2023 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Liliana Lapadatoni Huluta Managing director, CEO, Adria region
Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc.
Belgrade, Serbia
Liliana Lapadatoni Huluta knew early on she wanted to go into sales, and her almost two-decade-long career at Marsh McLennan has taken her from Bucharest, Romania, to Vienna and more recently to Belgrade, Serbia.
After studying international economic relations at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta was recruited by an oil and gas company. A few years later, she joined Procter & Gamble Co. A former college professor and then-CEO of Axa in Romania recommended her students check out Marsh.
Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta did some research and was impressed by the brokerage’s global reach and size. She decided to go meet the team. “At that time the Romanian team had around 20 people. I liked that approach. It was very entrepreneurial,” she said.
When she joined Marsh in 2005 Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta was just the 23rd employee in the Romania business. “It was the perfect environment for me to learn and to develop and grow,” she said.
There weren’t that many women in sales back then. Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta said she remembers being one of only 10 women at a gathering of Marsh sales leaders from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2010 and talking with the global head of sales about how this needed to change.
“Even now you don’t meet too many women going into sales,” she said. “That’s why we need to encourage those applying. … I never had this mindset that I’m a woman and shouldn’t do this or that. I was raised that I can do whatever I want as long as I work hard and deliver results.”
Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta stands out as a leader because she is supportive and trusts her team, said Iva Rogovic Lekic, Zagreb-based CEO of Marsh Croatia. “She is always ready to help and promote her team’s ideas and accomplishments and fight for her team,” Ms. Rogovic Lekic said.
Persistence and empowering people are the keys to her success, Ms. Lapadatoni Huluta believes. “In all my roles people know they are part of the story. I didn’t achieve anything on my own.”
Claire Wilkinson
