ING Asigurari CEO: It's frustrating to see unemployment rising only in the private sector

Cornelia Coman, 34, runs the biggest life insurer on the domestic market. She joined ING Asigurari more than ten years ago as an actuary, she was chief investment officer, then deputy general manager and has been CEO for the eighteen months. She is one of the youngest executives in the financial sector, supervising a 130m-euro per year business and 400 employees. Just several months after being appointed at the helm of ING Asigurari, in October 2008, she found out what being a CEO during crisis times meant. She made many cost cutting moves and managed to end 2009 with doubling income and a turnover decline below that of the entire insurance market. But all this left a bitter taste in her mouth, not because of cost axing moves, but because all the efforts to boost operational efficiency and boost business were made only in the private sector. "The state is reluctant to take dramatic and concrete steps. So far it has come up with all sorts of stunts such as unpaid leave, which only serve to curb spending for a short period of time. It is frustrating to see that the rise in unemployment is coming entirely from the private sector and it's outrageous that this isn't happening in the public sector, as well," Coman says.

She expects the economy to slightly pick up in 2010, but with the problems of rising unemployment, falling disposable income and population consumption will persist.