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It was supposed to be the type of introduction that would help to break the ice between a new business leader and her direct reports. However, the words spoken by the managing director (MD) became frozen in time.

Or at least this was the case for Virpy Richter, who at the age of 27 had only recently relocated from Germany after having accepted a promotion to oversee the finances of her company\u2019s Dutch operating unit.

\u201cThis is the German girl from our central unit. Be nice to her. She is just visiting us,\u201d Richter recalls the MD saying, as her 25 direct reports curiously stared back at her. \xa0

In retrospect, the MD might even be commended for having had language skills sufficient to so thoroughly and completely undermine a colleague in the space of a few short sentences, which was no small feat considering that he was able to reference Richter\u2019s youth, gender, and nationality while at the same time even summoning doubts about the permanence of her position.

While these words remain frozen in time for Richter, the lesson that she would carry forth from this role involved more their aftermath.\xa0\xa0

\u201cThis was my first leadership role, so my response was much more intuitive because at that age I had not taken any leadership seminars and didn\u2019t have any past experiences on which to draw,\u201d explains Richter, who says that her intuition told her to be a good listener.

\u201cListen to the people\u2014listen to their expectations and let them help you to understand,\u201d she explains.

Fast-forward a number of years, and Richter is once more crossing borders\u2014this time into Russia, where she is working as a senior finance professional for myToys, a large German e-commerce retailer.

Says Richter: \u201cI had three months to set up the Russian entity, recruit the people, and make the goods available because we wanted to be operating by Christmas.\u201d

Today, Richter resides in Germany, where as CFO of Awin Global she applies her cross-border lessons to Awin\u2019s quickly expanding operations. \u2013Jack Sweeney