Interview with Tsanka Taneva – Country Manager for Bulgaria at Evrotrust
WIBF: Can you tell us more about your professional experience and how it shaped your approach towards leadership in the field of finance and technology?
Tsanka Taneva: I remember being told the story of Atanas Burov – the banker who did a lot for the people and Bulgaria. That is how my professional career development began with a dream and a worship of a Bulgarian banker. I started working in the banking sector as a Credit Expert for microfinance when I was only 23. Being on this position allowed me to realize how important it is for the financing to be healthy, because it can either help a person fulfill their dream, but it can also destroy it if it is not right for them at that particular moment. To grant a credit to a small business owner when he has just begun to take his top position in our economy means to be able to judge from practice which people, which ideas and which actions are sustainable and profitable and which are not.
I educated myself on health financing, saw the importance of ethics in relationships and how responsible any “Yes” can be. This start up has given me the opportunity to work with different businesses, understand how different business models work and most importantly that each business reflects its owner. It is these principles of ethics and responsibility combined with critical thinking that have helped me build wonderful and strong teams during my years as a leader. I became an Office Manager of 15 people at the age of 25 and most critical key was how to build successful teams by making sure my customers were served as well as if I were taking care them myself, how to pass on my knowledge and experience to my team mates, giving them the freedom to work with panache and the confidence that I was supporting them at all times. When I saw the first results of my team and became convinced that I could build teams, the field itself no longer mattered. So when I chose to give technology the upper hand in my work, I simply upgraded my skills, accepting that change and adaptability are our key opportunities, and in the world of digitalization that is the only way: a shift of some business processes from being “paper and office” to others being online.
WIBF: What are the main challenges that women are facing in the rapidly evolving digital and financial industries, and how can these obstacles be overcome?
Tsanka Taneva: The main challenge is the ability to learn. And here I don’t mean to attend a course or read a book, here is the actual acquisition of new knowledge and skills that we can start applying in our daily lives. This process goes through stages like “I don’t know”, “I can’t”, “I feel helpless” and these stages are very confusing for us. Instead of accepting as normal when we don’t know or we can’t, our desire to always be perfect, always be confident, always be strong, makes us feel bad. We ,women, have a gift: to be more sensitive and more emotional. A gift that sometimes causes us to have lower levels of confidence and lower self-esteem. And it so confuses and scares us, that we give up on change, which threatens our future success. We ,women, need more security, more peace of mind and this dynamic subconsciously confuses us. My rule of thumb for success here is to accept that there is a period in which I am learning, i.e. there is a period in which it is normal to not know, to not be able to, but it will pass and then I will successfully apply my new skills. I often give the example of children growing up: how many times does a child fall before they walk, so we need to accept that we will “fall”, that we will not know sometimes, but that is the way to learn.
WIBF: As someone deeply committed to digital transformation, what skills do you think are most important for the next generation of leaders in banking and finance?
Tsanka Taneva: The ability to change, tolerance of mistakes, support of our team, clients and partners, critical thinking. These are the key skills needed for the next generation of leaders. Digitalisation in the financial sector is a whole new way of working in a highly competitive world. The challenge comes from the need to find new technology that is accepted by customers, employees and regulators and everyone involved should participate in the process. I believe that women have the necessary personal and professional qualities because we look for commonality in success, not personal ego; because we care not only about the outcome, but also about the path and the process to get there; because very often in our life path, nature has “engrained” in us the qualities of how to learn to do new things.
WIBF: What inspires you in your work and how do you stay motivated amid the rapid changes in the industry?
Tsanka Taneva: I am inspired by many moments on a daily basis. It is immensely satisfying when I hear that we have been useful to people and the company, we have saved time, money and we have made something impossible to happen. I am personally inspired by making our world a better and more beautiful place to live, which happens by supporting a colleague in a difficult moment, assisting a client in a time when they don’t know what to do or how to do it. I am inspired by the goodness in people, sustainable and healthy success, and teamwork.
WIBF: What advice would you give to the young professionals, especially women who start their careers in finance?
Tsanka Taneva: A difficult question because no one likes to be adviced. But for me, looking through my experience, I wish I was more balanced, more calm and more confident. We women have wonderful professional qualities that we should combine with our natural intuition, softness and beauty that we carry within. I remember it took me 2-3 years to trust that my intuition was giving me the right solution and I could just build on it with the numbers and analysis I was doing, rather than denying it. I have a very nice example of how in the years between 2010 – 2012, when the focus was minimizing the losses from the financial crisis for both the bank I worked for, and our clients, we created very successful products guided by the most important human feeling: the love that helps us to care for each other, be compassionate and choose to move forward.
Even today, I still meet colleagues with whom we laugh about how we were able to turn the question from “Tsany, what do the numbers show and what results will you achieve?” to ” Tsany, what do you feel about customer’s behavior and how will it affect us all?”.
WIBF: Can you share an experience or achievement in your career that you are particularly proud of?
Tsanka Taneva: I am lucky to have many moments that I am proud of. Some are when I saw how our clients we have financed, successfully developed their businesses and made their dreams come true. Over the time those moments were when my team was able to achieve incredible results and we transformed from being the worst team in the banking group operating in over 10 countries, to leaders for many years ahead and recognized as a knowledge hub. But I was most delighted recently when my phone rang saying, “Tsany, thank you for the incredible business advice you gave me , I followed it and today I am a father of a beautiful child and I want to introduce you to my wife.” We women, have a talent for achieving so much more than business goals with the ability to do it gently and with love.
