I have already touched on the fact that Allianz employees aren't strictly nailed down to their official job description. Allianz wants their employees to think outside of the box and to collaborate across teams and geographic boundaries. This is exactly why I feel being able to make a difference each and every day and being able to impact our business from different angles. If you are motivated & engaged, paired with the ability to generate valuable insights, colleagues will appreciate your input and you will find great joy in your work. This general observation also applies to my role as a Business Architect, where you will have a very broad area of responsibility by design and where you will be able shape your own focus topics in addition to your core tasks.

The greatest achievement since joining Allianz at the beginning of 2021 was being able to get successfully on-boarded & integrated into the organization under circumstances we have never seen before. This may sound as an unusual achievement, but due to the pandemic, personal touchpoints with colleagues were very limited and working from home became the new normal. Thanks to my colleagues, who proactively reached out via Microsoft Teams or directly called, I felt welcomed and part of the team from the very first moment. Moreover, I set myself the objective to schedule at least one call each day for the first couple of weeks with folks from other teams, Lines of Business, or Management in general. This really made the difference in my opinion as it gave me the visibility I would have gotten otherwise strolling through the offices, having lunch in the cafeteria or getting an espresso from the office barista bar.