New Zealander Craig Nicholls has lived in the UK for 17 years, working firstly in accounting roles, then moving over to treasury via the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) route. Just as the pandemic reared its head in March 2020, he was faced with a coincidental redundancy – entirely unrelated to COVID-19’s effects on the business community, but no less concerning for that.
Nicholls has since landed at ambitious insurance start-up Accelerant Holdings, becoming the company’s first-ever group treasurer. Here, he explains how he has managed to maintain the continuity of his career at a challenging time.
Talk a little about how you have established your career since coming over to the UK.
Bachelor of Commerce accounting was my educational background, a long time before coming to the UK, and I’ve been over here since 2003. I’d travelled for a number of years up to that point, then set up in Scotland with my family. Early on in my time over here I took the CIMA qualification, then followed it up with ACT treasury studies.
Up to 2020, I worked in EMEA-facing roles for US corporates, firstly from a financial-accounting perspective and latterly in treasury. Sector-wise, I started out in construction equipment, then moved through life sciences and healthcare insurance before arriving where I am now, in the field of SME insurance.
What prompted your job move of 2020?
About three days into the first UK lockdown, in March, I got the unfortunate tap on the shoulder from my previous employer – healthcare insurance provider Cigna – that there was going to be some business restructuring and that my role would cease.
The restructure wasn’t COVID-19-related, but had been planned for a while. Nonetheless, it was a big shock – I hadn’t seen it coming, and with the onset of COVID-19, I’d seen treasury as a key function.
That does seem an unusual step, given the growing recognition of treasurers as strategic assets.
Yes – but looking at it in hindsight, I think the business honestly assessed that it had a number of senior treasurers on the US corporate side who were those strategists; people who engaged with the EMEA very readily and could do so on a day-to-day basis. However, I did receive some outplacement support, which helped from a peace-of-mind perspective.
How was your morale as you geared up to find a new role?
It was quite a scary time, if I’m honest. The shock of lockdown had rippled through businesses, and bums were staying on seats – people were understandably cautious about moving. Also, at that point, COVID-19 was considered a short-parameter event of around three months. So, I calculated, “OK, that gets us into the summer – then there’s the summer holidays… there probably won’t be any roles now till September.” That seemed like a long time, and I wasn’t looking to be out of work – so I took a hard look at my options.
Scotland has a very shallow treasury market so, as a family, our outlook was that I would work away from home down in London for the next two years, if necessary. So, I established a lot of contacts in the South of England – then eventually in the North, too – to get a sense of where the opportunities were.
With those contacts in place, a significant amount of treasury roles started to come up. I was really surprised, and it was reassuring to see that the market was more active than I’d expected. I set about applying, and interviewed down to the last two on four different occasions. They were all contract roles: fixed period, London based.
In terms of what worked against me on those opportunities, the employers preferred to go with a London-based candidate, and gravitated towards people who had worked with them before. But those application processes really helped me crystallise my interview style.
How so?
Well, I’d always liked the formal aspects of being in a room for interviews, and the engagement that comes with the conversation. And I had a voice on each shoulder – one was saying, “Stick to how you’ve played it so far – you’ve got a comfortable style there” and the other was more like, “Listen, they can’t see what you’re doing, here – you can put Post-it notes to yourself all around your computer screen to jog your memory, if you like.”
I aligned with the former voice! Style-wise, that approach had suited me before, and I didn’t want to get into a situation where I wasn’t properly making eye contact because of all the notes around the screen. So, I went into each interview fully suited and booted – right down to wearing smart shoes.
Even if the person on the other end was going to be wearing a hoodie, I was more inclined to be better dressed than worse dressed. And it really helped me get into character.
Which sorts of practicalities did you factor into your thinking that made this a different experience to previous job moves?
It was interesting – in the past, it was more about looking 100% at the opportunity in front of me and assessing whether it was right for myself and my family environment. Whereas this time, although you’re still wanting to protect your career path and where you’re heading, there’s this scare factor around COVID-19 and being made redundant.
Should I just grab hold of whatever’s there? Should I be worried about potentially taking a pay cut? Is London the best avenue for finding good opportunities and maintaining my career development? We’re on the greenbelt here on the west coast of Scotland, and my wife and I went for a number of walks filled with conversations about those questions.
What brought you to Accelerant Holdings, and what were your first impressions of the firm?
The role came to me through a London recruitment agent. It wasn’t one I’d previously applied for – the agent reached out to me and said, “Thanks for the latest application you filed – that job’s closed now, but take a look at this one and see what you think.”
It looked exciting straight away: a number-one treasury role within a UK-headquartered business, in my sector of choice – namely, insurance – in a start-up that had launched in early 2019. Even more appealingly, this was Accelerant’s first-ever treasury hire – prior to myself, the function was being managed on an ad hoc basis by various finance staff.
The interviewing was an interesting experience, too. They were very much, “We've seen your CV. We like what we see, and we’re going to take it at face value. We’d just like to know more about you as an individual, and want to make sure that you are happy with the decision you're about to make.” That was really refreshing.
I was interviewed two or three times by the London-based group CFO. Then I spoke to the US-based founder and CEO – one of a nucleus of three people who’d launched the business. After that, I had an interview with the group reporting director. On each occasion, the whole competency piece was put aside, and it was: “This is what we do. This has been our path so far. This is where we’re heading. What would you like to know about us and the role?”
There was a real buoyancy in the business – a spirit of optimism and engagement among its staff. And when I came into the firm on 1 October, it was great to be welcomed by people who hadn’t had a specialist treasury function. From the perspective of technical knowhow, resourcing and a change of dynamic, I think they were happy for a treasurer to step in.
What are your main responsibilities?
Everything from building structure and processes around cash management to engaging with the CFO on issues around regulated capital and how we’re analysing our insurance reporting. In other words, a full spectrum of tasks from top to bottom.
We recently finalised getting a licence for an insurer in Belgium, and we’ve also just had a licence approved for Ireland, as well as further licensing in the US. We’re also due to close a US business acquisition [before the end of 2020]. We have teams in each of those territories, mainly on the East Coast, so not too onerous from a time zones perspective – although I do have a major banking relationship with a bank in San Francisco, too, which is eight hours’ difference. But it’s all working well.
How do you see your plans and priorities shaping up for 2021?
There’s still a considerable amount of infrastructure build happening on the finance side – whether on the group reporting/financial planning and analysis end, or in treasury itself. Right now, from a treasury perspective, we’re looking to optimise technology tools we already have, rather than implement new systems next year. Our thoughts are that we’ll probably investigate a new treasury management system in 2022.
But certainly, we have continual growth on the business side. Our US acquisition will give us admitted and non-admitted insurance coverage across 50 states. So, the US arm is going to start scaling up very quickly, and there will be a real need for the firm to keep pace with that. It’s going to be very challenging.
Matt Packer is a freelance business, finance and leadership journalist