E144 - Amanda Blanc: Finding your voice and speaking up

The High Performance Podcast

High Performance

Sports, Self-improvement, Mindset, Growth Mindset, Health & Fitness, Non-negotiables, Education, Life Lessons, High Performance

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is the start of our CEO Series, in which we will be deep diving into what it takes to be a CEO.

Amanda Blanc is a Welsh businesswoman and the current CEO of Aviva, stepping into the role in July 2020. Amanda grew up in Rhondda valley in Wales, both her grandparents were miners. In this episode she shares how her childhood in Rhondda instilled in her the importance of community, freedom, happiness and fun.

Amanda discusses what she has learnt from her role as CEO and how she approaches leading a million pound company. Communication is key for Amanda, she approaches every conversation with an open mind, wanting to learn how she can improve her work and in turn, the company. During Covid, Amanda would hold virtual town-halls in which she would invite colleagues to share their thoughts with her directly. A key learning for Amanda is, “be your own customer”. You need to use your own service, see how it functions as a user - the good and the bad parts.

In this episode Jake, Damian and Amanda also discuss emotional intelligence, why she will always choose the hard option and how she dealt with being told she was not “the man for the job”.

Thank you to PwC for sponsoring this special CEO Series. PwC’s purpose is to build trust and solve important problems, and their global strategy - The New Equation - is bringing this to life for their clients, people and society. By combining technology with human ingenuity, passion and experience, PwC works with organisations to deliver more intelligent, sustained outcomes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, I'm Jake Cumpfrey and you're listening to High Performance. Our
0:04.6	conversation for you every single week and I'm very excited to announce that
0:10.3	this is the first in this series of High Performance CEO conversations. This CEO
0:16.2	series is going to reveal the truth about leadership. With top CEOs from some
0:21.3	of the biggest businesses in the country, we will investigate how they define,
0:25.2	create, and maintain culture. We're going to delve into the setbacks, the self-
0:29.0	belief and the sacrifice. This is top CEOs disarmed, deeply honest, and
0:35.2	completely vulnerable. Today we welcome the CEO of a Viva, Amanda Blanc.
0:42.9	You have to have the right attitude because I do not want to work with people
0:47.0	who are poorly behaved or just can't do it. I mean, obviously you have to have
0:51.0	some capability. If you're the finance director then you probably have to do
0:54.4	know quite a bit about numbers. But really, you know, it is about have you got
0:58.3	the right core values and behaviors to be able to do a good job. And then you
1:02.4	build out from there. I actually felt quite offended by that. I don't think that
1:07.0	that was acceptable and we've done quite a lot of work with our teams around
1:11.4	that to make sure that we get the right behavior. We will not not get it right.
1:15.0	Definitely not 100% of the time. But I think we're getting better at that. I
1:19.1	calling it out when you see it. I'm here for a reason because I've got something
1:23.7	to add because I am from a different background because I have been successful
1:28.8	because I know what, you know, I know what good looks like and I know I can help
1:33.1	and I'm prepared to speak up. Could I do a better job than that? Yeah, I think
1:37.8	I probably could. I think I'm probably a good leader. I think I'm probably a
	...

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