Setting His Own Path

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For Emmanuel Djengue, Director, Innovation and Partnerships, RGAX EMEA, and aspiring startup founder, sometimes the smartest guy in the room isn’t so smart. True innovation comes from collaboration.

What sets RGA apart is not its technology but its people. There is no arrogance at RGA. No one thinks he or she is the “smartest one in the room”.

That shocked me when I joined RGA because, in other areas of the industry, people are very impressed by titles. The highest-ranking person with the most years or certifications can silence everyone else.

But when I started at RGAX, I recognized immediately that RGAX culture was different. The organization was actively looking for diverse perspectives. I'm not an actuary. I am not an underwriter. I only briefly worked in insurance at LIMRA. I come from a media and consulting background and joined RGA at a young age. But none of this mattered – all that did matter was that I brought a different way of thinking about the industry. I always have been very passionate about understanding people: their needs, their wants, and their motivations.

So as the industry looks to innovate in underwriting and in actuarial science, I've worked to translate consumer trends. It’s innovation through frustration: I love to explore the frustrations of customers, who want the best experience possible, and of incumbent insurers and entrepreneurs, who need to find ways to accelerate change. Then, I find out how to transform their challenges into positive change through an insurance product or service. You can only do this job at a place like RGA, where anyone can be heard.

There are no guarantees of success in product innovation... This uncertainty can often kill creativity in our industry. But the leadership at RGA is not afraid to do new things.

That’s because innovation requires empathy. It also requires actively listening to clients, making certain you are asking the right questions and really listening to and understanding their answers so that you grasp what is going on in the broader market. You never want to innovate just for innovation’s sake. The goal is to deliver real value to grow the business, and that can mean working to challenge assumptions or providing a new perspective to the client.

I was born in Cameroon, Africa. I grew up in Paris, so I am French. And then I worked in the U.K. I interned in South Africa, and now I live in Spain. I understand that cultures differ, both within and outside of companies. But I have also spent a lot of time talking with RGA colleagues across many countries, and this culture of openness is everywhere I go. At RGA, we are bound by a sense of shared purpose to extend financial protection to the underserved. For example, the team in Spain realized that women have less access to life insurance. We came up with a start-up idea focusing on protection for women seeking fertility treatment. Our U.K. colleagues saw our research and product design and advanced our work by creating the Plan V partnership. This product offers a very sophisticated digital platform designed to help close the financial services and protection gender gap. That’s how fast innovation can spread when you share ideas and research findings.

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There is also a different attitude towards speed at RGA – a dynamism that comes from a group of people who want to win in a competitive environment. At other companies, you may never reach the right people because too many layers separate you from someone empowered to take action. I know colleagues at other companies who feel demotivated because no one will listen to their ideas or take the proposals forward, or at times their promising ideas get coopted or distorted. There are no guarantees of success in product innovation, just strategies to mitigate risk. This uncertainty can often kill creativity in our industry. But the leadership at RGA is not afraid to do new things and is not as intimidated when the challenge is ambitious. Our view is that we eat the elephant piece by piece – and that mindset makes working here exciting. If you are a go-getter, if you step forward, you often have a chance to develop concepts quickly.

You can also evolve in your position. I shaped the work I do today, which is not a traditional business developer role, and I also joined RGA by taking a non-traditional path. Rather than submitting my resume through an online portal, I came to the company through relationships and conversations.

And as I learn and grow, I continue to bring new skills and insights to my position. I have so many friends at other organizations who request training only to have managers tell them they don't need those skills or training programs. In contrast, at RGA managers encourage further education. I studied behavioral science at Warwick University in London, I studied at a venture capital program at Oxford University, and I have participated in an immersive full-week innovation (design sprints) program in Berlin. Some of these educational interests were not formally in my job description, but the courses helped me look forward to skills that could bring value to the organization in the future. For example, I was able to lead a dozen product design workshops for clients in Mexico using techniques I learned. This is a company that cares deeply about continuous learning – lifelong learning – and puts people first. Thanks to that commitment, I’ve been able to chart my own path.