American Investor February 2011

American

InvestorFEBRUARY 2011

Vol. XXI, No. 2 • ISSN 1506-3240

© American Chamber of Commerce in Poland 2011 www.amcham.com.pl

A classic American tale Interview withAmCham ChairmanJoseph Wancer

Agenda: Defense industry as viewed by Ludwik Dorn, p. 8Monthly Meeting: Poland is not an island, p. 14Focus: How to boost people power, p.19Company Profile: Fluor S.A. p. 22

MONTHLY MEETING

Poland is not an island AmCham panelists predict that the growth of Poland’s economyin 2011 will be most impacted by nearby Germany and far-off China, p. 14

FOCUS

Looking for new ways to boost people power Can Poland use its HR potential to draweven with the top E.U. economies? p. 19

COMPANY PROFILE

Investing in people American Investor talks with Dave Gibson, CEO of Fluor S.A., an en-gineering and construction management office serving the chemical industry in Polandand abroad, p. 22

EXPERTS

Build a high-trust corporate culture When the employees trust their leaders, the com-pany can achieve innovation, growth, and dramatically higher shareholder value, p. 23

No end in sight The Personal Data Protection Act has recently been amended, but morechanges are inevitable, p. 24

Know your new VAT With new VAT regulations in place since the beginning of this year itis worthwhile to review VAT exemptions and new criteria for VAT-exempt services, p. 25

Behavioral targeting What Internet users don’t know may hurt them, p. 26

EVENTS

AmCham Monthly Meeting, p. 27

DEPARTMENTS

From the Editor, p. 2

From the Chairman, p. 4

Newsline, p. 5

Agenda, p. 8

Content summaries in Polish, p. 28

Guide to AmCham Committees, p. 29

FEBRUARY 2011 AMERICAN INVESTOR 1

what’s on

www.amcham.com.plYour online guide to AmCham activities

A classicAmerican taleAmerican Investor’s TomĆwiok talkswith AmChamChairmanJosephWancer abouthis early life,

his cultureshock on arrival in the UnitedStates, the milestones of hisprofessional career, and thewisdom he has gained from itall, page 10

Other useful sites

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

http://www.uschamber.comAmerican Chamber of Commerce

in the European Union

http://www.amchameu.beEuropean Council of American

Chambers of Commerce

http://www.amchamseurope.com

COVER STORY:American

InvestorFEBRUARY 2011 Vol. XXI, No. 2

Calendar

By clicking on red links in the Calen-

dar you may visit photo coverage ofour past events. Blue links will takeyou to the announcements of upcom-ing events.

Download this magazine!

American Investor is available in full asa pdf for download from the www.am-cham.com.pl website. Go to "AboutUs" in the horizontal menu, andchoose American Investor Magazine

from the pop-up menu. You can down-load past issues of American Investor

dating back to October 2010.

Policy Watch

Intelligence: For AmCham positionpapers, policy statements, official let-ters to government ministers and re-search papers, visit the Advocacy linkon the horizontal menu to downloadthe latest AmCham position papers.

Regions

AmCham may be closer than youthink. Apart from Warsaw, AmChamhas two regional branches which areactive all year long and offer many ex-citing opportunities to interface with regional business leaders and politi-cians. To find out more about our ac-tivities in Kraków and the region ofsouthern Poland, and Wrocław, go toRegions in the horizontal menu bar,and pick your region of interest.

Events

AmCham Monthly Meetings are one ofthe flagship events organized by thechamber. While American Investor cov-ers each Monthly Meeting exten-sively, including full-page pictorials,you can search through picturearchives of past events that includenever previously printed material. Justgo to Events and Activities, pickMonthly Meetings and scroll down forlinks to archived events.

AmCham online

We encourage companies to sponsor our Business Mixers, CEO Forums, 4th of July Picnic and other events. Business Mixers

You can sponsor AmCham Business Mixers throughout 2011 (except for April, July and December). To find out more aboutsponsoring Business Mixers, visit www.amcham.pl, click on the Events & Activities link on the horizontal menu bar, and

choose Business Mixers. CEO Forums

A high-level discussion panel followed by a cocktail reception, for AmCham CEOs only, held just 3 times a year. To find outmore about AmCham CEO Forums, visit www.amcham.com.pl, click on the Events & Activities link on the horizontal menu

bar, and choose CEO Forums. 4th of July Picnic

Scheduled for Saturday, July 2, 2011, at Królikarnia Palace, Warsaw. To see pictures from last year’s picnic, go to www.am-cham.com.pl, click on the Events & Activities link on the horizontal menu bar, and choose 4th of July Picnic.

Annual General Meeting & Christmas Reception in DecemberTo see pictures from the last AGM & Christmas Reception, go to www.amcham.com.pl, click on the Events & Activities link

on the horizontal menu bar, and choose Annual General Meeting. Regional events

In addition to Warsaw events, your company can also support AmCham activities in Kraków, Wrocław and Katowice. We areopen for sponsorship of the following events:

Our events in Kraków include two Business Mixers, IT Giants Conference, AmCham Academy Project;in Katowice, one Business Mixer, Manufacturers’ Forum, and the conferences “Outsourcing Potential of

Katowice and the Silesia Metropolis” and “Dębica—Investment Conference.” For more information, please contact Monika Pilarska at +48 608 027 172 or [email protected].

Our events in Wrocław include AmCham Breakfast, two Business Mixers, Oktoberfest, and InternationalChristmas Mixer. For more information, please contact Joanna Bensz at +48 605 678 817 or [email protected].

For additional information contact Anita Kowalska at +48 22 520 5994.

Do not miss the opportunity to sponsor AmCham events

in 2011!

2 AMERICAN INVESTOR FEBRUARY 2011

BOARD OFDIRECTORS

The American Chamber of Commerce in Poland

SPONSORS

Joseph Wancer – DeloitteChairman

Judith Y. Gliniecki – Wierzbowski EvershedsVice Chair

richard lada – TelestoVice Chairman

peter kaY – KPMG PolskaSecretary

stan popoW – FinacorpTreasurer

Tony HoushAPCO Worldwide

Paul FogoMiller Canfield

Piotr JuchaMcDonald’s

Thomas KolajaAlvarez and Marsal

Robert L. KońskiKulczyk Investments

John LynchLynka

Mac RaczkiewiczEx officio

Roman RewaldWeil, Gotshal & Manges

Anna SienkoIBM

AmCham Auditor:

Taking a fleecing

In late 2005, Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz, who was then the president of theNational Bank of Poland, was in a bitter fight with the populist governmentabout whether NBP should earmark some money to help the state ease

the pains of a growing budget deficit in 2006. In fact the debate was notabout the condition of the state budget but about a much more fundamentalissue: whether the central bank should remain independent of the govern-ment or not. When I interviewed Balcerowicz in December 2005, in his finalmonth as NBP president, he told me he was very much concerned aboutthe future of public debate in Poland, because, he complained, populistviews were reported by the media as if they held as much merit as the viewsof experts.

Today public opinion is focused on the issue of pension fund reforms.Working people are required to pay contributions to the state-run Social In-surance Institution (ZUS). ZUS collects the money from workers and paysmoney out every month to beneficiaries. Under reforms introduced in 1999,however, in case of workers who were born after 1968, 7.3% of the fee goesto a privately owned open pension fund (OFE) of their choosing. This isknown as the “capital” leg of the public pension system.

In late 2010 the government announced a plan to cut the portion of ZUScontributions that are allocated to the OFEs from 7.3% to 2.3%. In return, itproposed to create ZUS accounts for OFE participants in which their capitalwould be accounted for and interest would accrue at a government-definedrate of growth. The reason the government proposed to do this was twofold.First, it was not satisfied with the rate of return generated by the OFEs andby their operating costs. Second, it needed the money to cover growingZUS expenditures. ZUS is routinely subsidized out of the state budget, but inthe aftermath of the global financial crisis such aid would stretch the budgetdeficit too thin, bringing it close to the redline defined by the Polish Constitu-tion.

The government was blasted for this proposed reform from many sides inthe public debate. The accusations of “stealing private money” were on al-most all the critics’ lips. But, because of what I heard from him before, I wasespecially troubled to hear Balcerowicz say, in a radio interview, that “Polesare not stupid sheep” and that they “will never forgive the government fortaking their money away from them.”

I beg to differ. According to an informal poll I conducted on a random se-lection of people I know, who are all university graduates and all fall withinthe double ZUS/OFE pension system, only a tiny proportion of them, per-haps 2–3% percent, really know the difference between the ways ZUS andOFE save for their retirement. Most of them appeared not to be aware at allof the financial mechanisms performed by ZUS and OFE. They do not knowabout the restrictions imposed on the investments that the OFEs can make,and they are unaware of the ZUS reform that is underway. Some took a care-free attitude to the fate of their pension contributions. One person I polled in-sisted that all of her money goes to ZUS. When asked to check her facts,she did recall selecting an OFE when starting her first job, but she could notrecall which OFE she had chosen out of the 14 now on the market today. Sowhile I agree with Balcerowicz that Poles are not sheep, I do not think thattheir understanding of pension funds differs much from sheep’s apprecia-

Tomasz Ćwiok

YOUR AMCHAM FROM THE EDITOR

tion of their own retirement plans.For this reason I welcomed the joint initiative of the Busi-

ness Centre Club and the Polish Chamber of Pension Funds(IGTE) announcing an educational media campaign, entitled“Protect Your Pension,” which the organizers said was aimedat boosting the popular understanding of the importance ofthinking in advance about life beyond retirement. The cam-paign cost about PLN 1 million and was unveiled on televi-sion, 130 billboards in the largest Polish cities, and on the In-ternet.

My enthusiasm for the campaign vanished in a haze of dis-appointment as soon as I saw it.

The Internet portion, the central part of the campaign, con-sists of a website where users may sign a petition to thePrime Minister demanding the government’s absolute andunconditional withdrawal from the proposed reform. The letterrefers in emotional terms to the signatories’ right to leave their“hard-earned” money intact with the OFEs, “not to be spenton plugging the holes in the state budget.” You can type yourname into an online form, indicate your age (up to three digitsif needed!), and submit it to the site administrator, who willthen pass it on to the campaign organizers so that the peti-tions can be forwarded to the Prime Minister.

The Internet campaign is neither intelligent nor helpful. Ittries to generate responses from people concerning one spe-cific aspect of pension fund reform and one particular gov-ernment. Since the beginning of the pension reform in 1999,different governments have tinkered with the framework manytimes, but that never inspired a trade association to put to-gether a mass protest campaign. The form letter also ap-pears to reject any right of the government to adjust the pen-sion reform, even though the reform begun in 1999 has notyet been completed.

But the worst offense of the campaign is that it is negativeand government-centered. It only reinforces the incorrect be-lief of young Poles that their future is in the hands of the gov-ernment, and the only way they can influence it is by protest-ing against whatever they think is not to their projected advan-tage in the future—in this case PLN 300–600 a month as anOFE retirement benefit after 40 years of work at the nationalaverage wage, according to estimates by IGTE experts.

I think that BCC and IGTE have overreacted. The messagethey are sending is definitely not the one that the 15 millionpeople who have entered the labor market in a free Polandand save with OFEs for their retirement need to hear.

Instead, I would propose advocating a different, positive-thinking approach. What the young generation needs is posi-tive thinking that is good for us all and boosts energy, pro-ductivity and innovation. Tell them that unlike their parents,

they now can save for their retirement independently of thestate system. Tell them they have the choice of not being de-pendent on government policy, which 30 years from now mayin fact be focused on quite different problems (pick your fa-vorite: energy crisis, climate change-related poverty, short-ages of food or drinking water, or social unrest). The govern-ment is only as good as it is able to deliver. The limits of whatgovernment can do are many, and are likely to increase in thefuture.

The real problem—which the BCC/IGTE campaign doesnot mention—is that there is simply not enough money in thestate coffers to finance the state’s financial obligations to thegrowing population of retired people. This problem gets big-ger every year.

The business community should take notice of this as well.For years Poland has been advancing its economic develop-ment under the standard of a “well-educated and cheaplabor force.” Cheap labor dwarfs productivity, innovation andentrepreneurship and makes talented people want to emi-grate. In addition, as Poland is part of a larger labor market,cheap labor can be maintained only for a limited time goingforward.

But cheap labor means that government income is low, andconsequently the country should be cheap instead of gener-ous. (If you want to know what I mean by a cheap state, go toUkraine and venture off the main street to see how retiredpeople make ends meet and how their situation affects thewhole society.) Despite having six different systems of socialsecurity in Poland—ZUS, OFEs, KRUS for farmers, a separatesystem for judges, a separate system for the uniformed serv-ices (including military and police), and yet another separatesystem for miners—Poland has never been a cheap state forits retirees and those who rely on state-supported social se-curity. What the government is trying to do is just to stick tothat principle.

If the business community has no other message than thatsent by the BCC and IGTE, we will all fail miserably. At stake isnot whether the future monthly pensions of OFE participantswill be PLN 600, more or less, but the attitudes toward per-sonal freedom, social solidarity, entrepreneurship, the econ-omy, and, last but not least, problem-solving, that businessleaders display for new generations of working Poles.


MEMBERS

mained low in most other CEE markets. The ma-jority of activity has been focused on the officesector, which recorded a five-year record high interms of its proportion of overall investment ac-tivity, at 46% for the year, partly influenced bylimited prime-product availability in the retailsector.

The largest retail deal of the year in Warsawwas the purchase of Arkadia and Wileńskashopping malls by Unibail-Rodamco as part ofits European portfolio.

In other news, the CBRE Development Con-sultancy Team represented residential developerDom Development SA in the sale of a landmark

property at the corner of Mazowiecka andTraugutta streets in Warsaw. The buyer wasHochtief Development Poland Sp. z o.o.

“This offer was a unique opportunity to pur-chase a sizable development site in an area ofvery limited supply,” said Mikołaj Martynuska,Director of Development Consultancy at CBREPoland. “The uniqueness of the property defi-nitely attracted the attention of the buyer. In ouropinion both the seller and the buyer made avery good deal.”

Originally built in 1910, the building was oneof the most luxurious residences in Warsaw. Theproperty consists of two plots totaling 3,751 sq.m. and the historic Raczyński Palace (picturedabove). It is the tallest building in this presti-gious area, overlooking Piłsudskiego and Mała-chowskiego squares as well as the Saxon Gar-den.

Cushman & WakefieldCushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estateadvisory firm, has been appointed exclusiveagent for commercialization of the Felicity shop-ping center in Lublin. C&W is responsible for theleasing process and tenant mix.

Felicity, the largest facility of its type in Lublin,will be developed in the eastern part of the city,on a major traffic artery. The center offers retail,services and leisure space with parking for up to3,000 cars. Opening is scheduled for the firsthalf of 2013.

Cushman & Wakefield also represented RBLogistic in lease negotiations with Iron MountainPolska Sp. z o.o. for 4,200 sq. m. of warehouse

right to register a trademark, and a trademarkregistration may not be cancelled.

In addition, AmCham said in the letter that itunderstands and supports the aim of the Euro-pean Union to promote public health, but theproposed plain or generic packaging rule willhave serious legal and economic conse-quences.

BoeingIn January Boeing celebrated the final assemblyof the 1,000th 767 airplane at its Everett, Wash-ington, factory—the last unit to be producedthere before the assembly line is moved to asmaller bay. The 1,000th airplane, a 767-300ER(extended range) passenger model, was pro-duced for All Nippon Airways of Japan.

Last year Boeing recorded 462 commercialairplane deliveries, living up to company projec-tions of approximately 460 deliveries during theyear. Boeing posted 530 net commercial ordersfor the year as air carriers transitioned from eco-nomic recovery to expansion. The company hasa strong order base of 3,443 unfilled orders.

“With 376 deliveries in 2010, the Next-Genera-tion 737 set a company delivery record forthe second consecutive year,” said Jim Al-

baugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commer-cial Airplanes. “The 737 is the industry’s most in-demand airplane, with 486 net orders, as carri-ers continue to rely on its superior economics,versatility and continuous performance en-hancements.”

In 2010, Boeing announced a series of pro-duction rate increases throughout its productline to meet increasing airplane demand fromcarriers worldwide. The Next-Generation 737production rate will grow to 35 per month inearly 2012 and 38 per month in the secondquarter of 2013. The 777 production rate will risefrom five to seven per month in mid-2011 and8.3 per month in the first quarter of 2013. The747-8 Freighter is slated for first delivery in mid-year, and the first delivery of the 747-8 Interconti-nental is planned for late 2011. The 787 Dream-liner continues in-flight testing.

CB Richard EllisReal estate investment turnover in Central &Eastern Europe reached EUR 5 billion in 2010, a90% increase on the total turnover in 2009 (EUR2.6 billion), according to the latest data from CBRichard Ellis, a commercial real estate special-ist.

After reaching a cyclical low in 1Q 2009, theCEE region continued its property investmentrecovery throughout 2010, with over 30 propertyinvestment transactions registered in the finalquarter of the year, for a total of EUR 1.7 billion.

Investment activity was particularly strong inRussia and Poland during 2010, which togetheraccounted for 74% of CEE investment turnoverfor the year. Russia overtook Poland to recordthe highest investment volume of any CEE mar-ket. This was largely due to Lenmar Capital’spurchase of a large portfolio, including fiveMoscow office buildings, for around EUR 690million in 4Q 2010. Despite showing signs of in-creased investment activity, liquidity has re-


Iam very honored and proud to have been elected Chairman of the American

Chamber of Commerce in Poland. I am grateful to all of my colleagues on theAmCham Board of Directors with whom I have been working for two years

now, but I am especially indebted to those directors who supported my candi-dacy.

For years, and especially under the chairmanship of my predecessor RomanRewald, AmCham has grown to be known as a firm and influential organization.

Not to mention its splendid community events, AmCham has been successfully engaged in many important lobby-ing efforts. It has entered into partnerships with other busi-ness organizations to enhance the lobbying efforts of thebusiness community in Poland as well as, recently, in theU.S.

Foremost, however, AmCham can boast of a very effec-tive committee structure. Our committees not only organ-ize face-time with influential Polish government membersand U.S. government officials, but identify and analyze is-sues as well as initiate actions with the responsible gov-ernment agencies and other organizations. As Chairman Ifeel especially compelled to do my best to reinforce these

AmCham functions. My golden rule of management, well-tested in 49 years of my professional ca-

reer, is to share the freedom of expression with all people on the team. I wel-come your opinions, however divergent they may be. I also believe in sharing thefreedom to take different initiatives within our organization, because we are allprofessionals in our fields of expertise. With well-defined criteria for discussion, Iknow that the sky is the limit in what we can do. I also welcome the freedom ofsharing the responsibility for our decisions, as it is the best way to build our orga-nization’s potential to pursue our mission.

The years ahead will no doubt pose new challenges for the Polish-Americanbusiness community. The aftermath of the world economic crisis, and its effecton business and governments, is still an open question. As an organization,what we promise we deliver, but in achieving this I count on your support andactive involvement.

American

Investor

© American Chamber of Commerce in Poland 2011. All rights reserved.

American Investor is the official publication of the Ameri-can Chamber of Commerce in Poland. It is a voice for for-eign investors and the business community in Poland.The magazine strives to keep our members and otherreaders up to date by following chamber news and report-ing on the leading trends in business and policy.

letters to the editor should be e-mailed [email protected]

AMCHAM STAFFDorota DabrowskiExecutive [email protected]

Marzena DrelaDeputy [email protected]

Anita KowalskaEvents & Media [email protected]

Robert KruszynaOffice [email protected]

Barbara Pocialik-MalinowskaMembership and Committees [email protected]

Marta PawlakResearch and Policy [email protected]

Robert ChomikProject [email protected]

AmCham in KrakówMonika [email protected]

AmCham in WrocławJoanna [email protected]

What we promise we deliver

Joseph WancerAMCHAM CHAIRMAN

Published by the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland

YOUR AMCHAMFROM THE CHAIRMAN

AmCham Chairman & Board

The new Chairman of the Board of Directors ofthe American Chamber of Commerce in Polandis Joseph Wancer (above). Wancer brings tothe post over 40 years of experience in thebanking sector, where he served in executivepositions internationally on three continents. Heis a widely known and respected business pro-fessional. Wancer will chair the Board of Direc-tors for a term of two years. Independently ofAmCham, Wancer is an advisor to the manage-ment board of Deloitte, the international consult-ing company. Judith Gliniecki and Richard

Lada will continue serving as Vice-Chairs of theAmCham Board. Lada is vice chairman ofTelesto and Gliniecki is a partner at WierzbowskiEversheds. Peter Kay of KPMG continues toserve as Secretary to the Board and Stan

Popow of Finacorp as Treasurer.

AmCham AdvocacyIn a letter to the European Commission in re-sponse to the commission’s proposal to requireplain or generic packaging of tobacco productsin the new Tobacco Products Directive, Am-Cham argued against the idea on the groundsthat it violates the freedom of business activityguaranteed by the Polish Constitution. The intro-duction of a regulation that would mandateidentical packaging for different tobacco prod-ucts, the letter said, would be in violation of theprinciple that individual businesses should beable to differentiate their products from theircompetitors’ products by using packaging witha distinctive graphic design. AmCham also ar-gued that requiring plain or generic packagingis contrary to the Polish Industrial Property Law,which does not provide for excluding the abilityto exploit vested rights to registered trademarks,or restricting registered trademarks with regardto any products, including tobacco products.

Requiring plain or generic packaging is alsocontrary to the Paris Convention on the Protec-tion of Industrial Property, which provides thatthe nature of the goods to which a trademark isto be applied shall in no case form an obstacleto the registration of the mark, a trademark reg-istered in one country can be registered andprotected in the same way it is protected inother countries, a vendor may not be denied the

NewslineNews from AmCham and its members


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ART & DTPtomasz Ć[email protected]

EDITOR-AT-LARGEchristopher [email protected]

PrintingQ Invest Ltd +48 22 424 6600

To contact AmCham please write or call:

ul. Emilii Plater 53, WFC 00-113 Warsawtel: +48 22 520 5999 fax: +48 22 520 5998e-mail: [email protected]

space and 120 sq. m. of office space at OlkuszLogistics Center, on Route 94 between Krakówand Dąbrowa Górnicza. Iron Mountain will bethe third tenant, joining Philip Morris and Kim-berly-Clark.

In other news, Cushman & Wakefield actedas agent for a lease signed by LBP Manufac-turing, a producer of paper food packaging forthe HoReCa sector, for 2,200 sq. m. of ware-house space and 233 sq. m. of office space atDiamond Business Park in Łódź. The project,owned by Harrier Duo Sp. z o.o., is a logisticscenter on ul. Manewrowa in the Widzew dis-trict, with three buildings totaling 60,000 sq. m.

Ernst & YoungErnst & Young will be the first tenant at GreenTowers, an office development by Skanska inWrocław. The new tenant is scheduled tomove into an office space of 1,800 sq. m. inApril of next year, housing a new Ernst &Young shared services center which will sup-port several hundred jobs. Green Towers is thefirst office building in Poland to receive a Plat-inum rating, the highest LEED certification forsustainable buildings. The first phase of GreenTowers is scheduled for completion in March2012, with 12,000 sq. m. of office space.

Hewlett-PackardIn January HP unveiled new products de-signed to help retailers meet the needs ofshoppers in multichannel retailing environ-ments.

The products and solutions announced atthe National Retail Federation convention in-clude the HP Imaging Barcode Scanner, whichreads 1-D and 2-D barcodes printed or dis-played on mobile devices and captures im-ages, and the HP LD4201, HP LD4210 and HPLD4710 LCD Digital Signage Displays, rangingfrom 42 to 47 inches diagonally with embed-ded HP Media Sign Player technology that en-ables plug-and-play convenience for dynamicdigital advertising. HP also introduced a newindependent software vendor program forlarge retailers in the enterprise digital signageand interactive in-store media markets, offeredby HP with industry-leading software compa-nies.

“Customers are increasingly sophisticated,and HP’s new solutions provide retailers withefficient and compelling ways to engage cus-tomers throughout their entire shopping expe-rience—from home, on the go and in thestore,” said Ray Carlin, vice president of theRetail Solutions Global Business Unit at HP.“Our ongoing investments in comprehensivesoftware and hardware solutions enable ourcustomers to differentiate themselves from thecompetition, build customer loyalty, and ulti-mately help grow their bottom line.”

ties for forging successful transport collabora-tions.” The report is available online athttp://ir.prologis.com/research/TransportCol-laborationWinter2011.cfm.

SalansLaw firm Salans Warsaw has successfullyclosed the settlement ending the EUR 2 billionplus dispute over control of PTC (Era), a lead-ing Polish telecom. The dispute, involvingVivendi, Deutsche Telekom, Elektrim, the PolishState Treasury and other parties, lasted for 11years.

Salans, as Vivendi’s counsel, conducted andhosted the negotiations and the signing. Theteam was led by Tomasz Dąbrowski, WarsawManaging Partner, with support from AnnaMaria Pukszto, partner and head of WarsawInsolvency, and over 15 lawyers from the Cor-porate, RRI and Tax teams. The final stage ofthe negotiations involved over 20 law firms infive jurisdictions, including Orrick, HengelerMueller, Bingham McCutchen, Clifford Chance,Slaughter and May, and major Polish law firms.

At closing Vivendi received EUR 1.25 billionand withdrew all claims to PTC. DeutscheTelekom group became the sole owner of PTC,for which it paid EUR 1.4 billion to Vivendi andElektrim. Finally, Elektrim paid off its credi-tors—the Polish State Treasury and bondhold-ers.

The Salans Litigation & Arbitration team, ledby Wojciech Kozłowski, with KatarzynaBilewska, Patrick Radzimierski and otherlawyers, conducted wide-ranging litigation re-lated to the dispute over a 48% stake in PTC,involving over 100 judicial and arbitrationcases, in Poland, Austria, Switzerland, the U.K.,the U.S. and other jurisdictions.

Squire SandersIn January, law firm Squire, Sanders &Dempsey completed the acquisition of Ham-monds, which was recently ranked the numberone national law firm in the U.K. in Legal

Week’s 2010 Client Satisfaction Report, a rank-ing based on feedback from the U.K.’s largestcompanies. With the acquisition, SquireSanders has extended its service capabilitiesto 25 global legal practices, with 1,275 lawyersin 37 offices and 17 countries.

IBMIBM and the Gdańsk University of Technologyhave signed an agreement to establish the Uni-versity Competence Center at the school’s Fac-ulty of Management and Economics. The cen-ter will utilize IBM tools in the “Rational” familyto manage educational IT projects. Under theagreement IBM will provide both software andexperts, while the university will include IBMteaching materials and software in the depart-ment’s curriculum and enable researchers toobtain certification for selected programs thatwill support the department’s educationalstrategies.

The center is part of a larger program, Aca-demic Initiative, between IBM and the GdańskUniversity of Technology, begun four years ago.It is aimed at empowering talented studentsand recent graduates to pursue further aca-demic careers.

InterContinental WarsawThe InterContinental Warsaw was awarded theTorchbearer Award at the annual Hotel StarsAwards in Cairo in December. The TorchbearerAward recognizes hotels that achieve outstand-ing levels of service as measured by InterConti-nental Hotel Group’s Overall Satisfaction Index.

Christian Henkemeier, general manager ofthe InterContinental Warsaw, travelled to Egyptto accept the award. He said, “This award rec-ognizes all the hard work and team effort we’veput in this year. We’re constantly striving to gothe extra mile so guests can expect a consis-tently top-notch experience when visiting ourhotel. We’ll continue to work together to keepdelivering the same experience each year.”

In other news, the InterContinental Warsaw isthe first hotel in Central Europe to equip all itsrooms with Samsung LED interactive TV sets.The new TV sets offer better picture quality withlow energy consumption. Guestrooms areequipped with 32-inch sets, and suites have 40-inch sets.

ProLogisCosts of freight and transportation account forapproximately 30% of total supply chain costsin Europe, according to a report published bylogistics specialist ProLogis in January entitled“Transport Collaboration in Europe.”

According to the report, as a result of grow-ing transportation costs, companies have foundways to reduce freight distance, along withother solutions to help cut transportation costs.Some of these efforts involve collaboration withboth non-competitors and competitors.

“What we are interested in exploring in thisreport is a new twist or variation on transportcollaboration, one involving business peers,”said Lisa Graham, vice president for Europeanresearch at the ProLogis Research Group.“Aware of the potential benefits, a few compa-nies in Europe have reached out to competitorsto collaborate on and improve the efficiency oftheir distribution networks. Numerous barriersto collaboration must still be overcome, includ-ing mistrust, but the potential cost savings andother benefits are so great that third-party or-ganizations, shippers/haulers and logistics par-ties are induced to continue to find opportuni-

For the 15th consecutive year,AmCham arranged and exe-cuted its holiday Charity Drive

in December 2010 to provide assis-tance in cash and kind to those inneed. This year the AmCham CharityDrive delivered assistance to twoshelters—the Single Mothers’ Shel-ter in Słomczyn and a shelter for vic-tims of domestic violence inBrochów—and eight foster homesacross the country (two in Bochniaand one each in Białystok, Grabinek,Otwock, Rzeszów, Świebodzin andŚwiebodzin-Chociule).

This year, AmCham also estab-lished a relationship with the Chil-dren’s Heart Foundation (FundacjaSerce Dziecka),an NGO whose main goal is to helpchildren with heart defects (more in-formationat www.sercedziecka.org.pl).

AmCham representative AnitaKowalska, along with Adam Tom-czak from X-Press Couriers, made aspecial Christmas visit to the SingleMothers’ Shelter in Słomczyn andbrought Christmas presents for thechildren. After returning from theshelter, Kowalska said, “We wereparticularly moved by the difficultconditions in which the children live.We decided to continue our helpalso throughout the year and sup-port the shelter continually withbasic articles like food, coal andclothing.”

As in previous years, the Am-Cham office received numerousgoods delivered by our generousmembers. In total, AmChamprocessed and dispatched over 70boxes of donated items!

Among many types of aid ren-dered through the 2010 CharityDrive, AmCham delivered 8 TV sets,one refrigerator and two washingmachines to the Single Mothers’Shelter in Słomczyn, repaired thefloor at a children’s home in Białys-tok, and funded summer camp for 3children from the shelter in Słom-czyn.

FEBRUARY 2011 AMERICAN INVESTOR 76 AMERICAN INVESTOR FEBRUARY 2011

Members on the moveSheraton WarsawAgata Prosińska has been

named sales director for the

Sheraton Warsaw and the

Westin Warsaw, members of

Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Prosińska will be responsible

for managing the sales de-

partments of the two hotels as

well as developing the cus-

tomer base. Prosińska started

her professional career as an

intern at the Sheraton Warsaw in 2003. For the next

seven years she worked at Le Méridien Bristol,

where she climbed the career ladder in sales to

reach the position of deputy sales director.

Prosińska earned her MBA at the University of Mary-

land. She is fluent in English and Italian.

NewslineNews from AmCham and its members

New MembersExecutive search specialist Stonewell Group

(www.stonewellgroup.pl) has joined AmCham. The

business development director is Maciej Gwóźdź.

We would like to thank the sponsors whoprovided in-kind goods, corporate grants andcash donations from their employees:

Abbott Laboratories Poland, Air Products,Avon, Boeing, CB Richard Ellis, Coca-Cola,Crown Relocations, Disney, HBO, the HyattRegency, the InterContinental Warsaw, John-son & Johnson Poland, Łaszczuk & Partners,Mars, McDonald’s, MetLife, Procter & Gamble,the Sheraton Warsaw, the Sofitel Warsaw Vic-toria, UPS, the Westin Warsaw, X-Press Couri-

ers, and individuals Linda Caruso, DavidDeBenedetti, Stan Popow and JózefSobolewski.

To name just a few of the most generous in-kind gifts, Coca-Cola provided an abundantamount of beverages, Procter & Gamble pro-vided 3 full pallets of products for children,HBO gave hundreds of DVDs for kids, Avonand Johnson & Johnson provided numerouscosmetics, the Sofitel donated many blanketsand linens, and the InterContintental donated

a total of 10 TV sets. The most generous fi-nancial donor was Boeing, which sponsoredthe renovation of the floor at the children’shome in Białystok.

Special thanks go to Crown Relocations forsending over their employees and materials tohelp packing goods.

We are also very grateful to X-Press Couri-ers for arranging the logistics of transportingthe boxes to their destinations—without theirhelp the Drive would not have happened!

Charity Drive aid wait at the office for ship-

ping to their destinations

Coca-Cola donates juices and soft drinks

Crown Relocations donated shipping power

Families living at the Single Mother Shelter with

Adam Tomczak of X-press Couriers with his son

Anita Kowalska who coordinated the program,

surrounded by some recipients of the aid

Some children could hardly believe someone

has sent presents for them

The whole community of the Single

Mother Shelter gathered to unpack the aid

AmCham Charity Drive 2010

PH

OTO

S C

OU

RTE

SY

OF

AN

ITA

KO

WA

LS

KA


A skeptical view of preparednessThe Polish military procurement process comes infor some harsh criticism from the parliamentary op-position

Defense & Security Commitee

The volatility and uncertainty of the Pol-ish defense industry reflect the stand-ing of the armed forces in Poland, ac-

cording to Ludwik Dorn, an independentmember of Parliament (affiliated with theopposition Law & Justice party through acooperation agreement) and a member ofthe Parliament’s National Defense Commit-tee. Dorn made his remarks at a meetingwith the AmCham Defense & Security Com-mittee in January.

Dorn said that at first glance the financialstanding of the military would seem stable,because defense spending in Poland isgoverned by an act of Parliament providingthat 1.95% of Poland’s GDP has to be ear-marked for the armed forces. “It is unlikelythat this legislation will be changed in thenext four years in a way that the militarygets more money,” Dorn said, “especiallysince President Bronisław Komorowski,who has veto power over legislation passedby the Parliament, is a strong proponent ofthe current base.”

On the other hand, Dorn noted that thereis no reason to expect a decrease in the fi-nancing of the military, either: “If there is no

major financial crisis in Poland, we can alsoassume that there will not be any cuts in thedefense sector.”

Woeful inconsistencyGiven this financing model, Dorn said, onemight assume that the Polish defense sectorhas a stable basis to plan procurement andmodernization of the military at least a yearin advance, but that assumption would notbe correct. “Without any gross breach of thelaw, in 2008–2009 the government nonethe-less managed to shave approximately PLN5 billion from the military budget by suchmeasures as freezing PLN 2 billion of thebudget and halting the transfer of moneyinto revolving funds that were not exhaustedin previous years,” Dorn said. “This showsthat the Polish military, and the Polish de-fense sector in general, are very insecureabout their future, which of course is not agood sign for business.”

This instability is caused by significantdiscrepancies between the operationalplans of the Ministry of Defense, the min-istry’s procurement plans, and the actualprocurement carried out by the ministry. “It

is not a big problem for foreign defensecompanies, who are active in many nationalmarkets,” Dorn said, “but for Polish defensecompanies, who produce for the domesticmarket, this lack of coordination betweenplanning and executing procurement is amajor problem. For instance, many Polishcompanies in the defense sector were veryenthusiastic about the semi-propelled, pas-sive-guided Loara missile system, but it wassuddenly dropped by the Ministry of De-fense without any warning. This shows thateven defense companies that cooperatewith the ministry very closely are not freefrom sudden turbulence.”

Another example that Dorn referred to isthe modernization of Poland’s domesticanti-aircraft defense system. According toDorn, the Russian anti-aircraft missiles Nevaand Krug that Poland operates are outdatedand unfit for any upgrade. Therefore, Dornargued, it was natural to assume thatPoland would resort to other systems, butrecently Minister of Defense Bogdan Klichhinted that the system will be modernizedrather than replaced. “Too bad,” Dorn said,“because those are long-term programs.They should not be changed from one dayto the next. The business community has tobe certain about what comes next in thecase of the national anti-aircraft defensesystem modernization.”

Another example: In the immediate futurePoland will have to make a decision aboutits missile shield system. Poland has achoice between the U.S. Patriot anti-missilesystem and a French one for which theparts can be manufactured in Poland by theradar system producer Radwar. “If the Min-istry of Defense decides in favor of the lat-ter,” Dorn explained, “Radwar can boastabout having a good future. The other wayaround, Radwar will have to struggle to getby, despite the fact that the quality of itsproducts is very high.” Dorn added, how-ever, that Poland may not choose either sys-tem because of a lack of financing.

Dorn said that the fate of the navy ship-yards, which are currently under bankruptcyprotection, is now in the hands of the gov-ernment. But uncertainty prevails. BecausePoland needs to replace two submarines inthe next few years, it seems reasonable thatthe government should consider a Frenchproposal to take over the navy shipyardsand build submarines there for Poland andother countries. On the other hand, Dornnoted that the technical specifications of theFrench submarines do not fit the tacticaland technological requirements specified bythe Polish Ministry of Defense for the re-placement of the current submarine fleet.The U-214 submarine made by Germanymeets those requirements, however. ButDorn said that although he did not know thetechnical details, if that were true it demon-strates a lack of consistency in the min-istry’s approach to the submarine replace-ment issue. “Again,” he said, “this results inuncertainty for all the companies con-cerned, including the state-owned navyshipyards but also their subcontractors,which are private companies.”

What can business count on? Dorn argued that such an inconsistent deci-

AgendaIntelligence from AmCham and its committees

For the AmCham Guide to Committees see inside back cover

sion-making process at the level of the Min-istry of Defense discourages companies inthe defense industry from cooperating withthe ministry. Nonetheless, they can rest as-sured that projects that have already beenbegun by the ministry will be continued—even those, Dorn was quick to add, that“make no rational sense.” He said that thisis because “nobody in the military wouldever admit to making a mistake.” An exam-ple of such doubtful rationality, according toDorn, is the Gawron project for building aship in the corvette class, which Dorn said isthe “longest-running project ever, and themost expensive,” for building a corvette.

Another thing that the defense industrycan be certain about in the way the Ministryof Defense sets its procurement goals is thatit will continue to support the F-16 project,because it is pivotal for the Polish Air Force.“Because of that I think there will be moneyto buy an advanced training aircraft for train-ing F-16 pilots,” Dorn said. “Everything thatis concerned with maintaining the F-16 proj-ect is of the highest priority.”

Dorn noted, however, that the ministrymay decide to buy an aircraft that is de-signed for both training and combat, due tothe fact that in 2014 the Air Force will haveto decommission a number of SU-22 fight-ers. Dorn argued that by buying training andcombat-ready fighters, the Air Force thinks itwill kill two birds with one stone, obtaining atraining aircraft for F-16 pilots as well as re-placing the Russian fighters and thus main-taining the number of combat aircraft at thesame level. He said, however, that he wasnot sure whether an aircraft that meets allthese requirements exists. Given that, hesaid he was sure that Poland will eventuallypurchase a training aircraft for F-16 pilots,while the issue of the SU-22 replacementmay be hanging in the air for some time inthe future.

Dorn said that defense contractors shouldnot expect to see more procurement relatedto Poland’s involvement in Afghanistan, be-cause the consensus across the politicalspectrum is that Poland should withdrawfrom Afghanistan in 2012. “What was to becontracted for this mission has already beencontracted and no major procurement is, Ithink, intended by the ministry,” Dorn said.

The need for the Polish army to sportmodern military equipment when on maneu-vers with other NATO units is what actuallydefines the procurement policy, Dorn said.“There cannot be any other reason why PLN400 million has been earmarked for thetechnical uplift of the Puławski and Koś-ciuszko frigates, apart from the fact thatPoland needs to have something that it cansend to NATO naval maneuvers,” Dorn said,adding sarcastically, “They cannot fire, butthey can remain afloat, so they are goodenough.” In addition he said that the mod-ernization of the two frigates, which weremade in the U.S., has no positive impact onthe Polish defense industry whatsoever. Atthe same time he admitted that Poland can-not afford to buy two new frigates either.

Dorn said that the strategic goal for tech-nical upgrade of the Polish military is tomaintain its ability to send troops to foreigntheaters of conflict and take part in NATOexercises. “The biggest loser here is the

forces that are designed to defend Polishterritory, especially the tank units,” Dornsaid, “and I would not count on any pro-curement in this area in the future.”

IT warfare War no longer requires tanks and missiles. Itcan be launched through IT systems anddisinformation. Dorn said that there is somemoney earmarked for electronic warfare inthe budget of the Polish Ministry of Defense,but it is an insignificant amount and hecould not even remember under what entrythe money is listed. He commented: “Whenyou look at the relations between govern-ment, politicians and business in Poland,you will see that it is dominated by a rela-tively hermetic and specific network of busi-nesspeople, who for many reasons do notwant to talk about electronic warfare andwould like to suppress any conversationsabout it.”

Dorn also noted that the recent WikiLeaksscandal has not prompted any discussionabout data security in the Ministry of De-fense or among Polish MPs. He said thatmost communications between governmentdepartments and Polish diplomatic postsare made on paper.

Problem-solvingThe biggest problem signaled by the Ameri-can defense sector professionals at themeeting was the difficulty in consulting andinteracting with the Polish Ministry of De-fense. Although the ministry is the primarypurchaser of U.S. defense equipment here,ministry staff donot want to talk tothe American sup-pliers for fear ofbeing accused ofcorruption. Thisgives the defenseindustry the im-pression that theministry is moreconcerned with in-vestigating corrup-tion cases thanwith implementingbest-practice guid-ance. This is amajor obstacle forU.S. producers toprovide the bestequipment to meetthe operationalneeds of the Polishmilitary.

Dorn admittedthat the fear of cor-ruption is great,bordering on irra-tional, among Min-istry of Defense of-ficials, but it de-rives from realpathologies withintheir ranks. Dornsaid that the bestway to break thisbarrier would bethrough a joint ef-fort of all defensemanufacturers,

both Polish and foreign, to petition the min-istry to improve its communications with theindustry, with a call for dialogue to helpsolve the problem. “I’m not sure how it willwork,” he said, “and I am sure it will take along time to succeed. But such a concertedeffort of all the industry players would be agood starting point.” Dorn argued that if in-stead of one company, a wide variety of dif-ferent players in the defense sector cameforth with the same proposition, it wouldmake a difference for the Ministry of De-fense and prompt it to present the issue asthe ministry sees it. “This, in turn, would nat-urally lead to efforts aimed at solving theproblem.”

Reforms necessaryDorn said that every ministry in the Polishgovernment has a tendency to act irra-tionally. In the case of the Ministry of De-fense, he said, this may change only whencivilian control over the military is reinforced,especially when it comes to financial over-sight. He said that the ideal model would bethat developed in Germany, where the fi-nances of the armed forces are supervisedby the federal parliament, and every expen-diture of over EUR 25 million has to be ap-proved at a closed session of the DefenseCommittee of the Bundestag. “In Poland,the National Defense Committee in Parlia-ment does not have such powers,” Dorncomplained. “Until that is changed, nothingwill improve the rationality of military pro-curement decision-making.”

Ludwik Dorn, AmCham Chairman Joseph Wancer and committee co-chairPaul Zalucky

Kelly Services is a world leader in human resources solutions. We offer temporary

staffing services, outsourcing, and full-timeplacement, with skills including office services,accounting, engineering, information technol-ogy, law, science, marketing, creative services,

light industrial and health care.

At Kelly Services Poland please contact:

Izabela KawczynskiNational Sales Manager

E-mail: [email protected]: +48 698 084 182

Agnieszka WalterCountry General Manager

E-mail: [email protected]: +48 608 677 300

HOT DATE

Feb.09.11Event: 3rd SME Business Forum

Place: Merliniego 5 Restaurant and Winebar

Time: 6:00 P.M.

I was still being processed at the pier. Isuddenly saw Black people in the uniformsof the immigration service. How was thatpossible? How could they, themselves per-secuted under American law, decide onwhom to accept into the States? It was sim-ply irrational, I thought.

The second shock came when I noticedthat they were armed. Within seconds Spar-tacus came to my mind. Why were theBlacks not in revolt, fighting for their free-dom, led by Paul Robeson and his music?

The third shock took place when I wasalready working, but shortly after my arrivalin the U.S. New York electricians went onstrike. It was a big strike. In my mind I im-mediately formed a scenario in which thestrikers and their families were roughlyevicted from their homes and apartmentsand left without any pay or food. Wherecould they go? Yes, of course, to live underthe bridges.... With anger and high emotionI went, therefore, to see what was going onunder the Brooklyn Bridge, the ManhattanBridge and other bridges in New York City,looking for desperate fathers, mothers andtheir children. But I did not see any. My rel-atives and friends laughed at me when Itold them the reason why I was walkingalong the river. I was confused and thenangry. Why was the world so different fromwhat I had been taught? So, the first twoyears in America were the years of rediscov-ering the world.

at the age of 19 and 20?Yes, and that is why that period of my lifewas full of mental bruises. Not only that Icould not communicate properly withAmericans, because my English was non-existent upon arrival, but I also lacked thefundamental knowledge of how the Ameri-can society functioned. Any Americanteenager was better prepared for life than Iwas. This was devastating to me. I was forinstance shocked that people did not stealfruit, clothing or shoes displayed unat-tended in front of the stores on the pave-ment. In Poland it was simply unimagin-able! While in school in Poland, I remembera teacher tried hard to explain to us thatunder communism people know that theyshould take into their possession only asmuch as needed for their daily use andleave the rest to others. We all loudly agreedwith this philosophy. Then, to test our un-derstanding and commitment, the teacherleft dozens of pencils on a table and left theroom after having urged us to take pencilsonly if we had none, like good communistswould do. A few minutes later he returnedand was disappointed to see that all thepencils were gone, although there were only

10 AMERICAN INVESTOR FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY 2011 AMERICAN INVESTOR 11

COVER STORY: New AmCham Chairman

A classic American tale American

Investor’s TomĆwiok talks

with AmChamChairman

Joseph Wancerabout his earlylife, his culture

shock on arrivalin the United

States, the milestones of

his professional career, and thewisdom he hasgained from it

all.

You were born in the komi re-public, a part of the soviet unionthen, in a gulag. please tell us

something about your family and yourearly years.My parents were from Warsaw. My familylived in Poland for generations. WhenWorld War II broke out and Warsaw was oc-cupied by the Germans, my parents fledeast towards the Soviet Union. Around thecity of Białystok, they were arrested, to-gether with hundreds of other familiesfrom Poland, by the NKVD, and as “unde-sirables” they were sent to labor camps inKomi. I was born in one such camp, ZatonKrasny Vodnik.

The family survived the horrible condi-tions and, at last, returned to Poland in1946. The repatriates from Soviet gulagswere, as a rule, resettled in Poland in LowerSilesia, in areas that had been inhabitedmainly by the German population. Our des-tination was Bielawa, even though my par-ents were from Warsaw. We managed tocome back to Warsaw in 1952, where I wentto school and High School No. 14, thennamed Gottwald, today named Staszic.

In 1961, at 19, I formally emigrated to theU.S. Alone.

American relatives on my mother’s sideof the family helped me in my early days inNew York. Two years later I brought myparents to New York.

What were your first impressions of theu.s.?This was the very first trip in my life out-side of Poland, and I found New York Cityfull of contradictions, amazing and scary. Ajungle. But you have to remember that inthe 1950s we in Poland were completelybrainwashed by anti-American propaganda.Whatever you read about the U.S. was neg-ative, except for the western movies. WhenI left Poland I was so naïve that the thoughtof it even today still hurts, realizing how ayoung human mind can be manipulated. Ihad been convinced that the Black peoplewere still physically persecuted everywherein the U.S., and that workers who had beenon strike were routinely kicked out of theirapartments as punishment, and thus had tolive with their families under the bridgeswithout means to support themselves.

So, the arrival in New York was full of ex-citement, fear and hope. Tears were in theeyes of all immigrants on that boat, theFlandre. When the Statue of Liberty cameinto sight it whispered to me: “This is it!You are now in America!” After that eventhe physical and immigration inspectionwas not as fearsome as I had anticipated.

The first shock was delivered to me when

about 20 pupils in the class and many ofthem had had pencils before the exercise.

I was also somewhat intimidated to ob-serve how young Americans easily madedecisions. Moreover, it was shocking to meto note how independent they were at theirage, how smoothly they conveyed theiropinion to their elders, although quiteoften in a poor manner, which I took assigns of clear disrespect.

As an immigrant, in order to be admittedto college, one had to take a number ofqualifying courses in English and in Amer-ican history. So I attended them. Therewas a student there from South America,who strongly questioned the teacher’s po-sition on the lack of American imperialismin the 18th and 19th centuries. I froze.How was it possible that a student tells theteacher and the class that he is wrong, thathe lies! Similar episodes in fact took placein my high school in Warsaw, and they al-ways ended up with a loud shriek from theteacher, expulsion of the “undisciplined”pupils from the class, a harsh meeting be-tween the school authorities and the par-ents within days and, often, dismissal fromthe school.

But in New York, the teacher asked thestudent whether he was sure of his opin-ion. He asked if the class agreed with thestudent. Most students supported theteacher. He then suggested that a debateshould take place. I could not believe it.What happens to the teacher’s authority?Was he really wrong? How was it possiblethat the whole American education systemcould be challenged by José, an immi-grant? Will he even be allowed to stay inthe States?

The debate took place in a very formal-ized manner. The student representedhimself in the debate, while the rest of theclass elected their representative. Eachparty to the debate had the same amountof time to argue their points and had tostick to the rules. The teacher acted as anarbiter. At the end, the class voted the win-ner of the debate. The student lost. But hewas never criticized for losing the debate.He finished the class with a very highgrade. Later on, I spoke with the teacherabout the whole situation. He was sur-prised that I had challenged José’s rightand will to express his belief. He also couldnot understand why I associated José’s dif-ference of opinion with the teacher’s lossof authority. It was a question of being freeto think as an individual, he explained tome. My whole concept of personal author-ity was in ruins. I doubted whether I couldever be as strong an individual as José.

how did you earn your living then?Within 10 days after arrival, I went to workin a factory to practice to become a tool-and-die maker. For months my main jobwas to sweep the floor and learn to stay onmy feet for 9 hours with a 30-minute

break. What a horror! At night I went toschool to learn English. And then, afterbeing in the country for two years, I wasdrafted into the U.S. Army, since I was sin-gle and a part-time student only.

how was it to serve in the u.s. army?any experience there that was impor-tant later in your life?At first, I was unhappy about it. Thethought of “losing” two years of my life wasbitter. I had never, never believed that Iwould ever wind up in the Army. Any armyfor that matter!

But it turned out to be quite alright. Imet the whole spectrum of Americansfrom all over the country. How much theydiffered from New Yorkers!

We were sent to Germany. I took mytime in the Army to attend some coursesthat prepared me for college. After 18months I was back in New York, quit myfactory job, got married and found a job atCitibank.

The experience in the Army helped mealong in life, because we learned one thingthere: regardless of your rank, if your com-manding officer is killed, you have to beprepared to take over leadership of theunit—even as a private. That was some-thing new to me. I had never encounteredsuch an attitude before.

how did you find your first job in thebanking sector?I was back from the Army, working in thesame factory, but I already knew that thefactory work was not for me. I knew that Iwanted something that would give melong-term prospects. I picked up a copy ofThe New York Times and went over theclassified ads. Citibank advertised a cleri-cal position in the foreign department, andI applied for it. I knew nothing about bank-ing then. In fact, I always wanted to be amedical doctor.

Your education was not strictly eco-nomics. You earned two master’s de-grees, one in international manage-ment and the other in human rela-tions, both at Webster university in Vi-enna…But first I earned my bachelor’s degree ineconomics from the City College of NewYork. I worked daytime and studied atnight. But when the bank opened a specialnight department, they offered me themanager’s position, so I could continue mydaytime studies. Years later, when I livedand worked in Vienna, I earned the twomaster’s degrees from Webster University.

do you remember your first day atcitibank?Yes. My first day on the job at Citibank wasat 111 Wall Street, New York. It was the In-ternational Division—complaints and cor-respondence with corresponding banks of


COVER STORY: New AmCham Chairman

Citibank. I remember the American-stylehuge open space, some 2,000 plus squaremeters. I was called by one of the assistantvice presidents, who showed me my deskand introduced me to other colleagues. Hetold me I was on a probation period. “Youmake it, that is fine,” he told me. “Youdon’t make it, you will be fired.” He alsotold me what the bank’s expectations wereand that no overtime would be paid unlessthe bank asked me to do overtime. I felt alittle bit lost and part of a huge machinery.I never saw in my life so many peopleworking next to each other!

how did you find relations with peo-ple at work?People were very open about what neededto be done. I realized very quickly that un-less I improved fast and become a providerof services of good quality, I would be re-leased at once. It was intimidating to see somany competitors around me for betterpositions. So I had to learn a lot, especiallythe English banking vocabulary, which wascompletely new to me. Eventually, I real-ized that the way to progress in the job andbecome more efficient was to review casesthat had already been completed. I waslooking for the modus operandi. Most ofmy colleagues were helping me with thisapproach—an example of teamwork, and atthat time I did not yet realize how impor-tant this concept was going to be in my ca-reer. In order to master the process, I hadto stay after hours and study the completedcases.

how did the assistant vice presidentreact to your staying at work longhours when you were actually notsupposed to do that?Well, he saw me one day in the office at latehours and became angry about it. “Over-time?” he asked. “Did I ask you to stayovertime?” He was surprised to learn Istayed longer for no additional pay, butwhen he learned why he said it was inter-esting and told me to go ahead, adding:“But no additional pay.”

so you made it. You stayed after theprobation period…I did. But the real surprise came a yearlater when I became Section Head. It wasmy first promotion at Citibank. I was sur-prised because there were many peoplewho had worked there longer than I had.

did you think at that time that youwould remain with citibank for a longtime?No. I never really thought about my future.I worked, I liked it, and just continued.

But a few years later, in 1968, anothershock came my way. I was told that whenthe position of the department managingdirector was vacant I would get it in recog-nition of my performance. I was very

happy, and it was an important factorboosting my motivation. When the positionindeed became available, my manager con-gratulated me for being promoted. A fewdays later he told me that due to an admin-istrative error this position had, in fact, al-ready been promised to another person.Consequently, I had to patiently wait formy promotion at a later time. To compen-sate me for the disappointment, theywould give me a special salary increase. Isaid “no” and refused to accept this propo-sition. I suddenly felt that the bond I hadhad with the bank crashed. That I wasdealt with like a pawn. That the corporateculture should not tolerate this kind ofcommunication mistake, because humanbeings were involved and we, the employ-ees, were not transactions.

My manager could not believe what Isaid. I think the organization must havebeen shocked about my strong feelings inregard to openness and trust in the bank.They came back to me and again offeredme the position of department manager. Itwas the first time in my life when I wasconfronted with the issue of the relation-ship between the corporate and the indi-vidual.

What other milestones of your profes-sional life at citibank stick out in yourmemory?Once I went to the HR office and askedwhat criteria I needed to meet to workabroad. I wanted to be an expat and workwith people of different cultures. “Get yourcollege degree first,” the HR people toldme.

Some years later, when I finished my lastfinal exam, I quickly ran to the HR office tofollow up on the conversation I had withthem to be posted abroad. Now I was for-mally fit for it. Two weeks later they calledme and told me they had indeed foundrecords of this conversation. I was im-pressed and very proud to work for such a“human” organization. In my mind noother corporation could beat the corporateculture of Citibank.

So they put me through a series of inter-views and I passed them. Since my prefer-ence was Asia, they put me through specialfunctions in New York as financial con-troller for Asian countries, so I could be-come a part of their international staff andgo to work for Citibank in Japan. AfterJapan, I had international assignments inAustria, the U.K. and France.

But a truly huge milestone of my profes-sional life— in fact, the most importantevent in my professional career—camewhen I was taking the on-the-job trainingin New York getting ready for the assign-ment in Japan. My boss was a woman, anassistant vice president, who was a top-level women’s liberation movement activistpromoting women’s careers in business.She had a very strong character and per-

sonality, trying to prove to be “better” thanany man, at work, in drinking, in smoking,and in cursing.

One day she called me into her officeand asked me what I wanted to do with mylife. I said something and she literallythrew me out of her office. Two weeks latershe called me in and asked the same ques-tion. Apparently my answer did not meether expectation, so I was again thrown outof her office. The third time she called meinto her office and asked the same ques-tion, my response was that one day Iwanted to take her position. She said:“Now you’re talking!” She spent an hourtalking with me, asking me questions, tak-ing in my answers and forcing me to reachsome conclusions of my own. She did nottell me what I should be doing. I suddenlyrealized that I was the driver of my life andtherefore it was my duty to choose the ca-reer road I thought the best for me. It wasa revelation! Till then, I believed that thecorporation would always think of my pro-motions and job satisfaction, as long as Iwas their “good soldier.” The conversationwith Gail helped me realize that from thenon I would be in charge of my professionallife. That meant that I needed to plan mycareer, think about criteria I had to meetand the challenges I should overcome. Myresolution was to move “upwards” everytwo or three years. I still live by that princi-ple.

how did this realization influence thethinking about your future career?I had to think where I wanted to be in thefuture, and in order to be there I knew Ihad to find what I needed to learn to getready for that. Since then, I have been ap-plying that technique continuously. Itproved itself in every place I worked. Andwhen I was a manager later, I was alwaystelling my employees, for instance the10,000 people at Bank BPH, that theyshould not put their future in the hands ofJoseph Wancer but plan it themselves.

how do you approach people that youwork with? What are the personal fea-tures that you value?There are managers who are the gorillatype. They are very pushy, very autocraticand quite often arrogant. They are very de-termined and ego-driven about their posi-tions.

Then there are people who are very ana-lytical. They hide themselves in a corner.They like peace and quiet. They see theworld through their analysis. They under-stand and contribute to it, but they do notwant to have too much emotional experi-ence with people. They want to help, butthey want to work alone.

There are also managers who have agreat deal of compassion—those with visi-ble emotional intelligence.

None of those groups is wrong or right.

You just belong to one of them, because ofyour personality. But you interview differ-ently depending on what situation yourcompany is in. When it is in crisis youoften need the gorilla type of managers,because your company is in trouble andhas no time to lose. Surviving is the goal.But next to “gorillas” you should havemanagers with strong emotional intelli-gence—because in this crisis some verydrastic decisions are made and you mustnot forget that people are the most impor-tant asset in any corporation. You are deal-ing with human beings, and you must nottreat people as if they were objects.

The analytical manager is always neededto equip the other type of managers withdata, statistics, trends and analysis of con-sequences for various decisions.

So when I hire managers I look in regardto what I need to do in the next three tofive years in business.

But the best thing to look for in peopleyou hire is their past experience. It mattersmore what the person has actually donethan what he or she thinks they can do.Tangible proof of achievement is a must.Titles themselves are nothing more thanjust titles. Without the stories of successand failure they are empty and useless.

It is also always important to me that Ideal with a person who above all is not ego-driven to the point of obsession. I want aperson who thinks about his or her careerin a good, realistic manner. We need teamplayers. No individual is worth acorporation. So it is very importanthow the candidates deal with theiremotions. I do notapprove of unprofes-sional value judg-ments about people.Words have meaning,and one needs to beaware of it when pre-senting a personalopinion.

In summary, I pre-fer to hire peoplewho believe in reach-ing goals throughfreedom of action forothers. This requiresa great deal of com-passion.

What made you re-turn to poland?From the very begin-ning I tried to assim-ilate and become aregular U.S. citizen.At the same time, Iwas always very in-terested in what washappening in Poland.I always followed de-velopments in Polandreported by the

media in the U.S. I was also in touch withsome of my closest friends in Poland.

Professionally, as an executive atCitibank I had direct contact with Polishbanks and government officials. The politi-cal developments of 1989, which were ofhistorical magnitude as we realized later,brought nostalgic feelings for Poland. Ad-ditionally, many of the Polish bankers andbusinesspeople were telling me that Ishould return to Poland to boost the trans-formation process, especially in the bank-ing sector.

Their arguments made me think veryseriously about my possible contributionthat I could offer to Poland in such a criti-cal time for the country’s economic devel-opment. I strongly believed that my profes-sional experience, education and knowl-edge of the Polish culture would be of ben-efit to the emerging generation of champi-ons of change. Thinking of it all, I askedmyself two questions: “If not me thenwho?” and “If not now then when?” just asRonald Reagan did in his second presiden-tial campaign.

But going to Poland meant leaving Citi-bank after almost 25 years and as a vice

president. The risks were high. Being 49years of age did not make things easier—just the opposite. But I realized that if I re-jected this notion I would feel guilty aboutit for the rest of my life. I simply had toovercome my fears. I was confident aboutmy value as a professional. I was very opti-mistic about the future of the Polish trans-formation because, from a historical per-spective, it could not have failed. So I madeup my mind about leaving the bank. Inrecognition of my experience and profes-sional value, Citibank asked me to becometheir consultant and set up their office inWarsaw, which I did.

did you feel at any moment whenback in poland that you might notmake it?The first months, after 30 years of absencefrom Poland, were, of course, difficult be-cause of uncertainty. The existing bankingsystem differed substantially from all West-ern standards. The customers’ knowledgeabout banking products was practicallynon-existent. The importance of creditrisk analysis was missing in banks. Cus-tomer service quality was extremely low.But the eagerness to move ahead in thetransformation process was fabulous!

The real challenge for me was to find away to implement the changes without de-stroying the morale of the workers who, inthe past, had never been exposed to mod-ern banking. Working with people was notalways easy and required determinationand commitment, but I knew I would suc-ceed because I was determined to succeed.

You decided to semi-retire in 2009, butit seems that you do not have too muchtime on your hands. You are amchamchairman and a strategic advisor tothe management board of deloitte, butalso a member of the Business centreclub’s General council, and the War-saw-Józefów rotary club, a memberof the supervisory board of the insur-ance company ptu, a board memberof the auschwitz-Birkenau Founda-tion, where you also serve as thechairman of the Finance committee,and an associate professor of manage-ment at the Warsaw university oftechnology. What motivates you to beengaged in so many activities?Semi-retirement means that after 49 yearsof work, at 68, I decided to have more timefor myself and my family. It is also the righttime to share my professional experiencewith business and social communities. So,for me it is about giving back to the societythe best I have accumulated in my profes-sional career… in fact, in my whole life!


AMCHAM: Monthly Meeting

In the AmCham tradition, the firstMonthly Breakfast Meeting each New Yearis devoted to a review of the global economyand its impact on Poland. This year threedistinguished economists, Mark Allen,Jakub Borowski and Ryszard Petru, sharedtheir views at the AmCham Monthly Meet-ing in January. The discussion was moder-

ated by AmCham Chairman Joseph Wancer.

Growth made in chinaChina is now one of the few countries

stimulating global economic growth, whichother countries, especially those in eco-nomic dire straits, should be grateful toChina for, according to Mark Allen of the

Poland is not an island

AmCham panelists predict that the growth of Poland’s economy in2011 will be most impacted by nearby Germany and far-off China

IMF. “The Chinese economy is growingstrongly,” he said, “and we expect thisgrowth to continue for the next few years.Other Asian economies are powering aheadwith the growth ratio of about 7–8% of grossdomestic product for the year ahead, whichis pulling the world economy along in a waythat is very beneficial for the rest of the

world.”Allen noted that the economic growth of

other countries looks much less firm: “Inthe U.S. we are seeing growth now at 3% ofGDP in 2010 and about 2.5% of GDP forthe next couple of years. The whole processis moving from public stimulus through thefiscal system and the support from the Fedthrough quantitative easing. We have seen agradual handover to private sector activity,but the process is somewhat hesitant.”

Economic growth in China does not comewithout consequences for the rest of theworld, however. The first is the influx ofcapital to China and other emerging mar-kets. Allen said that the money that wasflowing into emerging economies before thecrisis is still flowing there after the crisis.Less of it, however, is coming to the emerg-ing markets in Europe than to the emergingmarkets in Asia and Latin America.

The second problem is that global imbal-ances, which had been growing through theperiod leading up to the crisis, seem to beresuming. “The Chinese surplus shows lit-tle sign of abating,” Allen said. “The fixedexchange policy of China complicates eco-nomic management for China and a lot ofother countries who find it difficult to ac-cept the appreciation of their exchange ratesif the Chinese exchange rate is not appreci-ating itself.”

But according to another panelist, JakubBorowski from Invest-Bank, the Chineseeconomy shows signs of overheating. One ofthe best indicators is the inflation rate,which rose to 5% instead of the 3% which isarguably the inflationary target for Chineseauthorities. “There are also rising wagepressures and new stocks of international

currency reserves generated by the Chinesecentral bank,” Borowski said. “There aremany signs which show that the Chineseeconomy is overheated, and the authoritieshave to do something about it.”

Borowski noted that as a matter of factthe Chinese authorities have already tight-ened their monetary policy: “I expect someslowdown in the economic growth in China.It is true that the Chinese economy will cer-tainly grow at the level of 7–8% in annualterms, but it will be slower than before.”

A lot will depend on how the Chinese au-thorities handle the economic slowdown.Borowski expects a tightening of monetarypolicy by rising interest rates. “However, I

would not expect that the Chinese authori-ties will let the yuan appreciate against thedollar and the euro,” Borowski said. “Theyare more likely to let the yuan appreciate invalue when the economy is in good shape,rather than when it is in a downturn. Sup-porting growth through boosting exportswill be continued by China, and that meansfurther accumulation of foreign currency re-serves.”

If this scenario materializes, the questionof the rising economic strength of Chinawill be fundamental: What will the Chinesedo with their accumulated wealth? ForBorowski, if this happens China will havemore and more money to finance variousprojects, which in turn may have a substan-tial impact on the country’s political stand-ing.

debt-ridden eurozoneThe problems of the Chinese economy arenothing compared to those faced by coun-tries affected by the financial crisis, becauseof the high degree of borrowing that oc-curred in the world economy. According toAllen, not much progress has taken place indeleveraging the debt. Instead, a cash vac-uum has hit national governments, whichincreased the leverage of their sovereigndebt, causing concerns about sovereign debtsustainability. “That is particularly the casein the periphery of the Eurozone, where themarkets have lost confidence in the ability ofthe Greeks to service their debts or theIrish to service the debts that resulted fromthe Irish guarantee of the excesses of theirbanking system,” Allen said.

No one knows now how this problem isgoing to be solved. What is known is that

there are a number of sovereign countrieswhere the debt is simply too high, and theliabilities that they have incurred, in somecases over a long time and in other cases asa result of the crisis, are too high. “There isa feedback mechanism between the sover-eigns which were in some distress and thebanking system,” Allen explained. “A lot ofthe European banks, not just the banks inthose countries which are most severely af-fected, but throughout the core Eurozoneand other countries in Europe like the U.K.,are heavily invested in sovereign paper ofthe Eurozone countries, and so there aresome doubts at the moment about the sol-vency of the banks. We hope that new stress

tests that will soon be announced will bemore effective than the previous ones,restoring confidence in outlining what theproblem is in the banking system, and thatthe public policy response from govern-ments will be sufficient to insure that thesebanks are considered sound going ahead.”

Allen also noted that the present eco-nomic decision-making structures in theEurozone only help veil the crisis. “It isclear that the Eurozone countries need tooperate in a much more coordinated fashionin dealing with these problems,” he said.“And yet all the politics is local, and it isproving to be very difficult to generate theform of consensus that is needed to moveahead. However, necessity is the mother ofinvention, and let us hope that the responsesystem will be effective in the next fewmonths ahead. Certainly a lot of intellectualfirepower is going into the issue.”

Independent economist Ryszard Petru ob-served that in early 2011, some crucial is-sues about the future of the Eurozone arestill unsolved. “2010 ended almost with acrash,” Petru said. “There is a very fragilesituation in Portugal, but it is a small coun-try and financial assistance can be renderedto the country relatively easily. When itcomes to Spain, however, we may be in bigtrouble. So far the leaders of the E.U. coun-tries were coming up with some decisionsthat were not solving the problem but post-poning its escalation. One of the proposalswas to issue Eurobonds.”

According to Petru, the cost of restructur-ing Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt willbe covered by British, French and Germanbanks. Those banks, however, are not invery good shape. Some are already owned by

the government. “Since a lot of those bondsare owned by German banks, the Germangovernment will have to foot the bill eventu-ally,” Petru said. “This is why some of theE.U. member states’ governments try topostpone making a definitive decision aboutsolving the crisis. But the sooner they comeup with the right decision the better, be-cause you cannot postpone paying for thecrisis forever.”

With respect to the Eurozone, JakubBorowski expects new turmoil in the finan-cial markets over the next months. “Theborrowing needs of the peripheral Eurozonecountries will peak in March,” he said, “sofor at least a few months the issue will be

“I expect some slowdown in the economic growth in China.The Chinese economy will certainly grow at the level of 7–8% in annual terms, but it will be slower than before.”

JAKUB BOROWSKI


Tomasz Ćwiok

AMCHAM: Monthly Meeting


Meet the speakers

MARK ALLEN is the former director of the Pol-icy Development and Review Department atthe International Monetary Fund (2003–2008).His earlier assignments included Senior IMFResident Representative in Poland (1990–1993) and in Hungary (1996–1998). He is cur-rently Senior Resident Representative, andsince June 2009 heads the IMF’s Regional Of-fice for Central and Eastern Europe. He waseducated at Cambridge and Yale and at whatis now known as the University of National andWorld Economy, in Sofia.

JAKUB BOROWSKI is the chief economist ofInvest-Bank SA. He graduated from the Facultyof Banking and Finance at the Warsaw Schoolof Economics. He received a DAAD scholar-ship at Humboldt University in Berlin and con-ducted research at the National Bank of Aus-tria, the German Institute for Economic Re-search, and the German Federal Ministry of Fi-nance. In 2002–2007 he headed the MonetaryPolicy Division at the National Bank of Poland.In 2003–2004 he led the team of economistswho prepared the NBP’s Report on the Costsand Benefits of Poland’s Adoption of the Euro.In 2009–2010 he headed a team of academicswho prepared a study on the impact that host-ing the Euro 2012 European Football Champi-onship will have on the economy of Poland.

RYSZARD PETRU is an independent econo-mist. Previously chief economist of BRE Bankand chief economist of Bank BPH, Petru wasresponsible for macroeconomic analysis andresearch on monetary policy and economicdevelopment. Prior to BPH, Petru worked as acountry economist for Poland and Hungary atthe World Bank, where he also dealt withmacroeconomic issues. He has advised Cen-tral & Eastern European countries on pensionreform and public finance. In 1997–2000 he ad-vised Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Fi-nance Leszek Balcerowicz. He co-authored thereform of Poland’s social security system.Petru is a graduate of the Warsaw School ofEconomics.

quite tense across the Eurozone area.” Borowski also expects heated debate to

take place between governments of the Eu-rozone countries. While some of them willpropose to solve the problem of insolvencyby issuing more government-backed bonds,others will opt for increasing the Eurozonefinancial stability fund. In addition, Chinamay try to buy some sovereign debt, and ifthat happens it will add a new dimension tothe problem of the insolvency of some Euro-zone countries.

But while a political solution to this prob-lem seems to be difficult to reach at present,the European Central Bank will be doing itsjob of buying bonds, partially driven by “theChinese appetite for bonds,” as Borowskiput it.

In his view, the involvement of the Euro-pean Central Bank in the market is criticalin making economic recovery happen in theEurozone. “The bank will continue buyinglarge packages of sovereign bonds to helpthe countries that issued the bonds main-tain their reputation in the marketplace,” hesaid.

But there is no compelling reason to as-sume that this solution will be effective inthe future. There are ideas of applying fiscalsanctions to the countries that are not act-ing in a responsible way with their debt, butthis approach is contested by countries likeFrance, which maintains that the EuropeanCommission will not be able to impose suchsanctions on any country because the ma-jority of countries with representatives inthe commission will reject it. “The threat isthat even if such a new regime is put to-gether it will not be effective,” Borowskisaid.

According to Allen, in the case of coun-tries in which markets have lost completeconfidence—Greece and Ireland—they have

to come to the IMF and other institutions inEurope for money. A large support packageis being put in place for them so they do nothave to tap the financial markets for a cou-ple of years. “The idea is that during thenext two years the adjustment programs willbite,” Allen said, “and the markets will re-gain confidence, and finally that the coun-tries will tap the markets again in two orthree years down the road. This strategy willbe applied to Portugal and Spain.”

There are a couple of problems with this,however. The question is whether market

confidence will be restored and whether thegovernments will have enough income toservice the new debt. “So long as the marketis not sure that they do, the market confi-dence is not going to be restored,” Allensaid.

The markets are also concerned thatthere will be some form of debt restructur-ing, which, if it happens, may make it prof-itable for new lenders to lend to those coun-tries. There is the danger, however, that thecrisis may drag on, and in a couple of yearsthese countries may again find themselvesin need of more money for further economicadjustment.

no competitive edgeThe problem of the indebtedness of Greece,Spain, Portugal and Ireland is just one sideof the coin. The other is that those coun-tries are very uncompetitive in the globalmarketplace and therefore are not able togenerate enough taxable income to pay backtheir debt. “The measure of how uncompet-itive Greece is today is the fact that Polandexports tomatoes to Greece because toma-toes from Poland are much cheaper thanthose grown in Greece,” Petru said. “All thatdespite the fact that Greece has a much bet-ter climate for growing tomatoes. However,the costs of labor and transportation aremuch lower in Poland. So with such an un-competitive labor market as there is inGreece today, it is clear that without reformsthe country will not have enough taxable in-come to shoulder paying its debt.”

Borowski agreed that Greece needs lowerwages. “It may be achieved in time,” he said,“when the unemployment rate goes up, butit may take years before the Greek economyachieves a new equilibrium.”

Petru noted that it is unlikely that Greecewill have the reforms it needs in due time,

because there is no discussion about theneed to restructure the economies of thedebt-ridden Eurozone states. “Therefore itmay happen that a few wrong decisions aremade by several countries,” Petru explained,“and through a domino effect the Eurozonewill be broken, with some countries goingback to their national currencies.”

Who wants out of the eurozone?Allen agreed that while what is happeningwith the Eurozone is causing some seriousheadaches for European politicians, no

country has an advantage in leaving the Eu-rozone at this point. “It is not really a crisisof the currency, but a crisis of individualsovereigns and their economic policies asput together in the Eurozone,” Allen said.

He noted that it is also not possible forthose countries to be pushed out of thezone. “If they are, their governments willfind themselves unable to meet their obliga-tions and will have to start issuing promis-sory notes and other forms of currency fordomestic purposes. We do not see any signof that at the moment.”

Petru agreed that it is hard to find anycountry that would benefit from going backto its own currency now. “For Portugal orGreece, it would mean instant bankruptcy,”he said. “For Germany it would mean in-stant appreciation of the deutschmark, andnobody would want to buy German prod-ucts.”

poland tied to GermanyEven with a mounting deficit in Poland’spublic finances, the country seems to be ona relatively safe growth course. The consen-sus among the AmCham panelists was thatthis year Poland should generate a healthy3.5–4.0% GDP growth.

Borowski observed that there were threefactors contributing to the relatively goodperformance of the Polish economy over thelast two years. The absorption of E.U. fundswas one, and Poland did quite a good job atthat. The substantial depreciation of thezloty, particularly at the beginning of thecrisis, also had a positive impact on theeconomy. Eventually, there was some sub-stantial fiscal stimulus, particularly in 2009.But Borowski said that two of those factorsare no longer at work. “The zloty exchangerate appreciated, and Poland now has toconsolidate its fiscal position,” he said.

“Also, no more fiscal stimulus is going to bethere. Practically speaking, only the E.U.funds still work for Poland as an extra factorcontributing to the country’s economicgrowth by roughly 1 percentage point to thegrowth rate.”

Poland’s strong trade with Germany willhelp, according to Borowski. “Germany isgoing to grow at around 2% of GDP in2011,” he said. “It is also worth noting thataccording to IMF research, Germany is re-ceiving the greatest fiscal stimulus over2010–2011 among the G7 countries.”

Borowski also predicts improvement inthe labor market. “The question is aboutthe impact of the labor markets which willbe opened to Polish workers by Germanyand Austria in May 2011,” he said. “I think itwill significantly contribute to lowering theunemployment rate in Poland, so we proba-bly will see some more wage pressures inthe second half of 2011.”

Borowski said that relatively robustgrowth of Poland’s GDP this year may leadto either of two scenarios. The one that isgood for Poland, and is more likely to hap-

pen, is that relatively good GDP growth willhelp the country gradually improve its fiscalposition, appreciating the exchange rate forthe zloty, with some help from the monetarypolicy, and then will stabilize the ratio ofdebt to GDP. One of the most importantfactors that may contribute to achieving thisscenario is the relatively good situation ofPolish exporters and a favorable exchangerate. “The zloty is so low that even exporterssay it may rise against the euro by 10%,”Borowski said.

The negative scenario will take placewhen the feedback cycle does not occur.The economy then would slow down, partic-ularly in the second half of 2011, being fur-ther hurt by the problems of the Eurozone.This may result in some fiscal tensions inlate 2011. “But given the situation in thePolish economy, and if the German economycontinues to develop in the right direction,this scenario is only theoretically possible,”Borowski said.

Mark Allen observed that the Eurozonecrisis may spread to Poland nonetheless,through a number of channels. “One is thatwe see a general problem on the sovereigndebt market,” Allen said, “and it becomesdifficult for countries, including Poland, tofinance their late debts.” A second possibil-ity is that the financial crisis in Western Eu-ropean banks would have a spillover effecton the willingness of financial institutionshere in Poland to lend. Another risk is thatthere would be serious interruption togrowth in the Eurozone, and that wouldhave quite an impact on Poland.

Allen noted that the Polish government isfully aware of that risk, and it has increasedthe line of credit it has with the IMF. In2009 the government agreed with the IMF

on a flexible credit line of USD 20 billion toback up the Polish economy should there bea financial need. Recently the governmenthas requested an increase to about USD 30billion. “It has not been formally approvedyet by the IMF board, but it will be consid-ered in the immediate future,” Allen said.“So in addition to the Polish central bankreserves, the government has extra supportfrom the international community. Poland isstill among those countries in Europe thatare best placed to deal with the stormsahead.”

Ryszard Petru is convinced that Polandwill generate healthy GDP growth of 4% in2011. Inflation will probably rise, however,and the employment rate go down. For Petruthe key question is investments: “In recentyears corporations generated record-highprofits. Banks are again ready to providecredit lines to corporations. The main rea-son why corporations are not investing nowis simply the risk of the future. If you aresupposed to invest a few hundred milliondollars and you have no clue what is going tohappen to the euro, you simply wait andsee.”

Petru noted that the main factor that isgoing to push companies to make their finaldecision this year is capacity utilization—the ability to turn investment into profits.Before the crisis, capacity utilization was atabout 80%. During the crisis it fell to 70%.“Now we are getting back to the 80% levelof capacity utilization in Poland,” Petru said.“The main reason for the rise is exports.Germany has been exporting more recently,but Poland is selling parts to German ex-porters who then process them into goodsand export them to China. Poland’s econ-omy is very much dependent on German ex-ports, especially recently. The better Ger-man economy is better for the Polish econ-omy.”

“It is not really a crisis of the currency, but a crisis of individ-ual sovereigns and their economic policies as put together inthe Eurozone.”

MARK ALLEN

“Poland’s economy is very dependent onGerman exports, especially recently. Thebetter German economy is better for thePolish economy.”

RYSZARD PETRU


FOCUS: Human resources

If Poland is to catch up to the level ofeconomic development of the “old” Eu-ropean Union countries, it must grow

its per capita gross domestic product at amuch faster rate than such E.U. giants asFrance, Germany, Italy and the U.K. Accord-ing to experts, if Poland grows its GDP at adouble-digit rate each year, while the Westerncountries grow only at a single-digit rate, itwill take Poland 10 to 20 years to catch up interms of per capita GDP.

But how can that possibly happen? If Polishcompanies use the same technologies avail-able to their Western counterparts, the samemanagement techniques and the same corpo-rate organizational structures, they can be onlyas efficient as any other companies in theWest. How can they develop faster? Where isthe room for improvement?

Some of those questions were answered at aconference organized by HP consultancy HayGroup in January, which featured Prof. WitoldOrłowski of PwC, Małgorzata Rusewicz, direc-tor of social dialogue and employee relationsat the Confederation of Polish EmployersLewiatan, Stephan Frettloehr, Senior Manage-ment Consultant responsible for the BuildingEffective Organizations practice at Hay GroupPoland, Mik Kuczkiewicz, managing directorof Hay Group Poland, and Israel Berman, HayGroup Managing Director for Europe.

According to Prof. Orłowski, the area inwhich Polish companies have great potential toboost their effectiveness is human resources.Orłowski argues that since the start of theeconomic transformation in 1989, Polandcould have closed the gap in economic devel-opment with Germany had Polish companiesknown how to deploy the full potential of their

people. “Ten years ago almost all Polish HRmanagers would refer to their employees assimply ‘workforce,’” as Orłowski put it.“When you did not need them you simply firedthem. When you needed them you would re-hire and they would come back. That waswhat happened in the crisis years of 2001–2002.”

According to Orłowski, that was a totallywrong HR strategy. Employees were not at-tached to their companies, and their heartsand minds were not with them. As a result,their work efficiency was mediocre at best.

But corporations learned the hard way.When the economy improved they realizedthey needed their best people back onboard.In many cases, however, it was too late to getthem back. In 2010, when economic growth inPoland slowed, Polish companies were not astrigger-happy as they were eight years before.“They realized that they must keep their bestpeople even if it meant an effort for the com-pany,” Orłowski said. “Fire and rehire did notwork.”

human climate at workMałgorzata Rusewicz, confirms the shift inhow employees have been perceived by man-agement, from mere tools for executing thecompany’s strategy to human beings whosededication and intelligence contribute vastly tothe creation of the company’s value. “Bigcompanies are changing the way they look attheir employees,” Rusewicz said. “In the past,HR managers were referring to their people as‘workforce,’ but now they talk about ‘humancapital.’ This stems from the change in thePolish labor market, as fewer people are avail-able.”

Rusewicz said that a survey in 1997 showedhow critically poor human relations were be-tween employees and managers. “One of thedrivers that prompted workers in Poland tochange their job, other than salary, was work-ing conditions—the climate at the workplace,”Rusewicz said. More than 40% of the samplesaid they were not happy with the quality of in-ternal communications, the way in which thecompany was communicating important inter-nal changes to them, or the quality of directcommunication between managers and em-ployees. This discontent was the second topreason, next to salary, that they would want tofind another job. In other words, it was onlymoney that kept them with their companies.

A similar survey in late 2009 revealed thatsalary was still the main driver for changingjobs, but working conditions had fallen to fifthplace among drivers of attrition. Fewer than28% of the sample said working conditionswere the main reason to change jobs. A bias inthis survey, Rusewicz said, was the economiccrisis of 2008–2009: “Employees were moreattached to their jobs then. But at the sametime, 12% of the sample said that the workingconditions were much better than they hadbeen before. Better internal communicationhad been introduced. New opportunities foremployee development within the companywere also available.”

don’t worry, be happyA good atmosphere at the workplace translatesinto higher business efficiency of the entirecompany, said Mik Kuczkiewicz, managing di-rector of Hay Group Poland, the managementconsultancy. And it is the job of business lead-ers—top managers at the company—to create

Looking for newways to boost people power

Can Poland use its HR potential to draw even with the top E.U. economies?

a good atmosphere. “Personal behavioral pat-terns and individual characteristics of eachmanager are very important when it comes tocreating the right atmosphere,” Kuczkiewiczsaid. “But when it comes to measuring per-formance, some companies think that leader-ship is for business gurus and consultants butdoes not deliver when it comes to boosting theperformance of the workforce. For this theytend to rely on IT programs, back office sup-port and others.”

They are wrong. According to a Hay Groupstudy, up to 30% of the difference in the bot-tom line is related to how good a company’sleadership is. “This 30% of potential is basedon the leadership style and management styleof each manager,” Kuczkiewicz said.

The palette of different styles of manage-ment that boost staff effectiveness is rich. Fewmanagers may master all of the styles, but ac-cording to a Hay Group analysis of Polish lead-ers, out of the six basic leadership styles morethan 50% of managers operate with just two.“Direct influence on people is predominant,”Kuczkiewicz said. “And those are not neces-sarily the styles that create the best climate atthe workplace.”

According to Kuczkiewicz, the work climate

a leader creates can be measured in terms ofhow it affects the company’s business objec-tives. It is the manager’s task to create an at-mosphere in which people can work effec-tively—an approach known as “effective per-formance management.” According toKuczkiewicz: “We have to know how to iden-tify major goals. It is not about selling or pro-ducing, but about making sure that people un-derstand what we expect of them. Managersare held accountable for what they have deliv-ered. Very often when we think about what hasdriven our performance, we realize that ourinvolvement, personal commitment and at-tachment to the realization of people’s inter-nal motivations is important. Today we knowthat a lot of our people are employees whowant to make sure that they can realize theirbroad ambitions, and unless we make surethat they are parallel with the ambitions andgoals of the organization, this will not work.For such people we need to have a propositionwhich is interesting to them.”

In addition, Kuczkiewicz noted that moderncompanies today tend to use a matrix struc-ture, which offers dual or even triple responsi-bilities attached to one manager. “There arevarious layers of the organizational structure,”

he explained. “Unless you have the specificcompetencies and skills necessary to lead yourteams, you will not succeed in making yourteams deliver bottom-line results because youdo not have executive power over them. Thisis where we have to make sure that all of ourapproaches to organization, processes, andpeople are intertwined with the strategy of thecompany.”

hr potentialAlmost everywhere in the world companiesare organized around a similar matrix. Theytypically have the same departments, such asmarketing or production. According toStephan Frettloehr, this is what has happenedin the last decades in business. “Organiza-tional structures are all the same everywhere,and it is hard to find any big competitive ad-vantage in them anymore. The same goes forprocesses,” Frettloehr said.

With similar business processes in place, ITand automation come in to boost competitive-ness. But, again, every company has them.

“The only big piece missing in this pictureis what we call human performance,” saidFrettloehr. “That is where the true businesspotential—competitive edge—still lies. But


Israel Berman saysmanagers shouldlook for inspiration todifferent cultures tooptimize the humanpotential of theircompanies


this is badly managed, and in fact it is very dif-ficult to manage—much more difficult thanIT processes, for instance.”Frettloehr noted that human performancecombines a series of different aspects. Humanperformance is when employees are properlyaligned with corporate objectives. In this lightcorporations need to align what employees dowith their strategies. But, as Frettloehr said,“Often what you do with your employees is notaligned with what the company strategy re-quires.”

What matters here is the right attitude andthe right tools. Companies need to engagetheir employees, win their hearts, and enablethem to do what they are supposed to do bygiving them the right environment in whichthey can correctly perform what they are sup-posed to perform.

But this also means that companies need torecognize the fact that all human beings aredifferent, so they need to find the right peoplepsychologically, with the right capabilities to fitthe right jobs. In this respect, a common mis-take that companies make is to promote thewrong people to the wrong positions.

People perform when teamed up in theright way and led effectively. This is about ef-fective leadership, which is generating a cli-mate in which employees can perform and willperform.

When it comes to rewards, Hay Group re-search shows that it is not always about money.

Tomasz Ćwiok

FOCUS: Human resources

“It is also about the climate and environmentthe people have in their workplace,” said Fret-tloehr.

But the vision of the company is also cru-cial. “One company identified their vision asdoubling their production in a certain periodof time,” Frettloehr said. “This is not really avisionary statement and can hardly attractpeople to work for that company.”

When these aspects are properly put inplace by management, the results can be over-whelming. A Hay Group study suggests thatcompanies carefully following this approachperform significantly better than those thatstick to the old ways of management.

Hay Group did a study on a chain of restau-rants to examine how human performance canbe impacted. There are many aspects at play,such as different demographics and differentcompetitive pressures in different restaurants,but one finding of note was that the morecomfortable staff were with their work, thebetter they performed. This aspect con-tributed to 30% of the overall performance ofthe companies investigated.

While human behavior may generate somuch in terms of higher performance of thecompany, another study by Hay Group re-vealed an apparent disconnect between whatmanagers actually do and how they under-stand their role in the company and its strat-egy. A study conducted in the U.K. revealedthat 32% of managers do not understand thestrategy their company is implementing, and37% expect significant decisions for the com-pany to be taken by echelons of managementabove them; 6% would actively resist the strat-egy or even sabotage it behind the scenes,while 44% would only cooperate with col-leagues if they are absolutely forced to do so.With numbers like that, suffice it to say thatthe organizations’ potential to deliver humanperformance is very limited.

asian food for thoughtIsrael Berman said that in the past businessleaders focused on strategy and endless analy-

sis, trying to come up with acompetitive edge for theircompanies. But more than80% of what they came upwith was not implemented.Today, business leaders de-vote most of their time totheir executive personnel.They try to have all thestrategies implemented andpress their executives to doit. But that does not work ei-ther.

The first mistake theymake is benchmarking. “Weuse benchmarks to measurethe performance of a newcompany,” Berman said. “We

want it to deliver above some minimumbenchmarks. But benchmarks are derivedfrom what your competition does on average atbest. Is this what you really need?”

What companies need is not a standaloneHR agenda, but a business agenda which stip-ulates the company’s strategy in a way thatutilizes HR potential as well. According toBerman, the inspiration for this may not nec-essarily come from Western best practicebooks anymore. Berman argues that somepractices implemented by companies fromAsia offer food for thought. “We are workingnow with some big companies integrating sev-eral companies in the steel industry,” Bermansaid. “The main company there is from India,and it buys other companies and waits for 5years to build trust before it starts to integratethe new companies into its structure. They donot rush with integration because they want togive people time to get used to one another.”

Berman noted that companies in Europeconduct integration quickly. They put newlyacquired companies through different integra-tion processes, excellence training and otherexercises, and then they see the new compa-nies deteriorate internally. Over time theygrow weaker, eventually losing business anddownscaling their operations. “They stillmaintain that they did all the right things asfar as a successful integration is concerned,”Berman said. “But perhaps they didn’t.”

Another example comes from China, acountry where all business is linked to thegovernment. This means, however, that thegovernment person who is in charge of busi-ness in China is overseeing the developmentof some 35 million business leaders. Accord-ing to Berman, who talked to this governmentofficial, the official is not worried about devel-oping business strategy for those companies,nor does he think too much about the share-holders. He is busy doing succession planningfor some 40,000 CEOs he supervises.

According to Berman, the world is chang-ing, and today going by the book is notenough. “Many organizations do a lot of thingsto improve their performance,” Berman said.“They say they did everything and yet it doesnot work. They buy another business and tryto retain the best people in the business theybuy. But they fail to adjust their culture tomeet those people’s expectations, and in timethey lose all of the best people of the companythey have bought. They simply do not talk tothose people, but assume they will stay be-cause they want jobs and careers. This doesnot work.”

Berman says that the old assumptionsabout what motivates whom are an artifact ofthe past. In the case of some individuals, goodcommunication between them and the com-pany board is even more important than theirsalary. Berman backs his point with the case ofa high-level executive who, after the company

he worked for was bought by another com-pany, got a substantial pay raise from the newboard and then quit a few days later. “The rea-son he quit was that nobody from the newboard talked to him about his role in the newcompany,” Berman said. “They just assumedthat a higher salary was all he would be happywith, and they were wrong.”

For Berman, if Poland wants to catch up tothe average per capita GDP in the E.U., as-suming the E.U. grows at a long-term single-digit rate and Poland at a double-digit rate,Polish companies have to develop their ownunique way of managing people and executingthe entire business.

This may amount to a major shift in under-standing what business is all about. Twentyyears ago, when Poland started the transfor-mation to the free-market economy, Polishcompanies adopted the classical Western ap-proach that the company’s interest is the keydriving factor for the company’s development.Later, however, this changed, and the interestof shareholders was viewed as the drivingforce. Then, some 10 years ago, the view cameinto vogue that it is the interest of “stakehold-ers” that is the most important. Overall, thosehave been big shifts in understanding wherethe value of the business lies. It goes withoutsaying that this affected HR potential.

For Berman, theory can be too much of agood thing. “What is necessary is to get yourorganization aligned to what it does,” Bermansaid. “Without this, nothing will happen. Be-coming a business partner for managers is thebest thing to have them realigned to the busi-ness.”

Berman notes that looking at the way eco-nomic growth is approached, there are twocountries on the extreme ends of attitude:Singapore and Israel. Singapore has probablythe world’s best-organized civil service, wherepublic servants enjoy the world’s highestsalaries and there are no signs of corruption inthe system. Everything about the Singaporeadministration is strict, well-defined, and tiedto good execution. “The execution of the Sin-gapore administration is number one in theworld,” Berman said. “If they decide they willdo something, it happens.”

On the other extreme is Israel, a countrywith many problems, many voices and whatmay look like a chaotic structure. But accord-ing to Berman, when you look at the creativitylevel of their people, Singapore cannot com-pare to Israel. Israel has championed innova-tion. “This is because it is OK to make mis-takes in Israel,” Berman explained. “In Singa-pore, you make a mistake and you are fired. InIsrael it is just OK to fail. For every businesssuccess story in Israel there are 50 failures.But Israel is perfectly happy with that rate. Ithas the money to invest in all those start-ups.”

According to Berman the question forPoland now is where it wants to find itself on

the continuum between Singapore and Israel.“I haven’t heard anything from Poland on thatyet,” Berman said. “But Poland still has a win-dow of opportunity, as a fast-moving market,to be even faster.”

poland-specific business cultureFor Witold Orłowski, 20 years down the roadof Poland’s free-market economy should beenough for managers to develop their own wayof approaching the reality of business inPoland. “Some time ago Polish managers weresurveyed on the most impressive book onmanagement they had read,” said Orłowski.“Jack Welch’s books were most frequentlycited. But this reveals a problem, because theymight as well read books by WinstonChurchill, which contain a lot of useful infor-mation about leadership. The point is that thechallenges that Jack Welch was facing weredifferent from the challenges that Polish man-agers are facing.”

Orłowski argued that Poland and the U.S.are two different worlds: “The business envi-ronment is different, the culture is different,the problems are different. It is not a problemof having ideal companies that have been per-forming so well that now they worry whetherthey should try to improve their performanceor not.”

The reason why so far no big names havepopped up, according to Orłowski, is the his-

tory of Polish business. In most cases today’sbig business leaders started as street vendors,and at some point in their careers they made atransition to corporate management and laterto the top. “There are leaders in Poland whoare leading but not managing,” Orłowski said.“There is a lot to learn from their experienceto find what best fits the Polish managementreality.”

Orłowski concluded that if there is any hopefor Poland to catch up at some point with theEuropean Union’s most robust economies,Poland has to develop faster than Western Eu-rope. That means that at some point it mustsimply be more productive. “Therefore careerpaths for people in the Polish economy shouldbe even more appealing than they have beenso far.”

As Orłowski sees it, to catch up to its E.U.peers, Poland must look within: “We need Pol-ish business leaders and a Polish businessleadership pattern. We have to look for thespecific virtues of Polish leadership that bestfit the Polish culture, the business reality, thesociety and the Polish way of living. We mustsearch for it to really enable the human capitalof companies in Poland. That will make thedifference.”


Investing in peopleas an integral part of career development,where employees have the opportunity tooutline their development needs, inter-ests and career plans. It is with this inmind that managers and supervisors, to-gether with each employee, develop spe-cific training and development plans tosupport these needs.

We also run the Mentoring Circle andHi-Potential development programs,which help to support talent developmentwithin the organization at an office andregional level.

Professional experience, new skills andknowledge gained through working inother Fluor offices around the globe arean essential part of our professional de-velopment program, and we continuallylook for opportunities to provide thiswhenever possible.

Fluor takes care not only of profes-sional development of employees. It isalso important for us to create a friendlywork environment and balance individu-als’ professional and personal life. And westrive to achieve this through events foremployees and their families, sportsclubs, and so on.

Fluor is very active in supportingvarious charity endeavors. one ofthem is the project “let’s Build to-gether,” which builds “houses ofhope.” Who are the project benefici-aries, and what kind of hope do theemployees give by erecting newhouses?

“Houses of Hope” is a joint initiative ofHabitat for Humanity and a variety ofsupporting companies, including Fluor.Habitat is a non-profit organization thatseeks to aid low-income families to buildtheir own homes. All Habitat houses arebuilt thanks to the help and hard work ofvolunteers. Our company strongly sup-ports the Gliwice Habitat location, bothfinancially and on-site.

Fluor employees, together with othervolunteers and inhabitants of Habitathouses, work together accomplishingconstruction of the exterior and dividingwalls, roof and chimney of the building,laying subfloors and pouring concretefloors, finishing interior wall construc-tion, plumbing installations and so on.Fluor’s involvement helps to eliminatepoverty housing in the local society. Weare happy that in order to meet social ex-pectations, our company can assist andsupport Habitat and families with hous-ing problems by financing these invest-ments and offering physical support tothe work.

Fluor in Gliwice is one of thebiggest engineering offices inpoland, specializing in sup-plying services for the oil &

gas, petrochemical and chemical in-dustries. What road has the companytravelled to achieve such a significantposition?

Fluor acquired the operation in Gliwicefrom Prosynchem in 1995. Prior to thatProsynchem had 50 years of experience inthe industry, having been established in1945 to rebuild the chemical industry inPoland. Following 1995, over the next fewyears the office went through a transitionperiod as it implemented Fluor corporateprocesses, procedures, systems and toolsto ensure that the operation and the per-sonnel became aligned with Fluor’s exe-cution approach to projects, deliveringthem to the same standards that ourclients have come to expect from Fluoraround the globe.

A major part of this process has beeninvestment in people and technology.Today you will find the latest engineeringsystems in place, and personnel who havebeen trained to the highest level via inter-nal and external training programs.

Over the past 15 years the Gliwice op-eration has executed major projects in avariety of industries, jointly with otherFluor offices and independently, in a vari-ety of locations around the globe and inPoland, helping to build the experienceand reputation of the office.

how would you compare the mar-ket for engineering services inpoland to those in Western europeancountries or the u.s.?

The engineering services market inPoland varies from other locations inWestern Europe and the U.S. in that it isstill a maturing market. Today we are see-ing a great focus on price rather that cer-tainty of outcome. This, together with adrive towards more demanding contrac-tual terms, which are more stringent thanin other countries, can make it difficult tocompete in some areas. However we dobelieve Fluor’s full-service engineeringprocurement and construction manage-ment office provides major benefits toour clients here in Poland.

Our HSE and quality approach, to-gether with our global reach when itcomes to technical expertise, can prove tobe a real differentiator for us in this mar-ket. When we look outside of Poland wesee that the cost base here compared toWestern Europe and the U.S. provides amajor advantage when pursuing work in

Western Europe, the Middle East andother locations.

Fluor has received the humancapital investor award. how impor-tant is investing in the knowledgeand skills of people at Fluor?

Fluor considers investment in the de-velopment of people as extremely impor-tant to its success, and we were extremelyhonored to receive this award. Under-standing that the success of any organiza-tion depends on its people is why invest-ing in human capital is an integral part ofour strategy.

We invest in people in a variety of ways,inspiring and supporting our employeesin the process of career development andacquisition of knowledge and training.Career development is an integral part ofFluor University, a virtual campus avail-able to all of our employees around theglobe that provides access to an extensiverange of training and educational re-sources.

We also see performance management

AmCham Kraków’s Tomasz Szczerbina talks with Dave Gibson, GM of Fluor S.A., an engineering and construction management office serving the refining, petrochemical and chemical industries in Poland and abroad

COMPANY PROFILE: Fluor S.A. EXPERT: Business leadership

When the employeestrust their leaders, thecompany can achieveinnovation, growth,and dramatically highershareholder value

Build a high-trust corporate culture

By Peter Strupppresident of the supervisory boardUnited Business Development

where there have been shortcom-ings.

tell the truthEmployees normally respect sen-ior leaders who are honest aboutthe situation both inside and out-side the company. Rather thanseeing the world as they wish itto be, these leaders tackle head-on the key areas of impact on theorganization, to take advantage ofopportunities and protect againstthreats.

Give a chance to grow Higher trust is built when seniorleaders give employees greaterresponsibility for new projects.This allows employees to self-ac-tualize and implicitly states thatthe leaders have trust in the per-son given the new responsibility.These experiences are a key wayto further enhance trust and alsobuild leaders.

encourageEmployees have greater commit-ment when leaders go out oftheir way to ensure that the restof the organization sees their re-sults through recognition andpraise. Too often, as the organi-zation grows, recognition forwork well done is lost. The sen-ior team has a bird’s-eye view ofwhich units are excelling andgives those leaders and unitsrecognition before the rest of theorganization.

Trust is in large part equatedwith leadership competency andbehaviors. Promoting greater de-centralization and collaboration,rather than a hierarchical com-mand-and-control structure,leadership behaviors need to beopen to a constructive approachin order to grow.

Dozens of empirical studiesclearly correlate higher profitswith higher trust between lead-ers and employees. Still, there isplenty of work to be done inmaking these types of high-trustorganizations the norm ratherthan the exception.

open upSenior leaders who display open-ness as well as being accessibleto employees engender highertrust and greater overall effec-tiveness. My anecdotal observa-tions in Poland have been thatmany senior executive teams be-have as opaque decision-makers,not open to the rest of the organ-ization about why they selectedcertain operational priorities. Inaddition, decision rights tend tobe unclear, so a senior leadermay not be explicit with seniorteam members as to their role inmaking an important decision.One-person rule is by far thechief reason for organizationalunderperformance and even fail-ure.

communicate consistently A recent global survey found that80% of organizations have inter-nal employee communicationproblems, with the senior leader-ship competence rated very low.

Communication should in-volve many different methods:town hall meetings, private teammeetings, using the leadershipdevelopment process as a key wayto teach and communicate val-

ues, culture and strategy to oth-ers. Employees do not need tolike every answer they receive,but they do trust more whencommunication is consistent.When communication is notpresent, speculation, gossip andmisperception fill the void.

Follow through If a leader is asking his or heremployees to commit to certainactions and results, then thatleader should also be open to theemployees about what he or shewill be held accountable for.Trust is enhanced even morewhen the leader is clear on whatwas actually accomplished and

innovate, and are resistant tochange. They do not want to gethurt. Many country managers inPoland are being given additionalpressure to deliver higher resultsdue to Western countries’ failure togrow. This added pressure for highresults often manifests itself in ag-gressive behavior.

Here are a few basic approachesto achieve substantially higher lev-els of trust and accountability inyour organization—and grow in theyears ahead.

Build on competence Employees want to see that peopleare promoted on the basis of com-petence and that the senior teamhas the requisite knowledge, skills

and attitude to carry out the visionof the company. Allowing an in-competent manager to stay in placeundermines senior leadershipcredibility and trust in the organi-zation.

There needs to be an overallperception by the organization thatthey are overwhelmingly compe-tent in what they are doing to servethe customer. Continual examplesof making critical mistakes under-mine the overall confidence andtrust of employees. Greater cus-tomer loyalty and the perception ofcompetence within the organiza-tion are shown to instill evengreater levels of trust among em-ployees.

Many companies inPoland are cautiouslyoptimistic about growth

prospects in 2011. The real storywill depend on how organizationsstrengthen a foundation of trustand accountability within theiroperating cultures. A high levelof trust will be critical as organi-zations scale their operations inPoland during high economicgrowth over the next 10 years.Low-trust cultures will strugglethrough continual lost opportu-nities and have a hard time scal-ing their business.

Several studies have shownthat high-trust organizationscreate higher levels of share-holder value. A global study by

the Russell Investment Groupshowed that companies wherehigh trust was clearly demon-strable earned four times the re-turns of the broader market overa 7-year period. A critical factorin innovation within companiesis a preexisting level of trust thatallows for collaboration to takeplace.

A common problem withinmany organizations is that thereare high levels of aggressive lead-ership behaviors by senior man-agers, forcing dependent em-ployee behaviors. Employees arenot allowed to help shape majordecisions, are conventional intheir behaviors, lack the desire to

A common problem within organizations ishigh levels of aggressive leadership behaviorsby senior managers, forcing dependent em-ployee behaviors.


EXPERT: Value Added Tax

With new VAT regulationsin place since the begin-ning of this year it isworthwhile to review VATexemptions and new crite-ria for VAT-exempt serv-ices

Know your new VAT

By Marta Bzowska-Warsza

advocate and Iwona Osiak-Parkowska

legal adviser trainee Łaszczuk & Partners

cial services are exempt fromVAT:

• insurance services, rein-surance services, and interme-diation services with respect toinsurance or reinsurance serv-ices, as well as services per-formed by an insurer under in-surance agreements concludedby it for the account of another,excluding sale of rights ac-quired in connection with per-formance of insurance or rein-surance agreements;

• services of granting creditor monetary loans and interme-diation in performance of serv-ices of granting credit or mone-tary loans, as well as adminis-tration of credit or monetaryloans by the lender;

• services with respect togranting sureties, guaranteesor other security for financialand insurance transactions, andintermediation in performanceof such services, as well as ad-ministration of credit guaran-tees by the lender;

• services involving mone-tary deposits, conducting mon-etary accounts, payment trans-actions of all types, transfers ofmoney, debts, checks andpromissory notes, and interme-diation in performance of suchservices; and

• services involving financialinstruments as referred to inthe Act on Trading in FinancialInstruments of July 29, 2005,excluding storage and ad-minis-tration of such instru-ments, and intermediationservices in this respect.

The VAT exemption also ap-plies to services that do not inand of themselves constitute fi-nancial services, but whichunder the given circumstancesconstitute an element of a fi-nancial service without whichthe service could not be per-formed.

The descriptive approach todefining services exempt fromVAT may raise numerousdoubts in practice, particularlyin the case of complex or atypi-cal services. Businesses provid-ing services that were exemptfrom VAT under the previousregulations need to checkwhether the same services arestill exempt under the recentlyamended VAT Act.

Academy of Sciences, and re-search and development units,with respect to higher educa-tion.

Also exempt are:• private instructional serv-

ices at the preschool, elemen-tary school, middleschool, secondary school andhigher education levels, pro-vided by teachers;

• foreign language teachingservices, other than those al-ready mentioned; and

• vocational training and re-training services other thanthose already mentioned, pro-vided in forms and under therules provided in separate regu-lations, or provided by entitiesthat have obtained accreditationfor purposes of regulationsconcerning the education sys-tem, but solely with respect toservices covered by the accredi-tation or financed entirely outof public funds.

It should be noted that theexemption described above foreducational services also in-cludes supply of goods andservices closely connected withthe educational services re-ferred to above.

This means that educational

services are exempt from VATonly when provided by the enti-ties specified in the regula-tions. Commercial entities thatdo not meet these criteria (e.g.training companies or associa-tions) generally have to chargeVAT now on educational serv-ices they perform.

Financial servicesWith respect to insurance andother financial services, theamending act introduces defi-nitions, based on economic cri-teria, specifying the nature andfunction of such services, re-gardless of the type of entityperforming the services. In thisrespect, beginning from Janu-ary 1, 2011, the following finan-

Supply of goods and servicesclosely connected with such serv-ices is also exempt.

Moreover, the exemption ex-tends to services involving med-ical care, preventive care, andmaintaining, saving, restoring orimproving health, provided byphysicians, dentists, nurses, mid-wives, psychologists and othermedical professionals as definedin the Act on Healthcare Facilitiesof August 30, 1992.

This means that from January1, 2011, the purpose of the serv-ices performed in the area ofhealthcare and social services aswell as the entity that provides theservices are the relevant criteria.In general, only services that in-

volve diagnosis or treatment andare performed by one of the enti-ties identified in the VAT Act willbe exempt from VAT.

educational services Previously a VAT exemption wasavailable for all educational serv-ices. From January 1, 2011, therange of educational services en-titled to a VAT exemption hasbeen significantly restricted, andnow applies to services providedby:

• units included within the ed-ucation system for purposes ofregulations concerning the edu-cation system, with respect tolearning and upbringing; and

• institutions of higher educa-tion, research units of the Polish

On October 29, 2010, thePolish Parliamentadopted the Act Amend-

ing the VAT Act. The amendingact, effective January 1, 2011,made numerous changes to theVAT Act of March 11, 2004, par-ticularly with respect to sub-ject-matter exemptions fromVAT.

Annex 4 to the VAT Act,which contained a list of serv-ices exempt from VAT, was re-pealed. From January 1, 2011, all services exempt from VATare set forth in Art. 43 of theVAT Act, but it is a muchshorter list than the previousone. Moreover, the exemptionsare no longer identified using

the Polish statistical classifica-tion code (PKWiU). Instead, thenew Art. 43 contains a descrip-tion of the services.

Below we present the mostsignificant changes in the typesof services exempt from VAT.

healthcare servicesThrough December 31, 2010,all healthcare services and so-cial services (except for veteri-nary services) were exemptfrom VAT. Beginning from Janu-ary 1, 2011, the subject-matterexemptions in this respect arelimited to services involvingmedical care, preventive care,and maintaining, saving, restor-ing or improving health, pro-vided by healthcare facilities.

on almost all aspects of howtheir data are processed and alsoresolves disputes in interpreta-tion of the law. On the otherhand it may weaken businessoperations, e.g. in the area of di-rect marketing.

new amendments necessaryIn general the recent amend-ment of the act should be con-sidered temporary, because itdoes not reflect the latest trendsin data protection and privacy.

In particular, the problem ofdata controllers in social net-working websites is still un-solved, as well as the status of IP

addresses. Another amendment to the

act is therefore highly probable,as a new Inspector General forPersonal Data Protection has re-cently been appointed who hasbroad IT/ICT experience.

many) may be considered moreeffective because the fines aremuch higher.

The amended criminal provi-sions of the Polish act also ex-tend the authority of the Inspec-tor General by introducing a newcrime. One of the main practicalissues faced by inspectors hasbeen the lack of measures toforce an entity that processespersonal data to submit to an in-spection. The amended act pro-vides that interrupting or pre-venting an inspection is a crimepunishable by a fine, probation,or imprisonment of up to twoyears.

From a practical point of view,however, the sanctions mayprove ineffective due to a lack ofinterest on the part of law en-forcement authorities in prose-cuting data protection offences.

new rights of data subjectsSince 1997 the nature of theconsent required from data sub-jects to process their data hasbeen discussed and broadlycommented on by Polish aca-demics and practicing lawyers.In particular, the possibility ofrevoking consent was questionedby data controllers.

However, following theamendments to the act, datasubjects will be entitled to freelyrevoke their consent to process-ing their personal data.

The change may be consid-ered positive as it strengthensdata subjects’ rights to decide

amendment is that the InspectorGeneral for Personal Data Pro-tection will act as a law enforce-ment authority. As a result, enti-

ties that process personal data ina way that does not comply withdata protection regulations orfail to carry out orders issued bythe Inspector General will besubject to a fine levied directlyby the Inspector General. Theamount of the fine will dependon the entity that processes thepersonal data (for example, if itis an individual or a private com-pany), and will range from aboutEUR 2,500 to 50,000. The higherfigure applies to companies thatviolate the act repeatedly.

In relation to the InspectorGeneral’s authority, the amend-ment is a long-awaited improve-ment, mainly because of the lackof effective sanctions that couldbe imposed by the InspectorGeneral before this amendment.On the other hand, similar solu-tions in force in various otherE.U. member states (e.g. Ger-

The Polish Personal DataProtection Act of 1997 re-flects the constitutional

right to privacy and, after severalamendments, implements theE.U.’s Data Protection Directive(95/46/EC). The Polish act hasbeen amended several timessince 1997, with a major amend-ment in 2004 focused on securityrequirements for processing ofpersonal data.

After the act was imple-mented, many practical issues ofinterpretation were pointed outby data subjects, data controllersand the Polish data protectionauthority, the Inspector Generalfor Personal Data Protection.Most negative comments on theact related to the Inspector Gen-eral’s authority, including the in-ability to impose financial sanc-tions. Key definitions in the actwere also questioned, includingthe very definition of “personaldata.”

More than 10 years after theact came into force, intensivediscussions on data protection inPoland have led to the changesdescribed below, which wereadopted by the Parliament in late2010 and go into force on March7, 2011.

new authority of inspectorGeneralThe main change under the

EXPERT: Personal data protection

The Personal DataProtection Act hasrecently beenamended, but morechanges are in-evitable

The recent amendment of the Polish PersonalData Protection Act does not reflect the latesttrends in data protection and privacy.

The descriptive approach to defining services ex-empt from VAT may raise numerous doubts inpractice, particularly in the case of complex oratypical services.

No end in sight

By Marcin Lewoszewski

Associate in the Commercial &Regulatory Department of CMSCameron McKenna in Warsaw

Download this magazine!American Investor is available in full as a pdf fordownload from the www.amcham.com.pl web-site. Go to "About Us" in the horizontal menu,

and choose American Investor Magazine fromthe pop-up menu. You can download past

issues of American Investor datingback to October 2010.

Average Internet usersknow that their data maybe analyzed and used for

marketing purposes. However,experience shows that knowl-edge on the scope of data pro-cessing is superficial, and ex-plored only rarely, when viola-tions of user data or privacymake the news. So far therehave been isolated instances oflegal action taken against socialnetworking sites who overstepthe mark, but their incidencemay rise. A review of currentpersonal data protection regula-tions seems justified.

user consentAwareness that personal data aresubject to processing does notalways go hand in hand with ac-ceptance. On the other hand,electronic service providers donot disclose data processing de-tails to their users. They limitthemselves to providing infor-mation or obtaining consent toprocess data by use of a formconsenting to data processingfor marketing purposes. Usually,unless Internet users are noti-fied in a very clear manner, writ-ten in large font, what it is thewebsite operator does with theirdata, the world is very much theoperator’s oyster.

In other words, as long as thesituation is obscure, Internetusers will not be interested intheir data. But they may be infor a shock when they are havinga whale of a time on the Internetand then receive a message stat-ing: If you want to enjoy your-self, we need your data, and ifyou disagree, thank you and bye-bye.

social networkingThe question is whether a socialnetworking site (which this ismainly about) may, in exchangefor enabling the use of its re-sources, request the user’s con-

But users frequently do notrealize when their data arebeing picked up, or the toolsbeing used to process theirdata. Thus the Working Partyrecommends that advertisingnetwork operators should setup a mechanism for securingconsent beforehand (opt-in),since an approach that onlygives users the ability to opt outis insufficient to provide usersfailsafe control over the dataprocessing and may leave themopen to invasion of privacy.

users in the knowThe Working Party also stressesthat although E.U. regulationsdo not directly impose a re-quirement to notify users con-tinuously that they are beingmonitored, they shouldnonetheless be informed.

The Working Party leans to-ward making the advertisingnetwork operators and publish-ers (website owners) them-selves install mechanisms thatwould alert users to how theirdata are being used. Suchmechanisms could also have amoderating effect on their ownactivities.

The basic device proposed isa time limit on the user’s con-sent, enabling the user to with-draw consent without difficulty,or to set up a mechanism thatclearly tells users that they arebeing monitored.

Of course such openness (asystem of continuous notifica-tion) could be onerous for theusers themselves. That is why itseems that a compromiseshould be struck between theobligations of operators and theconvenience of Internet users.

The E.U. Working Party isheading in the right direction.However, there is no doubt thatit will still require much effortto implement the appropriatesolutions, balancing the inter-ests of online businesses andusers while paying particular at-tention to the security of users.

personal data in the way thatcorresponds to the interests ofthe site owner. Disputes be-tween users and site ownersmay look like petty squabblesnow, but it appears that userprofiles and the technologyused in creating and processingthem may be put to harmful useagainst the users themselves,which may not even necessarilyconsist of infringing their pri-vacy. Thus the issue looks simi-lar to that of nuclear energy: Itbrings many benefits, but whenit falls into the wrong hands itcan wreak painful and irre-versible havoc.

The extent of the damagethat could be inflicted on bothan individual and, arguably, on awider scale through the misuseof personal data is difficult toconceive at present. However,since it is possible, for example,to determine the existence ofrelations between users whowould prefer not to disclosethem, by setting automaticsearch criteria, with informa-tion on them being collected ina way that may be used to talkthem into buying products orservices, more or less likely sce-narios could be devised for en-snaring them.

What is permissible?The issue of processing of auser’s personal data, and thescope and the rules involved,have given rise to a multitude ofcontroversies. Even more ques-tions have cropped up recentlytogether with the momentousdevelopment and enormoussuccess of social networkingwebsites. They too give usersaccess to tools enabling the pro-cessing of other users’ data.

Some answers may be foundin Opinion 2/2010 on OnlineBehavioural Advertising, pub-lished on June 22, 2010, by theEuropean Union task forceknown as the “Article 29 DataProtection Working Party.” It isstressed in the opinion that be-havioral targeting offers advan-tages to both advertisers andtheir target audience. The opin-ion defines “behavioral adver-tising” as “advertising that isbased on the observation of thebehaviour of individuals overtime.” It also stresses that be-havioral targeting must not in-fringe the privacy of persons.

sent to process personal data on ascale that exceeds the limitationsimposed by the Personal DataProtection Act, or render servicesin electronic form or be granted alicense to use the materialsposted by the site’s users?

One could get the impressionthat some Internet users are up inarms at such a possibility. Thisprobably stems from their convic-tion that the Internet is – orshould be – a free facility. And yetInternet activities are profitable.

Appearances notwithstanding,an agreement on use of a socialnetworking site’s resources does,in a way, impose a fee, because ac-cess to the user’s personal dataconstitutes an asset for the web-site owner which enables it togenerate advertising revenue.

Watch marketersAssuming that users have agreedto processing of their personaldata, they should know themethod and scope of the process-ing, especially if it is for market-ing purposes.

The issue is partially regulated,in Poland, by the Personal DataProtection Act and the ElectronicServices Act. Under these provi-sions, the data administrator mayuse the personal data of users fordirect marketing of its goods orservices. Thus, without their con-sent, it cannot disclose users’ datato others who might be interestedin advertising their products orservices.

The rights assured by the laware completely insufficient toachieve the expected revenues, es-pecially in the face of the increas-ingly sophisticated tools enablingprecise allocation of users to giventarget groups on the basis of thedata and information the websitelogs on the way its users moveabout the Web (behavioral target-ing).

Thus it is essential to gain theconsent of users to process their


What Internet usersdon’t know may hurtthem

Behavioral targeting

By Małgorzata Darowskaattorney-at-law, senior associate atSalans law firm

EXPERT: Personal data protection EVENT: AmCham Monthly Meeting

1. Joseph Wancer, AmCham Chairman; Mark Allen, International Monetary Fund; Jakub Borowski, Invest-Bank; Ryszard Petru. 2. Champagne toast by Christian Henkemeier to welcome AmCham members in 2011. 3. Christian Henkemeier; Chuck Ashley,U.S. Embassy. 4. Tony Housh, AmCham Board Member; Alain Bobet; Tim Hyland, Travel Express; Adam Bergmann.5. Joseph Wancer, Jakub Borowski. 6. Larry Kraut, American School; Thomas Kolaja, AmCham Board Member. 7. TadeuszSzostak; Cezary Krasodomski, Cisco. 8. Joanna Piskunowicz, Manpower; Stanley Urban. 9. AmCham members feel at home atthe InterContinental. 10. Alexander Suski, InterContinental Hotel; Glen Gregory, Java Coffee Company. 11. Chris Hutchinson,CURB-TEC Europe; Joseph Wancer.

New season of Monthly Meetings begins

Champagne for breakfast! The In-terContinental Warsaw toastedAmCham members in January,

ringing in another year of cooperation inorganizing the chamber’s MonthlyBreakfast Meeting. One eye-opener wasfollowed by another as members wit-nessed an interesting economic debate.For coverage of the panel discussion,read the article on page 14.

1

2

3 4

5

6

7 8

9

10 11

Agri & Food www.amcham.com.pl/agri_food

Mission: To provide a plat-form for discussing andsolving issues and identify-ing opportunities for com-panies in the agriculturaland food sector by creat-

ing a base for dialogue and expertise leveragedamong producers, sector professionals, experts anddecision-makers. Co-chairs: Andrzej Pawelczak,Animex; Maciej Łubieński, Universal Leaf TobaccoPoland.

Healthwww.amcham.com.pl/health

Mission: To provide aunited forum for U.S. com-panies to share their ex-pertise on the healthcaresystem and exchangeknowledge and experience

with national counterparts, contribute to the positivedevelopments in the sector and promote the U.S. ex-perience and capital while establishing the best con-ditions and opportunities for investments.Co-Chairs:Elisabeth Asirifi, IBM Polska; Jolanta Chlebicka-Do-miniak, Johnson & Johnson.

Infrastructurewww.amcham.com.pl/infrastructure

Mission: To discuss is-sues of the developmentof infrastructure; to pro-mote infrastructure solu-tions for cooperation be-tween private and public

partners. Co-Chairs: Krzysztof Wierzbowski,Wierzbowski Eversheds; Andrew C. Kapusto,Raytheon Homeland Security.

Tax www.amcham.com.pl/tax

Mission: To provide a platformfor identifying tax issues andcreate an educational forum tokeep AmCham members in-formed on current and up-coming legislation. To create a

network to share information, comments and best prac-tices. To lobby decision-makers in the government. Co-Chairs: Peter Kay, KPMG; Piotr Bartuzi, Bank BPH.

Political Discussion Forumwww.amcham.com.pl/pdf

Mission: To build relation-ships with key players inPolish politics, regardless ofwhether within the govern-ment or not, in small groupsand in private settings, toserve as a vehicle into the

world of Polish politics behind official curtains. Co-chairs: Richard Knauff; Marek Matraszek, CEC Govern-ment Relations.

Corporate Social Responsibilitywww.amcham.com.pl/csr

Mission: To encourage andfacilitate responsible busi-ness practices among Am-Cham members to supportthem to improve the qualityand effectiveness of their

CSR programs. Co-Chairs: Wojciech Arszewski,UPS Polska; Anna Jawor, IBM Polska.

Small & Medium-Sized Enterpriseswww.amcham.com.pl/sme

Mission: To provide a forumfor exchange of ideas/bestpractices to improve the per-formance of SMEs; to iden-tify and promote solutions tofacilitate and support themanagerial and operational

efforts of SMEs through educational, networking or lob-bying efforts that leverage the resources and knowl-edge of AmCham and its membership. Co-Chairs:Alain Bobet; Cezary Krasodomski, Cisco Systems.

Employee & Labor Relations www.amcham.com.pl/labor

Mission: To create an infor-mation exchange forum ofHR professionals and so-cial policy experts frommultinational and localcompanies to share, dis-

cuss and learn about the latest trends in HR man-agement and collectively influence local policy anddecision-makers for modern solutions in labor leg-islation. Co-Chairs: Jolanta Jaworska, IBM Poland;Peter Strupp, United Business Development.

Consumer Productswww.amcham.com.pl/consumer

Mission: To provide aforum to share knowl-edge and exchange ex-perience in all areascommon and relevant tomanufacturers and dis-

tributors of goods. Co-Chairs: Małgorzata Surdek,CMS Cameron McKenna; Agnieszka Dzięgielewska-Jończyk, HP Polska.

Telecom www.amcham.com.pl/telecom

Mission: To create a platformunder the AmCham umbrellafor the exchange of members’ideas and views on trends inthe telecommunications sec-tor in Poland; to take steps to

influence decision-makers in telecommunications legis-lation, policy and practice; to promote innovativetrends in telecommunications; to modernize communi-cations technology for business and the average Polishconsumer. Co-Chairs: Jarosław Roszkowski, CrowleyData Poland; Piotr Muszyński, TP SA.

Real Estate Committeewww.amcham.com.pl/real_estate

Mission: To discuss issuesregarding the complexitiesof the real estate market inPoland, and exchange infor-mation. To be an educa-tional and networking forum

for members and to lobby and influence legislativedepartments of the Polish government. Chair: HalinaWięckowska, K & L Gates; John Bańka, Colliers Inter-national.

Pharmaceuticalwww.amcham.com.pl/pharmaceutical

Mission: To discuss andidentify common interestsand exchange information re-garding Poland’s pharmaceu-tical market; to act as a repre-sentative body and collective

voice of pharmaceutical companies before governmen-tal institutions. Co-Chairs: Peter Koetsier, Bristol-MyersSquibb Polska; Roberto Servi, Eli Lilly Polska.

Outsourcing/High Techwww.amcham.com.pl/outsourcing

Mission: To provide a plat-form for discussing, identi-fying and addressing com-mon SSC/BPO issues re-lated to high tech opera-tions; to maintain contact

with local authorities, educational and governmentalinstitutions to present a unified business perspectiveand to suggest ways of possible cooperation. Toidentify the possibilities/areas of state assistance, toshare experience and leverage knowledge. Co-Chairs: Ramón A. Tancinco II, Cisco SystemsPoland; Jacek Stryczyński, Lionbridge.

Intellectual Property Rights www.amcham.com.pl/ipr

Mission: To advocate forIPR protection and provideleadership that will bringtogether interested part-ners; to share informationwith decision-makers and

law enforcement. The police, judiciary, prosecu-tors, customs officials, legislators and journalistsare among the target groups, while the curriculumof law schools should have more emphasis on IPR.Co-Chairs: Agnieszka Wyszyńska-Szulc, Philip Mor-ris; Anna Lasocka, Łaszczuk & Partners.

European Union Affairs www.amcham.com.pl/eu

Mission: To providemembers with relevantinformation on E.U. re-lated issues, includingE.U. funds, and to repre-sent American investors

before the Commission and the Polish govern-ment. Co-Chairs: Magdalena Burnat Mikosz, De-loitte; Jerzy Thieme.

Defense & Security www.amcham.com.pl/defense

Mission: To serve as a plat-form for defense industry is-sues and exchange relevantinformation. The committeecreates a networking forumand fosters a positive work-

ing relationship with the government and people ofPoland. Co-Chairs: Leda Zilinskas, Raytheon Inter-national; Paul Zalucky.

Financial Services www.amcham.com.pl/financial

Mission: The FinancialServices Committee aimsto identify and promote is-sues related to and in sup-port of the financial serv-ices sector, as well as to

provide a forum for dialogue among sector profes-sionals and decision-makers in government. Co-Chairs: Andrew Hope; Adam Michon, MetLife.

Energy & Environmentwww.amcham.com.pl/environmental

Mission: To help membersdevelop their environmentaland renewable energy busi-ness and help learn about,identify and overcome anydifficulties connected with

environmental laws, and develop a discussion forumamong members about environmental issues andmaintain contacts with Polish authorities responsiblefor making and implementing environmental policies.Co-Chairs: Adam de Sola Pool, Jerzy Chlebowski, Mit-subishi.

For the most recent information about the work of AmCham Committees, and upcoming events: www.amcham.com.pl

AMCHAM: Guide to Committees


W tym numerze: COVER STORY

klasycznaamerykańska historiaTomasz Ćwiok z „American In-vestor” rozmawia z PrezesemAmerykańskiej Izby HandlowejJosephem Wancerem o jego życiuprzed wyjazdem to USA, o kultu-rowym szoku jaki przeżył po przy-jeździe do Nowego Jorku, momen-tach zwrotnych jego kariery za-wodowej oraz lekcji płynących zjego życia, str. 10.

Monthly Meetingpolska nie jest wyspą Ekonomiści zaproszeni do dyskucji natemat perspektyw gospodarczych Polski w 2011r. uważają, żejej gospodarka będzie uzależniona od rozwoju gospodarkiNiemiec i Chin, str. 14

Focusszukając nowych rozwiązań zwiększenia potencjałupracowników Czy polska może wykorzystać potencjałdrzemiący w kapitale ludzkim aby doprowadzić do wyrównaniapoziomu rozwoju gospodarczego z najlepiej rozwiniętymigospodarczo krajami Unii Europejskiej? str. 19

Profil firmyinwestując w ludzi Wywiad z Davem Gibsonem, CEO firmyFluor S.A. specjalizującej się w zarządzaniu projektami bu-dowlanymi w przemyśle chemicznym, str. 22

Ekspercitworzenie kultury wysokiego zaufania Kiedy pracownicymają zaufanie do swoich liderów firma może osiągać szybirozwój zwiększyć poziom innowacyjności oraz poziom wartościdla udziałowców, str. 23

Bez końca Ustawa o Ochronie Danych Osobowych, niedawnoznowelizowana, wymaga dalszych zmian, str. 24

twój nowy Vat Wprowadzone w tym roku owe przepisy ostawkach VAT wymagają starannego przestudiowania, str. 25

dotarcie na podstawie zachowania To, czym nie wiedząużytkownicy internetu może działać na ich szkodę, str. 26

© American Chamber of Commercein Poland 2011. All rights reserved.

American Investor to oficjalny magazyn Amerykańskiej Izby Handlowej w Polsce. Magazynreprezentuje głos środowisk międzynarodowego biznesu w Polsce. Celem magazynu jestdostarczanie członkom Izby i innym czytelnikom aktualnych informacji na temat działal-ności Izby a także trendów biznesowych i polityce społecznej firm.listy do rekacji prosimy wysyłać na adres poczty elektronicznej:[email protected]

Relacje zdjęcioweMiesięczne Spotkanie Śniadaniowe, str. 27

Działy stałeBriefing redakcyjny, str. 2

List Prezesa Amerykańskiej Izby Handlowej, str. 4

Informacje o firmach członkowskich Izby, str. 5

Informacje o działalności Komitetów Izby, str. 8

Podsumowanie zawartości numeru w języku polskim, str. 28

Przewodnik po Komitetach Izby, str. 29

SUMMARIES: in Polish

We’re allin this

together

AmCham Member to Member

Documents

American Investor February 2011