Name: Gordon Watson
Organisation: AXA
Job Title: Head of AXA Asia
Location: Hong Kong
Where I started:
I started my career by moving New York when I was 21 to work for AIG, a massive insurance company. I graduated from Glasgow College of Technology with a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute; I later did an MBA at the University of Hull. I loved New York and after a year I had the opportunity to move to Kenya in Africa. This was a large promotion for me, however, it was because no one else in New York wanted to move to New York. I was hugely young for the role, however, I saw a chance and I took it, why not?
Since then I have lived all over the world including London, Tokyo, Seoul, Dubai and also spending a lot of time on projects in Central and Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall came down and also in South America when they were privatizing social security working with both academia and the World Bank.
Where I am now:
I am now in Hong Kong and have been here for the past 10 years. I am the CEO for all of AXA’s entities in Asia with over 25 000 employees and many more distributers. I am on the Global Management Committee of the AXA Group and have to travel to Paris 20 times a year when we are allowed to travel with no Pandemic. I also travel extensively around Asia and of course back to Scotland whenever I can.
I set the strategy for our company in Asia, hire the best CEOs in the countries to lead the business. I believe in a meritocracy, so I do not care if you are Chinese, American, male, female or gay, I only want the best person for the role. This is key to my values.
I obtain a lot of job satisfaction form developing young leaders to be great leaders and building businesses around the world. I enjoy global cultures and the challenge of navigating business opportunities around them. I have a passion for a topic called ‘shared value’ which is where you take a major social issues like pollution and put in the center of a business strategy and develop a plan on how to help society by building solutions for this social issue.
In insurance one area is wellness, where we reward people to eat healthy and exercise. By doing this it is better for the person, however, it is also better for the insurance business as people will have fewer health claims. I also have passion for making the work aware of mental health issues. Depression is the largest disease burden in the world and it is disease that we can treat, yet many people view mental health issues negatively and create a stigma around them.
I also love football and cover AXA for brand globally and we sponsor a small football team called Liverpool. They are a great team and I learnt a lot from Jurgen Klopp and how he manages top talent even when they are going through a poor streak of form.
Advice: what career advice would you give to your younger self?
My advice to young people is to follow your dreams, stop waiting and live in the present. I always try to make today the best day of my life. It is difficult, however, with a positive attitude we can achieve a better holistic health perspective. I would also encourage everyone to learn a foreign language, I did not and regret it. When I was at high school in Milngavie languages were considered a more feminine subject (how ridiculous!) and I was encouraged to take physics and Chemistry.
My personal mantra is I am ‘the king on my now ‘. I can control and steer the way I want to take my life, so can you. In my time in Japan I learned a lot from Kaizen (constant learning and improvement) e.g.; I am now studying for a masters in Global Mental health at Glasgow University School of Medicine.
The greatest concept I learned is a concept called IKIGAI. So this is my advice to my younger self is to find what you love to do, Find out what you are good at, Find out what can make a difference to the world and find out how you get paid for it. Where these four concepts interact, this is called your IKIGAI.
I think I have found this mostly and health and an engaged life of purpose is what it is all about.
