunted in to Glendalein Plexus Group Treasure,

13:14but I know for a fact someone in the background put my name forward to the head under. So you can see that that's played a huge part in that neck, or in that brand value. So I joined Glendalein Plexus Group Treasure. The incumbent was there for 36 years. Wow. I was joined on a four-person team. There was an open role. But when I went in, I was, I was told that open role wouldn't be filled. The expectation was I bring in a system and therefore be able to manage the same function, but with three people. During that first week, the assistant treasure, I was told he was going to transition into another role within the group. So I was losing him. I'll be at on a transition basis. And on my four-day, the treasury analyst left on the spot, noting to do with me. There's the obvious joke there, but I assure you it had nothing to do with me. The sun even, you've gone from a full room too. Like, where's the team gone? Now, thankfully, the incumbent, he stayed on an extra few months, just to allow me to get one of the hires in. So he stayed on a few months.

14:15I got a treasury analyst hired. He retired. Very grateful that he did stick around for a few months. And then I hired a treasury assistant later in my first year. So I essentially went on a multi-year transformation, year-one with people. Getting the team was obviously the first priority and then betting them in. The second year was our own processes. So I inherited a multi-currency hedging program, multi-currency cash pool, multi-currency, and I was banked at Trade Finance Program. Glenn Dimplex, what do they do? Glenn Dimplex are a leader in electrical heating and cooling solutions. So probably brands that you might recognize are Dimplex in the UK to kind of panel radators or one of the biggest items that they would sell. Heat pumps, bit-and-consumer appliances as well. But they range from everything from China, Australia, New Zealand, across Europe and into North America. So the reach is quite extensive. And you have to know a little bit of our treasury in each of those geographies, which makes

15:15a little bit more challenging, particularly under hedging side and cash management side of things. Now you'd got that group treasury role. I know it was a little bit head spinning, because here's the group treasury role. And he was a team. Oh no, they were all leaping. But it wasn't you, as you say, it was the thing. But what were the biggest challenges that you sort of inherited or that you took over sort of thing? But probably the biggest challenges I inherited a very complex function with no systems. So everything was on manual. And I actually, when I went in, and obviously, I had an idea of what I was going into, but when I went in and I found out how extensive and complex those programs were, what they're all completely via email Excel, I found it very hard to believe that this was a sustainable model for a treasury function, because it was so dependent on people being there every day and keeping them moving over and over again. So it was quite evident that a TMS was going to be a game changer here. But I just had to go through those years first.

16:16There was no point in trying to do a TMS in year one. But I don't have a team around me. There was no point in doing a TMS in year two when the processes could be significantly improved, but still relatively manual, clean the moped, get everyone into the hedging program, get everyone into the cash pool, and get those processes in very good shape to bring them into a TMS, because there was no point bringing bad processes into a treasury management system. Yeah. Where was the greatest resistance, if you like? Was it, where were the lockers or obstacles? The blockers or obstacles was trying to find a time within the team to implement a treasury management system. As I said, like a car going down the motorway, you have to tell the team, well, you're at 100% capacity now. We now need to do a TMS. Yeah, good luck with that. And it's a roughly a year and a half of a project. So we now need to squeeze it in. So again, to one of my points, I tried to get those early wins. I focused on a few pieces of project and brought those to go live early on. So while the project may not have been go live,

17:17a few processes were just trying to squeeze out an hour or two every day, just to free the team up that little bit to go after the next piece. And once they went out for the next piece, they freed up another hour or two. And suddenly had this little bit of a cycle. So by the time you got to go live, it wasn't big bang. You had brought many processes true to go live early, just to squeeze out that little bit of extra time. And look, we didn't have to roll over sleeves. It's an available port just trying to get those early wins. And to ensure the team doesn't have fatigue as well. If you go 18 months with no improvement, order an extra workload and extra stress. And everyone's very hard to bring a true words. If you can get a little bit of early wins, it just brings the team. It shows them because they might not have the same view on the bigger pictures, the group treasure. It shows them like, we're going in the right direction. We're making improvements. Let's keep going. It's going to go. And there you, again, you've got some awards over the years. You've got an Adams with the award for the best cash management solution. What was the problem you were trying to,

18:19but you identified and then solved? Or you know, took us through that? Yeah. So every week from senior management, I would have a similar question, but just from a slightly different angle. So the biggest thing that I wanted to solve is not having any more questions from the CFO, from the senior management, et cetera. So I interfaced the treasure management system into Microsoft Power BI and I built a suite of dashboards that allowed the C suite to self-serve and that kind of wrapped that project around the title, self-service treasury analytics. So I built the dashboards in a way that I'd actually written all the questions in my first year that the C suite had asked me. And I built a dashboard around, can the dashboard answer every single one of these questions? Once I got down to the bottom of the page, I said, yes, I can. The process was so automated that when I was on two weeks of holidays, all the reports would update overnight, automatically. So the point where the CFO would jokingly say, we could replace you with a cardboard cutout.

19:19So thankfully he didn't answer the question. I wanted to ensure that the CFO, C suite, senior management, they have all the data at their fingertips and they can slice and dice it to their hearts content. Okay, it removed 99% of questions, but there's always that slightly new question that comes in and I would edit the dashboard. So at least it wouldn't become a recurring question. And I actually brought that kind of that mindset into a more general finance project where I looked across, I'm trying to remember now, I think it was maybe over 500 branches in graph and group, maybe a few hundred more on top of that. And I looked at the financial performance of every single branch over an extended period and presented to the C suite. And that allowed them to go in and slice and dice and make strategic decisions across the group. So it's something that I would strongly recommend for anyone in corporate trade is to broaden beyond treasury when you can. I completed a few succumbents as well into more general finance roles, finance manager, et cetera.

20:22And it just, it comes back to the point in understanding the business. You got a greater breadth of understanding of the business. You have a wider skill set, you have a greater appreciation for what you're doing. And it can only help you progress your treasury career. Joking aside, you say about the cardboard cutout sort of thing. Some treasure guy folks are worried they're going to be automated out of roles. But how important was the sort of human side of the project compared with the technology itself? And how did they sort of balance out? Yeah, well, essentially you have to present the dashboards, the technology to the senior management, to the wider finance team, to the underlying business units. Again, you don't just send emails and this is live, have a crack out of it. Power BI was in its infancy in 2015. A lot of these individuals had to be upskilled and walked through the process of how to use the new technology. And I actually went on a roll show, maybe a roll show is a firm word, but I went around to each of the businesses back, again, on the same loop again.

21:23And I demonstrated the treasury management system, the treasury report, but also those branch reports as well. I can remember distinctly being in front of one CEO of a business. And he gave me 15 minutes of his time. It's all he could give 15 minutes max. After five minutes, he walked out to his PA and said, cancel the next hour. I want to get stuck into this report. Wow. Because in his mind, he was like, the C suite are looking at these numbers. So they can see these percentages, they can see this trend. I need to know what this data is telling them, because they're going to start asking me questions about it. And they actually made their decisions on based on that as well. Exactly. Yeah. Because then kind of later on in the roll show, someone had said to me, I know why I've been asked these questions, because it's pointing, it's screaming out on this page. So they all wanted a piece of it. I gave everyone access, but only to their specific piece of the puzzle. And it allowed them to look at their own data better, which is remarkable, because they're the ones who submit the data to head office.

22:24But I was just churning it through the BI model and visualizing it in a different way. And the typical finance team would, you know, with tables and very basic Excel, charts and graphs, it's when you move into more visualization, part of Power BI, you can really start to see trends, start to see outliers. And that's where those strategic questions come from this East week. Why is that branch in the top right corner, or the bottom left corner, whenever an else is clustered in the middle? So if you're not a Power BI user, you're out there and treasury listening today. Yeah. Listen very well, because you've got these skills, but you don't have those skills. How do you recommend they give clarity to the reports or, you know, just to the general word that they're delivering, I think. Yeah, one thing that I'm quite worried about for the next generation is, you ask AI any question, you pretty much have an answer within 60 seconds. So one thing that I would encourage people to do, even if you don't have to skill set under tech side, you can still get down and understand the underlying detail of why a process works a certain way.

23:26Because if you start relying on that 60 second answer, you're not really going to get down into the weeds and be able to build it up. So even if you don't know how to build it, you should at least understand the cugs that are driving the engine behind it. Yeah. Well, you're right. You can hallucinate. We're one of the key things we did at the ACT session, Victoria Underwood from Imperial Brands, but she actually said that when we were talking about technology, and that was a key theme of the session, she said she fed in some FX, some deal, and it came back and she went, hang on, and she looked at it and she went, that's wrong. It's like read the wrong side of the deal and she went, that's wrong. And it went, oh yeah, I lied. Just went, what? Oh yeah, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, I lied. And she was like, hang on, if she hadn't known the fundamentals of that FX, she could have taken that as gospel and gone to them. Oh yeah, here we go. And what? Hello. That's a big danger, isn't it? Absolutely. I can remember there was a formula error in a report

24:28that I was given to one stage. It looked at it for 10 seconds and that's wrong. Have a look at it. Because you need to be able as a group of chairs or to look at something and inherently know if it's right or wrong by some of the big numbers that are jumping out on the page. And that's the fear also that I have is that people start churning true. AI models and Excel and technology just come overly reliant on it. And they don't actually step back and think about what they're sending. And I would always say to anyone that's within my team, I'd say, think about the question you're going to be asked. If you send that to a CFO to a group of chairs, what's jumping out on the page? What could they come back and ask you? And try to send them an insight in terms of what drove that, what changed, what happened rather than sending us, getting the response back and then answering it, be proactive, give them the answer before they even ask the question. And I want to get on to elevate. But before I do, you've talked in number of times. And again, I shared a stage with four amazing Treasury professionals

25:31who are all deeply involved with the Irish Association of Corporate Treasury, IACT. What led to you becoming involved in about? And then they became president. So talk us over there. Yeah, I was asked to join the committee to build out the young Treasurer's pillar. So the association when I joined roughly five years ago, we had about 400 members. And we had quite a significant portion of those members. We were very senior, which is fantastic. But that next generation, the proportion was maybe out of sync of where it should be. So I came in, I think I held three young Treasurer events in my first year and I had over 200 people attend them. And I really drove a huge membership drive and also at the same time other people working on EDI. So over the coming years, I really built out a young Treasurer pillar and we went from 400 members to roughly 700 members. The conference, I think, roughly doubled in size as well. I'm not taking credit for it all. But we really invested and we really doubled down

26:31and really grew the association and brought that next generation through and answered conference offering and hands down our EDI pillar as well. And in 2024, I became president of the IECT, probably a little bit scareder than I expected. But I suppose I come in, I'd shown the initiative, I really rolled up my sleeves, I got stuck in and I delivered. I then, having completed my presidency, I was like, well, what's next? I have a few years ahead of me, it's a seven year term. So I turned my attention to the educational side of things and I introduced a graduate program. So where we bring people from Trinity into succumbents and treasury departments across Dublin and then ultimately support and becoming full time and treasury, we also brought in a professional diploma in corporate treasury and collaboration with the Institute of Bankers. We felt that that's a fantastic relationship for us because we're a committee of volunteers

27:32or obviously the Institute of Bankers. I'm a more professional organization for one to the better world, but they have the structure in place to deliver education. I completed the graduate certificate in corporate treasury and followed that on with the MSC and investment treasure and banking and they were huge in my career. I've always had a huge reliance on kind of combining education and practitioner to accelerate my career. And it's something that I wanted to give back and to give that next generation opportunities to enhance their education. The CTF a fantastic structure in place. And we were trying to say, well, what could we do on our side to the IRC, but not maybe directly compete with them? Where's the niche? And the obvious answer was in that next generation. So we focus on treasurer analysts, treasury managers and we put together a professional diploma to be very practical and to them the skill set to move on in their career. And while I deliver the theory, both myself and Jason, who's the other lecturer and he was the 2025 president,

28:33while we deliver the theory, our focus is on the application in terms of how does a group treasure tank? What are the board going to ask? The theory's there. It's grounded in theory. But we always focus on that practical side of things to really give to students the greatest opportunity to progress their careers. And thrilled to say this podcast is part of the coursework. Absolutely. You're very kind to give me a long list of podcasts that were applicable to the various topics that I was lecturing and I receive fantastic feedback. People were bringing them in. They'll be happy to hear in the exam as part of their answers. And where do you think there is the biggest gap between, that's the academic side and learn the treachery and then actually doing it? Where's the, where do you bridge that gap of the podcast, but other than that, where do you think that there is a gap? Probably the gap is, excuse me, the gap is I was taking that theoretical insight and then having that self drive to go and apply it in practice.

29:34And sometimes it can be very difficult to do that you might be in the role to allow yourself to apply some of it. But this is where you need to have discussions with your manager, express your expectations, have the patience that we mentioned earlier on. But if you're trying to look to apply the theory further and kind of move up the career path, I would say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery in terms of if you want to be a treasurer manager, look at some treasurer managers that you aspire to be similar to, walk like them, talk like them, dress like them, essentially imitate them as much as you can. Take little pieces of how they walk into a room, how they communicate, how they interact with other people. If you can improve yourself and imitate them 1% every day, just like your pension, that'll start to compound over the years and allow you to develop and then bring that theory in, bring that technical skill set to then start applying it as you move throughout your career. Obviously you've got a thoroughly practical treasury experience and things like that

30:35rather than the consulting and elevate. And the thing is, one of the things, if someone's listening to this and they're people have asked me before they've come from consultancy, they want to be on the political treasury background before it, you've got that in space, you've got all that. So what prompted you to then establish, elevate treasury, advisory and doke through that? Sure, it's been something of my mind for several years and I said early days and treasury, I wasn't enjoying it and some of that was, I don't like BAU. So a lot of those manual processes, you're doing over and over again. And I came to the conclusion that if I was to chase that transformation, that project, that funding program, both, essentially getting something big over the line, if I have to chase that for the rest of my career, I want to reveal my age, but I've quite a bit of a road ahead of me, I'd have to rotate through a lot of the companies to do three, five years go again, three, five years go again. I said, why put myself true that when I can get that buzz

31:39several times a year across several clients? So it was kind of wanting to get that little bit of buzz, controlling my own destiny and ultimately coming back to those conments and getting to know the businesses in more depth, wanting to build my own business as well. So yes, obviously day to day, doing the consultancy, doing the advisory, and that's something that I really do enjoy, but what really excites me is trying to build a business over the coming years. And is that changed the way you look at the role of a group treasurer maybe, being standing independently? It's changed a lot about how I think about a lot of things. So I need to be more ruthless with my time. I have been getting better with that and need to become even more ruthless as I go forward. One thing that really resonates with me now in terms of how a group treasurer thinks and acts is impact. So anytime I was doing a big project, I would always include in the business case, what is the impact, what is the value add,

32:40why are we doing this, why are we going to get out of it? But now from my own perspective, I have to demonstrate why would you work with me, what's the impact? So that really, really makes me think a lot harder about why would you implement the cash pool, why would you implement a hedging program? And while I always had that as part of my pitch to the C suite or in the business case or whatever, whatever it might be, it's really made me think even harder about how much treasury is a strategic driver of enterprise value. And treasury problems are you seeing? Are you seeing them business is struggling with technology or processes or people or all of the above? You're seeing you're going to different organizations now. What's coming to the forefront? So maybe there's two answers to this question. The first is a lot of businesses don't have time to go after the cash management structure or the hedging program. They're just so consumed with everything else they're doing. And you just need that little bit of a lift to get them over the line. That's a poor for a defined period.

33:42And then on the other side, he's the scale of technology. I'm involved in two significant TMS implementations. They're up to 18 months in length. And even internally on their side, they have to do a huge lift and they need that external support to really get it over the line. And that's where I like to think I bring an interesting blend in. I have the corporate treasury experience for 15 years, X-group treasure. But I also have that technical skill set. So I bring kind of the best old worlds I'd like to think. And not I don't just implement what I've been asked to implement. I try to give that little bit of advice. Have you thought of this? Or would you consider doing it this way? Would you like to maybe draw that process on its head and do it slightly differently? Because this is the time to reset. When you're doing a massive implementation, it's the time to reset some of your processes. And that's why I took that second year in Glendium plex to get the process into a shape. If you bring poor processes and poor data into a system,

34:43you're not going to get the best out of it. Do I do try to challenge my clients in terms of you might want to rethink that? Or have you considered X, Y, and Z? And if you were to sit down with yourself way back in the day, some of your early days at IBM, what would you tell yourself then, or as you're coming up, any advice that you would give to yourself the arrestingly? We covered a point on patience. So I jumped to go on a couple of times and accepted roles and then took counter offers. So I was probably a little bit too aggressive in trying to pursue my career at times, where I didn't need to bed in that little bit longer. And that actually paid dividend in due course, OK? Maybe not initially being patient, but those compound as time goes on. I would get a coach and a mentor sooner. I obviously timed it quite well, going to group treasurer, but I didn't have anyone like that in my early career. I maybe they would have been an individual who would have said, calm down and you're going a little bit too fast here. You just give something that extra year, because you got to appreciate that while your manager

35:46might be trying to support you as best they can. There are payroll cycles. There's just a natural movement of people in and out of business, just because you've knocked on their door today. Doesn't mean by the end of the week, you're going to have something for you. So just having that little bit of patience can be key. And that's sort of a mentor that coach can really come in. And is that something you'd say to someone who they want to be a group treasurer, but they can't see the route from where they are today? That seems to cover a lot of that, but anything else? Yeah, it gives you a little bit of that career pattern. I'd blend in the trying to get a qualification under your belt. Yeah. Some fantastic individuals who built massive careers, massive businesses with no education, but for the majority of people, it is a proven route. If you go and you get your account, you qualification, you get your treasury qualification. There are very few trends that you know or that I know that are not an accountant or don't have a treasury qualification. They have either or and some of bold. So it is a proven, a proven path to success.

36:48And I would challenge people to try and broaden their experience. I know we mentioned the wider business, but within treasury as well, you have your specialist roles and you have your generous roles. And neither are the correct answer, but I would challenge people that both offer a specialist role, do it for a few years, go for a generous role, do it for a few years, and that'll allow you to fine tune your career to exactly what you're interested in. Yeah. So what's next for yourself and elevate treasury? Where's the future? Well, I'm only in my fourth month bike. So I'm still still trying to settle in and battle with the widened skill set of being an entrepreneur. I'd never thought I'd say it is, but I actually miss my group IT function in terms of even this morning, my laptop turned on with a bit locker warning and it's like, what has gone on here? And I know you challenge to get, you're the challenge of getting your own camera on this morning. So I do miss the wider corporate function there, one of the times of need. I suppose having that phone number to call,

37:49go help desk. Yeah, yeah, I am the health desk though. And I suppose, for elevate treasury, I suppose the biggest, the biggest prize is I think under technology side of things. You brought it into the questioning, most made cap and large corporates have significant investments in treasury technology. And that's something that I'm looking at intensely, intensively at the minute. And I might try to reshape elevate a little bit over the coming years to really focus on supporting corporates under technology side of things. So at the minute, I offer advisory, fractal support, treasury services, but treasury technology service. But I think I'll skew more towards technology side as time goes on. Yes, specializing. Okay, so we're going to put your link details on the show notes and it's weekly take again, we've touched on it all the way through the show. But early stage of your career, what advice will you, you know, someone sent me the coffee on the Friday morning and listen to this mid stage or senior, what advice would you give to the range of focus out there?

38:53Yeah, maybe the last thing I'll say is just on communication, soft skills. On the communication, like as you progress, and this is maybe to answer one of your previous questions a little bit as well. As you progress, your technical ability gets you in the room. Your ability to communicate keeps you in the room and gets a decision made. Well, that's it. My drop moment, love it. Thank you very much, John James. Great to chat to you. And really looking forward to seeing you again very soon. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it. I'll have everything. Thanks. I hope you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast just as much as I did for calling it with another amazing guest. Now, don't forget to subscribe on your usual platform, whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcast. Where have you listened? So you never miss a future episode. What's you there? If you're listening on Apple Podcast, maybe give us a five-star review. Why? Because it helps other Treasury professionals find the show, join the conversation, and get even more value. Now also, we're helping you guys in Treasury.

39:54If you are thinking about studying for your CTP or FPNA qualification, then listen up. We partnered with the AFP to offer a discount on study, both for the studying and for the preparation platform as well. So you can get through us $150 discount. Yes, $150. But each, I goodness. Yeah, we're here to help. So it's a great step for your career, and always good to save where you can. So all you need to do is go to treasuryacruement.com, force-partners, you've got the codes there, then you head across to their website, and you get the discount. You also, as well, if it wasn't enough, we're going to be heading to AFP Boston and later on in the fall, as the America's called in October. And we also offer $150 discount off your registration. So wherever you might be, it's a great conference, whether you're in UK and Europe, you should go. I'm going, it's going to be amazing. So incredible few days, great insights, proper networking,

40:56great conversations with lots and lots of treasures. Last time in Nashville, $8,000 plus, one of their biggest ones ever, it was amazing. So just go to the show notes, and you'll find the link, or treasuryacruement.com, force-partners, and get it all from there. Remember, if you're looking for a role, visit treasuryacruement.com. If you need it, my advice, reach out, mycotrugerroement.com. Or come and meet us in person. We've got our sessions coming up. We've got sessions throughout this year in Texas. Then we've got London, then we've got Dublin, then we're back to the US for Chicago. Then New York, crumbs everywhere. Eurofinance, the lot, and then AFP, and then back to London. And then we're doing Londoners as well. So it'll be great to see you. We're going to be everywhere. They're looking forward to it. Thanks very much, and until next week, enjoy the show.