Blog

Challenges make you grow

Key messages
  • The importance of confidence and trust to make us grow
  • Knowledge sharing and mentoring make us ready for the job
  • The advantages of working in an operational department

When I started at TriFinance’s Blue Chip Boutique Financial Institutions I already had more than 8 years of experience in the insurance sector at a major player on the Belgian insurance market. I have to admit that the growth I have known over the last 3 years at Trifinance is higher than during my first 8 years of experience, thanks to the opportunities, training and trust I receive.

My areas of interest

At TriFinance I have worked at several different Insurance companies, in the areas of process management, business analysis and project management. Although my interests are especially linked to insurance companies, I have also done two smaller projects for other Blue Chip Boutiques within TriFinance in these domains. Not having these tight silo’s within TriFinance, gives the opportunity to also discover other industries and departments outside of your own field of expertise. You never know how much you do or do not prefer a certain domain or industry without experiencing it yourself.

Why TriFinance?

Clients choose TriFinance because they know that they not only consult the expertise of one consultant, but the whole organisation behind that person. Within Trifinance there is a high dynamic between all consultants to support each other on the assignment and to share their knowledge. This doesn’t only give the opportunity to let the consultant grow, but also the client can benefit from this network of expertise.

Working in this operational environment gave me the opportunity to gain knowledge on a specific insurance product while improving my process skills.

Michaël Coppens, Project Consultant

Improve applications and processes

The first assignment I did for TrifFnance was as an Application manager at a Belgian Insurance company. As an application manager responsible for a number of applications, I was the link between the business and the ICT developers. Together with the business analyst, we looked for opportunities to improve the applications and processes.

In line with this assignment, I started afterwards in the same company in an operational department. My assignment consisted on the one hand of operational work and, on the other hand, process and procedure improvements.

Working in this operational environment gave me the opportunity to gain knowledge on a specific insurance product while improving my process skills, which I could use during a next specific process improvement assignment at a Belgian corporate client.

The growth I have known over the last 3 years at TriFinance is higher than during the first 8 years of my career, thanks to the opportunities, training and trust I receive.

My biggest challenge thus far

When I look back on it, my biggest challenge was during a project in one of the biggest bank & insurance companies in our country where I started as a product manager for business clients. First, specifically to manage the third parties who work together with the insurance company and secondly, as a product manager for the fire insurance products, also for business clients. I entered a market segment that was unknown to me and I had limited product knowledge. My assignment included among other things adjusting existing products in response to market changes, creating new products, creating underwriting manuals and we also started the preparation for the product implementation into a new IT system.

Growing

When I started at TriFinance I had 8 years of operational experience in the insurance sector. During these 8 years I took some steps to evolve in a domain that really interested me, but due to knock-out arguments such as “not the right profile”, “not enough experience”, … it was very hard to get a chance.

At Trifinance I received the confidence and trust to do the assignments which triggered me. Although my profile did not always match 100% with the profile assignment, Trifinance believed that knowledge sharing through mentoring, Practices or Knowledge Circles combined with the right training like Prince2 Foundation, Agile Project Management,... makes each one of us ready for the job. With the appropriate support a lot is possible.

At this moment I am also taking up my part of the knowledge sharing by being part of the Process practice. Next to this, I have participated in the mentorship training to guide colleagues during their assignments. I can’t wait for my first mentoring session as a mentor.