Meet our People

My name is Waseem Malik, I'm Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for AXA UK and Ireland, and I'm based in London. I trained as a chartered accountant, and worked for one of the 'Big Four' for a period of ten years. I then decided I wanted a change and AXA seemed like a natural home.

I joined as a Senior Manager in the M&A and strategy team, and after six months I was promoted, which I was very pleased with, but also showed that AXA is a place that recognises and rewards talent.

My job is actually very varied and no one day is the same. There's a number of things that I do on a daily basis, such as run valuation models to value companies, put together strategic rationales to help sell ideas and opportunities to our stakeholders. It could involve meeting with target entities to sell the AXA vision to them, meeting with advisors to pick their brain for ideas. So all of this means there's a lot of variety in my role.

In my 18 months with AXA I've already seen the emphasis that they put on people development. As a result, I'm a mentor for someone more junior in the organisation, and my sole purpose is to help them develop and progress through the organisation. There's considerable emphasis put on that throughout, and there's various training programmes designed to help pull people through.

In terms of my own personal development, AXA being the 13th largest organisation naturally gives me plenty of opportunities. There's also a talent spotting programme for which I've been identified and allocated to, and that's run out of Head Office in Paris. As a result, I'll go on training courses, seminars, conferences, and have exposure to a lot of senior people. That all means plenty of opportunity and a lot of chances for me to develop and really show what mettle I have.

There's probably a number of reasons why I'd recommend AXA to a friend. Predominantly, it's the people you work with. It's a highly talented organisation where they give you opportunities to progress, so it's somewhere which recognises talent, and it rewards you for that.

There's bonus schemes in place, there's mentoring programmes, and all the sort of things you'd expect are there, but there's that personal touch as well. So I think, all in all, it's a great place to be.