Ayman Kandeel, CEO of AXA Egypt: My Morning Routine looks each week at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Ayman Kandeel, CEO of AXA Egypt, the provider of multiline insurance services, who joined the company in 2015 and became CEO in 2018.

My name is Ayman Kandeel, and I’m the CEO of AXA Egypt. I feel my purpose is to have a positive impact on everyone I meet which, which means being a good leader for my team and a supportive partner to my clients.

I start my day at 6:30 am by taking a shower and making coffee while I listen to intro jingles of old radio programs. In the 70s and 80s when I was a kid there used to be this introductory bit to radio programs and it gives me a nostalgic feeling reminding me of my carefree days as a kid. I make it into the office at around 8:00-8:30 am where my days are usually filled with one-on-one meetings discussing strategy, execution and progress. A large part of my day also consists of networking with CEOs of other companies. We hold regular weekly meetings with our executive committee and I make the rounds in all the office’s departments two or three times a week.

The highlights of my day come when I’m visiting the other departments where I get the chance to speak with team members and refuel from a lot of youthful energy. The average age at AXA is 30 and 52% of our employees are female.

I'm a big tech fan and I love to explore. I’ve been fascinated by Amazon’s Alexa recently and I’m trying to figure out the extent of its functionality. I read a lot of tech reviews and I prefer learning by tinkering rather than dwelling in theory. I always like to tell my team to put their ideas and curiosities into practice. Make mistakes and make conscious decisions to address them. You have to do it by yourself.

We started AXA Egypt as our own little greenfield baby and it was nowhere near the size that it is today. To see AXA as the third largest insurance provider in Egypt in terms of revenue and our healthcare division, which saw 86% growth in the past year, is a source of great accomplishment. Our company’s transformation from payer to partner is also a shift that I take a lot of pride in.

Insurance products are all quite similar, the real difference lies in the services behind them. We believe reshaping insurance from a mere provider to becoming a real partner. We won't wait for an incident to take place before we show up. We try to be preemptive in offering health and wellness consultations with AXA Group’s large investments in Egypt through the launch of AXA OneHealth clinics for example. We advise our partners on how to mitigate all forms of risk even if that means lower premiums for us. It's about building trust.

Insurance is not a new industry in Egypt, but people are afraid of being scammed or misled by piles of paperwork. Insurance products can generally be quite complicated and sometimes understandably scare people away. It's important for people to know that insurance is an essential safety net and we need to further shape the culture of preemptive care and risk management. This applies to SMEs and small business owners as well as emerging customers who need protection.

The new Insurance Act currently being discussed in parliament would make impactful changes to the current insurance landscape where compulsory insurance is applied. The measures would protect against a lot of risk and would shift a great burden of risk and safety assessment from the government to the responsibility of insurance providers to ensure that businesses, employees and consumers are protected in the event of an emergency and better assisted at preventing one.

The best business advice I received was from a senior leader in AXA, who told me you need to take 15-20 minutes out of your day at the office to walk outside, recharge and regroup. You need to be alone to give yourself a chance to review and reflect on your decisions and come back to work refreshed.