How Treasury Drives Business Growth Through Relationships, Risk Strategy, and Resilience

Mike Richards, CEO, The Treasury Recruitment Company: Welcome to this week’s Treasury Career Corner podcast treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to treasurers about how they built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. This week’s show, delighted to be joined by Declan Ware, the Group Treasurer at EMR.

Mike Richards: European Metal Recycling Group. EMR is a global leader in sustainable materials with physical operations in the UK, US, Germany, and Netherlands. In the US, it’s got 54 sites, right the way from Texas, where I’ll be in a few weeks time, to New Jersey, where I’ll be week after next. Core business in recycling of metal and plastics from a range of public, commercial, and industrial waste streams, end of life vehicles, consumer products, industry, all sources of recycling.

Mike Richards: EMR’s Generate. This is great. Generate around 10 million tons of sustainable metals and plastics, saving over 10 million tons of CO2 compared to virgin autos. Great intro there. But Declan, we’re going to go right the way back beginning of your career. If you would, if you how did you first get started in finance and then Treasury?

Mike Richards: Over to you, sir.

Declan Ware, Group Treasurer, EMR Group : Thank you. Thank you, Mike. That was a great introduction to the company. You should write our presentations. So where I graduated with a degree in economics at the University of Manchester and was fortunate to get a place on the graduate recruitment scheme at the then British Nuclear Fuels based in Warrington.

Declan Ware: And that presented a great opportunity to spend two years initially within the group finance function. Almost on a rotational basis. So I spent some time with a financial accountants, the management accountants, tax, and I also spent some time at Sellafield in the operational finance side of things. It’s a real good exposure to the business.

Declan Ware: At the time, the political agenda didn’t want nuclear on the UK power source. There was also a significant amount of historical liabilities that needed to be managed. So the business, BNFL. In its current form was being wound up. I was then asked to, when my graduate trainee scheme came to an end, join part of the financial accounts team that we’re going to be leading that.

Declan Ware: And at the time, there wasn’t a defined treasurer’s role. So, It was great for me because my time had come to an end and I was able to get involved in the treasury side of this reorganization of the sector. So that was everything from operational banking, setting up bank accounts to mirror the new site license structure that was going to be applied.

Declan Ware: The management of the investment portfolio to match the liabilities. I took over that, which was a crash course in the likes of bonds and gilts and fixed income. And perhaps most excitingly was the disposal of Westinghouse Electric, which was almost a jewel in the crown of BNFL at the time. And that entity was sold to Toshiba for north of 5 billion.

Declan Ware: And Not me directly, but me in consultation with the FD were responsible for putting in place hedging instruments to mitigate any adverse movements in the exchange rate from the time the sale was agreed through to completion. I just want to pressure that.

Mike Richards: Well, let me jump in Declan, you know, you’ve come in, what first sparked your interest in treasury per se, or you didn’t know what treasury was, and they’re just saying like this, because these were early days, you know, it’s, when I first started my treasury recruitment career, people are like, what’s treasury, I don’t know, I’ll find out from these treasury guys.

Declan Ware: Treasury to me at the time was, uh, certainly early days was someone who looked after the money at the football club. You went and played football on a Saturday and you had a treasurer who made sure you paid your subs and they paid the league fees when you got a yellow card. That was treasury for me.

Declan Ware: When I was doing the initial stage of the graduate scheme, I was also studying SEMA. So whilst that is predominantly management accounting qualification, it does lend more into financial management and in the treasury. So I learned about it theoretically and also the UK treasurer for Westinghouse, who I’ve just referred to, also sat in the UK office.

Declan Ware: So I spent quite a lot of time with him. He educated me. I was like, well, this, this, this sounds quite interesting. It’s pretty dynamic. You’re learning more about the business because every business takes typically has a, has a treasury impact as well.

Mike Richards: Yeah. And then as you said, you’d gone from that intro to treasury and then it got right up to disposal and the billions and things like that.

Mike Richards: What was the, you know, the challenges for you at that still that early stage, if you like, and how did that. You know shape you then as a treasury professional.

Declan Ware: I think it’s it required a significant amount of self learning Yes at the time as with many Treasury functions. I found that you know, the accountant would do the effect Tax might look after the banking relationship that wasn’t really one to find contact for treasury.

Declan Ware: So Having that motivation and discipline to go out on the road, learn the information from a theoretical standpoint. So when it comes to the practical side, I’m well versed, but also leaning on relationships, you know, speaking with operational bankers, speaking with some of the fund managers and just being honest, you know, don’t try and blag it.

Declan Ware: Don’t say, Oh yeah, I can do this. Be open minded and admit. When you don’t know something on they were always very open, helpful in terms of getting the experience and knowledge that I needed in order to perform the role effectively.

Mike Richards: You did that role. So you go graduate group, treasury manager, and then you went to EY.

Mike Richards: What was the next move or how did it come about?

Declan Ware: Yeah. Yeah. So the reorganization of BNFL inevitably meant the group finance function in its current form would be diminished. So over a stage period, people would leave. We were all given notice and within that notice period, we were given the opportunity to perform any qualifications that we wanted to.

Declan Ware: So I, I did my associate ACT examinations. I knew that I was going to be leaving in the December and I guess my head at that time was right. I need to get another job. I can’t have a time where I’ve not got a job. So yeah. I guess through my studies with the ACT, lots of guys on the course, one of which worked in infrastructure advisory for, for KPS, sorry, BY, I’m getting my big four mixed up there.

Declan Ware: Really interesting. It was in the infrastructure advisory team. It lent to treasury the fact that he was on this course meant. Yeah. Okay. This sounds interesting Let’s give it a whirl. I’ve gone from a corporate treasury functioning to practice. I’ve never done practice before whatever got to lose Yeah So did the interview ahead of my finish day in december got off at the roll and I was thinking great I’ve got a month or so off now When I did a bit of traveling and back in my mind, I had a role to, to come back to.

Declan Ware: Started that beginning of 2018 and my time in practice, I enjoyed, I threw myself into it, really supportive bunch. It took a bit of getting used to in terms of the whole concept of doing your time sheets and obviously a very structured. Management and organizational frontage, but I was there for just shy of eight months, nine months in the end.

Declan Ware: And I guess it was a bit of a crossroads for me because I’d been doing pure treasury for two, two and a half years at the back end of my role at BNFL. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to continue that. Perhaps naively at my age, I thought, well, I, if I want to continue treasury, I’ll have to, I’ll have to move to London.

Declan Ware: I wasn’t quite ready for that. This role was really appealing to me, but after a few months it became quite clear that this was too much of a departure. From treasury for me and those initial years, forefront or the start of my career, I was pretty clear that I wanted to continue down that path. I’ve just done my treasury qualification.

Declan Ware: I wanted to get back into, into corporate side.

Mike Richards: Yeah.

Declan Ware: I started to look at what

Mike Richards: roles were out there. And along came EMR. Do you want to explain who, what was the company then when you joined them 16 years ago?

Declan Ware: Yeah. So everything you said on the outset was all true. A little bit smaller, the business in its form in the nineties and early 2000s was predominantly UK based.

Declan Ware: I joined just after they’d completed two acquisitions in the European business. In the Netherlands and Germany, and they had just started a pretty heavy acquisition campaign in the U S so the business was growing. It appealed to me because of a number of things. They had the breadth. So operational banking was key.

Declan Ware: Learned a lot of that in my initial role. It’s an exporter. So huge FX exposure. Did a lot of that in my current role and felt I had more to learn and more to add there. And it just felt, as a company, it’s the way you want to be. You work for a green. sustainable company. From a personal point of view, it was a treasury role in the Northwest, which ticked the boxes.

Mike Richards: It seems to as well. And just touching on that industry, if you like, what are the changes you’ve, I mean, massive shift, you know, the green economy, everything else. And, you know, what are the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in the industry that you’ve been there at the cop, literally the, no, the coal face, actually the metal face.

Mike Richards: What have you seen? So the real changes are

Declan Ware: a real shift. If you look at Certainly in the last five to 10 years, EV cars, solar paneling, all of those have such significant demand in the base metal space. So that for us is key because there’s one of two ways broadly, you can either make these products, metals using the raw materials you find in the ground, or you can use scrap metal.

Declan Ware: Scrap metal clearly has a much significant, significantly smaller carbon footprint. Uh, and the way the world is going, that’s where the preference was. Yeah. So there was a real expansion. It expanded beyond just metals. So clearly the name of the company suggests European and metal. We don’t just operate in Europe and we don’t just recycle metals.

Declan Ware: It’s a truly circular, sustainable approach to the industry.

Mike Richards: And then pushing that down into treasury, you know, you’ve, I mean, exactly as you say. You’re not just European cash management is you managing liquidity across UK, US, Europe, Asia, you know, what are the biggest challenges you’ve seen in that?

Mike Richards: Because obviously, yeah, you you’ve been doing it.

Declan Ware: Yeah, so kind of breaking it down into the pillars there. So yeah, funding. Working capital management is key to the business. You know, we’re procuring scrap, processing it, and then typically at the moment, exporting it into some of the countries which are demanding our products.

Declan Ware: So there’s clearly a lead time there. Our funding is predominantly linked to the working capital of the business, and it’s reactive to the market. So if scrap prices go up. And, you know, you look at recent times, there’s been multiple events where you see a huge rally and scrap post COVID things started to pick up.

Declan Ware: The onset of the conflict in Russia and the UK, and you see all these shocks and rallies and price goes up, more people want to sell their scrap. We’ve got more cash going out the door and therefore our funding increases. So it’s all about right sizing the business so that A, it has enough liquidity to absorb that inventory build up, but also there’s enough dry powder there to absorb any market shocks so we can continue to take advantage while maybe some of our competitors don’t.

Declan Ware: Because the fact of the matter is scrap, you don’t make the scrap arises from the economy. So there’s so many variables which dictate that at the moment. Global outpour isn’t as strong as it has been. So there’s less scrap arising in the market. So from a liquidity standpoint, Treasury needs to warm the business with the funds so it can operate in a pretty tight market.

Mike Richards: Yeah, we touched on the risk management. Sorry, Mike, go ahead. No, go on. Well, that’s exactly what I was going to say. I mean, you got risk management, you’ve got to then negotiate in, you know, not what’s the word we said before, we’re not going to go into any confidential information, but when you’re negotiating with that sort of in the back of your mind as the treasurer.

Mike Richards: Because it’s a more business focused role, isn’t it? It’s not just, sometimes Treasury can be off on the side. You’re really at the heart of it. No,

Declan Ware: that’s very true. I mean, finance as a function is sometimes siloed, right? They’re the guys in the building across the road. And Treasury is. It’s part of the Greek finance function, but it is more than that.

Declan Ware: It’s the interaction with your internal stakeholders is just as strong as your external stakeholders. So you really have to understand the business model. You really understand the challenges because then you’re going to the lenders, external conveying what the business is all about, making sure that you structure your facilities in such a way that mean the business can operate day to day without any cumbersome restrictions.

Mike Richards: Okay. And then you were just moving on to risk management, which is great. See, I’ve got some notes. So I’m actually doing my research sometimes. It’s pretty good. Some of the biggest risks that you’ve had to get through, you’ve touched on some of the geopolitical events and things like that. Any other times or how was your.

Mike Richards: You know, you’ve been there 16 years. How has your approach to risk evolved sort of thing? When if you look back now to when you were first there and think, okay, and now has it changed? Has it evolved? What is it like now?

Declan Ware: Yeah, I think if you look at the wider concept of risk management and its applicability to the business, that the two main ones are going to be foreign exchange risk.

Declan Ware: You said as an exporter, we’re selling predominantly into a dollar market. And this is driving margin, you know, we’re procuring material, selling it into a overseas market. So our sales guys are negotiating pricing based on where they know the exchange rate is. So for treasury, we need to mitigate that and react to it.

Declan Ware: And guess what I would say, what’s changed is we’ve probably gone more to a reactive approach to be much more proactive. So by that, I mean, A request comes in, we’ll hedge it, we’ll book it, sales guys have their contract, sales guys have their exchange rate, and the finance guys can book that when we, uh, we do the P& L and the balance sheet.

Declan Ware: Whereas now it’s looking at the overall positioning of the business. You know, are we under hedged, are we over hedged? What’s our value at risk? Are we exposed? So say at the moment, the market would seem to suggest some of Donald Trump’s actions have backfired a little bit. So Sterling dollar has rallied as a dollar seller.

Declan Ware: That means our mark to market position starts to increase. So it’s all these things which, yeah, are not directly linked to the commercial side of hedging, but as an overall risk management for, for, for treasury, that’s so key. It’s the same on the commodity side of things as well. That’s another key exposure towards what you find last year was a real rally on copper.

Declan Ware: And that wasn’t because the market was, was thinking, or the fundamentals are thinking, great, copper is going to explode because China’s output was still pretty stagnant. This was pure speculation, right? This was people blowing funds into the copper market because the interest rate environment showing a bit of decline.

Declan Ware: And that was rallying copper to very unsustainable levels. Uh, so. Again, being proactive, you’re making sure that your limits are right. You’re making sure that your overall exposure isn’t inadvertently putting the company at risk so that yeah, commercially we’re still hedging our stock, but we also need to ensure that the whole taxonomy of risk management is covered.

Mike Richards: It’s that very outward thing, isn’t it? It’s like geo political and you know, say that as a catchphrase, but actually you’re exactly there. You’re right there, you know, dealing with it as a treasurer.

Declan Ware: Yeah, and that’s one of the things I love, Mike. It’s you are, you’re selling your desk, you’re selling the office, but when you get out to see the yards, when you get out and speak to the commercial guys, you understand what they’re looking at and the challenge that they’re facing.

Declan Ware: You kind of scratch your head there. Yeah, where can I add a bit of value? Hey, where can I give a bit of insight? I don’t profess to be a crystal ball gaze. We’re entering into FX contracts to mitigate our risk, not speculate, but trying to arm proactively individuals with information. So they know. What could or couldn’t change rates in the short term on the, on a fundamental

Mike Richards: I’ll put a link to it actually in the show notes, you know, I’m really good mates with Anthony, the treasurer over at Asahi and literally, oh yeah, like you, you, you know, you, you can go into one of the yards and actually touches and then explain to the guys.

Mike Richards: Yeah. This is how much this cost. This is how we do it. Similarly with on there with the site, and we’re talking about the bottle price and all the commodity. It’s just fascinating really about how treasury really. It’s linked to the business properly. So then

Declan Ware: yeah, absolutely. And so it’s always refreshing whenever we get new members of the team or the induction is go and spend a day in the scrapyard, go and spend an afternoon with the commercial guys, just so they really feel it before you even start logging onto banking platforms, getting your royalties log on, actually go and spend some time understanding the business and what we’re about.

Mike Richards: Great idea. And then I know that when we did our pre chat and stuff a few weeks ago, we talked about you heading to the U. S. So you spent two years in the U. S. onto Common. What was that about? You know, explain that experience because I know that you, both you and I share a love of the U. S. and everything else.

Mike Richards: Well, shout out to all our listeners, but talk us through that. Yeah, absolutely.

Declan Ware: And kind of, this is lending to, I’ve been with EMR for 16 years and It’s because I’ve been a challenge throughout, but also I’ve been given opportunities like this to continue to develop and add value. So it was, yeah, end of 2000 and so you’re five or so years down the line from when the last acquisition in the US had been made, the integration of those businesses was working well, certainly at maturity level.

Declan Ware: The group had been funded by a standalone group financing. So all through the UK, we’ve been to company flow of funds, which is the right thing to do when you’re building a portfolio of businesses, but we were keen as you know, the business is run by local management. It should also have its own independent and local management from a treasury funding perspective.

Declan Ware: And it was almost that first step into being more diversified in our approach to funding, given that we had now three. Main geographical hubs of the business. So the CFO at the time, you know, just having a random catch up. He’s kind of quite good culturally for the organization. You can just drop by the CFO’s desk, have a chat, chew the fat.

Declan Ware: And then he, yeah, he threw the idea at me. I think, yeah, we think you should go out to the US. I was like, yeah, okay. So we had a chat and then before I know it, I was on the plane. I was in Philadelphia on a bit of a scouting mission to find somewhere to live, meet the team over there. Get my visa application in.

Declan Ware: So from having the conversation, probably November, December, previous year, first week of April, I think it was, uh, I’d moved stateside. Yeah. Based in our corporate office in Camden, New Jersey, over the road from Philadelphia. I lived in Philadelphia, great city, really enjoyed it. And the remit was, you know, Headline quite simple, you know, build or the local treasury experience, knowledge and exposure for the group with the local banks.

Declan Ware: So you do a bit of a roadshow. You already had a U S bank, you know, group facility. So that was the stepping stone, if you will. It was okay. The relationship, what we want you to be more focused on the U S business. And then you start to build around that with other banks in the areas that we operated in.

Declan Ware: Alongside that was building up more of our operational. treasury functioned in the spirit of the group treasury policy, localised cash management, pooling. So it was there to support the business. Yeah, it was a fantastic experience.

Mike Richards: And just going into that, so we do a lot, you know, to US clients come to us and say, look, we need to set up in the UK, Europe, you know, what do we do?

Mike Richards: We need a treasurer. Can you help us? This is all we do, you know, all day long. Yes, we can. You’ve done the. The other way, you know, and I love going there. As I said, often you’re going a couple of weeks, love talking treasury. Obviously a lot of us treasury can sometimes given the size of the economy, given the size of the country can focus a little bit more cash management wise and things.

Mike Richards: How would you say that you’ve seen a difference or what are the differences? What are the commonalities? You know, you’ve got it firsthand.

Declan Ware: Yeah. I think one, one thing, the U S banking market is so, it’s so fragmented, right? Yeah. You’ve got your key nationwide players or global players, BOA, chase, but then you’ve got a lot of regional players.

Declan Ware: So you go to Minnesota where we have one of our operations and you’ve got these small almost community style branches, right? So if you look at what we did in the UK, uh, Our clearing bank was with high street banks in the interest of ancillary. You can spread it around just a lot more difficult in that market is some banks are at the forefront of technology.

Declan Ware: Some, if you tell them that you want to connect to a TMS via SWIFT, they look at you, like you’ve got two heads, it just isn’t, it isn’t. In their service package because their service model is about providing the service to the local customers that they have done for years. And our business is so physical in that we do need that physical local banking presence.

Declan Ware: Um, so the U S for example, you can still pay cash in some state In some states, we give them a check, they drive down the road and go to the local bank and cash that check. So, we were never going to move away from trying to consolidate and standardize our banking relationships to two or three, certainly on the operational banking

Mike Richards: side.

Mike Richards: And then, as you say, you were there for the two years, so getting that financing in place. Any lessons you learned from that? Sort of, again, without getting too confidential, but you know, things that take away from that you were sort of, right, this is, it’s got to be standalone, stand up by itself. Any bits you took away from it?

Mike Richards: I

Declan Ware: think

Mike Richards: the

Declan Ware: business, it was the first asset based Lending facility that we put in place, which is getting better in the UK and Europe now, but at the time that, you know, that was like bread and butter in the US, you know, the league tables, you had so much information out there that you could compare and contrast.

Declan Ware: What’s the market doing, what tenor sizes are, who’s involved in those banks. And those are the banks that you go out to. But as I mentioned earlier, your relationships as well. I made it almost a priority in those first few weeks and months to get out and meet with Banff. Some never came to anything, some you have good relationships with, they go on the back burner, but then come back and you build up to, okay, let’s get everybody in a room.

Declan Ware: Let’s have the presentation here. Let’s talk through what the business is about. Let’s talk for what the terms you are. Okay, you’re going to lose a few, some might not ask the questions in that. And then you have to have supplementary meetings to follow. We, we, we whittled it down to a banking group that knew the business well and was supportive of what we were trying to do.

Declan Ware: And then you, you move into credit again, it’s the relationships to me, which was the most important thing in that, uh, to have somebody, a strong bank in your corner definitely helps when it comes to that syndication and book running.

Mike Richards: And I know you’ve got relations. This is one of the key pillars for yourself sort of thing, but you’ve gone everywhere from graduate trainee now to group treasurer, a multi major multinational.

Mike Richards: We were an advice show. Someone’s listening. Now there might be a treasure and list on the West Coast of the U. S. They might be. A treasurer in the UK, you know, it doesn’t matter what are the career decisions though. And if you look back across them that you think, yeah, that was a good idea. You know, you headed to the U S you did that place where you did, you know, if you reflect what advice we’re not at the end of the show yet, but it’s more just the way points along the way.

Mike Richards: What are the things that you think that people should be thinking about?

Declan Ware: Yeah. I think it’s embraced those opportunities, Mike, because it doesn’t define you. It doesn’t define your future. If you make a decision, if you show eager and willingness, like my example of going into practice, I tried it. I, I realized, no, this isn’t for me.

Declan Ware: I put everything into it. I work hard. I delivered, but I realized in my whole hearts that it was treasury. When it came to the end of my secondment in the US the decision was then, okay, what do I do? Do I stay in in the US and just be. Uh, the treasurer for the U S business, you know, from a personal perspective, yeah, get the green car, live in the U S that was an adventure, but it was no, you know, I feel I’ve got more to give in a multinational space.

Declan Ware: So it was going back to Weimar and understanding head office and understanding what else is on the pipeline and the future projects and making sure that was a fit with my future. And at the end of the day, you do have to just take a punt. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but you fail forward, right?

Declan Ware: You pick yourself up and say, well, I tried it. It didn’t work. And

Mike Richards: so, and again, you talk about the future, what do you see as the biggest challenges trends? I was on the podcast yesterday. We were talking, yeah, you can talk AI, but it’s actually a machine learning. That’s something that a lot of treasurers is doing.

Mike Richards: It’s perhaps an overused bit, but you know, what are the things, what other areas are you thinking, or what are the other. Trends that you think other treasury professionals think about or should be thinking about?

Declan Ware: Yeah, I mean, obviously AI is up there, isn’t it? It’s a hot topic. That’s something which has its pluses and its minuses.

Declan Ware: I think in terms of the other trends, risk and volatility is so, so central to our thinking and my thinking within the current role. How many Black Swan events has we had in the last couple of decades, right? Certainly in my career, you can have three or four major ones. So it’s, it’s being ready for that.

Declan Ware: You know? And my point earlier about being proactive, you almost have to look forward and stress test and think, you know, where could this go? We’re not crystal ball guys. And all you’re doing is anticipating calculating what the thresholds are for the future. I think compliance is another big one for coming on board.

Declan Ware: What that means in terms of capital allocation and also linked to that, it’s the ESG point as well. I think we’re quite fortunate in that, you know, we’re inherently green. Our name, you only have to read our front page on the website to know what we’re doing ticks a lot of the boxes. Whereas you can see that ESG requirement being just as important, if not already, as the credit consideration when it comes to sanctioning deals.

Declan Ware: Um, and it’s, it’d be interesting to see How that works. We get asked a lot, uh, about putting in, um, sustainability metrics in our bank facilities. It’s not something we’ve done at the moment. It’s probably coming, but again, uh, we know what we’re doing is it ticks the boxes. Yeah. And it remains to be seen how much of an influence that becomes in the future.

Declan Ware: You know, risk management, AML, anti money laundering, KYC, you know, that continues to evolve in its complexity. When I first started, all you had to do was give notification of anyone who owns more than 25%. And it’s getting to the point now where you need to know the inside leg measurement of any shareholder who owns more than 1%, you know?

Declan Ware: It’s going that way, which I get it. It’s important. Yeah. Banks are getting fined left, right, and center for this, but it is a challenge for a treasurer if you get credit approved and then you’ve got to wait four weeks to get KYC cleared. It’s another bottleneck in an already tight

Mike Richards: process. And it’s on top of your day job as well.

Mike Richards: I mean, when you signed up back in the day, that’s not what it said. Like in 20 years time, this is what you’re going to be doing. You’re like, really? No, absolutely. Yeah. And skills. And so, you know, I know you’ve done education, you touched there on, you know, in treasury qualifications. If you’re talking to treasury professionals, now you’re sitting there for having a coffee with a treasury analyst manager and they’re saying, right, what should I do?

Mike Richards: What should I do? You know. Declan tell me, you know, what is it? Yeah. Go study or is it what other skills they need to develop if you reflect back over your time?

Declan Ware: Yeah, I mean, I’m

Mike Richards: a big advocate

Declan Ware: of the, I, uh, I like learning, so I really enjoy doing the, the qualifications there, but I think the content they provide is really good as well.

Declan Ware: So yes, if, if it works for you, the studying is, I would say it’s more. The active involvement, you know, get out there, go to the events. I know if you’re funding it yourself, they can be quite pricey, but a lot of the time, if you’re in a corporate space, you get discounted tickets or access to the materials anyway.

Declan Ware: So it’s get out there, go to the events, be curious. Sometimes you come away from these events and you might come away with four or five bullet points of things to go on. You could also come away with four or five contacts or networks. It’s relationships. I’ve said it a few times, but when I think about all the recent finances we’ve done or all the placements we’ve made in recruitment, it’s, it’s all about relationships of who knows who, and you never know what the conversation you have at an event or even reaching out to someone on LinkedIn.

Declan Ware: And it’s just about staying curious and open minded. It’s ever changing. Treasury, by nature in its day to day, is a very dynamic, ever changing role. So therefore, the mindset you need to have to be able to thrive in that area is the same. We spoke at what are you doing now? How could it improve? And what areas are just a future hold?

Mike Richards: I think, you know, just reflecting on treasurers on the whole, I think the more successful ones are the ones that work on that relationship building. And the, you know, I was just doing our slides for one of our presentations when I’ve freshened them up. And one of the key things, you know, from, I was reflecting on some of the podcasts when I’ve talked to treasurers like yourself and it’s, you could go to, you know, come to one of our events.

Mike Richards: Great. But then you just sit there, like, You know, one of those birds in the, you know, the, you know, the, you’re there feed me great. Give me education. Great. And then a walkout is that’s not where the value is. The magic happens after you listen to three great treasurers, then go and meet 10 other great treasurers and grace lovely having a beer with them, connect with them, make them part of your network.

Mike Richards: That’s what the net, you know, invest in your own network sort of thing. And you’ve done that very effectively, haven’t you?

Declan Ware: Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree, Mike. And it’s a lot easier to do now. It’s a lot easier to do now. You know, back in the day it was, yeah, you’d meet them. You’d have your, your outlook with the contacts in and you’d check in every so often.

Declan Ware: I remember doing it when I was leaving the NFL, you, you kind of ring around your relationship banks. You ring around some of your peers who had moved on and you speak to them. Whereas now it’s as simple as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great tool. Events for your coffee. And the events. Yeah, exactly.

Mike Richards: Um, a question before we get to your LinkedIn thing, are there any, you know, challenges, treasury challenges, innovations you’re thinking?

Mike Richards: You know, we touched on some of the KYC stuff, that’s what you got to do, but some of the stuff that you’re actually excited about tackling for the future, what about other things that you’re thinking about?

Declan Ware: Yeah. I like to think we certainly try to be progressive in our approach to things. So yeah, you could sit there with your whiteboard and say, right, transformation or how we’re going to make this fantastic.

Declan Ware: But I like the idea and the culture I try and build in the team is, you know, going after those low hanging fruits, those incremental marginal improvements. There’s something as simple as why is the cash sat in that bank account when we could be earning 2%, 3 percent or paying down our debt. And in the past, it would be maybe, Oh, well I’ll have to bring the bank and move it.

Declan Ware: It’s like, well, no, technology isn’t an enabler for all this stuff. You can flag stuff, you can automate transfer. Do everything to make things more efficient, to make those marginal gains and self manage. So get your KPIs, see how you’ve improved in these areas. I think one specific area of development we’re looking at, which is probably more transformational, is just, you know, trying to streamline and be a lot more efficient in the execution of our risk management.

Declan Ware: So I mentioned earlier, it’s linked so heavily to the commercial side of things. So our challenge is now how do we shorten that time from when an exposure creates itself to when we physically lock it in, because you’ve got multiple people involved in it and multiple different systems. If we have it STP and arguably you’re locking in that right now.

Declan Ware: Yeah. Okay. Some might say, well, for every one you gain out, you’ll lose on. So it evens itself. I know it, but. The whole point of hedging is to create certainty and the sooner you can create certainty, the better, and that’s one area that we’re spending a lot of time. We’ve had some really exciting conversations.

Declan Ware: There’s a few different things feeding into that, you know, APIs, AI. Machine learning automation. So a lot of exciting areas to explore in the coming months for that project,

Mike Richards: right? Well, you know, time wise, we run into time now. So I was gonna say, so we’re going to put your linkedin details in the show notes.

Mike Richards: And we’ve done this before. I think I said to you, there was someone we spoke to back last year. Oh, you should change that last bit. Why? Everyone absolutely loves it. It’s like the sort of the key takeaways where Someone’s listening now, they’re having their coffee and they’re going, right, actually. And, you know, so if you are listening, take your notebook, put this in your outlook, whatever.

Mike Richards: What are the takeaways or advice you give to people listening today? Whatever level of treasury, so juniors through mid and senior levels, what would you say? I think

Declan Ware: it’s, you know, fundamentally. You think to yourself where it’s cliche, right? It’s but where do you want to be in next year’s and then you reverse engineer back from there because It can be paying the sky in terms of five ten years, but you’ve got to have something and then that Translates into your day to day and even if it’s in your current role You can still apply the same concept, just like, how can I make today slightly better than yesterday?

Declan Ware: What, you know, it doesn’t have to be a practical thing that I’ve just mentioned about. It could be your personal development. Who can I go and speak to? What can I read? It’s just that curiosity and an ever changing world already. It’s if you’ve got your finger on the pulse and you’re always thinking it’s great.

Declan Ware: And I think treasury does give that great opportunity to be at the forefront of some of these decisions. If you’re looking for your role before you’re looking for your next step in your career. Again. You know, reach out to people, and if you wanted to speak to me, I’m not saying I’m actually recruiting at the moment, but I’d be more than happy to speak to people about any of the decisions I made or, or any steps I’ve taken in my career.

Mike Richards: It’s about having that network, exactly as you say, and, you know, I did, we did it in one of our newsletters where I said this. Junior guy in the US actually said, and we were talking to this boss of him. He was on the pocket and he just said, this junior guy said, how do I learn about the business? He said, go have a coffee with people, you know, have one.

Mike Richards: And then it was about a month in and he said, Oh, how many coffee? He said, I’m not learning enough. He said, well, how many coffees you had? He went, well, I’ve had a couple. He’s like, no, have a coffee every single week. And rapidly became one of the most networked people there. Because as you say, it’s all relationships.

Declan Ware: No, that’s true. And I, you know, I need to be better at that. I think speaking about it is a reminder that I all probably need to do more of that. I know that they were all people first, right? We’re all people first. So people inherently just like having coffee and catching up and chewing the fat. And who knows where it will lead to.

Declan Ware: Absolutely. It’s, uh, it’s great advice, Mike.

Mike Richards: Well, don’t worry. This link, this, your LinkedIn is going to explode after this. You’ll be like, oh God, how many people? Right. So the, you know, they’re doing it. Thank you very much, Declan. Great career track record. Thank you very much, sir. Been absolute superstar.

Mike Richards: Thank you. My pleasure, Mike. Really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.