Theme Fridays and trips to Scandinavia
Jurgita’s career at Danske Bank turned out to be far from dull:

“I had never worked with payments investigations before, but it was so interesting. I found myself being in the right place at the right time. We were a lot of young people with very diverse competencies, and everyone was eager to achieve something and grow.” 

The social life was great, too: Theme Fridays, employees taking turns to bring food and snacks, and Jurgita was also able to go on training trips abroad and get to know Scandinavian culture.

“I had the feeling of being part of a huge organisation with a long history,” Jurgita says.

“When I left, I told my team: I will come back one day”
However, all good things come to an end, and after roughly 5 years with the company, including one and a half years as a team leader, Jurgita was ready for new opportunities – not only outside Danske Bank, but outside Lithuania, too.

“I wanted to try an international career and develop myself as a leader who could thrive on diversity and working with people from different cultures. I felt my time at Danske Bank had prepared me for this challenge – I was used to collaborating with colleagues from different countries and different parts of the organisation.

However, before she left to work and live in her neighbouring country, Latvia, she made a promise:

“When I left, I told my team: ‘I will come back one day! But first, I want to acquire additional skills and a thicker skin,’” she says.

Covid-19 triggered the decision
After a couple of years in leadership roles in Latvia, Jurgita returned to Vilnius in Lithuania, working for a competitor. She followed Danske Bank from afar and kept in touch with her old colleagues and staff.

“It was when Covid-19 came to Vilnius that Danske Bank started to shine!” Jurgita explains.

“Compared to other workplaces, Danske Bank seemed to take such good care of its people when dealing with working-from-home issues. Everyone wondered how Danske Bank managed to adapt to the new reality so quickly. At many other companies, staff couldn’t or weren’t allowed to have such flexible and safe working conditions. For me as a manager in another company, that difference was difficult to explain to my people,” she says.

When the right job with the right level of empowerment turned up, Jurgita applied to become part of Danske Bank once again. It was not an easy decision:

“Normally, you don’t leave and then come back. But I knew so many people there, I was sure I would quickly feel at home again. The opportunity to build up the Centre of Excellence for Funds in Vilnius was too great an opportunity to miss.”

Surprise: She returned to a different bank
To Jurgita’s surprise, it was not at all the same bank she returned to: Systems had changed, tools were different and, just a day before she arrived, a new organisational change was introduced… 

Nevertheless, she found the empowerment and the independence she was looking for.

“The bank I have returned to is more agile, more open and encourages more empowerment. There is a great feeling of ‘we’. I really like the bank’s new cultural commitments: Own It, Team Up, Be Open. We all seem to be part of a change agenda, which is what makes the environment so interesting to work in!”