Exclusive Trusted Magazine Q&A with Andres Franzetti, CEO @ Risk Cooperative
How could you describe your career path in few words ?
The best word to describe my career path is ‘diverse.’ While I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, I have never worked in that field. My first job out of university was in the financial services sector, and from there I went on to work across several industries including real estate, software, usability consulting, and finally insurance. The common thread was that all these jobs focused on providing advisory and sales services. Having such broad experience across industries really gave me a unique perspective when working with clients to help them de-risk their operations.
Following a less traditional path was also instrumental to co-founding my current company as well as recruiting and nurturing talent in our staff.
What was your most challenging experience, and it has changed your mindset ?
My most challenging professional experience was navigating the economic crash of 2008. At the time, I was still working at my first job out of college. While I had experienced great success in the years up to 2008, when the financial markets crashed things turned upside down overnight. I had to quickly find another line of work in a market flooded with applicants. It became apparent to me that I had to adapt to the market reality and push myself into new unknown terrain or I would languish. This experience taught me agility and adaptability are the key to resiliency. This early life lesson helped me to better navigate my company and my team through the recent hurdles created during COVID 19. Thankfully Risk Cooperative has been able to come through this challenge with our entire team healthy, intact and ready to resume operations. This philosophy has also become a core part of our business methodology and can even be seen in the firm’s slogan “Risk, Readiness, Resiliency”. This is the mantra under which we advise our clients to help them better manage their risk, not only via insurance, but by proactive planning and agility to the shifting market conditions.
What is the most important key success factor for you based on your experience ?
The key to my success has been two-fold. First, I learned to always bring my authentic self to the work I do. As a business leader, my actions and those of the company must remain aligned. I strive to do this across all facets, from the personal causes I support, the work and clients the firm takes and the thought leadership we generate. Secondly, and equally as important, is building a diverse team. Hiring individuals who can bring unique perspectives, different backgrounds and more knowledge than you have been a critical factor to our success. When you let your own ego get in the way, it never ends well. We have a great team at Risk Cooperative and have built an environment where every individual contributes to the company’s success. Working under this model, our firm has grown steadily from young start up to a thriving business. This has led to several wins for the company, including some very prestigious accounts that beat out much larger and more established competitors due to our distinct company culture.
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