Like many treasurers I started my career in audit, spending time working at EY in Birmingham and Melbourne (Australia). A life of audit was never going to be for me though so I moved to Severn Trent joining their treasury team in 2008, just in time for the global financial crisis. I had originally planned to stay in treasury for a couple of years – however, I have quite enjoyed it and so still find myself here 15 years later!
I love the variety of the role and enjoy meeting and working with people both inside and outside the business. It’s also great to work in a team that plays such an important role in the business. As well as managing cash and raising debt (which we do lots of) we are also heavily involved in Corporate Finance, helping to shape the financial strategy of the company.
It has changed hugely since I started. In particular, we have seen massive changes in the use of technology, going from very manual processes to full end to end processing in our TMS. No doubt this will continue to evolve and develop with the introduction of AI into treasury processes.
In addition, back in 2008 I could not have imagined the impact that sustainability would have on the corporate world and treasury in particular. This is now at the core of everything we do at Severn Trent and plays an important role in all of our financing discussions. We have a Sustainable Financial Framework which we introduced in 2019 and use this wherever possible for our new financings.
The economic environment is going to remain a key challenge for treasurers over the next few months, with high interest rates, uncertainty regarding the path of inflation and the potential for instability from geopolitics and the elections in the UK and USA.
Earlier this year I was involved in a £1 billion equity issue to finance our long term business plan, supporting the financial resilience of the company and ensuring that our medium term capital programme is fully equity funded. It was great for the treasury team to be involved in all aspects of such an important project, from initial modelling, to running various workstreams and ensuring that the proceeds were safely banked and managed.
As part of a rite of passage into Severn Trent treasury any new starters were always taught the four “rules” of cash by our former CFO - More is better than less; Sooner is better than later; My pockets are better than yours; Use someone else’s if you can.
Building strong relationships is a really important part of treasury. Whether that’s inside the business to ensure we are understanding the requirements of our internal stakeholders and what they need from the treasury team. Or outside of the business, ensuring that banks and investors are fully up to date with our “story”.
I hugely value the AMCT qualification. Of our small team of five, three of us are AMCT qualified – it teaches you the fundamentals of treasury, enables you to understand how financial instruments work and decodes the terminology.
I am not really a gadget person, although I’m sure I would miss my phone. I would however really struggle to live without my running trainers and bike (or bikes – I own 6!). I love the outdoors and so when I’m not in the office you’ll typically find me running up a hill or cycling my bike. Either that, or watching my beloved Aston Villa.
Runner, cyclist, Villa.