CEO of Zurich Insurance Company’s Bratislava Competence Center Wolfgang Fischer with colleagues. (source: Courtesy of W. F.)
For four years, Wolfgang Fischer wrote the same thing in his individual career plan for the insurance company he was working for: I want to go to Slovakia and grow our operation there.
The opportunity finally came about in 2015 when the German moved to Slovakia to look after Zurich Insurance Company’s growing business, heading up a team of 125 people.
“I thought it’d be a nice move for me,” the CEO of Zurich Insurance Company’s Bratislava Competence Center tells The Slovak Spectator.
Fischer’s story with the Swiss company began in Zurich two decades ago. It was all down to a British lady, he explains.
Just after the turn of the millennium, Fischer had been working for a British insurance company in Luxembourg. But one day he handed in his notice – he was struggling to get along with his new boss and his son, Julian, had just been born and he wanted to take a year off and spend it with his infant child.
But when it came time to return to work after one year , he faced challenges in finding job in insurance in Germany, and was left considering two offers abroad: a bank in Sweden or an insurance firm in Switzerland.
The person who hired him, Fischer says, knew that a stay-at-home dad wasn’t a bad thing as her husband, a teacher in the UK, was a stay-at-home dad looking after four children.
“The British lady gave me the job, and I’ve been with Zurich ever since,” he recalls.
