The third and final part of our mini-series where we meet entrepreneurs who have ventured out.
This episode is rather a long read, which is fine for some. You might prefer to listen to it via our podcast.
Today we will be talking with Mike Richards, who is a veteran of the recruitment industry. But more importantly, he is the founder and CEO of the Treasury Recruitment Company. Although he started in London, he recruits treasury professionals internationally. And he also runs his own podcast series where he interviews people working in treasury.
Mike, a very warm welcome to you. How’s your week been so far?
It’s very good, Richard. Although as I said to you before we started the show, this is again a bit weird when I’m the other side of the microphone. I’m usually the one asking the questions and getting clients to answer it. And I always think to myself stop waffling Richards. Shut up. It’s quite an interesting one where you’re actually going to get your own back and ask me the questions. Be easy on me. Be gentle. It’s quite funny. It’s your podcast. Let’s run it how you want to. What do you want to know from me? I mean, as you say, I’ve been in treasury recruitment over 20 years. I do a podcast, which I love talking to treasurers. And you and I spoke before and have said actually why don’t we get on, talk about relocation and this is going to form part of our special series. It’s over to you, Richard. You get your own back and you get to ask me some nasty questions. So don’t be too hard.
They won’t be nasty. But just wanted to get under the skin of Mike Richards a bit and try and understand recruiting, what your insights are from the last, I think, 20-odd years you’ve been doing it. For a start, over 20 years, there must have been some evolution in the industry, right?
Definitely. I mean, huge changes over 20 years. I think the first one is actually treasury itself. So I’m a treasury recruitment specialist. I discovered treasury many years ago. We’ll get into that a bit later, but by accident a little bit. Didn’t know what it was when I first started. But met a lot of treasurers, liked them. But you generally find they’re very relationship focused, very focused on the future. And also when you go out for a drink with them and if it’s a serious drink, they’re the first to the bar and usually they’re the last to leave it. And I thought, “I like these people.” These are very outgoing and insightful accounting and finance guys and things like that. And I think that then reflects onto how treasury has evolved as well. Because when I first did it, some of those treasury guys were loving treasury because it gave them a bit of an ivory tower. So it meant that they got a jump in salary. They were the specialists and everything else. They were, “Look at us.” You have to go to the treasury guys over there. But actually I think treasury has gone, come down from its ivory tower, and come back to work really closer to the businesses. And the more that treasury integrates with businesses nowadays rather than just be these standalone specialists, I think it’s maybe, if you like, given treasury a real seat at the table. And it’s becoming more of a natural career choice. When I’m doing a lot of the talk on the podcast, a lot of the treasury guys, I say, “How did you get into treasury?” And they say, “Oh, I discovered it by accident. I was working in finance, saw these treasury guys. They’re having a good laugh.” They all fell into it. Whereas now, you can study treasury as part of your college degree, university degree and things like that. And it’s becoming much more recognized. You’ll see it much more in the mainstream. And I think also there are other things like technical advancements. You’ve got technology and everyone talks about blockchain, straight-through processing. So I think it’s actually meaning that treasurers themselves are having a much more strategic role. And I think that’s how the treasury industry itself has evolved. And that’s also then impacted on the job I do. So when I’m doing my recruitment piece, the guys that I’m talking to are much more technically strong. And it’s not slowing down. If anything, it’s just sort of ramping up, the speed of it. And I think I sometimes feel a little bit for some of these treasurers that they’re sort of just running or sometimes sprinting just to stand still in a way, to keep up with technology. But they’re doing really well in a growth industry as it were. So yeah, I’m really enjoying it.
The running just to stay still I think is a bit symptomatic of the general business climate today. I do recognize what you say about treasurers having sort of fell into it. They started out. The evolution is interesting in the industry. However, one thing I certainly ask myself often is someone like yourself, you must have at least hundreds of candidates for specific positions these days. What sort of difficulties do you typically encounter when trying to match?
I thought about this a while ago and it’s hard to pinpoint specific difficulties. Every assignment we get is different. And it’s funny. I spoke recently in Chicago and I stood up in front of the audience. I think they thought I had gone mad, which is entirely likely. But aside from the madness, I said to the room, I said, “Look, what’s interesting about you guys is there’s 20 treasury managers, there’s 20 treasurers. You all do exactly the same job using the same tools in exactly the same way because you’re very similar industries.” And they all sort of stared back at me and went, “Are you crazy?” And I said, “You know what? That’s the point.” It’s not. Everything is different. Everything, that was very cliché and things like that. But in actual fact, it was true. Because when I spoke to them I said one treasurer does a job one way and then another guy does it in a different industry but they’ve got exactly the same title. And the way that they approach problems is different. So I think that that’s where the fascination for me is. And I think that’s where everyone talks about we’re being replaced by robots and AI. I’m pretty sure my job is safe. Because if they could just do this, this very open-ended skill of recruiting, then if they could do that, I’d be replaced overnight. I think the matching is where we add the value and meeting people and things like that. But I think the flip side if you like is probably the employers themselves, where they need to realize that they’re not the customer anymore. The candidates themselves are the customers. I wrote an article a few years ago and perhaps I’ll put a link to it in the show-notes, but I literally wrote about it. And I do this with a couple of clients I’m recruiting for at the moment, and I’m trying to have to say to them it’s not about you anymore, it’s about them. And they were like and I try and explain this to people. And said, look, you’ve got to make yourself the most attractive employer to attract someone to come and join you. You can’t just sit back, put an advert on the web or on LinkedIn or wherever you might put it. One of my clients I’m currently recruiting for, very high profile, they put up a big advert, everything else, 280 applicants they had, all through LinkedIn. Wow, amazing. They didn’t get a match. They didn’t find that right person. And I think there’s a few reasons for that, but one of the other reasons is that a lot of clients, even in that situation might have a big brand, everything else, they just put up the advert, this big sign and say come to us and expect people to flood in. That’s not the way of the world anymore. Candidates rather, they still can vote. It’s a flexible employee market rather. And when I first started, there was still coming out of a session where it was a lifetime, one job for life. And now it’s not. It’s a lifetime of different jobs. I say that on a number of topics before. You’ll stay in a role for maybe three to five years, you might move up with the same employer and stuff like that. But you’re not going to stay as the treasurer doing the same job for 20 years. That doesn’t happen anymore.
Interesting thing you said, Mike, about companies not getting a particular match despite having a couple hundred applicants. Would that be because their requirements are too specific or unattainable?
I think that can be part of it. I think they are searching sometimes for a unicorn. So they are saying they must have ten years experience. Well, do you really ten years experience to do that job? They must have all of these tick-boxes. And again, I think it harks back a while ago, we’re not quite there yet, but I remember working with some of my clients before. And I think it’s also because treasurers are under increasing pressure if you like. But sometimes I would talk to a client and they say, “Mike, I want this, this, this, this.” Like a complete tick list. And I say, “Okay, what’s the growth for this candidate? If you’re saying they need to be able to do 100% of the job from day one, why would they join you?” Because there’s no growth for them on a personal level. They want to learn new skills and things. And sometimes the treasurer said, “Well, they might want to, Mike, but I haven’t got time to teach them. I need someone to hit the ground running.” And things like that. Actually what I’m starting to see now with certainly some of my clients and we go through this process with them is saying, look, what is a must have? What’s a nice to have? And what’s the growth zone for a candidate if you like. I think there’s a lot of pressure on treasury departments so a lot of the time they’ll say look, must have 60% to 70% of a role that they can do. And then 20% say nice to have or have exposure to and 10% new. And I think a lot of its arm wrestling stroke negotiating with the clients saying, right, can we move that down and how much can you get away with the person can do 40% of the job from day one. Over the next two to three years, they’ll learn the next 60% of which they might have had some exposure to. But it’s about that negotiation, it’s a sort of seesaw balance if you like. And again, I think gone are the days you just put an advert and you get many, many applications that are 100% correct and just say I’ll choose them please. I think those days are pretty much gone really.
I can relate to that. And generally, that brings us on to skills. No one obviously wants to do the same job for ten years just because they’re the perfect match. Everyone wants a bit of growth in there to develop themselves personally, professionally, and so on, and go international so to speak. Now, over the last 20, 30 years, I think globalization has gone from being a buzzword to being something that we’re living day by day. And one thing interesting for me to know is how international has the skills market been for you?
Interesting one. I think the treasury by its very nature is a global skill. So a treasurer working in London, a treasurer working in Frankfurt, a treasurer working in the US is constantly looking outward if you like. And they’re looking around their team and they’re looking around the country. And then the specific part of their role is by their very nature an international job. Now, there might be major markets if you’re based in New York, your major markets might be across the US. But you might have 10, 15, 20% of your job focused on the international stuff maybe. In, say, Europe and particularly mainland Europe, I think there’s a lot more international because whichever country you’re in, there’s another 25 countries to deal with around you. So there’s different nuances to all that. Treasury by its very nature is an international business and an international skill. You’re dealing with different countries day in, day out. And I think actually that then reflects on the skills and there are various things you can do. You can do studying. In the US, you’ve got the AFP and their CTP qualification. You’ve got the ACT in the UK. You’ve got various European qualifications coming up now. And I certainly think that helps with the skills market. But again, when I talk to people and when I’m recruiting people, they’re not just saying, “Do they have CTP? Yes or no? Do they have this?” It’s more a sort of blended skillset. When I’m talking to people, they’re saying, “What are they like as a people manager? What’s their personality? Are they going to be a good fit with us?” And it might, “Can they manage ten people?” Or, “It’s a standalone office. Are they going to be able to operate by themselves?” Or are they going to be able to go into that office and be the only person in treasury for Europe but actually deal with 30 different businesses who have all got different treasury problems, but the people there aren’t treasurers. So it’s the other sort of practical skills that perhaps we’re thinking about as well. And actually one of the things that we’ll do again, we put this together in the speech I gave recently in Chicago where we put together a summary of the 52 podcasts I had done so far and we actually distilled what the 52 treasury professionals had said. Some very big global treasurers were key to success. And I think actually that reflects on not only those skills, so you’ve got hard skills like qualifications and project management, some of those. But then there were some on the outer circles, the softer skills like propensity to learn, openness, relationship building. And all those softer things, but they all form part of this big circle, which my colleague Laura did a great job of actually putting together. But actually I think that comes into, sort of this blended skillset if you like. I know that’s a very long answer to a very short question. So apologies listeners, but I don’t know. Does that answer the question? Partially. I mean, there’s a point that I want to get to in a moment. So it seems like the skills market, the hard skills can be pretty much anywhere and the softer skills obviously make it more of a difference today.
On a sort of parallel side, diversity and teams, we’ve seen that diverse teams simply are more productive and they work better. But I’m guessing that’s also true in treasury?
Very much so. I think sometimes people might say we’ve got a strong diversity policy, which sometimes is a bit frustrating because then you talk to people and then at a later stage, I’ve had it with some clients and they say, “Oh by the way, you haven’t got enough women on the shortlist.” And I went, “Well, not enough women applied.” I’m not just going to do that for the sake of it, then you may need to make the job more attractive. Or you need to make it right for different people. It’s not my job, if you like, to say … It’s clients jobs to encourage diversity. And I will try and satisfy that need if you like. I think the thing that comes through with a lot of people is that you need a diverse team if you’re going to be future-proof for the future. That you’ve got a breadth of expertise for instance across different complex areas and making sure you’ve got one person who’s very good at systems and one person who’s good at sort of capital market. That might not directly answer a question as diversity. Are we looking at different things like LGBT? Are we looking at male-female? Are we looking at age? What are we doing to do that. And I think in some ways, that’s something that clients have a need to actually look at. And when they are recruiting, I wrote about it in an article a while ago that ladies … And I did this article actually we’ll put a link in the show-notes again, that I’m father to four children, two girls, two boys. Now, I’m married to a lady as we’ve said. So I’m very pro-women and everything else. But sometimes, when I look at some of my clients, and how much allowance they make or are they trying to sort of address that or be flexible working or do various things that are going to help any worker, whether that be male or female, I think there’s an implicit thing or unconscious maybe where they don’t make allowances. Well, they don’t help. I was talking to a colleague the other day that we were talking about one of my clients, had to be careful with what I say here, but actually it seemed they made more allowances for a guy who is returning for work after a prolonged period of illness. And then there was another member of the team, a lady who was coming back from having some kids and things like that, and then the childcare was going left and right and being a bit of a pain. But that wasn’t acceptable. “That’s your fault.” Well, hang on, no, you need to help and support that person as much as you do the guy returning from long-term sick. It’s like you’ve got try and be more flexible in these times rather than just have one straight line, hard line, that’s what fits. And I think that’s the key thing.
I agree with you there, Mike. We need to be I think much more flexible with regards to men, women, other genders. People in situations who obviously can work but maybe their personal situation is not 100% good right now. And I still remember a time some years ago, as I’m sure you do, where diversity was like a big A3 sheet of paper with some bullet points on stuck somewhere in the office that everyone looked at but no one really lived the values. But I think that’s over mainly.
Definitely.
So diverse teams, skillsets, the world’s not such a big place as before. I mean, Mike, recruiting across borders today is more possible. It’s easier today. That should give you more chance of finding the best candidate right?
Definitely. Definitely it does. It means that across different markets, we talk about in the past, people have said about LinkedIn and, “Oh, that’s going to replace you.” Well, I’m still here funnily enough. We’re still cracking on. LinkedIn’s been around 15, 20 years and I’m still doing my job in a different way. And I think LinkedIn has helped when we talk about across borders because I can now access candidates. And I’m recruiting for a role in Belgium at the moment. And the funny thing with that role specifically, using a real practical example, I’m looking at candidates in Eastern Europe, I’m looking at candidates in the UK, I’m looking at candidates in the Nordics. As long as they’ve got great treasury skills, they could go and fulfil that role. Now, I would never have had access to those candidates without LinkedIn. Basically in some ways, LinkedIn can be a very good directory of treasury talent, which is fantastic for me as a treasury recruiter to access. But as with all these tools, it’s like a hammer. Use it in the right way, it can make a beautiful house. But also, use it in the wrong way, it can destroy a house and make a lot of damage. So it’s about how you use those tools. But then actually focusing on more on your question about recruiting across borders. There’s nothing I find and we find in the office it’s more frustrating that we put up a role, it’s in the US, and it says at the bottom of it, “Please don’t apply for this unless you have a pre-existing work visa.” Because we can’t recruit you. The Atlantic, despite what Trump says and his big wall with Mexico, the Atlantic is as big a wall to talent moving across. If you’re in the UK or Europe or anything around and you want to make a move to the US, brilliant, as long as you’ve got a Green Card or a passport to go there that actually gives you pre-existing work rights and things. Similarly there, I get a lot of US guys that come to Europe, say, “I’d love to work in Paris. I’d love to work in Belgium.” Have you got a work visa? No. Well, you can’t get it. You won’t get a work visa. It’s against the law. It’s quite frustrating because you want to help treasury professionals and we can within the market. So we recruit a number of roles right the way across the US from Nike in Oregon, Chanel in New York. Got some roles in Houston coming through. We’ve got other things in Chicago, Baltimore. And guys can move all round the US and everything else, no problem at all. But when they then say I want to come to Europe, you can’t unless you’ve got a pre-existing work. But it’s also good for guys within Europe. You can make a move despite Brexit coming along and everything else. People say, “Do you think that will affect treasury professionals?” I don’t. Actually when I talk to treasurers, they say, “Mike, it’s a manageable risk.” And everything else. I think there will be more paperwork. But treasury professionals, by their very nature are highly skilled finance professionals. And I think that there will be allowances made that people at that level will be able to make moves across because they’ve got portable skills. The guys I’m talking to are listening now are going, actually, I developed these skills over a number of years. Might be more challenging maybe for some of the treasury analysts, the managers, the more junior end of the scale to make immediate moves. But if you need a great assistant, deputy group treasurer, you’re going to look at the UK market. You’ll look across Europe, you’ll move across. And I think treasury is international and global in its very nature. So your skills are portable, transferable, and always relevant as well.
Right. That’s good to know that there is still some freedom of movement let’s say. I mean, especially in the EU, that’s one of the cornerstones of the free market. Mike, just looking back now back to when you started, the treasury professionals themselves who we just talked about who would move across the EU, has that appetite do you think, has it changed? Or have treasury professionals always been a bit, let’s say, have a bit of wanderlust.
Has it changed? I think there is probably greater openness from treasurers to be more flexible in their working styles. Let me explain that. So in the past, I would have a treasurer and I would say where do you want to work? And they might be based in the home counties, in and around London. They say, “Well, ideally I’d like to work in London or I’d like to work M3/M4 corridor.” Or something like that. Or I’d speak to one of my international clients and they’d be based … For instance, we have a couple of clients at the moment. They’re based in Belgium. They spend two days a week in Brussels. They spend three days a week in Luxembourg. 10, 15 years ago, that didn’t happen. People were saying, well, I’d rather travel an hour and a half, two hours on the train each way. So four hours travel. Now, people would actually rather hop on the plane and go over, work for a week. There’s a couple of clients I’ve got who are based in the UK, they say it’s actually quicker than rather than me go to London, for me to go to Luxembourg. I actually get on the plane, I’m off the plane 45 minutes. I’m in my office 5 minutes later. I’m there for the week. And then I come back. And I think that’s how different it is. So a lot of people then make a relocation or they’ll do long-term stays. They might work in, say, Luxembourg for two to three years. They might work in Belgium for the same. They might work in London. And you get that reverse thing as well. I think it’s more difficult for Europeans coming across the UK and that’s not a Brexit thing. That’s nothing to do with that. It’s more there’s a very mature market demographically. There’s lots of treasury guys around London and there are smaller pockets of treasury professionals in Luxembourg and around Brussels and things like that. They will be able to come and make the move. It’s just that someone from Belgium wanted to make a move to the UK, they might be up against local competition, locally based that are just down the road and there’s someone saying, well, I’ve got nine people here in this shortlist of ten from the UK and one from Belgium. Which logistically is going to be best for me to take? Who’s going to get the most? And if they are the best person, they’ll get the job. But I think that’s one of the things that I think sometimes is a challenge when you’re talking to those guys. And actually in terms of skills-wise, there’s no difference. When I actually talk to in terms of … And sometimes actually some of our European candidates are stronger because they have always existed in an international environment. Some of my UK candidates may have had to deal more locally or they’re perhaps working in companies where predominantly their business is within the UK locally and things. Not all the time, but I would say that a lot of my European candidates sometimes have more in their toolbox if you like that they can take with them. So I’m happy to deal wherever it might be.
So if I hear rightly, hiring managers in the UK for example, if they have candidates based in the UK and they also have some based in Belgium, Netherlands, or whatever side by side, would the hiring manager make a difference or view the candidates differently depending on if they’re local or not?
I think they do. I think whether we like it or not, it comes down to a variety of factors. You could also actually brings an ageist thing as well. Sometimes candidates that perhaps got a lot more experience there, they’re throwing the hat in the ring saying they want a really good role, say I’m being frowned upon and I’m being counted against because of my age. Well, you could have age being a factor counting against you. Where you’re based might be a factor. I’ve got a client at the moment who’s concerned with one of my guys who will have to travel for an hour each way. And I’m trying to say to them everyone travels. A lot of people travel for two, three hours at least a day for the right role. But actually going back to that example, do we find out about it? No, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we do and when we do, we try and sort of coach our clients to say if you really want the best person, this person is probably best for the job. And actually I have moved some very good international guys as I say. But I think there is sometimes a conscious or sometimes unconscious bias slash discrimination against those guys and it’s our job to try and present the best candidates to our clients and we then try and coach them. I think there’s a coaching element and that’s one of the differences. People sort of say LinkedIn, blah, blah, blah. LinkedIn is simply a very plain and simple tool. What we do is how we use it. Hopefully we’re craftsmen in what we do. We’re consultants. We actually clients says to me this is what I want and then we coach them on what they need. And we help them find the right people.
I understand and I see why you’d want to do that. Obviously the conscious bias in selection is something that’s illegal in many countries but I think we also need to be aware of the unconscious bias and that’s easily detectable. So choosing candidates and also candidates choosing companies. Obviously we talked earlier about candidates having a bit more choice and not just sending their CV across without any reason to the company. So both for the hiring company and the candidate, it’s a bit of a bet if they are not in the same place and one has to travel internationally. Work relocations, whether it’s working a week at a time in Zurich or Brussels while your family is living in the UK or a little bit closer to home, work relocations can sometimes go wrong. I’ve obviously seen that. What about yourself, Mike? Any stories you have on that?
I think actually just to address that point you made there and I think that directly links into this, we talk about betting if you like and betting on an international move and things like that. I think the first thing you do, and this is total self-love for both Richard who and he’ll explain they do a relocation business and help international guys moving. And we also represent international candidates and help them make that move in the job sense. But the key thing to do as you know if you’re a decent betting man and a lot of our treasurers are very risk averse and great risk managers, is that you hedge your bets. So how can you hedge your bets about making a successful move and actually the physical move and everything else? Well, you contact Richard. If you’re wanting to hedge your bets by finding that international role thinking that’s good, you call us. And the reason is because we know the clients and we act as the middle man and that’s why we exist, both you and I. And coming into that, where have I seen relocations gone wrong, I think there are a couple of ones that stick in my mind. One was where one of my candidates and then he became a client, both he made a move to Geneva in Switzerland a number of years ago now. And great job. Fantastic role for him. His wife, was then his fiance, was joining him. Brilliant. They were going to wanting to start a family. That was great. But she was going to go over there and work. She arrived. She was a marketing director, she was fantastic. But she didn’t plan for the fact that there are lots of marketing directors in Geneva or whatever at the time. All she could get was a role, lovely role as a nursery nurse. So she had to work in a nursery for a number of years until she secured her work permit and got her actual studies up as well, her language skills. And that was quite a hit for them. And they nearly looked at moving back to the UK. They saw it through and then once she was there and had proved herself, then she was able to step back into her marketing career and develop it, which fantastic. And that linked into from the nursery and things like that another one. One of my clients, he got to, I think it was Belgium and they got there and the schooling. He went across, he did six months and then his wife and kids joined them. They got one of their children got into the international school, one didn’t. One had to go to the local school. And after six months, they were so unhappy, the wife and kids had to go back. And another six months later, he had to transfer back because they were in a different country. It’s fine, it worked for a period, but it just never settled in. And actually I think that’s where certainly someone like yourself, Richard, you can sort of be that middle man. And again, maybe just perhaps explain for the people if you would listening exactly what you guys do and things like that. I’ve already covered the work visa sponsorship thing as well. I think unless you’ve got a pre-existing one, don’t even apply for a role. But that’s the other thing I’ve seen when relocating. I think make sure you’ve got all those bits of paperwork and those actual practicalities sorted out first. And again, that’s where you, Richard, perhaps if you could do a bit of an explanation for the people listening what you guys do and things.
Essentially what we do is because we’ve been there on the ground, in the countries where we operate, so France, UK and Switzerland for now, got the actual on the ground experience. And that is always going to be unique and slightly different to what you can read in the various websites, the government guides, how-to, where to apply. I mean, there are things that you cannot know before you leave, for example UK, how it happens in Switzerland. For example, what you just mentioned about the international schools. I’ve personally been there and my kids were offered exactly the same thing. One place in the international school and they couldn’t guarantee a second place for the sister. So we said, well, maybe we’ll do something else. And then you have to start looking and talking to people and actually going there and organizing it. It’s not something you can do easily based in the UK. Another thing we’ve seen is family members moving. Geneva is an example you gave. We’ve seen that happen in Zurich. We’ve also seen it happen Johannesburg in South Africa. Admittedly not in the EU, but it’s a similar idea where super-skilled workers, they might have to jump through some hoops to obtain the work permit. But once they’re there, you think it’s all okay. But the fine print if you read between the lines of the fine print, you realize that often family members can do nothing else except accompany them. Which obviously, if you’re thinking about your future, you probably want to think twice before accepting it. Things go wrong. Things can be fixed. But our raison d’être really is the human aspect. So we get involved with the local authorities. We make sure the latest forms are filled in. We make sure everyone, our clients, understand how it works. And we post the forms to the right place. We make sure people accept it, that there is that responsibility to make sure things are being delivered and happening. People are working on it and it’s not just gone into an administrative black hole so to speak. Because there are some places in the world, I have Switzerland in mind, for better or for worse, if you’re one day late in submitting your application, then they will reject it and it will be very, very badly received that you are late. So you have to be very careful. And you can only know that by having gone through it yourself.
So you’ve been through it, got the T-shirt and sounds like you’ve had the challenging times as well and things. And when you did it as well, how did you get into that business sort of thing? Sorry, turning the tables a little bit. How did you sort of discover the relocation business?
I’ve got quite an international background. I’ve worked in the UK. I’ve been in South Africa, to many countries in Europe. And just by talking to people, getting involved in the ex-pat community, international travellers, whoever you’re talking with, there’s always some story of relocation that didn’t go quite right or questions asked about actually how did it really happen here. So over the last whatever, 15, 20 years, I’ve picked up enough stories and given enough advice that I thought, hang on, there is a need for it. And today, the world is much smaller than it used to be and more people are travelling and travel is getting more accessible and cheaper. So we thought let’s just offer it more widely, this advisory and actually getting involved. And as a trained and accredited project manager, I enjoy starting and actually closing something, having it done and dusted and say, “Right, there. You’re settled. Good. Enjoy.” Not having open things for six to nine months or even longer. I want to turn the tables round again to you. The Treasurer Recruitment Company, how did you get that started, Mike?
Totally by accident. I think if anyone plans a role in recruitment, you’re probably mad in a good way. I started in teaching. I did my teaching degree. Started becoming a supply teacher. Then one day you should be one of our recruiters. And I was like. At that stage particular, recruitment wasn’t my number one choice and things.I said, “Well, what’s recruitment about?” They say, “Well, you talk to people and they pay you.” Thought, “I can talk. I can talk quite a lot and I quite enjoy that.” So I started in teaching recruitment. Did that for a number of years. And then the recruiter that I knew, he said, “You should move on and do finance recruitment.”I was like, “Not so sure.” And then I actually I originally joined to setup treasury division for Robert Walters many years ago. Met the guys there, thought it was fantastic. And actually they said, “We need someone for our treasury division.” And I said, “What’s treasury?” And they said, “We don’t know.” I was like, okay, that’s a good start. So at least they won’t know either if I make a mess of it. And basically, as I said at the beginning of the show, I met these treasury guys and they were my kind of people. Very outgoing and really insightful and things like that. Really enjoyed dealing with treasurers from day one. And I built the business from zero. Left the company as one of the or the top biller for the group in the world. Doing very successfully.Went on to join the search firm. And then the search firm I was with started to say, “Look, we’d like you to do sales director roles. We’d like you to do this role.” I was like, “No, treasury’s my passion.” And I knew at that stage that I had done it for a number of years. So in October 2002, I bought a desk. Desk thrown office. The bottom of a recession.I thought, well, if I can’t do it now, I can’t do it any time. Because people said, “Why start then?” I said, “Well, everyone will talk to you.” And I thought the recession at the time would probably last another year or so. Probably took another three to four years. So we built a reputation and grew the company.We’ve been going now as I say since October 2002. Yes, just grown and grown and grown. And we did a lot of the time UK, Europe, and I got a lot more international travel then. Went actually the Far East and Asia as it grew. Went to Singapore quite a lot and Australia. That was great. Those markets changed quite a lot. So we sort of slowly came away from there. And I know that we’ve spoken before about how I then entered the US and I tried to actually go into the US in originally 2008, just as the sub-prime crisis came across the horizon.
Timing was good.
Literally, I couldn’t have burnt money better. It was horrendous. And I wanted to learn about the US market and it was very difficult. And so what I did, we did it for about a year and a half, two years. And we ran away. We ran away from the market, thought this is crazy. And then back in 2011, the UK government was running a scheme where you could go and study at Northwestern, the University in Chicago. And it was helping entrepreneurs about how they could enter the US market.Now I had actually already started the ball rolling around that time to get an office out there and to look at how we grew. So already had an accountant, legal staff, and everything else. That was great. But actually, this was about how America was different and the different nuances and everything else. It was a fantastic program. Did it with some other really great entrepreneurs, some of whom I’m still in contact with as they’ve slowly grown their US businesses. And the US takes a long time and a lot of investment. I think the US is naturally adverse to here’s some Yank coming over and look at him, and look at him he thinks he can do this country. We’ve been going hard at the US for seven years. And I can now say we are starting to be successful. And it’s taken seven years of hard bloody graft to not break America because we’re not even there yet, but actually start to work. We’ve got a guy, Craig Martin, who works for me in the US doing a fantastic job opening a lot of doors, us meeting people. We’re not recruiting for clients such as Nike. We’ve recruited for Duracell, Under Armour. We’re doing another big assignment for Chanel in New York. We’re recruiting for some amazing clients, which I’m loving. I hoped I would recruit for these guys, but now we’re finally doing it and we’re recruiting very senior roles, recruiting global treasury directors. We’ve got another couple coming up so if you are listening to this and thinking about a move, please call me. But joking aside, the US is amazing. It’s probably ten times the size of a lot of our other markets. So it’s ten times as much work. There are more hours spent on the phone late at night and everything else. And a lot more air miles. But it’s incredible. I just love talking to treasury guys and there’s so many of you out there. And we’re starting as I say to go to the West Coast as well. But I do a lot of stuff and activity. We’ve got another couple of roles actually in Chicago where I’ve spoken for seven years in a row at the Chicago treasurers conference and very grateful for the welcome I’ve received there. And it’s a great treasury community with the guys at TMAC, which is their association over there. And we carry on doing stuff in the UK and Europe, which are our home markets and we’re not abandoning those. I’ve got our team here in the UK and they’re just servicing our clients and doing stuff. But it’s just amazing because we talked throughout the show about how international treasury is. And I can talk to a treasurer on the West Coast of the US, talk to treasurer in London, talk to a treasurer in Luxembourg, Belgium, talk to a treasurer in Australia and they all have the same problems. And they all have the same headaches and they’re all crying the same cry down the phone. And we’re there to help. So basically, we are the paracetamol to our clients problems. When they are coming to us and they’re going, “Mike, I’ve got this headache.” Yes, we are the paracetamol. It’s cliched but the fact is we’re there. And at the end of the day, I’ve had it with one of my other clients the other week. I interviewed someone who spoke at me for 40 minutes. I did one question, they spoke at me for another 20 minutes. “Actually, Mike, I’ve got to go.” I was like, “My goodness.” And they walked off and I was quite upset really. And this treasurer came in. In the nicest way said, “Well, that’s why I pay you Mike.” “Is that right?” “No, so you can go through that pain.” And also, you don’t have to go through that pain for three to five, maybe ten other treasurers where you’re putting forward that person who’s got a great CV and everything else, but you’ve seen their not right for certain environments or what they might be right for. You do the matching thing. And also he said, “I pay you for your time. So you can be an expensive paracetamol.” That’s fine. I don’t mind that.
It’s never easy having to go through minutes and hours of, I guess, subjects that you’re not too enthralled about. It is what you do Mike and I think it’s a very respectable profession, to have to sit through and sift through all those different candidates and try and match and understand and advise. So that’s, again, the human aspect and that’s never going to be easy.
At the end of the day, we’re also there to help. That’s one of the things that said earlier, there are some people we sometimes can’t help when they don’t have the right visa or sponsorship. I’m always happy to try and give advice. I get a number of candidates approach me from financial services and banking. And we don’t do that predominantly with our work, we’re 95% corporate treasury. I do do banking roles. I’ve recently recruited for Vanquis bank a number of roles. And we’ve done some financial services stuff with other groups in the UK. And I’ve done it internationally as well. But predominantly, our work is around corporate treasury. When those FS guys come to us, I actually say here’s another recruiter who specializes in this area. We’ve had a guy the other day in custody, and then another one with hedge stuff, and hedge accounting but within more of a hedge fund type of a situation. So he’s got related to treasury, but he’s not 100%. So actually this guy’s good. We try and give our best advice. I think the fact that we stay respectful to those people because we’ve all been there. And just be nice. There’s no need to be rude. Just try and help people. And again, I was on a really nice podcast with a couple of people recently. One John Ingerman from National General Insurance in the US. And he very much believes in a thing pay it forward. And that’s why he wrote his book and things. He just said do good things and other good things will come back. Karma. That’s it. And I don’t believe in karma, using it in a premeditated way. What I mean is just if you try and help people, they’ll try and help you back because that’s the natural good thing to do. So just be nice to others. Sounds very altruistic, but at the end of the day, it’s true. If you just try and respect people and do the best, then it comes back to you really.
And usually it’s a team effort to get something done. It’s not just one person doing it all themselves.
No. I do it all by myself. Forget about my team. They just sit there, drink teas and coffees, and just relax whilst I swan around the planet.
Can I come and join you guys?
Please do. There’s loads of tea and coffee. And I’m making that as a sort of jokey point because I literally, I’ve been doing all this travel recently and I don’t think, we’ve just been out today. I took the team out for breakfast, someone’s birthday and things like that. And I don’t get enough time to say to them what superstars they are.Because I literally couldn’t have done any of this stuff if I was coming back to mountains of paperwork, mountains of emails and everything else. They are so great. And it facilitates to me to do all this stuff. To do the podcast, to do everything else, to grow the company internationally. And I do thank them.We try and reward them, we try and be nice and stuff like that. But the actual, just on a personal level, I just love them. They’re just fantastic and stuff.But that’s great. You recruit some great team guys and we have a really great laugh. Enjoy going to work every day with them. And they poor people, have to put up with me poor sods.
Don’t be hard on yourself, Mike.
It’s all right. They don’t need to stab in the back. It’s fun. Joking aside, they’re just great people and we’re growing a really amazing business.
Growth is in these times sometimes quite hard to come by. What you mentioned earlier about starting off in the US in 2008 and giving it a second try and now looks like you’re growing strong. Working on both sides of the pond, I can only imagine what it would be like. But what is it actually like for you being in the US and the UK, offices in both countries?
Yes. Got an office actually in the US. Domicile in Florida, but that’s because it’s a good place to have it. Nice and accessible. I’ve got Craig who is based actually in Baltimore, but actually travels the US. He used to work for the AFP, it’s their Association of Treasurers over there. And previously, he ran the Treasury Leadership Council. So he has got the most insane relationships. He knows the global treasurer of Nike, global treasurer of Microsoft, knows all the top table guys and gets on really well with them. And that’s where we can help those clients. When they have needs, he’s able to sort of help them. So he’s the man of the US who takes a lot of that. That being said, if you want to do a US business, be prepared to do some late nights. Not do it all the time, but I think if you want to help people, then you’ve got to be prepared to do that. And I think it will as we grow the business there, it’ll be great. What is weird for me, it’s not just both sides of Atlantic, what’s different over there and I learnt this many years ago when I did the course in Chicago and I talked to a lot of the people that in the UK and Europe, recruitment if you like is quite a mature industry. So you have putting adverts at the time in the paper or in the media and things like that back in the day. And then you had the mid levels, so search and selection. So someone would come to you with an assignment. You’d have your database and you’d know some good people, put them forward. And then you have search, more senior end and everything else. In the US, recruitment has developed and staffing has developed differently because you have what they call staffing agencies. So you have staffing agents who supply blue collar workers, so very much more manual. So kitchen staff and for labor intensive roles. And then you have search facilities, so you search for a treasurer and search for the senior guys. But the in-between market hasn’t really ever been serviced as much as it now. If you want to recruit a treasury analyst or treasury manager or assistant treasurer, a lot of the time, people will then, their default is to go onto LinkedIn. And actually, LinkedIn is a very good tool. But when you look at it and there it says we have 197,000 vacancies on it, well, how are you going to be heard on there? So the US recruitment for us has been incredible. But it’s been this seven year journey thus far. First few years were awareness. And people start, actually, those treasury recruitment guys. And now it’s like we’ve gone through some of the education process and I’ve been to all these conferences and people getting to know us and help them on LinkedIn and all that. But now, we’re getting to the action orientated stage where clients are calling us saying, “Right, so you recruit in the US.” “Yes.” “And how many people do you know here?” “Well, we’ve got a database of over 10,000.” And they’re like, “Whoa, hang on. So you do know everyone.” And we try to. And that’s where it’s now gaining some traction. It’s not just a sales pitch for us. It’s more the fact that I love about doing the US as well is that we partner up with US corporates but then they say, “Oh, actually we need someone in Luxembourg.” And they’ll have done this. So we’ve become very closely aligned with Blackstone. And so I’ve helped Blackstone. We’ve looked at stuff in the US, over in New York. But I’ve recruited their European treasurer, Blackstone real estate in Luxembourg. And they said actually Mike’s our preferred partner, or the Treasury Recruitment Company are, and we use Mike because he knows the market and he can help us. And we know the local markets. And that’s what for me, going back to the question itself, what’s it like being both sides, it’s hugely exciting. It’s sometimes hugely tiring. But I think most things that are going to be worthwhile are. And I think as we rapidly grow that business in the US, I just think it’s fun. It’s a great laugh. And I love talking to clients, whether they be Australian, European, UK, US. As long as it’s treasury, pick up the phone.
Pick up the phone indeed. That’s usually the quickest and most direct and easy route.
Or drop me an email.
Exactly. It’s not always difficult. That gives me a very good idea of what you do Mike.
So Richard, thank you for today. That’s been amazing. Sorry to jump in there. Just thought what I would say is for those of you that are listening, and Richard and I have talked about this, that just approaching the 10,000 download mark, which is crazy. Because I thought we’d be lucky to get to maybe a 1,000 downloads in year one. We’ve done nine months and we’re at 10,000. So you guys are liking the podcast. So thank you very much listeners. But those of you that are listening, if you’re interested in international moves, Richard will be putting this up on his blog. He’ll convert this into a blog as he described there. And you can drop him an email. We’ll put the email in the show-notes. You can sign up if you’re thinking about international relocation or you want help, he’s the guy to turn to. He’s going to be helping you. He knows all these things international. He’s the man for that. Again, your CNRs. Feel free to keep listening to this and other podcasts as well and anything else you want to know about the Treasury Recruitment Company. Drop us an email. We have a newsletter as well. Do it on there so keeps you up to date with all the latest news and views in the treasury recruitment market and help you make your next international move. And when you need the advice, we pass you to Richard. He makes it seamless. Job done. What a great podcast. Amazing day. Thank you very much for not making me sound too crazy. But thank you very much, Richard.
You’re welcome.
