Stephen Baseby
Associate Policy & Technical Director, ACT.
Deputy Treasurer for Severn Trent Plc. It was a very wide ranging role, drawing on all areas of the technical toolkit – and it was a challenging role. Working at Severn Trent was difficult as the company struggled to control costs using grand ideas instead of hard slog.
I had been in banking and corporate finance for 45 years and welcomed the opportunity to engage in more cerebral work. I wanted to understand how the ACT influences the different areas we interact with (it is surprising how broad our reach is!) and I wanted to be part of this process.
Clarifying the “why” of regulation – many man hours have been spent on this - and informing members. It is amazing how long we spend ‘behind the scene’ trying to get the best ‘deal’ for treasurers and what we publish for members is the consolidated and most useful version of what we do.
Look through the business model of your target employer to understand if it is sustainable – not Ecospeak: will customers still want the product/service in 20 years’ time? You will be the one who has to explain that to the lenders.
Retire – really retire. Don’t keep drifting back. If you wanted to keep working, then do. I will be retiring next year and am looking forward to all things non-treasury, including continuing bee keeping and lying on a beach in the South of France.
The capital model of the last 30 years is proving untenable and we do not know what to replace it with.
More volatility and more opportunities for folk in corporate treasury.
When redundancy is faced, play the long game. Maximise the income, finish the work you were paid to do, and create the longest time to explain to the outside world why you are the one to go.
No heroes, but the most competent was Jim Forbes of Southern Electric (now SSE) who was the only person in the privatised utility world to grasp the potential for change. The rest played corporate finance games.
The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici: the Medicis are a fine example of success corrupting, and they had better artists than we have today. Well, they had artists.