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We often hear how Henry Engelhardt, Founder and CEO emeritus, has inspired many people: both inside and outside the Admiral Group - whether that is from working with him closely, or from simply hearing one of his many memorable speeches. So, we wanted to share a small insight from a recent talk he gave at INSEAD in May 2020. "Admiral is moving into the future. Next year, Milena Mondini, will take up the reins of Admiral when she becomes CEO. It will be the first time in our history that we won’t be run by one of our founders. As we transition to this new era, we are looking for the next generation of leaders, business builders, and managers. We need people who are bright, hungry, intelligent, and decent. That’s why we keep coming back to recruit MBAs from some of the best business schools in the world. Milena needs the strongest people she can find to take Admiral to the next level. There are no barriers to what Admiral can achieve. There are no blinkers on what businesses we achieve it in. For those of you, who see Admiral as an Insurance company, I say: that's what we mostly do now. But the future? Who knows? We’re looking for people who can be great leaders, managers, business people, and people. We don’t really care what industry you’ve come from. In fact, in many regards, knowing little or nothing about insurance can be an advantage.    Whatever your experience, we’re looking for people who can take nothing and make something; we’re looking for people who make teams better; we’re looking for people who can inspire and motivate those around them; we’re looking for people who can grow into being great leaders. Why not you? So, what does it take to be a great leader and manager? One – make great decisions. This involves gathering and interrogating data.  Two different skills, both very important. It involves teamwork – the buck stops with all of us, not any single individual. The team, the team, the team. And, ultimately, it involves decisiveness. To make a great decision you must make a decision!Two – be great with people. This means understanding some of our simple philosophies, like "If people like what they do, they’ll do it better" – so we go out of our way to create a culture where people really like their jobs. It means understanding how important you are to the people you manage. Understanding how important little things, like saying good morning or goodnight, are. It means being a great communicator.  Three – be creative. This means you have to do things differently to succeed.  Something has to be different; either the offer to your customers, your product design, the way you manage the process, the way you get more energy from your people…something. Great managers are very creative: they push others to see opportunities and ideas that would normally get buried in a corporation. If you can be great at those three things you can be a great leader. But there’s no formula.  It’s not a recipe. If it was, we’d all just read it and become great leaders. It takes a lot of hard work. A lot of thought. And there is one special ingredient that is different in everyone’s recipe: you. We’re all different from each other and that means we all bring something special to the party.  I went to a good high school and did well, but not top of my class. I went to a good but not exclusive university. Again, I did well, but not top of my class. A few years later, I completed my MBA at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading business schools. I didn’t make the Dean’s List. What I’m trying to say is that I am not, by any means, extraordinary. So, if I can achieve what I’ve achieved, so can you!" 

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Future Leaders Program - David (IE) International Pricing Manager Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?I’m originally from Spain, I have an academic background in Telecommunications engineering and Computer Science, prior to completing my MBA at IE. Before joining Admiral as an International Pricing Manager, I worked for six years in Paris, managing the performance of IT systems and business applications at a French multinational in the sector of environmental services. In these years I progressed steadily from intern to managing a team of six people.My work was very fulfilling from both a personal and a technical point of view: I built strong friendships and had lots of fun at the office, while tackling the challenges of moving most of the company’s IT systems to the cloud. In my position, I was able to see the impact of our team’s work on the satisfaction of the company’s employees and on the bottom line. However, I felt that my work had little direct impact on the customers and the top line. Pursuing an MBA seemed the best option to complement my engineering skills with business in order to pivot my career toward roles that have the direct business impact that I seek.What motivated you to apply for Admiral as an International Pricing Manager?The Admiral Recruitment team visited my business school (IE) in Madrid to present the company and its MBA leadership development program at a career forum. Although I was in Hong Kong doing an academic exchange program, a classmate told me about Admiral and sent me the slide deck of the presentation. From those slides and my own research, I discovered many aspects that I liked about Admiral. For example, the company’s culture strongly promoted employee well-being, emphasising a fun workplace and a flexible work-life balance.  The fact that Admiral was founded by two MBA Graduates and that several MBA recruits have progressed to business division CEOs convinced me that it was a company well suited for a fresh MBA Graduate. David Gonzalez Campelo The role of International Pricing Manager was very appealing because of the impact that pricing has on both the customers and the top line of a company. This role, which sits within the International Pricing and Analytics Team, seemed to also provide the opportunity to work closely with data scientists on interesting topics such as Machine Learning.What were your expectations of the role before starting?Since I was going to pivot my career to a very different path in a highly analytical role, I expected the learning curve to be particularly steep. My concerns about being able to ramp up as fast as required were mitigated thanks to the support provided by the Admiral Recruitment team during the interview process; there is an induction period that is tailored to the previous background and the future role of each candidate.And how was your experience of moving to a new city?Settling in a new country can be challenging. As soon as you move, you need to deal with many local administrative procedures on top of looking for somewhere to live. Settling in Cardiff was less difficult than expected thanks to the help of the Admiral Recruitment team. They provided me with a company house for free, swiftly answered all the questions that I had about administrative procedures, and gave me any documentation that I needed, such as a proof of address to open a local bank account.Finding accommodation in Cardiff was much easier and cheaper, compared to the cities in which I had previously lived. Cardiff strikes a good balance regarding population density, having a compact city centre with many offices, amenities, and flats, and suburbs with traditional houses, both around the city centre and in the bay area. An unexpected advantage of this city is that my house is located only 10 minutes away from the office by bicycle, significantly closer than my previous commutes.How has your experience in the IPM role been so far?My teammates were very welcoming, and I soon realised that I had the chance to be in one of the most multicultural teams within the company. The scope of the role is larger than I expected, covering diverse types of pricing strategies, leveraging advanced AI models, and working with both UK and international stakeholders at all levels of the organisation. Training within the Claims department has allowed me to learn more about core activities in the insurance sector and understand the strong focus of the company on caring for our customers.The induction phase includes a range of training, I received an unexpected assignment during my second training stage; researching how other companies outside the insurance sector use data innovatively to put together a case study and presentation for the Admiral international CEOs. This assignment has given me the opportunity to gain visibility among top management in an early stage of my career within the company.What projects or initiatives lie on the horizon for you?After my induction, I will work on a wide variety of projects. For example, helping devise our future pricing strategies and ramping up the deployment of machine learning models in the cloud. The scope of these projects may be for single products or cross-product, ranging from traditional car insurance policies, to telematics policies, loans, or on-demand car insurance.There is an increasing emphasis on innovation, so I expect to have the opportunity to work on projects that allow Admiral to continue staying ahead of the curve. This is particularly interesting to me in light of the accelerating evolution of the Finance and Insurance sectors, in the context of disruptive technologies and new business models. Apply - International Pricing Manager