Whilst at university, I had six weeks work experience with a Big 4 firm in London. This gave me the opportunity to look at the various services they offered and I joined as a graduate in their restructuring team. This is where I completed my accountancy and treasury qualifications and began to get involved with transformation projects, focusing on cash management and cash forecasting. Other than a brief spell at HBoS, I have spent my career in advisory and now, as an MD in A&M’s CFO Services Practice, spend my time advising clients on liquidity and operational improvements.
A lot of what I do is centred around preserving and enhancing liquidity, and treasurers are often key to unlocking these solutions. Additionally, treasurers obviously understand cash (rather than focus on P&L like many other parts of an organisation) which makes my job much easier.
Firstly, it is more important now than ever that businesses have a robust view on their cash in the short and medium term, with a clear understanding of what cash is really available. For most businesses this should be a direct 13 week forecast based on receipts and payments reflecting current receipt and payment patterns.
Secondly, there is still much uncertainty as to what the recovery will look like and so businesses should have a clear and agreed list of actions that can be deployed if the business plan comes off track. At the time of need, the focus should be on executing agreed plans, not debating what the plans should be.
Lastly, planning for a range of different longer term outcomes. It is very likely that the landscape will never return to how it was for many organisations and planning for a variety of “new normals” helps identify future liquidity needs and gives time to address any challenges.
Right from the outset, we have tried very hard to keep in contact with everyone in the team on a regular basis through bi-weekly team updates and one to one calls. We have also had virtual social events to maintain a sense of fun. There are clearly aspects that cannot be replicated online and a few physical meetings have taken place in recent weeks which I believe has helped keep team morale high.
There are several that spring to mind as they have many of the same attributes. Solving challenging problems is always rewarding especially those that allow me to use treasury and the wider finance function to steer the outcome. Also, whilst “never waste a good crisis” is a bit of a cliché, it is amazing the amount of progress that can be made when there is a real need to get a positive result in a limited amount of time – I enjoy these challenges.
The ACT webinars and The Treasurer magazine.
My Amazon Echo. I like being able to listen to whatever music I like when I want (and working from home, it’s always here).
Listen more than you speak. It works at home as well as at work!
Creative, hardworking, sense of humour (I know the last one is three words).
Most of my reading at the moment is with my children, and currently working our way through everything by Julia Donaldson.