Xavier Lestrade has spent his entire 30-year career at insurance provider Axa, working his way up to become CEO of its global healthcare division in 2022. Given his experience, its no wonder that Lestrade often feels as though he was “born at Axa”.
Having been an expat for most of his working life, Lestrade says he has a good understanding of his clients – he spent eight years working in Asia, two years in Canada and now works across the Channel from his home country of France. “There might be a connection with my own experience as an expat and the fact that I took over the part of the business that provides healthcare insurance for expatriates,” he says.
Here, Lestrade shares the story of his route to the top, what he learnt from being brought up in a family of entrepreneurs and why there are no bad employees, only bad employment.
Did you always want to be a CEO?
I’m the only person in my family who is an employee. I was raised in a family of entrepreneurs, so when I was a child all the discussions around the family dinner table were about business.
My family’s businesses are all small domestic operations. When I started to explore what I wanted to do for my own career, I knew I wanted to learn how to run an international business and set an ambition to be running my own company by the age of 40.
That was my primary motivation for joining Axa. It offered me a platform to learn how to run an international organisation, because I hadn’t had this kind of exposure and experience within my own family.
Here I am, at the age of 53 and, although I don’t own Axa Global Healthcare as a shareholder, I’m running an international business and I still feel ownership of it as a CEO.
Do you still hold an ambition to set up your own business?
I’d never say no, but I wouldn’t qualify myself as an entrepreneur. I see myself as more of an intrapreneur.
I’ve been able to start up new businesses and segments within Axa. When I took this position in May 2022 I had the ambition of doubling the size of the business, which has presented its own very interesting entrepreneurial challenge.
How would you describe your leadership style?
The insurance business is all about people. We don’t have copyrights or patents, so the value of our business is highly dependent on the quality of our people.
That means I’m a people-centric leader and I have a very humanistic approach. I want everyone to feel they belong to the organisation and that they are working for a meaningful business. I try to ensure that I and the business are surrounded by talented people and hire others who have an entrepreneurial mindset.
I pay a lot of attention to ensuring that people can work effectively together too. If you’re managing a football team, you want to pick people who can play well together. It’s the same concept in business; you need people who are willing to collaborate and bring out the very best in themselves and others. That comes from having trust in the organisation and their colleagues.
How do you create a good company culture?
We have a number of values within Axa. When I took over the global healthcare business, which has teams in 12 different countries, I wanted to create a set of values that blended each team’s culture. I believed this would foster an entrepreneurial spirit within the business.
Working with my leadership team, we’ve aligned on three mindsets that we want to embed in our day-to-day behaviours. The first one is ‘we own’, the second is ‘we make it simple’ and the third is ‘we go the extra mile’.
For me, the idea of taking ownership is the real mindset of an entrepreneur. It means we should run the business together as if it is our own and this helps people to make the right decisions. I’ve been using my personal life experience and that of my family to help shape this mindset.
What do you look for when you’re hiring your leadership team?
I make sure I’m surrounded by people who have qualities that can complement my skills and experience – there has to be harmony. But you also need people who are different from yourself, so they can bring their own expertise, talent and energy to the organisation.
There needs to be respect and trust among executive team members but they also need to be willing to challenge one another. This means we sometimes fight and disagree but we’re still able to come together to make decisions and we respect each other, which is important.
What’s the biggest challenge facing your industry at the moment?
We are targeting the VIPs of the world. We provide high-end health insurance for CEOs, CXOs and diplomats.
They have pretty high expectations, and these expectations have changed massively over the past 10 years. They still value having a human touch but technology is now at the very core of the customer experience. Technology represents a massive opportunity for us to make access to insurance easier.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My first manager told me something very simple: “There is no bad employee, there is only bad employment of people.” The relationship between the employee and the line manager is crucial. I have seen many examples of people who are really underperforming but, after changing their environment, they become top performers.
Having the right people with the right mindset in the right environment is the key. It’s up to the manager to ensure that when they hire people, they don’t only focus on the experience and the capability of the individual, but also the connection they have with the person. It’s a big part of successful recruitment.
What do you do outside of work to protect yourself against burnout?
There’s lots of advice on LinkedIn about how to achieve a good work/life balance but my belief is that everyone has their own personal approach. You know yourself best, so find what works for you.
It is super critical to have a balance, especially when you’re in a leadership position. You need to be ready to make decisions and adapt to the unexpected. This means you have to always be present and in a good mental state, so you’re ready to absorb those unexpected changes and make decisions with a clear mind.
I’m originally from near Bordeaux, so a glass of wine works for me – in moderation.
Which book do you think every business leader should read at least once?
I would never advise reading a specific management book. Your energy as a leader comes from yourself. I really believe it’s important to free up your mind from work, to have the time to dream, to have the time to project yourself into new situations and to travel. Reading non-business books and freeing up your mind from the pressure you face everyday puts you in a state that I believe is more powerful than feeding your brain with advice from business books.
It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t read business books – and I do. But having creativity and the capacity to dream and project a vision is more important. When you rely on other business frameworks because a book tells you this is the best way to do it, you don’t get the distance to solve the issue yourself.
What advice would you give to your successor?
Being a CEO is one step and there will be someone else that succeeds you. So, from the very start, you should be thinking about how you are going to create a meaningful legacy for the organisation and the people in it.
You should also prepare the next CEO to continue this work. You are there to create a sustainable future for your clients, your employees and society. You should always remember there will be someone after you.
