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Born and raised in Bonn - a calm mid size city in the beautiful Rhine valley in Germany, I joined Allianz Group after working for a couple of years for a reinsurance company in Mexico and Colombia completing my Ph.D. programme.
When I started at Allianz Group, my first job assignment meant to take me for six months to Brazil. At the end, I worked in different non-executive and executive functions in various South American countries for seven years. Before returning to Germany, I spent some time in France to experience working life there.
When I decided to move abroad I had no clear expectations of what this could mean. I just wanted to have a different experience in my life. Different in terms of working environment, people, culture, language, landscape etc.....
In South America, I experienced the people in a very positive way, as I had expected. Besides a hard-working attitude and a "go the extra mile" - atmosphere, I met highly skilled people, who tried to be relaxed and have fun even when working under pressure. It was fascinating to see how the locals were able to overcome lacking resources with creativity and improvisation, if necessary. Furthermore, teamwork was very important although it did not always work out perfectly. But all employees were mostly proud of working at Allianz Group.....
I tried to adapt to the respective host country by learning and speaking the local language, among other things. People honoured my effort with friendliness, openness and a real interest in other opinions and different ways of taking on a project or solving a problem.
I like my job, because these experiences make me confident that Allianz Group and Allianz Re as part of it will manage to be "one global company". We will fully benefit from this global position if we try to "take the best of each local culture" and use it on the markets and for the continuous development of our corporate culture.
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