‘Women make better money-managers than men’ – Allianz Africa COO Delphine Traoré on rising through the ranks of the insurance sector and empowering others to do the same…
A five-year itch and aversion to making long-term career plans are what have shaped Burkinabé Delphine Traoré to rise through the ranks of the insurance sector and into her role as the COO and Management Board Member of Allianz Africa, President of the African Insurance Organisation and Non-Executive Director of African Risk Capacity Limited.
It’s an impressive CV which has its unlikely origins in Traoré’s last-minute decision to choose a different path to becoming a chartered accountant, her initial career plan, because she was “tired of schooling and didn’t want to take more exams over the summer”.
“I was just being 22 and naïve. An insurance company in the US where I had studied promised training for a year and the prospect of travel around the country to step in as a locum where needed, which I found quite interesting,” says Traoré, The travel bug bit early on.
Her finance and accounting background meant she was able to grasp the business aspect of underwriting a commercial insurance policy. Plus she’d get to indulge her desire for variety. “When you’re underwriting an insurance policy, it might be for a restaurant one day and for tomorrow a gift shop, so you get to see how different companies work,” she adds.
It was the beginning of a love affair with the insurance industry which would see her rise through the ranks in the US, Canada and South Africa, to her new hometown, Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire. And, unexpectedly, in a CEO position which took a nudge from one of her many super lifters, Andreas Berger, who at the time was a board member of Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty and is today the CEO SwissRe Corporate Solutions.
“I still remember the day clearly. We were sitting in my office in Canada and he asked what my plans were in the next few years. As someone who doesn’t do ‘five-year plans’ and believes my path will lead where it leads, I didn’t really have an answer. He casually suggested I could become CEO of Allianz Global Corporate & Speciality in South Africa and I burst out laughing.”
At the time, Traoré was head of marketing and had never been a CEO, a fact that Berger didn’t seem perturbed about knowing her potential before it was even clear to her. “I’m sure for every CEO, there’s been a time in their life when they’d never been a CEO before,” he said
Soon after, she found herself in South Africa, where she could really roll up her sleeves and do what she loves best: fixing and building.
“I like walking into something that makes my stomach churn because I know it’s going to be complex to fix. I spend the next two, three, four years fixing it and once it’s fixed, I get bored and need to do something else. The mess at the beginning excites me, but I have a five-year itch.”
The clock is ticking as Traoré’s tenure in Abidjan edges dangerously close to the five-year mark. But, perhaps for this self-confessed introvert, her desire to empower women at grassroots level, mentor her pan-African team and help mitigate the impact of climate change in Africa through her work with ARC Limited will keep her in this saddle for some time to come.
Building resilience against climate change impacts
“Anything climate-related is close to my heart because it has a lot to do with food security and the most vulnerable across Africa, which bear the brunt of climate change, yet have actually had very little impact on carbon emission.”
She believes there’s a responsibility for G7 countries to support Africa in managing the impact of climate change by, for example, providing sovereigns with parametric insurance premium finance to help them respond swiftly and decisively to crises fuelled by climate change on the continent, such as drought, cyclones, etc.
“Our role is explaining to African governments the importance of having this type of insurance and accounting for food security and disaster risk in their budgetary work process. There’s been a lot of work done by ARC Limited with the support of the African Development Bank and other financial institutions to see how we can support these countries with a super replica programme. We need to do more still to find a sustainable way to do premium financing for countries that are not able to afford it but that are quite impacted by climate change impacts.”
In her view, it is in the best interests of G7 countries to take a long-term view and assist Africa. “COVID has shown how we are all inter-related and interdependent. There’s a lot of trade between Africa and Europe, so if Africa keeps getting impacted by disasters and is unable to lift itself up from these, this affects trade between the two continents and they will feel the impact.”
Traoré sees her role on the ARC Limited Board as one small way she can have an impact in securing the planet for her daughter and her daughter’s children. “We owe this to our children.”
Breaking the cycle
Of further importance for Traoré is empowering women, and not just in leadership roles. It’s a drive that hits close to home as she explains how education was what broke the cycle of child marriage for her own mother.
“I was lucky that the cycle ended with my grandmother because my mother went to school. For those of us who have escaped the cycle, it’s our responsibility to help others and I remind my daughter she’s been blessed to grow up in an environment where she has many opportunities.
“I see bright girls every day who will end up getting married at 14, girls of eight or nine who can’t attend school and will end up becoming young mothers. We have to make sure that we provide basic education for these girls to break the cycle. We have to make sure that we’re building a pipeline of young girls who can enter the workforce behind us. Otherwise, there will be nobody to take over from all the women we have empowered into leadership roles today.”
And the future for women to take up leading roles in financial services is bright, says Traoré. “More women are entering the insurance field and I use myself as an example. All I’ve done is been committed to my work, maintained a high level of ethics and surrounded myself with the right people because it’s the people who report to you and your peers who will help make your career. I’ve always said I like a job where I’m given the platform to influence and support.”
Traoré laughingly concludes: “Besides, we are better money managers than men.”