Case Study Profile: Phil Scott

Phil Scott
Assistant Treasurer
Vodafone Group Services Ltd

Why treasury?

After initially leaving University and focusing on completing my accounting qualification I soon felt I wanted a more commercial role with a scope to both add value to the business and become involved in a wide variety of projects and transactions.

Working in corporate treasury within such a large, acquisitive organisation provides scope to get involved in a wide range of activities ranging from raising funding to bank relationships and integrating worldwide acquisitions.

Your job

I chose to work for a company the size of Vodafone as I believe if you truly want to gain a wide range of experience and operate on a genuine global scale you need to be in a large corporate to get the most out of a treasury position.
I work in the area of treasury responsible for capital market and interest rate management, M&A and tax.

A wide variety of work is involved, however, a typical day might involve a mixture of speaking to relationship banks regarding the conditions in the debt markets, advising on issues relating to current M&A projects and looking at the Group’s interest rate and currency exposures.

We work in small 2-3 person teams on projects and spend a lot of time interacting with the Group’s relationship banks.

Without a doubt I enjoy the scope and variety of my role and the differing challenges it throws up on a daily basis. I least enjoy reviewing and debating legal detail.
Professional qualifications I have completed both CIMA’s ACMA and ACT’s AMCT and MCT qualifications. As I am CIMA qualified I was eligible for the accountancy fast-track route for AMCT which meant I was exempt from select papers.

Advantages

I work alongside an extremely motivated team who were voted UK Treasury Team of the Year. An award provided by The Treasurer magazine – ACT's membership magazine. We are a close knit relatively small team comprising 15 people with a high level of both academic and practical experience.

Benefits of teamwork

The hours are relatively long in that I am generally in the office around 7.30am and leave sometime after 6pm but due to the wide variety of work and autonomy we are given the day is always eventful. Within the team there is a great willingness to help and at busy times everyone generally gets involved and ensures the workload is spread.