GICHKA ARNAOUDOVA: ON RISKS, RESPONSIBILITES AND RESULTS

In a world defined by turbulent change, Gichka Arnaoudova is dedicated to helping businesses to turn instability into progress. As the Head of Bancassurance and Key Partners at Allianz Bulgaria, she has in-depth knowledge of the worlds of business and insurance, and knows how to combine strategic foresight with operational discipline, enabling clients to thrive.

You have been part of Allianz Bulgaria for 20 years. What is the most important leadership lesson you have learned there?

Twenty years in a single organisation is rarely a matter of comfort or loyalty alone. It is about the alignment between personal philosophy and institutional culture, which allows you to think long term.

At Allianz, I learned that true leadership is not about control, but about the ability to anticipate potential consequences, to take responsibility and carry it. It is easy to make a decision when conditions are favourable, especially when possible negative consequences will not affect you personally.

Sustainability is not built on optimistic scenarios, but on leaders' ability to forecast risks accurately. In insurance, this is an everyday reality. We deal with situations that no one wishes to imagine – potential losses and damages, the fear of the unknown and the unpredictable. Our role is to bring rationality where emotion is natural.

Insurance sells protection against the reality that no one wants to acknowledge as possible. The more complex life becomes – whether climate-related, technological, or geopolitical – the more necessary it is to speak openly about vulnerability and the real risk to everyone.

Our society tends to avoid thinking about risk. Does this hinder the development of insurance culture in Bulgaria?

Yes. The phenomenon is not local, but it is more pronounced here. Societies that have historically lived in instability often develop a culture of survival rather than planning. People prefer to focus on gain rather than on the likelihood of loss. Risk is perceived as an abstract concept – until it becomes personal.

However, when risk does become personal, the time to prepare has usually passed.

Insurance does not sell the illusion of perpetual health, happiness, or prosperity. It calculates the value of risk and sells preparation. Preparation requires maturity – first psychological, at the level of the individual and communities, and then financial and institutional. So, market development is not simply a matter of products and pricing, but of intellect, education, trust, and responsibility.

Climate events, cyber risks, unstable supply chains – these are no longer hypothetical scenarios. The question is not whether they will happen, but when, and how prepared we will be.

Can the insurance business be ethical in an environment where the business itself is sustained and profits from risk?

The insurance business does not profit from disasters, but from accurately assessing and modelling them. If the system is properly balanced, risks reliably activate the mechanism of insurance recovery. This is a measured social mechanism, not a speculative business niche.

This is why regulation, capital discipline, and financial stability are critically important. They ensure that "insurance promises" will be honoured even under the most adverse scenarios. The essence of insurance is in predictability, resilience, and protection that people can rely on in difficult times.

You have been director of bancassurance and business partners in the company for ten years. What inspires you to achieve new results every day?

I am inspired by the type of dynamism that allows intellectual tension to be generated, managed, and developed productively.

I do not believe in "balance" as a stable, static state. Balance is a process. Every day we make decisions of different kinds in an environment where technology and customer expectations change frequently and simultaneously.

My motivation stems from the challenge of being able to anticipate and to build my own sustainable model of growth and stability. Rapid growth without stability is an unacceptable risk. Excessive stability without development is intellectual laziness and business stagnation. Management is the art of avoiding either extreme – maintaining dynamism while ensuring resilience, being flexible yet consistent.

What is your most important achievement over this period?

True success, for me, lies in building teams that function professionally and calmly, even in an unstable environment.

Creating complete, two-way trust with a team is the most difficult task. People must trust you, but you must also trust them. Trust – both internal and external – is the only real capital in our sector. It cannot be bought, accelerated or simulated.

What key challenges will you face as a manager in 2026?

2026 will not be a year of comfort. Digitalisation, particularly the development of artificial intelligence, is accelerating processes to such an extent that rapid, verified, and transparent decisions are now expected. The regulatory environment is also becoming more complex. Clients will seek personalised services, but without any compromise on security.

The answer is not aggressive expansion, but structural resilience – investing in technology, developing expertise, and building models that do not rely on a single scenario for success.

In an unstable environment, it is not the fastest who survive, but the best prepared. If I were to sum up my philosophy: "Stability is not the absence of risk. It is the ability to anticipate it and withstand it."

In a world that prefers to rely on luck, I choose to rely on preparation.