More from Acting Local:
Will Whitehorn
Will joined Virgin Group in 1987 as head of corporate public and investor relations and was responsible for all public relations activity relating to the buyout of the Group from the stock market in 1988 and for presenting Virgin's new joint venture strategy in the years 1988 to 1991. From 1993 to 1995, he worked with Sir Richard Branson, and other directors from around the Virgin Group on developing a strategy to expand the brand into a number of new areas, resulting in the launch of Virgin Radio in 1994, Virgin Direct in 1995, Virgin Cinemas in 1995, Virgin Net in 1996, Virgin Rail in 1997 and Virgin Mobile in 1999.
From 1997, he began developing Virgin branded venture capital model for global expansion. In 2000, he was appointed Brand Development and Corporate Affairs Director of Virgin world-wide and in 2004 he also became President of Virgin Galactic. In 2007 he took on that role in an executive capacity and became a special advisor to Sir Richard Branson.
Will retired from Virgin Galactic at the start of 2011. He is currently Chairman of Next Fifteen Communications and Loewy Group Ltd. He is also a member of the British Government’s Science and Technology Facilities Council and The Space Leadership Council.
H.S.H. Prince Michael von Liechtenstein
Michael is Founder and Chairman of Geopolitical Information Service AG, an international intelligence and advisory company with a network of experts around the world.
He is also President of Industrie und Finanzkontor, an international fiduciary trust company; and President of the European Centre of Austrian Economics Foundation (ECAEF) think tank, both of which are based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.
He originally studied commerce at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and then worked in a range of senior positions in the banking and industrial sectors in Europe and North America. Between 1978 and 1987 he worked for Nestlé SA in the fields of controlling, management and marketing, focusing on a wide range of European and African markets.
Witold Orłowski
Witold is Chief Economic Advisor of PwC in Poland. He is a former Chief Economist to the President of Poland, founder of NOBE (Independent Centre for Economic Studies), one of Poland’s leading economic think-tanks, and Dean of the Business School of the Warsaw University of Technology.
In addition to serving as Chief Economic Advisor to PwC in Poland, he is a Member of the Economic Council of the Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum in Warsaw and Special Advisor to the European Commission.
Witold studied at the University of Łódź and Harvard University.
- What is GBS?
- What are the key success factors & challenges?
- What’s in it for me?
- What is the future?
- GBS journey for CBRE
Maciej Piwowarczyk, Managing Director, EMEA Global Business Services, CBRE Corporate Outsourcing.
Maciej has over 12 years of Outsourcing experience. Prior to CBRE, Maciej worked for 7 years in Accenture at various Leadership roles locally, regionally and globally (Europe including Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania , France or UK), India, Philippines, China, Argentina or US) across Transition, Delivery and Centre Management for BPO. At his last role being part of regional BPO core leadership team, Maciej was leading PMO for EMEA and Operations for North & Central Europe.
He started his professional career with Hewlett Packard gaining great experience in European & Global environment as a Project and Business Operations Lead including his long term assignment in Slovakia. Thru the years including previous companies, he gained great knowledge and insights across many Industries and Capabilities (Finance & Accounting, Procurement, Marketing, Real Estate) working for Great portfolio of Clients.
Maciej holds a Master Degree Diploma from Warsaw School of Economics and he is a certified ITIL Manager.
John Collington
John is Chief Operating Officer a member of the Executive Board of Alexander Mann Solutions where he is responsible for development of the business’s infrastructure and operations, enabling the company to expand its services in the US and Asia. Since its foundation in 1996, AMS has grown to over 1,500 staff and operates in 60 countries worldwide.
Prior to joining AMS in 2012, John was Director General and Chief Procurement Officer for the UK Government, based within the Cabinet Office. In this role he was responsible for the development and implementation of reform of the Government’s multi-billion pound procurement spend.
From 2006-2010, John was Group Commercial Director at the Home Office with responsibility for transforming the department’s annual procurement spend and delivering the Home Office’s shared services strategy across HR, finance and procurement divisions.
Before joining the senior civil service, John spent 25 years in a number of operational and client leadership roles in the private sector. From 1996 to 2006, he was a senior executive at Accenture advising clients in many industries on their global procurement, supply chain and shared services assignments. Previously, he spent 14 years in operational management and business development positions with American Express, Thomas Cook and the Thomson Travel Group, specialising in corporate business travel.
Stephan Schmitt
Stephan Schmitt joined Lumesse in April 2014 as Chief Marketing Officer to provide executive marketing leadership for Lumesse’s global operations.
Stephan is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in a series of marketing leadership roles within the tech industry – at both an enterprise and start-up level.
Following a highly successful marketing career at HP Stephan has more recently been involved in a series of innovative new technologies start-ups in the US to help develop their strategy and successful market penetration including SimplyLEDs where he served as a partner and company officer. He also serves as a board member at start-ups ReadyReceipts, Cymbrio and SimplyLEDs.
Prior to this, Stephan was vice president of worldwide marketing at HP’s StorageWorks division where he was overseeing and directing the entire marketing mix for a business unit with $4 billion in revenue.
Stephan joined HP in 1991 in Germany and has held senior European marketing and management positions. In his last European assignment, he managed the commercial supplies business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before moving to the US to become vice president of marketing for the HP printing supplies business.
Stephan graduated from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He holds a University Diploma in mechanical engineering, computer science and business administration.
David Poole
David is an industry visionary with over 20 years as a corporate executive, running multi-billion dollar outsourcing and services firms. He has grown global businesses, built industry leading sales and operations teams, and spearheaded innovation across the industry in areas including platform- based BPO, supply chain BPO, cloud-based services, and user experience. David’s priorities at Symphony are to develop a world-class team and to work closely with client leadership to help them leverage automation and other inspired delivery models to compete in a digital world. Co-Founder and CEO of Symphony.
Mark Hatton, Director, Finance and Business Services Transformation, PwC explores operational excellence. The question he poses is what kind of productivity gains can be had from focus on staff engagement rather than investment in technology and how to drive behavioural change.
His answer is to provide team leaders and managers the skills and tools to manage their teams as an operation rather than as a collection of individuals. He looks at the merits of diagnostics, desk-side coaching, class- room training, simulations and 1:1 coaching, professional qualifications and accreditation, but also workplace management solutions.
Mark, Director, Finance and Business Services Transformation, PwC
Mark Harrison
Mark has been involved in Credit Management for more 30 years. His career spans a range of industries across EMEA and includes the transition and development of successful Order to Cash functions in the Shared Services sector in Central Europe.
Mark is the founder and CEO of the ACCEE (Association of Credit for Central and Eastern Europe), holds a degree in Credit Management from the University of West London, is a Fellow of the UK CICM, a founder member of the Association of International Credit Directors ( AICD) and is trained to Catalyst level in Lean / Six Sigma methodology.
Beata Osiecka
Beata Osiecka is Managing Director and CEO of Kinnarps Polska and has been associated with the Kinnarps brand for over 20 years, since the setting up of the business in the Polish market. In 1991 she co-founded the Scandinavian Center company, in 1994 she established a department of the Design Center at Office Depot and since 2000 she has had the role of Managing Director and CEO of Kinnarps Polska.
Beata is a member of many advisory groups, including the Woman Business Leaders Foundation and the charitable Foundation “Jedni Drugim.”
In this think piece, Dr Bernd Weis, General Management Consultant at Lumesse, discusses what drives a culture of innovation and the limits placed on disruptive innovation by a reliance on big data.
Innovation is the lifeblood of enterprises. Without innovation they stall in their development, become vulnerable to competition and are eventually bound to vanish from the market.
Innovation comes in two distinctive traits: it may be continuous, incremental, sustainable - or it may be groundbreaking, revolutionary, disruptive.
Digging into big data and mining for information is a valuable tool for predicting future behaviour. By extrapolating from historical data the likely “behavioural” future is predicted with more precision than ever before.
On a personal level we are offered what we believe we want. And because of this - for reasons of convenience and comfort - it becomes ever less likely that our behaviour is NOT as predicted.
By this means we enter into a spiral of ever self-fulfilling prophecy.
This has far reaching implications, however, in terms of disruptive innovation. To think OUTSIDE of the box becomes a more conscious, reflective, and intentional process.
Bernd X. Weis
Dr. Bernd X. Weis is an engineer and businessman with over 30 years experience working in innovation. He has held leadership positions in research and development, product management and strategic marketing.
As an inventor he holds over 40 patents, many of which can be categorised as innovations, i.e., have found their way into practical use. He has studied and researched at several prestigious institutions, working alongside scientists such as Herbert Kroemer (winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics for research on semi-conductor devices).
As a freelance management consultant (www.bernd-weis.de) and entrepreneur (www.blackforestlightning.de) he advises organisations in corporate strategy, marketing and sales, and, of course, innovation.
Bernd is currently General Management Consultant at Lumesse in Kraków.
Andrew Hallam
Andrew Hallam is the General Secretary and a Founding Member of ASPIRE. From 1998 to 2007 he was Director of Regional Development and South Poland Director of the British Polish Chamber of Commerce. He has lived in Poland since 1995.
A graduate of Oxford University, he previously worked as a broadcast journalist. His work includes the documentary film, “Return of a Soldier”, which charts the return of a Polish war veteran to Poland after 50 years.
Dr. Paul Flather
Paul Flather is Secretary–General of the Europaeum, an association of leading European Universities, and Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, where he is head of the Senior Common Room. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he also obtained his DPhil (PhD) and has taught and lectured at Oxford and several other universities in Europe and India. He was the founding Secretary-General of the Central European University (1990-1994), originally set up in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw by George Soros, and then Director of International and External Affairs for Oxford University (1994-2000). He is a former Fellow of Corpus Christi (1994– 2000). He has worked at the BBC, Times Newspapers, and served as Deputy Editor of the New Statesman. His research work is on Indian political development since Independence. He worked with dissident movements in Central Europe in the 1980s, and has worked with cultural and race equality groups in the UK for over 30 years. He was an elected member of the London Council in the 1980s (chairing its committee on post-school education 1986-1990, with an annual budget of £360m). He has chaired the Noon Education Foundation since 2000, and is on the board of the Roundtable. He was the consultant of the first EU-India co-operation report in 1994 which led directly to a 40m ecu programme from 1997.
Gilles Leonard
Gilles Leonard has worked for Bouygues for more than 12 years, in France, the UK and Poland. He specialises in complex real estate, project finance and has extensive experience in the realisation of PPP projects. Since 2012, Gilles has been president of the management board of BYPolska Property Development.
Cllr. Richard Lewis
Richard Lewis is Convener of the Culture and Sport Committee on the City of Edinburgh Council. His primary areas of council interest are education and the arts and particularly the importance of maintaining and expanding upon Edinburgh’s reputation as a leading artistic, cultural and educational centre.
Richard is a musician and conductor and is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He has worked as a freelance musician and conductor in Austria, Hungary, Australia, Denmark, Belgium and Ireland.
Robert Piaskowski
Robert Piaskowski studied literature, social sciences and cultural diplomacy at the Jagiellonian University, Aix -Marseille University, and Collegium Civitas, respectively. As Programme Director at the Kraków Festival Office, Robert is responsible for the coordination of the biggest events of the Office and the implementation of the cultural politics and strategies of the city of Kraków. He coordinates Kraków's flagship festivals, including: Misteria Paschalia, Opera Rara, and Sacrum Profanum, Kraków’s leading music festivals; Art Boom, a visual and public art festival; the Milosz and Conrad literary festivals; and the city's large scale open-air events. Robert is also the Artistic Director of the Film Music Festival (FMF) in Kraków, as well as the Chief Executive of the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature programme.
Eoin McCoy
Eoin is Solutions Delivery Leader and Site Leader, Kraków for GE Healthcare – Life Sciences. He has a long track record of success in the Kraków market. Before joining GE, he setup and served as General Manager of the operations for both AonHewitt and Sabre Holdings.
Eoin has a depth of experience in software applications development & delivery, research & development, project and program management and shared service operations, and his background also includes work at ICL/ Fujistu and Huawei Technologies. He has lived and worked in the US, a number of countries across Europe, and China. Eoin is a member of the Management Board of ASPIRE.
Łukasz Cioch
Łukasz is Communications and Community Director at ASPIRE. He is also public-speaking coach, copywriter and adviser in the fields of CSR, PR and a media relations. Between 2011-2015 he worked as a project manager and university lecturer, specialising in management, communications and language studies. He has organised and coordinated multiple conferences and events, run a newly-established university faculty as well as designed and set up an energy think-tank.
He’s an experienced interpreter and translator of business books. Between 2004-2010, he worked for a global multi-national, rising to Director of Corporate Responsibility & Communications.
Joanna Mandel
Since joining TEST she has helped nearly one hundred companies in adjusting their salary budgets to fit the dynamics of the market. As part of the investor relations team, she supports companies with location due diligence and start-up support, providing knowledge on salaries & benefits policies in Kraków.
She has an academic background in Organisational Psychology and is an enthusiast of gamification in business.
Adrian Marciszewski
Adrian Marciszewski is Head of the Sappi Shared Service Centre in Kraków.
Adrian has over 15 years of managerial experience in an international business environment. In September 2012 he joined Sappi to establish the company’s first European multi-functional Shared Service Centre. Today the Centre employs almost 100 people, providing a wide range of Financial, IT, Supply Chain, Procurement and HR services for all European units of the company and its customers across the globe.
Prior to his current role, Adrian worked for various companies, including IKEA, Südzucker and General Motors, leading multi-cultural teams mainly within Sales, Supply Chain and Procurement fields.
Adrian holds an MBA degree in Finance from The University of Hull and has recently completed the Art and Science of Coaching – an ICF-accredited training program with Erickson College International.
Agata Piątek
Agata Piątek is Regional Manager at Hays Talent Solutions. She has over 8 years of experience in recruitment, including managing cross border projects with emphasis on sourcing candidates in the EMEA region. Agata joined Hays in 2008 and has been developing the Business Services division as a part of Hays Talent Solutions, specialising in recruitment for shared service centres and outsourcing companies.
As a Regional Manager, Agata is responsible for Talent Acquisition Teams in Southern Poland dedicated to volume recruitment assignments from specialist to director level for Business Services sector. The teams are effectively recruiting multilingual talent in the area of Customer Service, Finance & Accounting, HR, Supply Chain and IT.
Agata graduated from Jagiellonian University with a Master’s Degree in International Relations and speaks English and Spanish fluently.
Agata Piątek
Agata Piątek is Regional Manager at Hays Talent Solutions. She has over 8 years of experience in recruitment, including managing cross border projects with emphasis on sourcing candidates in the EMEA region. Agata joined Hays in 2008 and has been developing the Business Services division as a part of Hays Talent Solutions, specialising in recruitment for shared service centres and outsourcing companies.
As a Regional Manager, Agata is responsible for Talent Acquisition Teams in Southern Poland dedicated to volume recruitment assignments from specialist to director level for Business Services sector. The teams are effectively recruiting multilingual talent in the area of Customer Service, Finance & Accounting, HR, Supply Chain and IT.
Agata graduated from Jagiellonian University with a Master’s Degree in International Relations and speaks English and Spanish fluently.
Szymon Malecki
Szymon Malecki has over 15 years of experience in C-level management of international businesses responsible for sales, consulting, IT and HR. Until the end of 2014, he was President of the Board of Euroscript Polska, the Polish branch of the leading Content Management and Language Services provider, and was responsible for setting up and running the shared service centre of the Company in Kraków, focused on service management and customer service for the German, French, Swiss, Luxembourgish and Belgian markets. In the last year of his corporate career he was the Director Global Service Management of the Euroscript Group.
Since 2012, Szymon has been a Member of the Board of ASPIRE, the leading Business Services Association in Poland. Also since 2012, he is Honorary Consul of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in Kraków.
Organizations today find themselves in a state of constant transformation, such that many believe change is the Name of the game. Adaptation and a dynamic environment is an employee’s everyday life.
Three global people leaders explore what this means for ourselves and our organisations, how it relates to satisfaction at work and how it influences results.
Panelists: Sheena Cartwright, Chief People Officer Alexander Mann Solutions, Suzanne Dolan, MD CPL Integrated Services; Ilona Barcza, European Lead L&D GE Healthcare. Moderated by Szymon Malecki.
Sheena Cartwright
Sheena is Chief People Officer at Alexander Mann Solutions, the world’s leading provider of talent acquisition and management services. Sheena started her career as a graduate trainee with the John Lewis Partnership. After five years she moved into commercial roles with Mars Confectionery. In 1999 she made the transition to HR and spent seven years with Coca-Cola Enterprises in the UK and North America before joining Vodafone UK in 2006, where she led the Talent and Development teams. In 2013, Sheena left Vodafone to set up her own Organisation Development consultancy focussing on Change and Leadership initiatives for multi-nationals across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Sheena joined Alexander Mann Solutions in July 2014.
Ilona Barcza
Ilona is responsible for Leadership, Talent, Organization and Culture Development for the Healthcare Division of General Electric in Europe - covering a broad range of activities in commercial, service, R+D, supply chain, and supporting functions.
An 18-year veteran of the company, in prior roles with GE she had HR responsibility for GE Healthcare Eastern Europe -including the start-up of the IT Center in Kraków - as well as various HRM and Organization Development roles at GE Capital in Hungary.
Ilona was born in New Jersey and has lived half her life in Hungary. She graduated cum laude in Classics from Princeton University. She began her career in the people business teaching English as a second language in Boston and Hungary. Prior to GE she worked in Human Resources in Hungary in the IT industry as well as in executive search.
Ilona is an Executive Sponsor of the Hungarian hub of the GE GLBTA, helping the organization gain traction in Hungary and across Europe. Earlier she served as leader of the Budapest Bank Women’s Network and is recognized in the Hungarian market as a champion of women’s employment issues.
In addition to native English and Hungarian, Ilona speaks some German and basic Italian and French (but sadly no Polish). She lives in Budapest with her husband, son, and cat. She enjoys swimming and the outdoors.
Suzanne Dolan
Heading-up global growth for CPL and division head of CPL Integrated Services and Digital Sourcing Hub; Suzanne Dolan is a senior B2B specialist with 20 years’ experience in providing market leading Workforce Services and Solutions. Suzanne has a considerable record in business achievement, being accountable and responsible for driving a culture of continuous improvement of outsourcing services for a number of high profile companies, so as to enhance our client’s value in their market place.
Romek Lubaczewski
- Partner at PwC
- First BPO/SSC project in 1996
- Has helped clients to open 31 centres in the last 10 years
- Runs largest SSC/BPO Consulting team in CEE
John Lyons
- Heineken Global Shared Services Director
- Previously IBM BPO Delivery Lead
- 17 years experience in SSC/BPO delivery in Poland
Nicklas Blomqvist
- SSC Consultant
- 2007-2012, Head of PMI SCE in Kraków
- 1992-2007, CFO for 10 PMI EU markets
Vic Khan
- Currently Managing Director Global Operations for Korn Ferry/Futurestep
- 6 Centres Globally (incl. Warsaw)
- Built Global Delivery Network for Alexander Mann Solutions with a worldwide workforce of c.1,100 (UK, Kraków, Manila, Cleveland)
- 10 years working in the Polish Market, first came to Kraków in 2005 building the Kraków Centre to 600.
Darren Owens
- Chief Operating Officer, Vistra CEE
- Previously head of Capita and Capgemini operations in Kraków BPO
- 15 years BPO experience in Poland and Czech Republic