Lina Hantas on believing in yourself and your potential - Dive In Festival 2021

great and we are live thank you everyone for joining us again we're doing a special series of podcasts and video casts for the divin festival which is a global festival in the insurance market promoting diversity and inclusion um brilliant brilliant festival and today i'm really really delighted to be joined by lena hantas who is the ceo for argo global in dubai lima thank you so much for joining me thank you for having me actually i'm very thrilled to be with you and uh this is a great platform for me no it's great i mean we i know we spoke a little bit before before uh we went on air and and also a few weeks ago as we were you know discussing the podcast and your story was fascinating you know growing up in in lebanon and you know ending up uh today as the ceo of an insurance company in dubai um yeah we'd love to hear how how you ended up as the ceo of arco global in dubai yeah actually it's been a journey for me um as you mentioned i i was born in lebanon and i was raised there my parents my mother is a teacher math teacher and my father is an engineer both of them they were [Music] they they are muslim but very secular and lebanon anyway has a lot of religion and people there are very much exposed to other culture and to too many nationalities so i come from a family i would say middle class educated parents they had all the time [Music] a lot of aspirations for their kids i have two sisters and i wanted those three girls to do something in their life so my parents raised the three of us that there is no difference between a man and a woman and you can do anything a man can do and then they instill in me this gender equality and uh a girl is as strong as a boy great and was that was that was that a common thing when you were growing up like we were were your parents doing something that was slightly different from from the norm then yes actually my my my parents and son does they spend a lot of money i think they spend all their money for on our education on on the exposure on the activities uh we were doing uh so they sent us to top schools in lebanon and they made sure that we become three linguals so i speak arabic i speak english and i speak french and i went to a french catholic school in lebanon and this was uh supported by the french government and basically yeah language at home was arabic or my language at home is arabic yes yes yeah yeah amazing and did you learn english at school while you were french yes actually uh in school i uh and i would say in the primary school and middle school uh it's more french and arabic but in the last three years at school started to learn the english and my mother said you have to go to the american university you don't have any choice because she wanted us to be also mastering the the english english language so me and my sisters all of us we graduated from the from american universities i i graduated from the lebanese american universities as university in beirut in 1996 and then i started a career at the bank i worked six years associate general it's a french bank in lebanon and what gave me the opportunity to work at french bank is my multilingual capacity and skill so i stayed in the bank for six years and then uh i moved to dubai uh with my ex-husband i had two kids at that time i had nazar five years old and sarah two years old and then came here to dubai as a family later on things didn't work between me and my husband so i i became a single mother i took care of my kids but i started a career in insurance uh so did you move when you moved so essentially when you moved did you you had a job in insurance or you know i moved actually to be with my family and then to figure out what i will do because i my my aspiration was to find a job in a bank because this was my my experience my career experience was in the bank but when i came here i had another door open for me it was insurance i met a friend of a friend and he said why don't you come and join us and at that time i joined aig one of the biggest insurance company in the world and i started my career with them i was trained to be a casualty underwriter i have been given an opportunity to study in the us and new york in their insurance school i did my underwriting training there and i was flying to dubai every every month to do on-job training and then go to the us to do the the classes training and then i was trained to be a casualty underwriter uh for six years i worked in aig for six years as well and in 2008 uh when the credit crisis started in the world uh i moved i was pitched by ace which is chubb now and i worked for them uh to build the casualty book for them in the region in the middle east so they announced that a regional casualty manager was my position at that time i stayed with uh asa job for two years and then argo called me and i joined argo i was the first employee to join argo in 2011 so i've been with argo for 10 years i joined argo in 2011 as a chief underwriting officer and i started to recruit the team after that so the team and my and my strategy to recruit and bring colleagues to my team i always wanted to make sure that we have a diverse team in terms of expertise languages exposure and i made the strategy on this and i think i i have succeeded amazing yeah i wonder we should explore the the recruitment um strategy as well but one thing i want to ask actually if we just go back a little bit is is how you experience kind of the gender equality as you you know moved from lebanon to dubai um you obviously studied in the us as well so did you find kind of major differences across the different countries you've worked and lived in or or has it been kind of similar uh yeah actually yes when i came to dubai i would say the insurance market was not as exposed as now in terms of gender equality and i used to be one of the fewest women in the team where i worked but i over the years i see the face of insurance has changed and we see more women in the field and other field as well not not only the insurance also the banking the government the schools i think this is a big topic in uae in dubai and it is not anymore a topic of discrimination or it is gender equality nobody talk about it now because this is something instant and engraved now i've been in dubai for 20 years it took some time to reach there but i can see that the face of insurance has changed the face of a career for women has changed as well um yeah but i i would say i always had the respect of my male colleague all the time i was supported by a lot by male colleague i was supported by a lot of mentors in the market male and male mostly and female and there are also women empowerment brilliant brilliant shout out it's really evolved quite quickly like over the last 20 years you've been there which is which is awesome and you mentioned mentors so did you have i do you mentioned your mum was a teacher um did you have and look for other mentors over your career that helped you yes actually you always in your career have direct mentor you know that this person is going to be my mentor because the company has said to me this is going to be your mentor but there are other mentors that they are imborn you know you get the chemistry and the trust and the trust and you go for them and you ask them for their for their opinion uh but my real mentor was my boss at aig and i still tell now consider him my mentor he is one of the very well respected ceos in dubai and yes so a mentor a leader needs a mentor all the time and need a coach and sometimes your coach will be yourself as well when you look in your mirror or your mentor could be a person you trust so yeah yeah i have more than one mentor but some of them are uh have made a difference in my life in my career more than others yeah i think it's it's so important it's good to have role models you know like when if people are growing up in dubai want to be an insurance and you know they look to you for you know the path you've taken and what you're and what you're doing i think it's so great to have uh i call it like being the ceo of your career you know treat your career like a business build a board of directors you know say ie mentors people in your life that can that can help you have this growth mindset and you know like because a lot of people they often wait for the company to provide the training or provide career progression opportunities and sometimes well i think now more than ever you need to take ownership of your own career and i think you know the mentorship and all of those things is really great yes exactly i i would say [Music] recently i've listened to sheikh muhammad the ruler of dubai and and him telling the story of his life and there is something he said that made a difference for me and i think he's right of course he's the shack of dubai [Laughter] he said that the world will present the opportunity for the people who knows what they want for the person who knows what he wants so the opportunity will come to you if you know what you want if you are not focused i believe and focus i believe in and having one strategy and follow this strategy and execute it it's not it's not good to have a lot of things to work on many things it's good to be focused and work on one thing and executed and reach it and of course if the goal is smart you you will be able to achieve yeah did you always have because you seem pretty clear on way way you know where you wanted to get to where you are now did you always have that like clarity and purpose or was it something that you know people can develop because if someone's listening thinking oh okay i'm not quite sure yet how did you go about doing it yes see i think when you are at the age of 17 no one knows what what they want but as we mentioned sometimes you have a role model in your life and you want to follow it or you are inspired by this model my family i was inspired by a woman in my family i would say my aunt and my mother made a lot of difference in my life because all of them were educated all of them they had status in their jobs and in their career and i always wanted to make my mother proud of me of myself so i i wanted to to do something uh i didn't know what is it because i was young at the age of 17. you don't know exactly what you want but i had this something here and my inner light in my heart yeah that is telling me that i will achieve i will achieve something and to be honest at school i was one of the good student but my mother always told me that see this something if you cannot make it happen for you it's like a rock you either break it or they will break you anything hard that i used to have heart thing for example math i i'm challenged with algebra she tells me or my mom is a math teacher she tells me mouth is like a rock you either break it or they will break you so i always had to fight i love you yeah so i love that i love that my uh my mum was also a maths teacher funny enough yeah but and the hard stuff i love the hard stuff because i i think it's really good to go through and do difficult things because you know so often at school you know like you do your you go to school and if you do well you maybe go to university and the kind of path is set and certainly if you're a good student you know you just you do well and suddenly you know you go into the real world and the real world is tough you know everything goes your way it doesn't it doesn't always end nicely like a disney movie might end nicely you know it's hard there's a lot of it's not fair obstacles in our way and so i i love doing difficult stuff whether it's i do a lot of like um i do long distance running or i go to the gym or i lift weights which is hard and it prepares me mentally for what's to come i think it's important for people to do that yeah it is important to have a challenge in life yes this is what keeps you going so yeah i'm i'm more driven with the challenges and i like competition i like to go into a competition and and this is where we work we work in uh an environment of competitive edges and competition uh and and and insurance and there are other underwriters in the market but we compete with each other and we win they when we lose they lose so this is this is life and who said life is easy life is not easy life is good it's hard it's hard yeah and you have to be up to it strong to to be able to get it and you can do things to to to give make yourself more resilient and tougher and look you know people go through different things in their lives and you know a lot of people struggle with their mental health and things like that and i think for me it's just it's just great to go back to my my earlier point of view build a really good support structure around you know make sure you have people that you can rely upon your mentors you know do like difficult things to prepare yourself for whatever life from work whatever throws at you um i think it's really important i love that my my next question was going to be how your life experiences have influenced your leadership and it sounds like i mean if you've kind of gone through a lot of a lot of your what you believe already but i think it's really fascinating is that the stuff you've described is that how you how you now like go about leading uh yes i think it is uh my my my education and uh the way i was raised and uh the way i was pushed and motivated into life has influenced my my leadership and but the most important thing that influenced my leadership is my exposure with international i'm i i worked with international companies with multinational individuals i had local mentors i had international mentors and international colleagues all of this will add and add to my experience and the way i want to go forward and the curve of my learning every day every day i i had in my life was a career for learning and i always told my my children if you stop learning you stop grow and growing is not growing just by age it is growing um by being more wise uh more having this intuit intuition that is gonna happen a vision your vision you get your vision because of your experience and you know you know that scenarios in life that's why you you have a vision and you put it and you execute on your vision so all of this uh helped yes but i always had this um strong drive for the diversity for gender and gender equality and the workplace i didn't want only to see this happening i wanted also to be part of it and drive it so and this is what happened in my little world at argo where i encourage my my colleagues male and female but i stress on female more because i feel like a woman can make a difference in the business world as well because we have this intuition we have a different things from a man we can bring to the workplace uh other things we are mom we are smart um and yeah and we make it yeah yeah absolutely i think i think it's great it's you know having a diverse team whether it's male female you know different places in the world different perspectives it just gives so many more opinions and options and better decision making and things like that and it's also it's great to work in a in a team of diverse people it's just it's more interesting exactly and one other thing in my leadership actually i've done here i i made sure as well for all my team to encourage them always to have a life uh balance work balance life work balance and this is one of the topics that dive and festival is uh is focusing on this year so this is very important for the balance of any human being in order for you to achieve in the workplace you have to be happy in your place outside outside the office or outside the workplace so i always encourage everyone to have this balance in life exercise eat healthy sleep well go for mindfulness do some meditation do some yoga so this is something i always encourage my team i always speak about that i always speak about it's so important you know treat yourself like a professional athlete you know exercise i have in my diary is the most important meeting of the day like i'm just not going to move it um and then the sleep is obviously important and eating well is is is key you know having all of that stuff together um it's important absolutely how did you how did you go about building your your your diverse team i mean there's certain things that you did um to attract people what are some of the things that you you're able to do er okay that's a good question actually in fact i started with myself um i i influence with my myself i will be the role model for everyone so i need any i'm the face i'm the face of this little organization here in the middle east and i always going to be the role model so when i speak to any colleague i'll share with them my personal experience i try to impress them with with whatever i achieved and the thing that i'm proud that i did um i i do this all the time and um i i act as a mentor and sometimes if i i need to be a friend i will do that i go not only on the uh on the on the professional side but also uh i i try to be uh as friendly as possible to know if there are any other problem that will affect in the in the workplace and i think there are a lot of leaders and since that the the the the ni program started and they started to support and supporting employees and mental health and everything but i i think i did more than just the protocols and the programs because not all the leader can be just a leader and a mentor but also i i took this further to be a friend as well uh so this is something i i did all the time for my colleagues so you're being being kind um caring like just trying to appreciate where people are in their lives and how you can support them it's it's around and you have to be genuine about all of this you cannot just say um i'm there for you and you are not genuine about your words it's i think a leader has to be genuine has to be crystal clear has to be adamant uh correct i mean those are traits and ethics ethical as well about what you do and never lie never say something you cannot do promises has to be executed as well yeah yeah definitely interesting and you said i mean i would love to hear how how the pandemics affected how you guys are working because in in the uk uh we're at a scenario where i mean i'm just kind of almost looking at lloyds of london now as we speak out the window and the streets of venture street leadenhall street you know right now we're super quiet you know i mean there's hardly anyone um and there's a lot of talk about how things might go back you know some people are doing maybe three days a week teams are coming in similar times but i think we're still arriving there we're not quite i don't think we're quite there yet how was it in dubai actually the pandemic made us as a team get closer to each other great yeah and it is the same yeah it is like the same we treat we treat this organization as our little home and and whatever we did in our our places we executed here so we got closer together uh for example in a normal day in the office i might not be able to speak to everyone but during the pandemic especially at the beginning and during the lockdown we were calling each other every day we were checking on each other we were having more team meeting not longer a long one but at least just to check on each other see if we need anything any help any support whether in and personal or or professional sometimes it will be i.t for example yeah so it is like we got more into each other's life and the closer to each other now after the lockdown it came by by stages after the lockdown we sat together we said who wants to come to the office and i have two of my colleagues or three of my colleagues they wanted to come every day i said okay great we'll get you there and i came to the office made sure that the office environment is suitable for them to come back and then uh me and another colleague uh he's my second in command actually we used to come every other day we were not coming every day because i wasn't sure uh i wasn't ready to come every day yet so we were taking turns to make sure that the team and the office are are functioning mentally well so we we took turn to come here and check on them and then uh when summer started to come we started to think and vaccinations started to be enrolled we started to think what shall we do next uh so we were all the time ahead of the curve and the head of at least our london office so we met i met with the team and i said what do you want to do and even i went further step with a survey locally to ask them what is their preference and i had i had three or four they wanted to be hybrid some other they wanted to come every day to the office one of them she said i am said i i don't want to come at all to the office so people differ and they're in their way yeah and so are you gonna are you now arrived at the moment at the point where you're like everyone's different everyone has different wants and are you able to cater for that or are you gonna say exactly we said let's sit all together and discuss what you what we should we should do in order to make everybody happy but the same as well we want to make to ensure collaboration training innovation uh to come and see our clients so as a team we agreed that uh we we prepare a workflow uh a hybrid one uh twice a week we we have them and we have the underwriters in the office once a week we have all the team in the office so we can collaborate innovate training whatever and then we decided that when we go back to home and work from our home we do less exposed things with client things that we we need to do it from home but when we are in in the office to make sure that we have face time and take opportunity of the space time interesting so this is very much in line with our uh our mother mother company and and the uk so and is it similar with other companies in your in dubai uh i would say we are leader in this i would say we are leader in this and people will start following what we are doing right so your future is hybrid ultimately right which i think is which i think is great um which of course is super different to how it was pre-covered right you must have had everyone in the office classic i did too um how have you found it personally it's also good to offer flexibility yeah whether we worked all the time hybrid or we worked all the time from the office it's flexibility that we are trying to uh to implement here yes yeah and how have you found it leading leading a company now that not everyone's in together um you obviously you know you spoke about it before you know you take time to get to know your employees you're being kind and caring and things like that have you had to change the way that you that you've led over this past 18 months i think yeah not a change not a big change just a tweaking here and there because uh if if this is you your personality you are going just to uh to to to tweak it in order to [Music] to be able to match the changes so there is there is definitely a new normal uh but also i feel that we are going back to normal this is the new normal this is the new normal yeah but uh it's it's also it feels like normal it's a new normal it feels like normal yeah that's true and what do you what do you prefer like you're you're working life now are you are you in all the time or are you also staying working at home a little bit and i enjoyed that flexibility very much because it will give me a lot of freedom and freedom is priceless in some in some cases it gives me freedom to to to maneuver around and uh if i if i want to do a late call from from home i can go earlier home and stay there and do it from home if i want to be with my team in the office i will come and see my team if i want to be with my client i will come and see my client if i want to go to lebanon and meet my parents i can still work from a good wi-fi there this is flexibility it is really uh what matters and this is what uh the pro the pro side of cover is flexibility yeah definitely what do you think what do what do you think the effect will be on gender equality you know being able to it feels like you know being able to work flexibly will give more people the opportunity to work in companies that previously would have said no you've got to be in five days a week suddenly maybe someone's saying well you know what um you know your family situation maybe you're looking after your kids or you have an elderly relative or whatever it might be and it's fine if you work at home and do that what do you think about that yeah i think it will bring more women to the workplace if you have more flexibility because a woman not only has the responsibility to go out and do their career but they are also responsible to raise a generation and raise kids and if the generation is good the credit goes all for the mothers and the family and the foundation of this uh so i think it will bring more more women to to the industry or to the workplace and find the work balance that we just talk about it and that i encouraged always to do and this is a big topic as well as we said in the dive and so it it will it will uh boost the the life work balance yeah i think also speaking as a dad um it also gives us more uh options to be able to take our kids to school if we want to um one of the things i've noticed i've got i'm almost about to have three daughters so i've got two and one on the way and the really cool thing over covid was i was able to take them to school um and if i looked at the people dropping the kids off pre-covered it was mostly mums and and now there's like i mean it's almost loads of dads and it's a real mix now which i think is a really nice thing yes um i'm sure you and you must have thought at some point oh i missed a lot i i thought it was i'd say the mentality was different right it was i've got to be in you know i've got to be in 8 30 and i've got to be and yeah it would have been yeah like absolutely like you know it's fun to drop the kids to school and chat to the parents and see what they're up to but then in your mind also it's like right i need to make money support my family yeah you know be a good role model things like that um and so i would always feel guilty pre-covered if i'd started later so i dropped my kids off i would do it occasionally but i just feel i don't know just feel guilty because of the scenario you know everyone's in it yeah um whereas now everyone like dads mums everyone's doing these kind of things now which is really good no difference no difference it's equality again and inclusivity again yeah exactly you know i want to make sure my daughters grow up and teach them like your parents showed you that they can be whatever they want to be you know yes and i will always remember that that dropped us to school like like me my my dad used to wake us up in the morning and do our sandwiches and our lunch boxes and used to drop us to to school and pick us up from school because my mom was a working mom so and we will never forget this i always say my dad has done a lot for me not only by providing the bread to the table but also he he bonded with us he he spent a lot of his time as well with us yeah it's good it's a team great thing gameplay what a good place to end uh lina thank you so much really appreciate you um sharing your experiences and views and stuff it's been really interesting so thank you for having me pleasure pleasure speak to you soon