Lenka Kejikova is the CEO and Chair of the Board of Directors at Generali pension company. With extensive experience in insurance, finance, and leadership, we wanted to know more about Lenka’s career path, her leadership approach, past and present mentors, but also her views and advice on the gender pension gap, as well as balancing motherhood and career. Lenka had many interesting insights to share - read more about them in this interview!
I am a mom of our wonderful almost 3-year-old boy Artur. I am a person who constantly seeks for effectiveness in every aspect of life and tries to be the best version of myself in each of my roles. And I am also the CEO of Generali Pension Company, which is the biggest pension savings provider in the Czech Republic.
It all started at high school, where math was always the easiest subject for me to study. Although I was also interested in many other subjects, it seemed like a smart decision to build my future profession on my biggest strength. On the other hand, I was not fully convinced if studies of mathematics could make me rich one day, so I decided for a combined studies of mathematics and economics.
The early stages of my career were strongly influenced by my aunt, who worked as an insurance broker and helped me find my first job in the insurance industry. I started working in the sales division which allowed me great flexibility to combine the work with my university studies. But I kept dreaming about becoming an actuary one day.
Eventually, my dream came true. Only to find out it was not my dream field at all. After 11 months I decided to move on.
In that time, risk management as a field has just started to come up in the insurance industry in the Czech Republic. That unique combination of analytics and human contact seemed tailor made for me. And this time, it proved to be true. After a while, I started working as a senior risk manager in Generali, which proved to be one of the best decisions of my career.
Generali not only allowed me to use all my experience and abilities to the fullest and on the international scale. It is also a company that actively looks for and recognizes talent. Even as an introvert, I was soon noticed by the company and selected among the top talents of the whole Generali group. In April 2021, the biggest offer of my career landed on my table. To become the CEO of Generali Pension Company.
The timing was not ideal, to say the least. My son was 7 months old at the time. But this was an offer impossible to turn down. With great respect I accepted, and since then I have never regretted that decision.
Be true to yourself and to others at all times, get to know your people as best as you can and learn to trust your close colleagues, especially in their expertise. Oh, and knowing basic math helps as well. 😊
I would say it's almost impossible to lead any group of people, if you don't get to really know them. Both on the professional and personal level.
So one of the first tasks I set up for myself in the role of CEO was to get to know every single colleague personally. We're lucky that we are a relatively small company, so it was achievable in a couple of weeks.
Once you get to know the background of a person, their strengths and preferences, but also their hobbies and family situation, you can more easily understand what motivates them and how they can use their potential the best. Both for the company results and their personal well-being. Then you can start building a great team. Great results are then just an inevitable consequence.
I am also very open to my colleagues about everything that influences our company, including the challenges we face and potential future threats. I believe that if people fully understand what the company is going through and where it aims to go, they just do their best to help the company succeed.
Definitely. I was lucky to meet many inspirational people throughout my career. Let me mention two of them. One of my biggest mentors was my boss in my previous role. Her name is Marcela Středová. She has had enormous influence over how I evolved as a person and as a manager. Mainly for two reasons.
One, she always gave her team members space to grow. She gave us a lot of freedom but also made us accountable for our results. So that we could actively learn new skills and find our own ways.
Two, she is a prime example of a strong woman who manages to work at top management level and also to raise children at the same time. Actually, twins in her case. You could say she has shown me the way.
The second great mentor to me was Anders Kornblad from ABB, with whom I was matched in a cross-company mentoring program. His own story showed me that being an introvert person is not an obstacle for career growth, but great work is eventually recognized without a need to promote yourself too much. He also gave me confidence that I had the skill set for the top management positions and I should go for it.
The message is simple: the sooner we start to take care of our own future financial well-being, the better off we will be in our pensions. The key is to start investing early and learn the basics of financial discipline. I recommend to everyone to do the basic math exercise – calculate how much extra money above state pension they would need to keep the standard of living, multiply it by 20-25 years people on average spent in retirement. The resulting amount will convince everyone that savings for pension are not something that can be put off until later.
Women specifically should realize that they must provide for themselves and not rely on, for example, their partners. The state pensions are calculated based on the lifetime income which is not quite in line with the traditional role of women as mothers and primary caregivers. Although it’s up to each and every woman to decide what model suits her and her family the best – to be full time mum, career focused professional or anything in between – the long-term financial consequences of this decision should be also taken into account.
In the beginning, it was quite challenging. Keeping the focus at work when you are constantly tired after sleepless nights. Having doubts how my son and his relationship to me might be affected by my only part-time presence in his life. Dividing all my time only between my work and my son and having nothing left for myself and my hobbies... But it was getting better over time. I could see that my son was doing well and I eventually found proper work-life balance in my daily schedule. Recently I even returned some of my hobbies back to my life. So far so good but we must be ready to be flexible. Because as your child grows, their habits and schedules will change. And so will yours.
I believe that most women don’t need to choose between having a family and a successful career, they can have it both. They just need to find their individual balance between the time and energy they dedicate to each of their roles. And also accept that having it all doesn’t mean being able to do it all on 110%.
Because that is exactly what I see as a main obstacle when talking to other women. I often find out that they put too much pressure on themselves to be perfect in every possible way. In their careers, in relationships, in their maternal roles. At the same time, they are afraid to delegate tasks, because they feel like they should do it all and no one else will do it as well as them. All while being afraid to ask for help to not look weak in front of others.
I had similar concerns, but I could overcome them. Realizing that the most important thing for me would be finding my own way, which makes me and my family happy. No matter the stereotypes and what others, who chose a different life path, might think. That would be my biggest advice for all the women seeking their own life balance.
Also, learn to delegate tasks even in personal matters. I would never have made the decision to move into a CEO role if it was not for my amazing husband and our family members, who help regularly. And we were also extremely lucky in finding Katka – a nanny, who basically became a firm part of our family.
There is no recipe or a paved way to “having it all”. For everyone the concept is different and that is totally ok. The key is to keep trying to get it and not give up too early.
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