Catalina Magui, Director of HR, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre: In 2024, we will continue to sustain a responsible culture through employee experience and CSR

I moved from banking to business service industry 12 years ago. It was a key milestone in my career that offered me a completely new evolution in a domain that I did not knew at all.

It was a tough decision because I needed to renounce to a career of 16 years in BRD to move to a new established company – Societe Generale European Business Services renamed into Societe Generale Global Solution Centre.

Now, after more than 12 years from that moment, I consider that I was fortunate to take that job opportunity which helped me to develop a lot: to learn a new industry, how to build teams and grow teams, how to manage very diverse teams in a multi-cultural environment with multiple stakeholders, how to continuously transform and optimize the processes and the ways of working to deliver value and excellence in service delivery, etc. I never stopped learning. My conviction is that  any individual is responsible for her/his own development, not the manager, not the HR, nobody else.

It was the setting up of the HR Shared Service Centre in SG GSC for the European region. For about 7 years I led the development of the Centre and provided leadership and direction to the growing teams, and I saw the organization reaching maturity. I am very proud of this, and thankful to have had this opportunity.

The core of a professional fulfilment, for me, it is a combination of: on one side the personal growth, continuous learning, meaningful work where you can have a tangible and concrete impact and on the other side positive relationships and supportive work environment.

In Societe Generale we embrace the same values worldwide: team spirit, responsibility, innovation, commitment

They are embedded in our culture and the way we work in various ways, but what I appreciate a lot it is the culture of collaboration, listening, offering help when needed and the culture of speak up, where we can express ourselves in a respectful and inclusive work environment.

This model is very effective as it makes people around the world to cooperate, acting consistently on Groupe’s interest within a culture of responsibility, trust, and exemplarity.

This fits well with my preferred leadership style, I value a lot the collaboration and support, open mindedness, a culture where people can openly express their opinions, where we learn from each other, trust each other and succeed together as a team.

For career starters, I would advise them to have the courage to engage in new projects, to be curious and never stop learning. And finally, to be patient because skills development requires consistent effort and practice over an extended period, because the success and progress takes time to achieve.

As an offshoring center for Societe Generale, we position ourselves as partner of choice for the Group and we are committed to bring more value every year. At this moment, at Group level we are driving a strategic transformation. As HR we have a key role in this transformation, with focus on managerial cultural changes, closure to the business, support the new strategy, bank transformation, attractivity and reputation.

On top of this, in 2024 in SG GSC Romania we will continue to sustain a responsible culture through employee experience and CSR. So, people agenda remains an important focus, in parallel with the business objectives.

Power words in 2024

Business agility, resilience, and team collaboration