Milena Mondini de Focatiis
A Chief Executive Officer’s perspective

‘People who like what they do, do it better’ – a quote from Henry Engelhardt our founder. This belief is the core of Admiral’s culture and philosophy and is on the wall in our office entrance. And we believe that people will only like what they do if they feel appreciated for who they are, and genuinely feel they will be given the chance to do even more.

It’s why inclusion has always been at the heart of Admiral’s culture. It is my opinion that inclusion drives diversity, more than the other way around. And inclusion for all, can’t exist without equality. And equality is one of the four pillars on which the Group culture was built almost thirty years ago.

When I joined 15 years ago, I was one of five CEOs leading international businesses and four of us were women. I am just one of many examples of women with great careers at Admiral who had not felt pushed to make a choice between a career or family.

Today, we have a 50/50 gender split both on our Board and Executive team and we’ve been named the second-best company to work for women by the Great Place to Work® Institute. But we know we can’t rest on our laurels. There is so much more to do.

We continue to monitor whether our colleagues feel treated fairly, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation (as of today ~95% of them do…5% more to go) and try to improve our recruitment, talent and career development policies, to become a better place to work for everybody.

Of course, this is great for our people; it’s also great for our businesses as it means we attract and retain new diverse talent and make better and more solid decisions.

It’s good to see business truly embracing this social and economic imperative, and the willingness to learn from each other. We are in the privileged position to provide talented women around the globe with very different role models to the ones many of us, including me, grew up with – changing the perception of what is possible, supporting bigger ambitions and inspiring everyone in doing so.

February 2022