Julia Fordham’s early experiences in banking laid the foundations for a treasury career in financial services. From relationship banking to insurance, and fintech and back again, those early lessons have helped her add value and are still relevant as she pursues a portfolio career as an interim treasurer.
You began your career in banking. What was your route into treasury?
When I started out, I was a graduate trainee at Barclays. In those days, big banks had three-to four-year training programmes and used to recruit graduates from all disciplines (I am a Classics graduate).
It was a combination of general management training plus the nuts and bolts of banking operations and cash management – all of which has been useful in my later career – as was the hands-on experience of credit risk, gained during the UK property crash and recession of the early 1990s.
My first managerial role was as a relationship banker in the financial institutions group, where I was approached by Morgan Stanley, a customer at the time. That was my route into treasury, because the bank was building up its European treasury function rapidly as they expanded in the region. Initially I saw the move to treasury management as a way of broadening my future experience away from financial services, although ironically I’ve stayed in the sector ever since – at least, so far. It was while I was at Morgan Stanley that I completed my AMCT exams.
In late 2007, the financial crisis started to hit. Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros collapsed in 2008, and Morgan Stanley was supported financially by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
By mid-2009, I felt it was time to move on, having experienced almost every senior role within the European treasury team at the time.
What happened next?
I started work at Old Mutual in late summer 2009 and it provided a great culture change. It was refreshing to be closer to decision-making, as Old Mutual was run from the UK and had a clear plan around what it wanted to do within the treasury function. I was initially hired on a one-year contract to embed treasury policies across the wider organisation, and ended up staying nearly nine years. That really rounded out my treasury experience, as the group had a strong debt capital markets focus: during my time there we undertook a couple of large hybrid bond issues as well as multiple buy-backs, alongside in-depth bank negotiations and the chance to really get stuck into the treasury management system and supporting technology.
Old Mutual was a great team environment. However, after the group’s de-merger finalised in 2018, the business units in South Africa and the UK became independent and there was no longer any need for a UK holding company. So the whole head office of 200-plus people was made redundant. It was quite tough because the treasury team had worked together for so long, but closing down a complex operation was a really interesting project to be involved with.
From Old Mutual you moved to money-transfer business Small World Financial Services, as its first head of treasury. Tell us about Small World and the role there.
The role at Small World came up via a mutual contact. It appealed because it was a very different sector for me, and the chance to be the first group treasurer. Small World had cash-operating teams in Madrid and New York, but no central treasury resource.
My main achievement was to recruit the new treasury team in New York and establish better coordination and communication between those two teams, so that working capital management was much smoother. But after a year I was seeking a different challenge in the form of a more portfolio-based career, so left at the end of February 2020 – and then lockdown hit. Treasury recruitment didn’t go away completely, but it certainly slowed down.
So you became an interim treasurer and in October you began a contract with Domestic & General.
Yes, in effect I took the summer off and as of October I am back in insurance at Domestic & General (D&G). The role appealed because again, there was a very clear remit and I could see where I could add value based on my experience – and that it would be a role where there was a lot to do.
To date the treasury function at D&G, not unusually for a smaller team, has been very naturally focused on cash operations and funding, and so hasn’t had time to implement some of the aspects of risk policies needed under Solvency II. It’s interesting being at D&G while it goes through that process. Mostly what’s needed is a treasurer’s input around what the Prudential Regulation Authority as regulator calls ‘use test’ – making those risk policies really come alive in the business day to day. (Solvency II is the insurance sector’s capital adequacy regime, which was introduced in 2016 and impacts the way insurance groups calculate their capital requirements, and manage other risks.)
As the UK’s leading provider of appliance breakdown protection, D&G’s business has also proved very resilient during the COVID-19 crisis, so it’s great to work in such a positive environment.
With lockdowns still a feature of the landscape when you joined D&G, what were the practicalities of beginning your role? How has the 'getting to know you' process worked out?
Really well. Firstly, it helped that I already have experience in the sector, so the terminology was not new to me.
I’m also lucky in that when I joined I managed a couple of visits to the office in London before things started shutting down again. So I met my boss in person and other colleagues and senior finance people. That did help immensely.
But it is undoubtedly challenging to work from home 100% of the time. One downside is that it can be harder to get people’s time when you can’t just walk past their desk. Initially it can also take longer to get to know internal processes, for example, to get HR or IT helpdesk assistance. Companies do need to be really quite structured and have a good onboarding process to avoid affecting people’s productivity.
But I have an advantage in that the D&G head office functions are quite lean and concentrated – there isn't a huge number of other teams I need to deal with.
In fact, the new acceptance of remote working has a real upside for treasurers interested in interim work. It has really opened up the rest of the country for me – maybe even other countries. And I’m very lucky in that my partner and I both have space at home to work. But even then, it can be difficult. Overall, it is better to have a balance between remote working and the office because you have that interaction, which you need to stay on track.
A lot of thinking time is not a good thing if you’re at all self-critical. So for me, a combination would be perfect.
Thinking ahead, what lessons from 2020 do you expect to carry into next year?
This might sound a bit trite, but over time I’ve come to believe there are really only two things you need to sustain yourself in your career – resilience, and maintaining a growth mindset. You’ve got to keep some curiosity and focus around the job you are there to do – and how you can get it done in the most efficient way possible.
If there’s another personal lesson I’ve learnt, it would be to be a bit more careful with my time. Before this year and before lockdowns, I have sometimes reached a point when I was just doing too much. So there have been times when I have de-prioritised things like band rehearsals (I’m a musician in my spare time) – which are the very activities meant to sustain and energise you. I don’t want to get to a point where the wrong things cause stress.
And, more broadly, what '2020 impacts' will have a lasting effect on the treasury profession?
I wasn’t at work in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for many treasurers. Along with the unavoidable business impact for many sectors, you’re really going to feel the pain of an experience like this much more if your treasury systems aren’t up to scratch, and cash visibility is critical. To me, it highlights the benefits of really good treasury technology – and of course in times of crisis people realise just how much they need their treasury team.
It has also emphasised that the world of work is dependent upon trust. So many people have been remote working. I hope that ‘face time’ culture hasn’t just transferred to logging in even earlier, and logging off even later.
Liz Loxton is editor of The Treasurer