American Investor Winter 2013

InvestorWINTER 2013

Vol. XXIII, No. 1 • ISSN 1506-3240

www.amcham.pl

American

INSIDE: What’s new with Obama 2.0? • AmCham CEO Forum • Manufacturers' Forum • Membership Directory • US Ambassador’s policyspeech COMPANY PROFILE: CDM Smith • DLA Piper FOCUS: Executive chef of the Sheraton Kraków • German Marshall Fund • Steel industry

The quarterly of the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland

A long wayto go

Polish firms investing

abroad stillfind the US

market too big,too expensiveand too far

away

WINTER 2013 AMERICAN INVESTOR 1

AmCham Business Mixers—ideal for marketing your brand, new logo, new product or service.We bring together 150 AmCham guests; sponsors can invite their own to these after-hours cocktail parties that are popular

places to meet, network and get your name out to a wide audience. The cost of organizing a mixer ranges from PLN 15,000 toPLN 20,000 depending on the venue, menu and extras. Mixers can be co-sponsored by several companies.

Fourth of July Picnic—marketing to a Warsaw-wide audience with family fun and associating yourself with the American brand. Planned for July 6, 2013, this is the biggest event on the American social calendar in Poland, with an

all-American family atmosphere. Hosted by AmCham since 1994, we always ensure a great time for over 1,000 AmChamfriends and families.

Annual General Meeting (AGM) & Christmas reception—the most exclusive AmCham membership event of the year. This year-end business meeting and Christmas party brings together 100 top AmCham executives for a very pleasant evening.

AmCham CEO Forums—for more targeted branding with an intellectual business component. These high-level discussionpanels, followed by a cocktail reception, bring together over 50 AmCham CEOs, exclusively. The cost of organizing a CEO

Forum is around PLN 15,000 and we do only three a year.

"AmCham Diner" at the Krynica Economic Forum—exposure to a high-level audience; association with American values; casual advocacy. Because we made such a splash the first time around, we may do it again! Here is an all-American venue for

meetings and casual discussions with high-level and wide-ranging Forum participants, with a program of interviews and panelsfor focused topics. A strong showing of the best the US has to offer in terms of culture and business—and how close that is to

the hearts of Poland.

Wrocław Global Forum—the prime US-associated forum for which AmCham will be creating the business component as of2013. In partnership with US-based think tank the Atlantic Council and the City of Wrocław, this forum is a high-quality eventfocusing on Polish and regional issues. The program and details will be determined together with our partners. It will be an op-

portunity to continue the dialogue and momentum created during the Business Summit.

AmCham Kraków and AmCham Wrocław—a wide range of possibilities for business development and marketing in thesemajor metropolitan areas.

For more information please contact Anita Kowalska at [email protected] or call her at +48-22-520-5994

Do not miss the opportunity to sponsor AmCham events

in 2013!

MONTHLY MEETING

November

What’s new with Obama 2.0? Poland hopes for areboot of political relations with the US in the nextfour years, p. 16

CEO FORUM

Brave new world With all their vices and virtues,Polish executives are good material for facing thebusiness challenges of the future, p. 19

MANUFACTURERS’ FORUM

Weathering the storm AmCham member compa-nies active in the manufacturing sector met in No-vember in Katowice to share their experiencestackling the market slowdown and to interface withlocal officials and suggest solutions involvingPoland’s national and regional governments, p. 22

CHARITY DRIVE 2012

For the 17th consecutive year, the AmCham Foun-dation arranged and executed its holiday CharityDrive to provide assistance in cash and kind tothose in need, p. 26

AMCHAM MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY

Alphabetical list of corporate and individual mem-bers as of December 15, 2012, p. 27

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Opening a new chapter AmCham welcomes thenew US ambassador, p. 32

COMPANY PROFILE

Going where the gas is Kevin P. Molloy, Vice Pres-ident and Oil and Gas Sector Leader of CDMSmith, talks about the company’s business plansfor Poland, p. 34

A client-driven law firm Sir Nigel Knowles, man-aging partner of DLA Piper UK, and Dr. KrzysztofWiater, managing partner of DLA Piper in Poland,

A long way to goPolish firms investing abroad still findthe US market too big, too expensiveand too far away, p. 10

COVER STORY:WINTER 2013 Vol. XXIII, No. 1

Contents

In this issue

talk about the firm’s business growth strategy, p. 35

FOCUS

Good food is the goal A young executive chef feedsguests at the Sheraton Kraków and travels the world toassure that the Polish soccer team starts every game onthe right gastronomic foot, p. 38

Thinking outside the tank Andrew A. Michta, SeniorTransatlantic Fellow and Director of the German Mar-shall Fund’s Warsaw office, talks about the agenda forPoland, p. 40

Room for improvement Jerzy Kozicz, president ofCMC Zawiercie, talks about the steel industry in Poland,p. 41

EXPERT

The writing on the wall Scientific analysis of handwrit-ing can be surprisingly helpful in assessing job candi-dates and business partners, p. 42

A blast from the past Tax regulations between the EUmember states resemble solutions Poland and the UShave had since 1974, p. 43

How far does the directive go? There are limits to theapplication of EU public procurement rules when itcomes to defense and security, p. 44

Rules to be amended Poland takes its time adjustingto new EU regulations on short selling, p. 45

Major VAT changes ahead The most extensive set ofamendments to Poland’s VAT Act in nearly a decadewill become effective in April 2013 and January 2014, p. 46

EVENTS

Halloween Business Mixer, p. 47; Monthly Meeting inNovember, p. 48; Manufacturers' Forum, p. 49; CEOForum, p. 50; International Christmas Meeting inWrocław, p. 52; Annual General Meeting, p. 54

DEPARTMENTS

What's on AmCham website, p. 2; Letter from the Chair-man p. 3; Newsline p. 4; Agenda, p. 7; Guide to Am-Cham Committees, p. 56.

2 AMERICAN INVESTOR WINTER 2013 WINTER 2013 AMERICAN INVESTOR 3

Download this magazine!American Investor is available in full as a

pdf for download from the www.am-cham.pl website. Go to "About Us" in thehorizontal menu, and choose American

Investor Magazine from the pop-upmenu. You can download past issues of

American Investor dating back to October2010.

Calendar

By clicking on red links in the Calendaryou may visit photo coverage of our pastevents. Blue links will take you to the an-

nouncements of upcoming events.

EventsAmCham Monthly Meetings are one of the

flagship events organized by the cham-ber. While American Investor covers eachMonthly Meeting extensively, including

full-page pictorials, you can searchthrough picture archives of past events

that include never previously printed ma-terial. Just go to Events and Activities,pick Monthly Meetings and scroll down

for links to archived events.

RegionsAmCham may be closer than you think.

Apart from Warsaw, AmCham has two re-gional branches which are active all year

long and offer many exciting opportunitiesto interface with regional business leadersand politicians. To find out more about our

activities in Kraków and the region ofsouthern Poland, and Wrocław, go to Re-gions in the horizontal menu bar, and pick

your region of interest.

Policy WatchIntelligence: For AmCham position pa-pers, policy statements, official letters togovernment ministers and research pa-pers, visit the Advocacy link on the hori-zontal menu to download the latest Am-

Cham position papers.

Other useful sites

US Chamber of Commercehttp://www.uschamber.com

American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union

http://www.amchameu.beAmChams in Europe

http://www.amchamseurope.com

BOARD OFDIRECTORS

SPONSORS

Joseph Wancer – Deloitte

Chairman

Joanna BenszPM Group

Xavier Douellou3M Poland

Paul FogoMiller Canfield

Judith Y. GlinieckiWierzbowski Eversheds

Tony HoushAPCO Worldwide

Krzysztof KłapaMcDonald’s

John LynchLynka

Roman RewaldWeil Gotshal

Anna SieńkoIBM

Richard Lada

Laurie St. AubinConocoPhillips

AmCham Auditor:

YOUR AMCHAM

MEMBERS

What’s on

www.amcham.plYour online guide to AmCham activities

© American Chamber of Commerce in Poland 2013. All rights reserved.

Greetings to all of you in 2013!

Last year was intense and challenging in various ways. AmCham met its objectives with success,

as we mentioned at our Annual General Meeting in December. Whatever we did last year is now

history.

There is no time to waste dwelling on the past. We must focus on issues

that we face in 2013 and onwards. The newly elected Board will undoubtedly

offer leadership and wisdom to our organization in its endeavors to effectively

address the key outstanding topics that still hinder American investments in

Poland. Resolution of these issues is important for US as well as Polish firms,

since in most cases they refer to generic causes of severe bureaucracy and

imperfections of the administrative, legal and tax systems in Poland. The fu-

ture growth of the Polish economy depends on greater efficiency of local sys-

tems.

It is quite evident that other international chambers of commerce in Poland have also increased their

activities by becoming more visible in addressing their concerns. Personally, I welcome this rising

“competition,” since it behooves us to become more responsive to the vital problems and issues fac-

ing us every day of our operations here.

I believe we, AmCham, should become more marketing- and PR-driven, stronger in external com-

munication with public authorities, the business community and the media. To do so, we need to rely

on you, our members, to provide AmCham with top-quality input on a more frequent basis.

In some areas, this is already happening. But not everywhere. The committees must take more re-

sponsibility for concluding projects and reviews on a timely basis, with hard data analysis and input. If

we want to be counted on by local authorities and business and social leaders to pursue vital changes

in Poland, we need to strengthen our information output and our image.

I trust that the direct cooperation between AmCham committees and the Board will grow and deepen

in 2013, allowing the chamber to operate with higher efficiency than in the past. Let’s capitalize on our

strengths and deliver what the Polish market expects: added value—for the market and for American

investors.

Best regards,

Joseph WancerAMCHAM CHAIRMAN

Our website Letter from the Chairman

Your American Investor

WINTER 2013 AMERICAN INVESTOR 54 AMERICAN INVESTOR WINTER 2013

© American Chamber of Commerce in Poland 2013. 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]

photo on the front cover and on page 12 by Małgorzata Sellery. Model: Stephen Sellery. Copyright 2013. Used by permission.

AMCHAM STAFF

Dorota DabrowskiExecutive Director

[email protected]

Marzena DrelaDeputy Director

[email protected]

Anita KowalskaEvents & Media Manager

[email protected]

Robert KruszynaOffice Manager

[email protected]

Barbara Pocialik-MalinowskaMembership and Committees Coordinator

[email protected]

Marta PawlakPolicy Counsel

[email protected]

AmCham in KrakówMonika [email protected]

AmCham in WrocławJoanna [email protected]

YOUR AMCHAM

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFTom Ć[email protected]

EDITOR-AT-LARGEchrisTopher [email protected]

Printing

Q 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]

3M3M placed 2nd among the most respectedemployers in industrial manufacturing in aranking compiled by Antal International in as-sociation with the Business Centre Club. Theranking was based on a survey of 1,500 man-agers and specialists in different businessfields. Piotr Salawski, HR director at 3MPoland, said he was proud that the high em-ployment standards at 3M were noticed byPolish experts. “Our organizational culturerests on cooperation and mutual inspiration,”he said. 3M employs over 1,600 people inPoland.

AmCham Poland

Members of the American Chamber of Com-merce in Poland approved the 2012 AnnualReport and elected the new Board of Direc-tors at the AmCham Annual General Meetingon December 10, 2012, at the Sheraton War-saw. The members of the new Board of Direc-tors for the 2013–2014 term are JoannaBensz (PM Group), Xavier Douellou(3M Poland), Paul Fogo (Miller Canfield), Ju-dith Gliniecki (Wierzbowski Eversheds),Tony Housh (APCO Worldwide), KrzysztofKłapa (McDonald’s), Richard Lada (eremelconsulting), John Lynch (Lynka), Roman Re-wald (Weil Gotshal), Anna Sieńko (IBM),Laurie St. Aubin (ConocoPhillips) andJoseph Wancer (Deloitte). In picture, thevote counting commettee at work: KatarzynaRyzińska (PwC), Marzena Drela (AmChamDeputy Director) and Łukasz Głuch (PwC).

Highlighting the milestones for the cham-ber in 2012, AmCham Chairman JosephWancer singled out the US-Poland BusinessSummit in June, of which the chamber wasthe main organizer, and the chamber’s“strong and prominent presence” at the Kryn-ica Economic Forum in September.

Wancer also said that the AmCham com-mittees, which create the agenda for thechamber, have done a great job and areclosely following market trends and legisla-tive developments.

He said that AmCham is growing strongerby relying on the resources and dedication ofthe member companies and the great work ofthe AmCham team led by executive directorDorota Dabrowski.

Wancer also praised the managers of thetwo branch offices, Monika Pilarska inKraków and Joanna Bensz in Wrocław, fortheir efficiency, strength and resolve in pro-moting the chamber by organizing events lo-

cally. Wancer added that this year AmChammay add another regional office, in the Tricityarea of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot.

The chairman reported that AmCham’s fi-nancial status was sound, with a surplus gen-erated in 2012. The audit was carried out byPwC.

Wancer also said that this year AmChamwill reinforce its lobbying efforts, focusing onpublic procurement law to assure that it ismore competitive and offers a level playingfield for both Polish and foreign companies.

Wancer thanked all the member companiesfor their support and said that AmCham is setto continue to deliver good value for moneyfor its members.

The main sponsor of the Annual GeneralMeeting was CDM Smith, with in-kind spon-sors including Starbucks, Dobre Wina, Pep-siCo, Bose, Estée Lauder, Promotorzy,LOT Polish Airlines, the Kościuszko Founda-tion and the Sheraton Warsaw Hotel.

The 2012 AmCham Student Essay ContestGrand Prize Winner was Marek Maj, repre-senting Talisman Energy Polska. The runners-up were Valerie Popow (Finacorp Polska),Nikola Gutowska (Animex) and KarolinaFonfara (Fluor).

AmCham Kraków

At a business mixer in October, AmChamKraków bade farewell to US Ambassador LeeFeinstein and welcomed new US ConsulGeneral Ellen Germin. The ambassadorthanked the members of the chamber for theircooperation. He said that the economic rela-tions between the US and Poland are goodbut have room for improvement, especiallywhen it comes to boosting trade between thetwo countries.

The mixer took place at the historic Jagiel-loński Room of Collegium Maius, the oldestbuilding of Jagiellonian University.

The event was sponsored by RR Donnelley,Ernst & Young, Cooper Standard, CMC Zaw-iercie, Motorola Solutions, UPS and Fluor. Pic-tured: Lee Feinstein, Ellen Germin, MonikaPilarska (AmCham Kraków Branch Director)and Paul Fogo (member of the AmChamBoard).

Baker & McKenzieLaw firm Baker & McKenzie has joined withEstudio Echecopar, a leading law practice inPeru, to become the first international lawgroup with a presence in the country. Baker &McKenzie now operates 72 offices in 45 coun-

tries globally, including 7 in South America.In other news, Baker & McKenzie has been

selected by the Ministry of Treasury as legaladvisers in the merger of two chemical com-panies, ZA Tarnów and ZA Puławy, both spe-cializing in fertilizers.

Baker & McKenzie also advised Canal+ inits acquisition of a controlling interest in tele-vision station TVN and the merger of theCyfra+ and “n” digital platforms.

BoeingBoeing and flagship carrier LOT Polish Air-lines celebrated the delivery of the first Boe-ing 787 Dreamliner. The event was held atBoeing’s Center for Future Flight Aviation inMukilteo, Washington. The delivery makesLOT the first carrier in Europe to operate aDreamliner. LOT will fly eight Dreamliners,serving long-haul connections between War-saw and Chicago, New York, Toronto and Bei-jing.

CapgeminiIT outsourcing and technology consultancyCapgemini announced that its total employ-ment in Poland exceeded 5,000 at the end of2012. Capgemini entered Poland in 1996. Itfocuses on providing IT solutions to thetelecommunications, banking, insurance andpublic service sectors. Its main unit, SoftwareSolutions Center, is in Wrocław. Polish soft-ware engineers also participate in mobile ap-plications projects for global clients.

CDM SmithCDM Smith, a design and project manage-ment specialist, recently expanded its serv-ices in Poland by adding construction capa-bilities to support oil and gas development.This new regional capability supports thecompany’s existing technical and regulatoryexpertise in the rapidly evolving energy indus-try. According to VP Kevin Molloy, CDMSmith has assembled a comprehensive teamof design and regulatory experts and con-struction professionals to support energy de-velopment companies as they explore hydro-carbon opportunities in the EU and aroundthe world.

The shale gas team at CDM Smith has al-ready completed its first project for MarathonOil, constructing an exploration well pad andaccess road, and is also supporting Chevronin permitting, design and construction of upto six well pads and related infrastructure.

Citi HandlowyThe City of Warsaw has renewed its contractwith Citi Handlowy to operate the city’s bankaccounts for the next 5 years. Warsaw MayorHanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz praised the bankfor delivering innovative services in cash-flowmanagement and account integration. Ac-cording to Citi Handlowy CEO SławomirSikora, the bank has new solutions to betterservice the largest municipal budget inPoland, including new ATMs to be installedacross municipal offices and a prepaid cardsystem for recipients of benefits administered

by the city. Meanwhile, the Polish State Treasury has

named Citi Handlowy the best dealer in T-bonds, in a ranking of 16 banks.

In other news, Citi Handlowy and Germanbank KFW have signed an agreement for CitiHandlowy to distribute EUR 30 million inloans to investors in energy efficiency pro-grams, the first such contract in Poland byKFW, which is one of the two providers of fi-nancial aid for energy efficiency through EUprograms for SMEs and municipalities.

CBRE

According to experts at commercial real es-tate consultancy CBRE, the Polish office mar-ket has seen increased demand and manynew developments. In the warehouse market,growth in leasing activity has led to a limitedamount of new space and lower vacancyrates.

Even though Poland’s GDP growth hasslowed, the demand for office space is hold-ing strong, CBRE said. In the first three quar-ters of 2012, 455,000 m2 of office space inWarsaw was leased, and in the whole of 2012more offices were rented than in 2011.

A recent deal in Warsaw’s Mokotów busi-ness district was the lease of 2,200 m2 at theAmbassador office building (pictured). CBRErepresented the owner, Kronor Real Estate.

Warsaw’s Powiśle district is also becomingan attractive destination for office tenants,who value its central yet quiet location andcompetitive rents. At the end of 3Q 2012, theoffice vacancy rate in Powiśle was below 1%.

In 2014 and 2015 the supply of new officespace is expected to increase substantially,with 2014 expected to be a record year. Ac-cording to the information from developers,CBRE said a total of 52,000 m2 will be com-pleted in four new office projects, one alreadyunder construction and the others to startsoon.

Cushman & WakefieldCommercial real estate consultancy Cushman& Wakefield has let more than 70% of the re-tail space at Galeria Katowicka (pictured inthe next column), one of the largest retailprojects to be delivered soon in Central &Eastern Europe. Galeria Katowicka is a46,000 m2 mall in the heart of Katowice, be-side the main train station. Tenants will in-clude a supermarket, multiplex cinema, andnumerous retailers. The project is scheduledfor completion in the second half of 2013.

In other news, Cushman & Wakefield has

opened a new branch office in Kraków. Lo-cated in the Old Town, it will focus onKraków’s office leasing market.

DLA Piper

DLA Piper concluded its Young Design Talentcompetition by awarding first prize to EwaGuniewska, a 2012 graduate of the WarsawAcademy of Fine Arts (ASP). The goal set forthe contestants was to design an officegadget reflecting the values that guide DLAPiper. The judges included Dr. WojciechMałolepszy (ASP), Prof. KrystynaSzczepanowska-Kozłowska (DLA Piper) andAgnieszka Jankowska (DLA Piper). The win-ning work, entitled “Qubik” (pictured) ishanded out by DLA Piper to its clients andfriends.

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard has opened a business

NewslineNews from AmCham and its members

HOT DATE

Feb.21.13Event: Business Mixer

Place: National Stadium, Warsaw

Time: 6:30 P.M.


Orco Property Group Agnieszka Tucharz was ap-pointed general manager of Ma-maison Hotel Le Regina War-saw. Tucharz joined the boutiquehotel in 2004 as sales directorfollowing a career with interna-tional hotel chains in Warsaw.After two years she was pro-moted to general manager ofMamaison Residence DianaWarsaw, which she successfullyran for nearly 7 years.

GE After 20 years, Lesław Kuzaj,president of GE for Poland andCEE, is leaving the company.Kuzaj was instrumental in super-vising the development of GE inPoland, where it now employs10,000 people, including BankBPH, three product facilities of GEPower Controls, owned by GE In-dustrial Solutions, and one con-trolled by GE Aviation. Kuzaj’s re-placement had not been namedwhen American Investor went toprint.

Members on the move

NewslineNews from AmCham and its members

process outsourcing center in Łódź at GTCUniversity Business Park (pictured on the pre-vious page). The venture is dedicated to pro-viding advanced solutions for finance, ac-counting, HR and administration. “Our key tosuccess is the ability to provide highly spe-cialized services for organizations active indifferent types of business globally,” said Re-nata Sima, head of Outsourcing Services atHP.

Manpower GroupEmployers are cautious about hiring new peo-ple in the 1st quarter of 2013, HR specialistManpower Group revealed in its quarterly sur-vey of employers in Poland, the ManpowerEmployment Outlook Survey. Sectors such astransport, logistics, retail and wholesale tradeshow the largest changes in demand for newjobs. But pessimism prevails. Among 750 em-ployers polled, only 9% said they plan to hirenew people in 1Q 2013, 15% said they will cutjobs, and 73% will hold steady.

“The polling shows a growing pessimism inthe labor market,” said Iwona Janas, GM ofManpower Group in Poland. “Many firms havehalted new projects, but the beginning of thenew year is always a difficult time in the labormarket. To add insult to injury, there are nega-tive signals from the eurozone countries.”

Marriott WarsawThe Warsaw Marriott Hotel has been honoredby the World Travel Awards with the presti-gious title of Poland’s Leading Business Hotel2012. The World Travel Awards have beengiven for the past 19 years to companies thatstand out significantly in the travel industry.This year, over 180,000 industry professionals

from all over the world voted for the bestproducts in the hospitality industry.

Orco Property Group

Paweł Oszczyk, executive chef of La Rotis-serie restaurant in Warsaw, owned by Orco,has contributed seven recipes of traditionalPolish dishes to a coffee-table cookbook pub-lished by Bosz. Polish First Lady Anna Ko-morow-ska also contributed a recipe for thebook, which was shortlisted for the GourmandWorld Cookbook Awards as the best Polishcookbook for professionals. The winners willbe announced at the Louvre Cookbook TradeFair in February.

In other news, La Rotisserie was voted theBest Hotel Restaurant in a poll of readers ofthe Warsaw Insider.

La Rotisserie Restaurant is located in the 5-star Mamaison Hotel Le Regina Warsaw in thecity’s New Town.

Panattoni EuropeIndustrial real estate developer Panattoni Eu-rope has extended two leases at PanattoniPark Błonie I and II with publishing distributorAlfa Logis (10,918 m2) and pharmaceuticaldistributor Poltraf (7,200 m2), bringing the de-veloper’s vacancy rate at Błonie down to zero.

In other news, Panattoni Europe wasnamed Warehouse Developer of the Year inthe prestigious Eurobuild Awards 2012, or-ganized by industry magazine Eurobuild CEE.The awards gala was held in December at theHilton Hotel Warsaw.

PM GroupIndustrial engineering and project manage-ment specialist PM Group has completed thebare shell stage of construction of a ham-burger bun facility for Fresh Start Bakeriesfrom the Aryzta group. The 14,000 m2 projectat the Invest-Park special economic zone inWałbrzych is scheduled for completion inMarch of this year.

SalansSalans has merged with Fraser Milner Cas-grain and SNR Denton to form one of theworld’s largest legal groups, with over 2,500lawyers in 79 offices and 52 countries world-wide. It will operate from 1Q 2013 under thename Dentons. According to TomaszDąbrowski, managing partner of Salans inPoland, “Dentons will be a unique global lawplatform that will utilize the best of the threedifferent cultures and the histories of the firms

that have now formed it.”

Starwood Hotels & ResortsFollowing a PLN 50 million refurbishment in

early 2013, Warsaw’s Bristol Hotel will be-come the first in Poland to join Starwood’sLuxury Collection brand. Luxury CollectionHotels & Resorts is a chain of 80 hotels in 30countries offering top-quality service in con-junction with access to local tourist attrac-tions. The brand includes such properties asthe Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens, theHotel Imperial in Vienna, and Al Maha DesertResort in Dubai. The Bristol, an historic prop-erty that opened in 1901, is on KrakowskiePrzedmieście, next door to Poland’s Presi-dential Palace. In November, the Sheraton Warsaw was the

venue for the 4th annual charity dinner Tastesof Good, held by Starwood Hotels & Resortsand the Orimari Foundation. The dinner cul-minated in a charity auction of six dishes pre-pared by executive chefs from Sheratons inWarsaw, Kraków, Poznań and Sopot as wellas Warsaw’s Bristol and Westin hotels. Theevent raised PLN 409,000, which was do-nated to the Children’s Clinical Hospital inLublin. In picture, first row: Michał Tkaczyk(Le Méridien Bristol), Artur Grajber (SheratonWarsaw), Janusz Korzyński (Westin War-saw), Tomasz Leśniak (Sheraton Kraków).

In other news, the Sheraton hotels in War-saw, Kraków, Poznań and Sopot have earnedGreen Key certification, an international stan-dard for hotels that reduce their environmen-tal impact, educate their staff on ecology, andconduct related CSR projects. The hotelsmanaged to cut power consumption by 30%with new energy-saving lighting and waterconsumption by 20% with new water manage-ment systems, and introduced sorting of trashfor recycling. •

AgendaIntelligence from AmCham Committees

Business Technology & Services/SME & Entrepreneurship Com-mitteesAt a joint session of AmCham’s Business Tech-nology & Services Committee and SME & En-trepreneurship Committee in December, mem-bers discussed the benefits of IT leasing. Thespeaker was Patryk Nosalik, country managerof CSI Leasing.

Nosalik said that CFOs and other people re-sponsible for balancing budgets see differentopportunities for their companies in leasing ITinfrastructure. They may include avoiding pur-chasing and payment processes with IT suppli-ers or managerial tasks related to owning andmanaging IT infrastructure, such as non-coreadministrative tasks and software and hardwareupgrades.

“Leasing is a good management practicethat shows that a company is thinking of everypossible way to improve how its IT is beingrun,” Nosalik said.

To back his points, Nosalik presented casestudies of how large and medium-sized compa-nies have benefited by sourcing their IT equip-ment through leasing. He also gave anoverview of the issues financial institutions lookat in IT leasing deals, including the problemsthat stem from different types of software li-censing agreements.

Defense & Security Committee

In November, Deputy Minister of Foreign AffairsBogusław Winid met with the AmCham De-fense & Security Committee to discuss the Pol-ish-US defense relationship and how Poland’srelationship with neighboring countries may bea benefit for the defense sector in Poland.

Winid said that Poland has transformed itsplace on the map of global security because ofits strong and stable economy, with a solid de-fense and security budget. “This is a very wel-come change,” Winid said.

He said that Poland has made it mandatoryto spend 1.95% of the country’s budget on de-fense and security. Since Poland’s GDP hasbeen growing, it has more to spend year-on-year. “This is a unique situation among EUcountries,” Winid said, “as most of them havemade cuts to their defense budgets, and somenearly eliminated defense expenditures totackle the negative effects of the economic cri-sis.”

Winid said that Poland’s 2012 budget for de-fense was USD 8.9 billion, including USD 2.2billion on modernization and procurement ofnew equipment. This means that approximately30% of the defense budget is spent on newequipment. “It is a very healthy percentage,and in fact an agreed NATO model,” Winidsaid.

For 2013 it is forecast that 26% of the entiredefense budget will go to the acquisition of newequipment, which will translate into approxi-

mately USD 2.5 billion.But that is not all. The Ministry of Defense es-

timates that the cost of Polish troops inAfghanistan is nearly USD 1 billion. In 2013,however, Poland’s presence in Afghanistan willshift from military to training, which will let mili-tary planners redirect a substantial portion ofthe budget elsewhere. “A huge portion will gointo replacing the equipment destroyed or de-molished in Afghanistan, including armoredpersonnel carriers, helicopters, helicopter guns,and radio equipment,” Winid explained. “Thereplacement may take approximately threeyears, so the results may be seen in 2017.”

The financing priority in 2011 was specialforces. They absorbed nearly USD 20 million.Earlier, most development funds went to sup-port the Air Force, including the Hercules pro-gram and control and communication systemsused by the Polish special forces inAfghanistan, and other programs connectedwith the Polish presence in Afghanistan.

In the future, however, Poland will not buysecond-hand equipment, as some such equip-ment Poland purchased in the past has failed tomeet expectations. “We would like to focus onnew equipment, because sometimes it costsless to buy new than to buy used and fix it.”

Poland is focused on several defense systempriorities. One of them, codenamed AGS for Al-liance Ground Surveillance, is a programPoland has returned to after a period of hesi-tancy. “We hope the program will develop ac-cording to schedule and the first Global Hawkswill be operational in 2015,” Winid said.

He noted, however, that there are questionson how the Polish defense industry may partici-pate in this program. This is something thatPoland wants to renegotiate, especially when itcomes to what extent the Polish defense indus-try may be involved in it. “We hope that Polandwill participate not only in the program as such,but in its industrial component as well,” Winidsaid.

The Missile Defense Program, scheduled tobe operational by 2018, has been developingwell, with construction in full swing in Romaniaand Turkey. There are issues, however, includ-ing the rules of engagement, command andcontrol issues, and legal problems that mayarise, all currently being discussed.

Poland has its own missile defense system,codenamed the Shield of Poland. This systemis old and technologically inadequate to pres-ent-day demands, as it uses 1970s and 1980stechnology developed in the Soviet Union. Al-though it is modernized and undergoes propermaintenance, the system will gradually betaken out of service. Poland will thus have topurchase new systems for its own missile de-fense. Special emphasis will be placed onshort-range missiles so Polish troops are pro-tected directly on the ground.

Winid also said that the Polish Air Force willundergo a structural overhaul, as the Su-22 So-viet fighters will be taken out of service and

their replacement will have to be purchased.Winid noted that along with its own budget-

ing, Poland has been receiving substantial as-sistance in loans, under various financing struc-tures, totaling USD 47 million in 2010, USD 34million in 2011, and USD 24 million in 2012.

Other support money from the US, approxi-mately USD 2 million annually, goes throughthe International Military Education and TrainingProgram. It covers the cost of training Polish of-ficers in the US at different academic levels.“Most likely,” Winid said, “this program will con-tinue in 2013.”

Energy & Environment CommitteeEduardo Sastre, a technical reviewer at theNuclear Regulatory Commission, an independ-ent regulatory body in the United States thatdeals with licensing, regulating and overseeingthe commercial use of nuclear energy, met withthe AmCham Energy & Environment Commit-tee at two separate sessions in December totalk about how the NRC and the nuclear sectorare cooperating with stakeholders in Poland tohelp the country build a safe and secure civiliannuclear power program.

Having presented the physical, scientific andtechnological aspects of how nuclear energy isproduced, Sastre focused on the practical sideof working with the nuclear sector by present-ing some of the NRC’s experience in oversee-ing the 104 existing nuclear reactors in the US,which produce some 20% of the electricity con-sumed in the US.

Sastre said that the 104 reactors come fromfour different vendors and operate at 65 differ-ent power plants. The reactors utilize 80 differ-ent designs. Those built in the 1960s and 1970suse different design features than those builtlater. For the NRC, the variety of designs poseda challenge when overseeing the safety stan-dards that different plants followed. But whenthe agency added more safety requirements,different vendors had different ways of comply-ing with those requirements. This only added tothe risk.

Sastre noted that the US planned to havesome 300 nuclear plants by now. Some 200projects fell through, however, including 50 thatwere already under construction. The economywas to blame, but also the lack of safety stan-dards and inadequate project coordination be-tween the different parties involved in thoseprojects.

The NRC’s experience is not limited to theUS. Internationally, the agency is involved inmonitoring 434 nuclear reactors that deliverroughly 14% of the overall energy consumptionin the world. Sastre said that in nuclear energy,one of the most important aspects is that the in-dustry safety standards are available to thepublic. “Everybody knows exactly what weneed and how we control the plant so it oper-ates safely.”


AgendaIntelligence from AmCham Committees

Sastre said that in this process, opennessand communication with public opinion arekey. “If the people trust you, if they know whatyou are doing, that means that they under-stand how the nuclear technology works andthey can help the industry.”

Sastre noted that it is a good practice in theUS that the members of the public can visit anuclear station once or twice a year and seehow it works and how it looks from the inside.“It is very important to them to be able to doso,” Sastre said. It also engages the industry,so it knows it has to be dedicated to explainingto the public what the industry is doing.

Safety culture is another big part of the nu-clear energy sector—making sure that every-body involved in nuclear energy acts if theysee something is wrong, because they are thefirst line of defense.

Meeting with AmCham for the second time,Sastre covered the issues of decommissioningold nuclear reactors and highlighted the bene-fits of nuclear energy in light of the environ-mental challenges the world is facing today.

He said that the rise of the nuclear powersector in the last few decades has stemmedfrom the fact that only 3.3 grams of CO2 is re-leased in producing a kilowatt-hour of electric-ity in a nuclear power plant. By comparison,coal energy emits 800 g of CO2 per kWh. Thishas a significant impact on the choice of en-ergy sources, given the growing concern overclimate change and regulations on CO2 emis-sions.

Another plus is that while nuclear waste isstill a huge issue, the problems associated withcoal waste are much more pressing when itcomes to such factors as storage dumps.

Nuclear energy even looks like a winnerwhen compared to solar technology as weknow it today. According to Sastre, to reach acapacity of 1 gigawatt—the energy output ofan average power plant—a solar farm wouldhave to cover 155 square kilometers with solarpanels in summer and over 600 square kilome-ters in winter.

Sastre also said that while wind and solar donot emit CO2, they are not baseload energysources as they only deliver energy when theirstimulators—wind and light—are present,which is not a constant. By contrast, nuclear isa baseload energy source, as are coal andgas. But in comparison with them, nuclear,owing to its low-emission technology, is in Sas-tre’s view the best source of energy for thedecades to come.

EU Affairs/Energy & EnvironmentCommitteesBeata Jaczewska, director of the Departmentof Economic Development at the Ministry ofEconomy, met with AmCham members at ajoint meeting of the European Union Affairsand Energy & Environment Committees to dis-

cuss the impact of EU environmental regula-tions on the competitiveness of Poland’s econ-omy.

Jaczewska said that Poland will adhere tothe European regulations on CO2 emissionsand the use of renewable energy sources by2020.

Jaczewska observed that the best long-termdevelopment scenario for the Polish energysector is to look at energy efficiency as the keycomponent of the entire energy policy, whichaims at boosting the sustainability and effi-ciency of the Polish economy. She said thatwhile there is no reliable environmentally neu-tral energy source, with energy efficiency allsides of the energy equation—producers, envi-ronmentalists and consumers—are winners.

She added that if climate change is to bestopped, governments must reject strategiesthat do not guarantee the reduction of carbondioxide in the atmosphere. This means thatsome policies that seek to reduce carbonemissions to the atmosphere but do not guar-antee the efficiency of their solutions—such asCO2 storage, which may result in carbonleaks—should not be pursued. She also saidthat the theories that cast CO2 as the main cul-prit responsible for global warming must be re-visited in light of new studies which suggestthat other gases, such as methane, may beeven more problematic. “The EU must notfocus entirely on CO2 reduction in its globalwarming policies,” she said.

Jaczewska added that the CO2 emissionsreductions defined in the Kyoto Protocol aresomewhat outdated, because some countriesthat were identified as developing are todaydeveloped and thus fall under a different CO2emissions regime. “We are recreating every-thing from scratch,” she said.

She added that while disputes about bestpractices in reducing greenhouse gas emis-sions are pending, the European CO2 reduc-tion policy is in full swing, and in 2013 Polandand other member states will negotiate newagreements with the European Commission tobetter coordinate execution of the policyacross the EU. In these negotiations, Polandwill maintain its position aimed at protectingjobs and the competitive edge of the Polisheconomy.

Infrastructure Committee

In October the AmCham Infrastructure Com-mittee held a meeting with two members ofsenior management at DCT Gdańsk SA—CEOBoris Wenzel and Senior Director AdamŻołnowski—who talked about how the newdeepwater container terminal in Gdańsk com-petes with terminals in Rotterdam and otherBaltic transportation hubs in Western Europe.

Wenzel said that DCT Gdańsk, a project thattook two years to complete and cost EUR 190million, has changed the universal belief thatthere would never be any large vessels going

into the Baltic Sea, “but everything would beserved from Hamburg as it had been for thepast 35 years.”

Wenzel noted that after over five years inbusiness, DCT Gdańsk, as the largest sea con-tainer transportation hub in Poland, has man-aged to attract over 55% of container handling,among all of the five container ports in Poland.

The revolutionary aspect of DCT Gdańsk,Wenzel explained, is that the way Poland hasdeveloped its economy, there is no need forthe country to be a land transportation corridorleading from the West to the East. Instead,there is a real business opportunity for Polandto play the role of a gateway to Europe fromthe East by water.

Wanzel explained that container transporta-tion has minimized the cost of logistics. A con-tainer from China, whether discharged in Rot-terdam or Hamburg or anywhere else on thenorthern European coast, costs approximatelythe same to transport no matter which port itgoes to. However, the cost of transportation onland within Europe may exceed the cost oftransport from China to Europe. “A containerthat has to travel on land from Rotterdam orHamburg to Warsaw may cost more than itstransportation from China to Europe via adeepwater port,” Wenzel explained. “There areadditional negative points to land transporta-tion, such as the emission of CO2 and the timeit takes for the container to travel. This is whythe deepwater port in Gdańsk makes such adifference.”

The port, which at present employs 500, willalso create tens of thousands of jobs in thenext few years simply because of all the logis-tic operations associated with it. Most impor-tant, however, is the strategic significance ofDCT Gdańsk.

Now many multinational companies preferto serve the European and CEE markets fromtheir old base in Western Europe. DCT Gdańskgives them an opportunity to rethink this strat-egy and start using Poland as their base toserve CEE, including Russia, Ukraine andmaybe one day Belarus. “With this,” Wenzelsaid, “the companies may differentiate be-tween the low-growth markets of Western Eu-rope and the high-growth and high-potentialmarkets of Eastern Europe, and generate sig-nificant savings in their logistics costs.”

SME & EntrepreneurshipCommitteeMaja Ważniewicz, aviation consultant andfounder and general manager of Skyfleet, metwith SME & Entrepreneurship Committeemembers in October to share her experienceleading a small company through the times ofa flagging economy.

Ważniewicz said that in her business deci-sions she has been guided by both cold calcu-lations and her passions. A seasoned skydiver,Ważniewicz wanted to combine business with

her interest in skydiving. This is how the ideafor the consultancy was formed. Ważniewiczestablished it in partnership with two of her col-leagues, one of whom was an experiencedpilot and aviation engineer, while the other hadsignificant experience in trade. They hopedthat their shared experience would convergeunder one roof. That was not to happen, how-ever. When she realized that her partners’ en-gagement in the company and commitment tosucceed were lower than hers, she decided togo it alone.

“I had to learn everything from scratch,” shesaid, explaining that her educational back-ground is in the humanities, not engineering. “Iended up having to learn all the technical de-tails of aircraft as well as aviation regulations. Itwas a big challenge.”

She said she never regretted her decision togo on her own. “Only if you do something outof your inner feeling, something that feels rightfor you, can you really succeed,” she said.“Your commitment is right then, and your atti-tude is correct.”

Ważniewicz said that thanks to this attitude,she was able to develop her consultancy fur-ther. With new people on board, the companyhas tapped into new projects and is activelylooking at different markets and products.“There are not too many companies in the mar-ketplace that combine the knowledge of busi-ness and aviation,” she said. She added thatas for 40 years there was almost no private avi-ation in Poland, the market now lags behindthe West, but this also opens up wide opportu-nities for a company like hers. “There are firmsthat want to enter the aviation market in Polandbut don’t know how,” she explained.

Ważniewicz said that the most important as-pects of her business are high ethics and com-mitment to customers. These she couldachieve by being independent. “This is some-thing I very deeply believe in, and it hasworked for me because my customers appreci-ate this attitude.” She said that despite being asmall company, she managed to develop rela-tions with the aerospace industry not only inPoland but globally, which in fact is a must inthis business. “The US and Europe are thebiggest aviation markets,” she said, addingthat deals with Australia and Africa are not un-usual either.

Ważniewicz noted that the civil aviation mar-ket in Poland has a long way to mature, espe-cially when it comes to its professionalism andbusiness ethics. “Most of the people active inaviation in Poland come from military and air-club backgrounds,” she explained. “They arestill learning from their mistakes.”

She said that while the general business avi-ation market has huge development potentialin Poland, it is still tied down by the aviationauthorities, who are rigid and inflexible. “Weneed a generational change there,”Ważniewicz said.

At a separate event, in November, Krzysztof

Ogonowski, president of BPI Group, andAlexandre Tissot, innovation director at BPIGroup, met with the SME & EntrepreneurshipCommittee to discuss issues of innovation andknowledge transfer in corporate restructuring.

Ogonowski explained that the process of re-structuring a company always has a businessgoal the managers of the company want toachieve. Reshuffling human resources andtheir responsibilities is therefore a way toachieve that goal. The transfer of knowledge isnot an end in itself but serves the businessgoals of the company. But if people move,knowledge moves with them. It is the objectiveof each manager to maintain the knowledgewithin the company while restructuring it, butthey do not always succeed in keeping thepeople they need to keep. In most cases, theylearn about their mistake when it is too late.

On the other hand, it is very difficult to definewhat successful knowledge transfer should in-volve and how to transfer the critical bits ofknowledge to the people who should possessthe knowledge after the transformation is com-plete.

Ogonowski said that based on its experi-ence with clients, BPI Group compiled a reportthat analyzed key components of knowledgetransfers against the effects achieved by spe-cific transformation processes, such as merg-ers and acquisitions, in companies with over200 people on the payroll. If anything, thoseexamples show the best practices of how tocapture knowledge in the transformationprocess and pass it successfully to the rightpeople in the company.

Tissot presented some of the key points ofthe BPI analyses. He said in most companiesthere is one specific person who has accumu-lated the knowledge of how to deal with spe-cific problems and issues that are critical forthe company’s business. It is difficult to trans-late this person’s experience into a coherentformula or process so other people can tapinto it when needed. In other words, it is diffi-cult for the company to capitalize on the expe-rience of this one person. That particularknowledge must remain in the company, how-ever, and the challenge is to find the way to doit.

Tissot noted that all workers exist within theirorganization and undergo internal processes.When the processes are right and fulfill theirpurposes, they may become the right modelsto follow. But Tissot admitted that this is only intheory. “If that worked, we would not needhuman beings in companies because artificialintelligence would do.”

In reality, companies are not organizationswhere simple processes are followed. Compa-nies are organizations where social processestake place. This means that if one person goesand another takes his or her place, the newperson will not do the same things and will nothave the same way of doing the job as the oldperson did.

The role of a knowledge transfer manager orconsultant is to reveal the way the companyworks across the matrix of the knowledge it re-ally utilizes.

Tissot added that the transfer of knowledgeis essential in today’s companies because theparadigm of business has changed. In the pastit was believed that customers are a com-pany’s main asset. Today it is the knowledge ofa company that is its most important asset, be-cause the company’s capacity to apply itsknowledge and innovate is what allows it tocontinue contributing to the market, deliveringadded value and staying in business.

Tax & Financial ServicesCommitteeIn November the AmCham Tax & FinancialServices Committee held a panel discussionon the latest trends in outsourcing of financialfunctions and implementation of financial sys-tems, as well as best practices to follow in theprocess of implementing new systems. Thepanelists were Marcin Sidelnik and JanWacławek from PwC, Ernest Frankowski andPrzemysław Skorupa from Deloitte, BeataNiedziółka-Rosa from IBM, and Maciej Ro-manowski from GE.

The panelists explained that global compa-nies are eager to consolidate some of theirbusiness processes to be more effective andkeep all relevant global data in one place forready access. This trend will be on the rise,and in time companies that are not global willalso start tapping into such solutions.

While 15 years ago companies establishedtheir own shared services centers to lowercosts, today the economic aspect is not theonly reason to do so. Companies now look forlocations that offer access to a deep pool ofwell-educated workers. India is still in the leadas the most preferred location for shared serv-ices centers, mainly because of the quality ofits workforce, as well as the 20 years of historyin working in outsourcing.

One of the most important things in out-sourcing a business process is to keep localmanagers engaged in the outsourcingprocess. This is not easy to achieve, becauseoutsourcing decisions are made by corporateheadquarters. This forces local managers tothe sidelines of the implementation process, inthe belief that the team sent in by headquarterswill handle all aspects. But it is important tokeep the local managers focused, becauseeven if a business process is outsourced someof its functions may still remain local.

Legal aspects of having a business processoutsourced to another country were also onthe agenda, with a special emphasis on out-sourcing outside of Poland and how local juris-dictions may affect the processes.

•


When US Ambassador StephenMull met with AmCham inDecember, he noted in his

policy speech that Polish companiesare becoming significant providers offoreign direct investment to the world,and it would be a good idea to havemore of them choose the US.

Indeed, in recent years, some Polishcompanies have made spectacular en-tries into the US market.

One of them was AmRest, a com-pany that develops casual diningchains in Poland and other countries,with such brands as KFC, Pizza Hut,Freshpoint, Burger King and Star-bucks in its portfolio. In 2008 AmRestacquired a controlling interest in thefranchise restaurant chain Applebee’sNeighborhood Grill & Bar. With thedeal, the Polish company acquiredcontrol of over 100 restaurants in theUS and, as market analysts under-lined, made a strong entry into theworld’s largest market for casual din-ing. But in mid-2012, AmRest di-vested from most of the restaurants,which market analysts said reflectedAmRest’s focus on pursuing businesscloser to home—in Western Europe,Central & Eastern Europe, and Rus-sia.

Cover storyPolish expansion in the US

A long way to goPolish firms investing abroad still find the US

market too big, too expensive and too far away


Last year saw a major acquisition by Pol-ish producer of copper and silver KGHMPolska Miedź in Canada, but indirectly inthe US. With the acquisition of Canada’sQuadra Mining for almost USD 3 billion,the state-controlled holding companyKGHM became the owner of two coppermines in the US: the Robinson mine in Ne-vada and the Carlota in Arizona. It was thelargest overseas acquisition by a Polishcompany ever.

Pharmena, a pharmaceutical companylisted on the Warsaw alternative marketNewConnect, bought US pharmaceuticalspecialists Cortia Corp. in 2011. Pharmena,which is part of the PGF pharmaceuticalgroup, acquired Cortia for its advanced re-search on an innovative drug against thehardening of tissue, which Pharmena plansto introduce to EU markets.

Also of note was the 2008 acquisition ofUtah-based Occidental Resources byPetrolinvest, a Polish company that exploresfor oil and gas. Petrolinvest has now tappedinto Occidental’s exploration sites in manydifferent parts of the world, includingKazakhstan.

Focus on europeThe list of acquisitions and greenfield in-vestment projects made in the US by Polishcompanies is short. There are only a hand-ful of Polish companies that have investedin the US, and the ventures have not been

typical FDI projects that would signal theexpansion of Polish companies abroad. Forinstance, the acquisition by KGHM (tech-nically in Canada) was worth nearly threetimes as much as the total accumulatedPolish FDI to the US before that time. Italso added 5,500 jobs now managed by aPolish company in the US, out of the esti-mated total 10,000 jobs that Polish investorsmaintain in the US.

The US is not anywhere near the top ofthe agenda for Polish investors. This isclearly reflected in research results. Ac-cording to a study of Polish FDI by a groupof economists at Nicolaus Copernicus Uni-versity in Toruń, presented in December2012 at a conference held under the aus-pices of the Ministry of Economy, Polishcompanies are expanding mostly in the de-veloped markets of Western Europe.

The head of the research team, Prof.Włodzimierz Karaszewski, said that be-cause of their competitive edge, Polishcompanies have been interested for sometime in getting into developed markets. By2005, 90.3% of all Polish FDI went to Euro-pean countries—the closest developed mar-kets there are. Interestingly, Switzerland at-tracted some 30% of Poland’s FDI in value,most of that in the form of transit capital—investments channeled to other countriesthrough Switzerland thanks to favorableSwiss regulations on financial holding com-panies. Asia was the second most popularcontinent for Polish FDI, with 4.1%, fol-lowed by North America (2.8%), Africa(1.4%) and the rest of the world (1.4%).

Six years later, by the end of 2011, the ge-ographical distribution of Poland’s FDI hadchanged very little. Indeed, European mar-kets proved to be even more interesting, as91.3% of Poland’s FDI went there. By then,Switzerland attracted only 5% of thatamount. North America did rise to a distantsecond, attracting 4.4% of Poland’s FDI,while the share of Asia dropped to 2.5%.Africa fell to 0.4%, and the remaining con-tinents remained at 1.4% of Poland’s totalFDI.

in search of new marketsThe main reason Polish companies investabroad is the drive to expand to new mar-kets, the Polish FDI research has shown.Thus the largest percentage of Polish FDIprojects by value was in trade (41%), fol-lowed by services (36%) and production(16%).

Polish companies investing in the EU arepowered by the need to utilize their ownproduction or trading capacity. When in-vesting in CEE countries outside of theEU, they also look at the growth potential ofthe emerging markets.

Factors that impede FDI outflows to theold EU countries include market satura-

tion, high competitiveness, labor costs andother costs, including real estate. In thenew EU member states, the most discour-aging factors for Polish investors are marketsaturation, followed by the lack of govern-ment backing and the relatively high risk ofdoing business there. In CEE outside of theEU, the most important barrier for Polishcompanies is high business risk, combinedwith heavy bureaucracy, the lack of clearand stable business regulations, and cor-ruption.

Why not the Us?The economists in Toruń did not analyzethe US market in terms of the most en-couraging and discouraging factors for Pol-ish FDI. However, in line with the findingsfor Europe, the fact that the North Ameri-can market is highly developed would pre-sumably make it a desirable location forFDI. Yet, while the US and Canada did risein the chart of Poland’s FDI destinations in2005–2011, their share compared to Europeremains small.

One reason for this, as explained by Mar-iusz Radło of the Warsaw School of Eco-nomics, a panelist at the Ministry of Econ-omy conference, is that geographic distanceplays a significant part in deciding where toinvest, especially in manufacturing—a sec-tor that has generated 11% of Poland’s totalFDI outflows.

Radło observed that manufacturers tendto invest in countries that are cheaper thanPoland when it comes to production-relatedcosts such as labor. This is an importantfactor, especially in light of the fact thatnearly 20% of large Polish corporationshave manufacturing facilities abroad.

But there are other reasons. According toMarek Kłoczko, secretary of the PolishChamber of Commerce, the US is per-ceived as a complex market—“a far distantland, expensive to get in and very competi-tive.”

According to Hubert Wochyński, presi-dent of Planet Soft, a business applicationdevelopment company from Gdańsk, one ofthe main barriers to successful entry to theUS is the lack of affordable informationabout the market. “Market research coststhousands of dollars,” he said. “If therewere an agency that would offer such infor-mation, it would help to do business in theUS.”

Another information-related problem isthe lack of access to industry-by-industry“who’s who” data, but there is some assis-tance available. “We often ask the PolishEmbassy in the US to find the right peoplewe want to talk to and set up meetings withthem,” Wochyński said. “The embassyhelped many times.”

Apart from adequate and affordable mar-ket information, there is another barrier

that is more psychological than real: thevisa requirement for Polish travelers to theUS.

As Sławomir Majman, president of thePolish Information and Foreign InvestmentAgency, which handles major inward FDIprojects, said at the US-Poland BusinessSummit in 2012, “Polish businessmen pre-fer to invest in Germany instead of goingthrough the humiliation that the applicationfor a US visa involves.”

Marek Kłoczko noted that the fact thatPoland is not part of the US Visa WaiverProgram must be considered by anyonethinking of traveling to the US: “They areafraid that it is a complex problem to obtainthe right visa, and that they or some of theirpeople may be refused a visa. So it’s muchbetter not to ask at all.”

The burden of visas was echoed by oth-ers. According to Wochyński, “When wehave to send our person to the US on shortnotice, it is a big problem when he or shedoes not have a visa yet.”

For Remigiusz Kościelny, president ofVivid Games, a producer of games for mo-bile phones, life would be easier withoutvisas, even for Poles who have already re-ceived one. “The last time I traveled fromthe US to Poland,” he explained, “the visaofficer did not take the [Form I-94] slip. Inoticed it only later in Poland. I followedthe instructions from the website andmailed the form to the immigration author-ities. But I’m not sure whether the nexttime I travel to the US in February it isgoing to be hassle-free or not.”

As far as Polish businesspeople are con-cerned, it seems that whatever reasons theUS may have had for not bringing Polandinto the US Visa Waiver Program whenPoland became a member of the EU and aparty to the Schengen Agreement, they areirrelevant today and for the future.

pleasant surpriseWhile major acquisitions by Polish firms inthe US and Canada have been one-timedeals, the American story of Inglot Cosmet-ics, a privately held producer and retailer ofbeauty items, still continues to expand. Thecompany set up its first store on Americansoil in New York’s Times Square in 2009.Since then it has progressed to nearly 30stores, mainly thanks to smooth coopera-tion with the retail chain Macy’s.

Speaking at a session on investing in theUS at the US-Poland Business Summit inWarsaw in June of last year, the company’spresident, Zbigniew Inglot, said that it tookyears of research and experience gained inother markets before Inglot decided to in-vest in America. “The US was number 25or 26 on our list of the countries we wantedto enter,” Inglot said. Before establishingits flagship store in the heart of Manhattan,

Inglot was already present across Asia andSouth America.

Paradoxically, Inglot’s relatively late entryinto the US market was caused by the highattractiveness of the US market. It is a mar-ket where the company could not afford tofail. In its business, the right location is key.Thus Inglot waited for the moment when itcould seize the highest-profile locationimaginable. “The key to our success wasthat our first store was at the corner of 48thStreet and Broadway in New York,” Inglotsaid. “We managed to get this place becauseof the crisis in the US. There were a lot ofempty places in premium locations all overthe world. We took that opportunity. After afew months of observations, we started toopen new stores in the US.” Inglot is nowin 18 US cities.

Once Inglot took the plunge, it found areceptive market. “The US consumer, un-like the German one, for instance, is opento new brands and buys quality products,”he explained. “In turn, the US businessregulations are clear, simple and stable.”

For Inglot Cosmetics, the firm’s entryinto the US market has marked a new chap-ter in its history. “Now we are rebuildingour company,” Inglot said. “We have to de-velop our warehouses and so on, and we areready to go further and continue investingin the US. It is also e-commerce, collabora-tion with Macy’s, and we would like to starta franchise system.”

Top of the worldWhile many brick-and-mortar companiesmay expand to different countries beforethey eventually decide to zoom in on theUS, for Polish software developers the USmarket is way more important than anyother market, even the Polish one.

“When it comes to the US market, we areextremely interested in expanding there,”said Hubert Wochyński, whose companySoft Planet runs an ongoing advertisingcampaign for its flagship product—data in-tegration software for companies—on tradesites in the US.

“The US is a big and affluent market,”Wochyński said. In his view, the best part ofthe US market is that it is business-driven,with no strings attached. “American clientsare open to new, innovative solutions andquickly grasp the kinds of benefits they mayget with new software,” Wochyński said.“When they see the benefit, they buy theproduct, even though the application of theproduct requires investment.”

Wochyński noted that such a straightfor-ward business attitude is rare in Europe,where many projects are implemented withfinancing from the EU: “You may have aproduct that clearly delivers benefits to thepotential client but does not comply withsome of the program requirements. So the


Geographicdistanceplays a significantpart in decidingwhere to invest, especially in manufac-turing—a sectorthat hasgenerated11% ofPoland’stotal FDIoutflows.

Manufacturers tendto invest in countriesthat are cheaper thanPoland when it comesto production-relatedcosts such as labor.This is an importantfactor, especially inlight of the fact thatnearly 20% of largePolish corporationshave manufacturingfacilities abroad.


comer to the food market compared toFrance, Italy or even Romania, and did notconvey any ambition to change this status.

But the Polish government has takennote of the expansion of Polish companiesabroad, and attending to their needs is a“new phenomenon” for the government.According to Deputy Minister of EconomyIlona Antoniszyn-Klik, who spoke at theDecember conference, “For a long timePolish companies were not a player in theworld FDI market, with annual outwardFDI of EUR 50 million. But since our out-going investment reached EUR 5 billion ayear, we have changed our attitude.”

Antoniszyn-Klik said that the Ministryof Economy, the Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs and the President’s Chancellery havechanged their attitudes. This was espe-cially notable in 2011. “We know that weneed to boost the competencies of ourdiplomatic teams,” she explained, “andadd the economic component to each offi-cial foreign visit our government ministerstake.”

She noted that there are countries inwhich “a component of political backing isindispensable for Polish companies.” Re-ferring specifically to the US and Canada,Antoniszyn-Klik said that Poland will callfor creation of “trade regulations on theglobal level, a process for which Polandwill seek the support of other EU states.”

Meanwhile, however, there are no signsthat the ministry will come up with a co-herent promotional program targetingAmerica. There are many small programsthat offer different types of assistance tocompanies attending trade fairs and otherbusiness events, but not in the US. Priorityis attached to much closer markets, in-cluding France, the UK and Germany, butalso Russia and Turkey.

But thinking big in other directions, lastyear the Polish government launched “GoChina,” a program aimed at helpingmedium-sized companies enter secondarymarkets in China. “Go Africa” is expectedto be launched this year.

When it comes to promoting Polish in-terests in the US, the Ministry of Economyseems to expect Polish companies to es-tablish their own Polish chamber of com-merce there as the ultimate solution.

selectUsaSome of the problems Polish investors facewhen looking at the US may be solved by anew initiative launched by the US govern-ment in 2011, SelectUSA. Operatedthrough the Foreign Commercial Service,it is the first federal government programto promote and facilitate inward invest-ment in the US.

According to Steve Olson of the US De-partment of Commerce, Executive Direc-tor of SelectUSA, who spoke at the US-

decision to buy is not a pure business-based calculation.”

For Kościelny from Vivid Games, a B2Ccompany, the benefits of being present inthe US are incomparable to any other mar-ket. “The US market is the most importantfor us,” he said. “In the US we can generatethe highest sales volumes, owing to thehighest saturation rate of smartphones. InAsia, for instance, a market where we alsosell, customers are more interested in free-to-play software. In the US, consumers arehappy to pay for something they like.”

Apart from the highest rate of consumersusing smartphones and willing to buy newgames, Kościelny noted that credit cardpayment is commonplace for American con-sumers, unlike in other markets. “Thereare many smartphone users in Poland whorefuse to submit their credit card detailsover the Internet,” he said.

Apart from the pros stemming from con-sumer attitudes, Polish IT companies findthe US market the most important placefrom the strategic point of view. “In the USwe tap into intellectual capital,” said Koś-cielny. Vivid Games cooperates with SiliconValley entrepreneur Paul Bragiel, cofounderand managing partner of i/o ventures, anearly-state startup accelerator. “He is oursource of information on market trends andwhat’s going on in the industry,” Kościelnysaid.

Government backingWith outgoing Polish FDI growing, in-vestors naturally expect Poland’s diplomaticmissions to do their best to back up theirinvestment projects and protect Polish in-terests. However, the practice is far fromperfect. The businesspeople at the Decem-ber conference on Poland’s outgoing FDIwere outspoken in their criticism of the waythe Polish consulates work in this respect.They spoke in unison of the lack of sys-temic solutions for how Polish investorsshould be served by their country’s diplo-mats. They said that today, the personal at-titudes of the diplomats appointed to servePolish interests in foreign countries are keyto whether investors receive effective aid ornot.

They also criticized the atomized effortsof nearly 100 different agencies that are re-sponsible for the promotion of Polandabroad. The common perception is thatmany “trade missions” sent abroad by vari-ous central and local government agenciesfall short of their goals, with participantsoften devoting more energy to sightseeingand shopping than their statutory tasks.

Poland is also not known for having astrong presence at most trade fairs, due tothe lack of funding this requires. Eventhough Poland is one of Europe’s majorfood exporters, at the Fancy Food Show2009 in the US, Poland looked like a new-


Poland Business Summit in 2012, effortsassisting foreign investors had always beenhandled primarily at the state and local lev-els. “But what we realized is that this in-vestment is so important to the US econ-omy—jobs, competitiveness, growing ourmanufacturing base—that we need to havea federal presence to help those economicdevelopment organizations at the state andlocal levels, and foreign firms.”

SelectUSA provides a number of servicesthat may be helpful to Polish firms. Firstand foremost it can act as a portal, a singlepoint of entry for a Polish firm that viewsthe US in total as large and overwhelming.“You can come to SelectUSA.gov and wewill introduce you to the appropriate eco-nomic development organization if you ex-press a geographic preference,” Olson ex-plained. “Or if you want to invest in a par-ticular business, we can introduce you to atrade association in that business that couldhelp you decide where to invest and how todo it.

“We also have our developing tool—acluster map of the US that shows industrysectors by geographic locations. We have anumber of these in many different indus-tries. We can also help educate Polish firmson how to invest in the US. We provide in-formation on federal assistance programsthat might be relevant and, of course, state

and local programs that are there to en-courage foreign investment.”

The other thing that SelectUSA can do isact as an ombudsman for Polish firmsthinking of investing in the US. “It is after-care for companies that have already in-vested in the US,” Olson said. This caremay come in many different forms. “Itcould be help interpreting FDI regulations,for example—we have done it many times—to provide clarity to the investor and let theinvestor know what it is that they need to doto comply with the US regulations. By thesame token, we can act as a go-betweenwith the US agency that is primarily in-volved in the issue, and flag the issue forthem and make sure it is getting the atten-tion it deserves.”

Olson also mentioned visas. “One of theissues that we get asked to assist in is thevisa question. The State Department has areferral program that we take advantage of,and we are able to flag a particular case forreview for them so it gets the proper atten-tion.” He went on to explain that SelectUSAcan work with the firm involved to providethe guidance they may need so that the visaapplication process goes as smoothly aspossible.

•

The US markets look different from across the Atlantic than they do to companies that have actuallyexperienced them.

Too distant geographically

Too expensive Value for money

Too competitive—markets are

saturated

US customers wel-come new brands—US companies buyif they see benefits

Non-metric systema drag for engineers

Needs getting usedto

Safety and legalregulations much

different

Stable and transpar-ent regulatoryframework—nostrings attached

Polish business-people need a visato travel to the US

and fear rejection

Visa applicationprocess is smooth—once issued, atourist visa is validfor 10 years—the rejection rate isfalling

Market data tooexpensive

SelectUSA, a federalagency, can help—contact SelectUSAthrough the US Com-mercial Service inWarsaw

Warehouse and logis-tics infrastructure inplace—shippingcosts comparable toelsewhere—all globalshipping companiespresent on the market

A question

of perception

16 AMERICAN INVESTOR WINTER 2013

What’s new with Obama 2.0?

Monthly MeetingNovember 2012

Poland hopes for a reboot of political relations with the US inthe next four years

After every presidential election in theUS, AmCham invites a panel of ex-perts to its November Monthly Meet-

ing to discuss the political implications ofthe democratic process in the US forPoland, Central & Eastern Europe, and theEuropean Union.

“The US, it seems, is completely unin-terested in Central & Eastern Europe,” saidTomasz Wróblewski. He noted that the lackof a coherent policy for the region, andmore specifically for Poland, makes the Pol-ish government look at the opportunitiesthat further integration with the EU offers.“There are a lot of issues to discuss therefor Poland,” he said, “including the EU so-cial agenda and the union’s fiscal policies.So getting closer to EU integration is goingto be exciting.”

Wróblewski added that the process willalso lead to Poland’s adoption of the euro.“I hope that by 2016 Poland will be a part ofthe eurozone and its fiscal system will be

completely integrated with that of theunion.”

cooperation in national defenseProf. Andrew Michta noted, however, thatthe relations between the US and Poland inthe defense sector have evolved enormously.He said that it was President Obama whorequested that NATO draw up a contin-gency policy for Poland and the CEE region.He also said that when Poland went throughthe F-16 acquisition process, it had greatpolitical implications, because it means thatthe country has bought a platform—a rela-tionship—with the US Air Force and the in-dustrial sector.

This relationship, Michta noted, has de-veloped to the point of establishing a US airbase in Poland, something which only a fewyears ago was perceived by political analystsas hardly possible.

For Michta, the cooperation in defensebetween the US and Poland is the way to go.

“I see more opportunities for Poland andthe US to come closer, because Poland ispositioned to become a regional securityprovider in the Baltic and North Europeanarea,” he said. “That is something that Ihope the second Obama administration willappreciate, and come up with a set of ideasand very concrete suggestions of how theUS defense industry can cooperate withPoland’s security sector.”

In the area of national security, however,Bartosz Węglarczyk observed, “The USdoes not need or want any backing fromEurope.” Part of the problem, he explained,is that what the White House needs is “onetelephone line in Europe, that HenryKissinger talked about, which the US presi-dent can call to learn the EU’s position oncertain security issues. As long as there isno such telephone line for the US presi-dent, the US will not be able to work on astrong security policy with Europe.”

Now, according to Węglarczyk, “There is

AmCham Board Member Tony Housh moderated the discussion with panelists Bartosz Węglarczyk, Andrew Michta and TomaszWróblewski

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Monthly MeetingNovember 2012

Andrew A. Michta is Professor of InternationalStudies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Ten-nessee, and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wil-son Center in Washington, DC. He is also SeniorTransatlantic Fellow and Director of the Warsaw of-fice of the German Marshall Fund of the US, and amember of the International Institute for StrategicStudies in London.

Tomasz Wróblewski is a renowned editor and pub-lisher. He studied journalism at the University ofHouston and worked in the US for Newsweek andthe Washington Post. In Poland he has edited andpublished some of the largest magazines, includingthe Polish editions of Newsweek and Forbes, theweekly Wprost, and one of Poland’s leading dailies,Rzeczpospolita.

Bartosz Węglarczyk describes himself as a multi-media journalist. His professional career includesediting the lifestyle magazine Sukces, working as areporter for the private television network TVN andfor Gazeta Wyborcza, where he was deputy foreigneditor and foreign correspondent.

pending on Russia to provide natural gas, ismilitarily or economically prepared for anychallenge from Russia. Things that hap-pened in Lithuania or Ukraine should be agood example of what may happen,”Wróblewski warned.

Lessons to learnThe reelection of Barack Obama, was,above all, viewed by the panelists as an op-portunity for the US administration to learnfrom its mistakes and change its politicalcourse toward Poland and the CEE region.

Wróblewski said that the US governmentshould not overestimate the importance of“the closeness between Poland and the USwhen it comes to shared values,” which, hesaid, characterizes thinking about the US inPoland. “Those shared values do not meanin reality that Poles are more open to US in-vestment than they are to investments fromother countries. And vice versa.”

Andrew Michta noted that there is a dis-connect between how the Polish-Americanrelationship works at the level of state-to-state cooperation and general sentimentsdown on the ground. “When we look at theresults of a survey conducted by the USGerman Marshall Fund in 2012,” he ex-plained, “Poland is arguably less pro-Amer-ican in terms of the responses than at anyother time in postwar history. The Obamawin is an opportunity to realign this percep-tion to at least what it is on the govern-ment-to-government working level, whichis very good.”

He went on to say that there is a percep-tion that there is a distance between the USpresident and Poland. “This is where majorwork needs to be done to improve the pub-lic perception of the US and the US govern-ment in Poland,” Michta said. “It is notabout any major policy adjustments. It isabout a better understanding of what stim-ulates regional policies and the kind of his-torical experience that is involved in it. TheUS has to be much more sensitive to whatpeople in the Baltic region and Central Eu-rope say and what they are concerned aboutin terms of their economic development,well-being and security. The US will not re-store confidence from Poland and othercountries in the region until it fully under-stands and actually embraces the politicalcontext of political thinking in the region.The US has to be aware of this and build itslong-term security interests in a way thatembraces the security interests of individ-ual states the US allies with. In this, Polandis a major US ally in the region, and shouldbe treated as such.”

no such thing as a European security anddefense policy, and therefore there is nosuch thing as a transatlantic security anddefense policy. There are only bilateral rela-tions between the US and other countriesin Europe.”

Węglarczyk added that instead of the US,Poland should focus its security and de-fense policies around the EU and use itsEU membership to help the union createits own security and defense policy. “Thiscan be done if Poland becomes a strongpart of the EU,” he said.

economic cooperationAccording to Wróblewski, the reelection

of Barack Obama is not going to have anysignificant impact on US-Polish economicrelations, as they may improve only after theUS economy gets better. “The US leader-ship has to focus on monetary policies tohelp the US economy,” he said. “Right nowObama does not have a good record when itcomes to new job creation, as his adminis-tration created only half the expected num-ber in its four years in government.”

Wróblewski added that within the nexttwo years the situation may change for thebetter. When it does, he said, “It will have abig impact on Poland’s economy as well,because Poland is becoming an exportcountry. While its main export markets re-main the EU countries, the US market isalso increasingly looked at by Polish compa-nies.”

Wróblewski also noted that economically,Poland is in a vacuum when it comes to itsrelations with the US. “There is no com-parison between US-Poland business tiesand those of the US and Germany or theUS and France,” he said. “There may bedifferences in official government policiesbetween the US and those countries on thegovernment level, regarding such issues asAfghanistan or the Middle East, but when itcomes to business interests the US andthose countries are in unison. It will take along time before Poland can hope to estab-lish such business relations with the US asthose countries have established.”

Worrying signalsTalking about the implications of Obama’sreelection, Wróblewski mentioned thegrowing political and economic influence ofRussia in Central & Eastern Europe, madepossible thanks to the Obama administra-tion’s increasing flexibility in its relationswith Russia.

“This is of concern,” Wróblewski said.He explained that the process is known inPoland as the “Gaspromization” of CentralEurope (after the Russian state-owned pro-ducer and exporter of natural gas). “Mean-while, neither Poland nor the EU, both de-

•

CEO ForumFuture challenges in management

Brave new worldWith all their vices and virtues, Polish executives are good material forfacing the business challenges of the future

The challenges that senior-level man-agers face in an ever-changing busi-ness environment were on the agenda

of the AmCham CEO Forum in November.Members of the discussion panel, moderatedby Jan Cieński, Warsaw and Prague correspon-dent of the Financial Times, were MikKuczkiewicz, General Manager of Hay GroupPoland, and Anna Sieńko, President of IBMPoland, with a presentation also by WładysławSzwoch, IBM Global Services Leader inPoland and the Baltics. They focused on man-agement challenges that have been projectedby two separate studies: Leadership 2030,compiled by Hay Group in cooperation withGerman-based foresight company Z-Punkt,and the latest edition of the IBM CEO Study,a global survey of senior managers.

First to speak was Mik Kuczkiewicz, whounderlined the main findings of Leadership2030. He said that to successfully develop thecombination of skills and qualities that busi-ness leaders will need in the immediate fu-ture, they have to drop the old way of thinkingand corporate behavior that propelled themthroughout their professional careers. This isdue to six “megatrends” identified in the sur-vey that are changing everything about thebusiness environment as we used to know it.

six sweeping megatrendsThe first trend is “Globalization 2.0.” Accord-ing to the report, globalization is no longer alinear shift toward a more connected, unifiedglobal market. Today, globalization hasreached the state of a matrix of interconnectedbusiness factors that are increasingly unpre-dictable. Yet, as Kuczkiewicz put it, “Very fewbusinesses can have an international reachwithout actually being global. They have to bepresent where their clients and customers arepresent.”

Another trend is “Climate and Environmen-tal Impacts.” Kuczkiewicz explained that inthe era of global warming, companies mustlimit their eco-footprints and cut the use ofever-scarcer resources. The ecological sus-tainability of business is a major departurefrom the old way of thinking and requires acompletely new approach to the issue of re-source management. “Hurricane Sandy leftparts of New York without electricity,”Kuczkiewicz pointed out. “The only peoplewho were able to continue to live a normal lifewere those who had solar panels.” In his opin-ion, this has huge implications for how busi-nesses will evaluate power sources in the fu-ture.

Another megatrend identified by Hay

Group, “Demographic Change,” focuses onthe management implications that stem fromthe fact that developed nations’ populationsare aging and stagnating, while populations arebooming in the less-developed world. The re-sult is migration, skill shortages, and an inten-sifying demand for talent. In other words, asKuczkiewicz put it, “Demography is againstthe needs of the management.”

Apart from demographic issues, the newgenerations are different from the old ones.Under another megatrend, identified in theHay Group report as “Individualization andValue Pluralism,” people today expect morefreedom of choice. Careers are an importantpart of their quest for self-expression, buttheir loyalty is more likely to be directed to-ward social networks than employers.

“Young people need to believe in some-thing,” Kuczkiewicz said. “They need to havea meaningful role in the organization they area part of. As long as they are not positionedthat way, they will not show any loyalty. Theirpersonal ambitions, their attachment to family,and their personal values are much greaterthan their attachment to the company.”

Kuczkiewicz also noted that today there arenot enough people in lower- and mid-levelmanagement. “Tomorrow there will not be

AmCham Chairman Joseph Wancer introduces the discussion panel. In the background, panel moderator Jan Cieński (FinancialTimes), Anna Sieńko (IBM) and Mik Kuczkiewicz (Hay Group).


CEO ForumFuture challenges in management

“ Leadership is for everyone, and not only the few gifted in-dividuals with personal charisma. Leadership does not in-volve only those people at the top of the organization, butall people that work for the organization.

Mik Kuczkiewicz, Hay Group

enough people in senior management. So weneed to make sure we can identify those peo-ple, to keep them motivated and attached tothe company so they are there when the com-pany needs them as senior managers.”

“Digital Lifestyle and Work” is anothermegatrend that according to Hay Group willhave a critical impact on how companies aremanaged in the future. The problem is thattechnology is tilting the balance of power to-wards employees. “Always-on” people canwork anywhere and form large, powerful per-sonal and business networks. The same digi-tal trends are also turning customers intopartners. New career paths, standards andstructures are needed if businesses are totake advantage of this trend.

“Young people are obviously much moreproficient in using new technologies thanolder generations,” Kuczkiewicz noted. “Peo-ple of my generation often have to cross atremendous threshold to tap into the newestinformation technologies. For younger peopleit is not a big deal at all.”

Along with digital lifestyles comes anothermegatrend, “Technology Convergence.”Today, four tech areas are converging fast,promising the sharpest technology shifts inhistory. Nano, bio, information and cognitivetechnologies are already transforming areaslike medicine, energy and manufacturing.“We thought that telecommunications wasabout calling each other,” Kuczkiewicz said.“Today we see that the telecom business isabout many things, such as data transmissionand different multimedia serves. Voice callsare becoming only a small fraction of it.”

Concluding his presentation, Kuczkiewicznoted that several of these trends have alreadybeen researched intensively. “But they havenot, until now, been researched in the contextof leadership. Nor have these six particularmegatrends ever been investigated in one sin-gle piece of research.”

According to Kuczkiewicz, one conclusionclearly emerges from the Hay Group study:“Leadership is for everyone, and not only thefew gifted individuals with personal charisma.Leadership does not involve only those peopleat the top of the organization, but all peoplethat work for the organization. Leadership isabout leading other people to be leadersthemselves—to be visionary, resonant and en-thusiastic about what they do for the com-pany.”

What do these megatrends mean for man-agers? According to Kuczkiewicz, “full opera-tionalization” is one challenge. “It is abouthaving a special development program formanagers which helps them operate in a ma-trix. When you work in a delocalized and de-centralized organization, and telecommunica-tion is the only means of getting hold of eachother, then you need to know how to run anorganization in which you have dozens of peo-ple who participate in decision-makingprocesses who may not be physically presentthere.”

The old world in oblivionThe next to speak was Władysław Szwoch,who took the stage to present the results ofthe IBM CEO Study, compiled from inter-views with 17,000 CEOs in 64 countries, in-cluding Poland.

Szwoch noted that for the first time in thefive annual studies that IBM has completed sofar, technology, including nanotech andbiotech, was identified as the number onefactor influencing companies.

Szwoch explained that technology createsnew markets, but CEOs fear that if they don’tkeep developing new technologies for themarkets they are in, they will lose the markets.“It is even more fear than real opportunity,”Szwoch said. “Look at Kodak. It was atop themarket a few decades ago, and now it is in-significant. The entire CD producing indus-try is gone. The pace of change is so fast thatif you don’t play in the technology area, youcan be gone in a year or two.”

When it comes to areas where the value fora company is created, some traditional areassuch as human capital, customer relationsand innovation still hold true. However, theyrequire a different approach on the part ofsenior management.

As for human capital—the number onegenerator of value for companies—seniormanagers today must forget the old ways ofcontrolling their people. As Szwoch explained,“This is because the world is so connectedthat people can only be managed through val-ues that they share. Other factors can nolonger be controlled by the company.”

A new approach to human capital manage-ment is a must. “This is because the world isnow connected,” Szwoch said. “We need towork with partnerships, to work with othercompanies. You cannot limit your people to

their own environment. You cannot controlthem. You need to open the world to them sothey work with external companies.”

When it comes to customer relations, Sz-woch said one thing is for sure: “The oldworld of customer segmentation is also gone.Today, it is about understanding single cus-tomers—understanding what he or she doesacross different domains and crafting yourservice offer for that very individual. That’show customers are now being handled.”

How are we going to understand what ourindividual customers are doing, to be able tocraft products or services just for them? Ac-cording to Szwoch, “We need to understandwhat our customer does across many differentareas, including social media and others. Thistakes a lot of data to process, and may lead tooffering fewer products and services butsome that are really needed.”

In turn, partnerships are a must today, theIBM CEO Study suggests. “The world is soconnected today that the old strategy oflaunching a new service to the marketplace tothen collect a premium on is gone,” Szwochsaid. “It has been gone for a long time. Today,the new markets are created through partner-ships, other companies that open their worldfor you and really work with other people whohave the understanding of several marketniches that you are interested in too.”

Szwoch stressed that it is impossible for anindividual company to have a strategy on itsown through which it offers a new product orservice and successfully collects a premiumon it. “You have to open up for external com-panies who have a better understanding ofnew niches and local markets,” Szwoch said.“The name of the game going forward is notto be a player on the market that we alreadyknow, but to create new markets, because oldmarkets are disappearing faster than we wereused to seeing before. And the best partner-ships are at the human level.”

Local perspectiveJan Cieński, who has long experience coveringbusiness in Poland and elsewhere in Central& Eastern Europe, noted that while the tworeports cover global trends and thinking thatapply in high-tech, cutting-edge companies,one of the specifics of the Polish economy isits relatively low application of innovation. Hesaid that Polish companies generally just takebusiness models developed in the US or

Western Europe and adapt them to the localconditions. “There is little cutting-edge inno-vation in Poland,” he said. “It is recreatingthings for the local market, such as Allegro orOnet, but not creating new things.”

Anna Sieńko agreed that a statistical ap-proach does suggest that innovation is not asfrequently applied by Polish companies as it isby companies in the West. “Poland is indeedat the bottom of innovation ratings in the EUcountries,” she said. “One of the reasons isthe relatively low Internet penetration inPoland. Internet penetration is today the keyto globalization and developing new ways ofcommunication. But some 40% of Poles donot use the Internet.” A particularly high per-centage of these out-of-touch people are inthe 50+ age group.

Sieńko said that nearly all the former SovietBloc countries seem to be followers of innova-tion and not creators (except for Estonia, thebirthplace of Skype), and in this respectPoland is not an exception. But when it comesto quality, innovative programming, Polishsoftware developers are at the forefront ofglobal competition. “IBM has one of its cybersecurity centers in Poland because Poles aregood hackers,” she explained. “You have to bea hacker to be in cyber security.”

According to Mik Kuczkiewicz, Poles arenot exactly famous for innovation. “But Polesare in the forefront of software developmentfor the gaming industry,” he said. “So the ca-pability is there.”

Another issue raised by Jan Cieński was thecharacteristic tendency of many Polish execu-tives to micromanage their enterprises. Sucha top-down management system is in contra-diction to world trends today, he noted.

According to Kuczkiewicz, hands-on man-agement is the predominant form of manage-ment for many Polish companies. “But therecomes a moment when they know they have tointroduce a net type of management,” he said.“They hire people from outside, but are notinclined to hire consultants. They try to de-velop solutions themselves.”

Kuczkiewicz diagnosed the problem as anaversion to failure which is typical of Polish at-titudes to business. “Poles have it in their cul-ture: They hate failure. As long as it is notgoing to be generally acceptable to fail in busi-ness, Poles are not going to be innovativebusinesspeople, because you cannot really

manage innovation and how it is going to per-form at the marketplace.”

Kuczkiewicz said that the biggest challengefor managers in Poland is to have their work-ers accept that they have to operate in an am-biguous environment and make certain deci-sions by themselves. “Polish workers wantthings to be outlined and well-defined,” hesaid. “But managers cannot tell everything.They can show a certain vision and a goal toachieve, but how to get there is the businessof the workers, not the top people.”

But Poland is very diversified when it comesto leadership styles, according to Kuczkiewicz.“Big, state-owned companies often have theambition to introduce new, modern, more effi-cient ways of management. However, theyhave to face the big inertia of large companies,and oftentimes the inertia is too large a forceto break.”

According to Anna Sieńko, the problem ofthe top-down management system in Polandoriginates in history, as many large businessesused to be family-run enterprises. This ischanging. “Today such companies tend to hiremanagers with international experience,”Sieńko said. “So professionals are taking overthe boards of Polish companies, while familiestry to stay out of the managing. This is hap-pening because of globalization.”

Sieńko explained that families that owncompanies realize that experienced managerswith an international outlook can better pro-tect their family business from market threats.

Another cultural issue, pinpointed byCieński, was an apparent lack of teamworkskills that characterizes Polish managers.

For Kuczkiewicz the problem lies in a rela-tively high level of education. He said thatPoles seem to be more intelligent than peoplein the West, hence their high self-esteem andstrong inclination to work on their own. “Butbeing intelligent for intelligence’s sake is notenough,” Kuczkiewicz said. “There is no in-telligent approach to teamwork in Poland. It isstill a sort of rocket science. Twenty years agoin the West, teamwork was considered one ofthe basics of education. This is why Poland’smanagers have an inability or a very low abilityto work as a team. There is a lot in which Pol-ish managers have to catch up to managers inother countries, who are perhaps less-proudindividuals but are able to use synergies be-tween people.”

But Sieńko said the situation is slowly im-proving. “Collaboration and teamwork arecrucial in the IT sector,” she said. “We arehappy to see that there are universities inPoland that have started teaching how to workas a team.”

Good material abroadBoth panelists agreed that with all the educa-tional vices and cultural handicaps in Poland,Polish executives, especially in middle man-agement, generally pass their tests with flyingcolors as they rise up the ranks and move tolarger corporate structures outside of Poland.

Kuczkiewicz said that on average, Polishmanagers are more successful working out-side of Poland than their counterparts from anumber of other countries. “Poles are usuallymore flexible and entrepreneurial. They aremore autonomous in their thinking, and takerisks. Maybe they are not good at teamwork,but those who actually get sent abroad are re-ally the very best managers that can be.”

Kuczkiewicz also noted that Poles are muchmore cosmopolitan and open to other culturesthan a lot of other nations.

Sieńko agreed, adding that executive-levelmanagers from Poland who already work forIBM in the Middle East or China and in thecompany’s European headquarters in Paris aredoing well. “They are respectful of other cul-tures, which is absolutely critical in doingbusiness in other countries.”

She noted, however, that while the careersof Polish managers abroad may look spectacu-lar in light of the general perception of Polandas an economy on the fringe of global trends,there are instances of excellent managementteams winning important battles in Poland.

Sieńko pointed to the case of the onlineauction site Allegro.pl, which displayed an ex-ample of modern leadership in Poland byfending off competition from eBay: “The UScompany came to Poland, but after a year ofunsuccessful attempts to win market share, itcould not beat Allegro and closed its opera-tions in Poland. It speaks volumes about allthe points on management of the future: col-laboration, partnerships, client relations. So,indeed, innovation is low in Poland, but oureconomy is not provincial.”

•

“ Collaboration and teamwork are crucial in the IT sector. Weare happy to see that there are universities in Poland thathave started teaching how to work as a team.

Anna Sieńko, IBM


Manufacturers’ ForumFuture challenges in production

Weathering the stormAmCham member companies active in themanufacturing sector met in November in Ka-towice at the 5th AmCham Manufacturers’Forum to share their experiences tackling themarket slowdown and to interface with localofficials and suggest solutions involvingPoland’s national and regional governments.

When discussing the crisis in Poland,market analysts often say it dependson the industry you are in. Paul

Fogo of Miller Canfield, a member of theAmCham Board of Directors who spoke forthe chamber at the forum, subscribed tothis point of view. He said that the crisismay be seen in such sectors as real estateand construction, but when it comes to hightech, “there is no crisis and things are goingin the right direction.”

Fogo noted that despite the crisis in Eu-rope, Poland is still holding strong, and thatis why US business in the country continuesto expand. But this does not mean that theprocess is problem-free. “Energy costs are abig unknown facing all businesses inPoland, not only major manufacturers orhuge energy consumers like steelworks,”Fogo said. “Poland is the only country in theEU that does not provide any subsidies toheavy users of electricity. Some manufactur-ers say that if Poland does not do somethingabout its energy costs, they may be forced toleave Poland.”

On the bright side, Fogo noted that China

does not seem to be a competitor for Polandwhen it comes to the allocation of foreigndirect investment in manufacturing.“China’s cost differential is quickly comingdown,” Fogo said, “and I would guess thatmany US manufacturers that are currentlyin China will start to look to CEE to locatetheir manufacturing. This is because risingenergy costs are going to affect manufactur-ers across the world, and they will decidethat their transportation costs are too highand it is more cost-effective to locate theirplants closer to the end users.”

One reason Poland is still an attractiveplace for foreign investors is that the coun-try’s economy is growing, thanks to good di-versification between the production andservices sectors. As noted by anotherspeaker, Marcin Mrowiec, chief economistof Bank Pekao SA, one of the largest banksin Poland, other countries such as France,the UK and Greece relocated their produc-tion facilities to cheap-labor countries inthe last decade. As a result, the manufactur-ing sector now contributes only 12.8% tothese countries’ GDP. On the other end ofthe spectrum are the most economicallyhealthy Scandinavian countries, with theirmanufacturing sectors contributing nearly20% to GDP. Mrowiec said that Poland, with17.6% of its GDP being generated by themanufacturing sector, remains a relativelyhealthy economy.

Mrowiec also noted that when it comes toemployment, companies in Poland adjustedtheir workforce to their production potentialaround 2008. While the process of downsiz-ing is still taking place, he would not expectany major layoffs this year. “Companies arecautious with reductions,” he said.

Mrowiec said that despite the universal

perception that the real estate industry is incrisis, employment in this sector has grownby 20% since 2008. While the sector willcontinue to idle people in 2013, he said, “Itwill not be a dramatic process.”

According to Mrowiec, wages have risensince 2008 by about 4% a year in the indus-try sector, “but the process has been signifi-cantly slowed down in recent months.”

He said that Poland’s attractiveness forinvestors stems from relatively low costs, in-cluding wages that are low when comparedto work efficiency. Those areas will lose sig-nificance in time, however. Mrowiec saidthat wages in Poland will keep growing by3.5-4.0% a year. “It is important, therefore,that Poland should improve some other ofits economic factors, including the effi-ciency with which it utilizes innovations inthe economy. Boosting innovativeness ismore important, as in the future the num-ber of people at the productive age will de-crease.”

poland in the leadAll panelists—except for those representingthe steel industry—agreed that despite theeconomic crisis in Europe, Poland remainsan attractive location for investors. Accord-ing to Jan Przepióra, president of RR Don-nelley Poland, an industrial printing com-pany with four printing plants in Poland, thelaw in Poland is stable, and the labor lawprovides more flexibility for the employerthan in other EU countries. “We have oper-ations in Eastern and Western Europe,” heexplained, “and we know how difficult it isto run our business in some of those coun-tries just because of the labor-related regu-lations.”

Przepióra urged lawmakers not to experi-

ment with the labor law, so that “what isgood in the Polish labor law” remains.“Poland is relatively liberal for the em-ployer,” he said, “especially when comparedwith Germany and Hungary.”

Przepióra also noted that the constant de-velopment of infrastructure has had a posi-tive impact on business, especially for acompany that sends hundreds of trucks withits products to customers all over the conti-nent.

The semi-liberal market for electricity of-fers some incentives for the company. “Thederegulation of the energy market, which isfar from perfect, has delivered some bene-fits for our company,” he said. “The mecha-nism has started to work for us. We haveseen a positive trend in energy prices—theywent down recently. I don’t know if this isgoing to be a long-term trend.”

The future looks goodJacek Żarnowiecki, director of the GeneralMotors plant in Gliwice, said that the planthas a future because it is in Gliwice thatproduction of the new generation of Astraswill take place starting in 2015. The com-pany has already begun preparations for thelaunch. In 2013, the Gliwice plant will pro-duce six different models of Opels, includ-ing a new convertible which will roll off theassembly line in the spring.

While the future of the Gliwice plantlooks good, it does not come without prob-lems related to the economic slowdown.Żarnowiecki said that in 2011 the companyregistered the first symptoms of economicdecline in the automotive market in Eu-rope—a bad sign indeed, as 98% of thecompany’s production is sold in WesternEurope. “Our production volume declinedfrom 180,000 units in 2011 to 130,000 unitsin 2012,” he said.

Żarnowiecki noted that the Gliwice planthas braced itself for impact, as automotiveexperts forecast that the market recoverywill be slow. “They forecast it will take theindustry until 2018-2020 to reach the saleslevels from 2007—the best year for the au-tomotive industry in the last decade,” hesaid. “We expect to see the first sight of animproving market in 2014-2015.”

Joanna Bensz, AmCham Wrocław branchdirector and a member of the managementboard of PM Group, noted that GM’s suc-cess in Poland is particularly extraordinaryconsidering that there is little appreciationof our automotive industry in the US, whereCentral and Eastern Europe is seen as a“black hole” on the automotive map of theworld. Referring to her experience at a re-cent auto show in Detroit, Bensz said,“Everybody in the US is talking about Chinaand Brazil. The GM example shows thatcompanies that invest in Poland very rarelywithdraw from Poland. Most commonly they

reinvest, and the amounts of money in rein-vestments are much higher than in the orig-inal investments.”

step by stepJohn Lynch, member of the AmCham Boardof Directors and president of promotionaltextile company Lynka, confirmed the posi-tive view of Poland as a place for investment.He noted that over the years, Poland’s prosfor investors have evolved. “Twenty yearsago it was cheap labor as the top item on theinvestors’ list,” he said. “But the quality oflabor was an issue, and investors were talk-ing about investing in Slovakia and theCzech Republic. Today, Poland’s labor forcehas developed its skills significantly.”

Lynch noted that the general improve-ment of skills also holds true when it comesto government institutions responsible forhelping foreign investors. “A year ago I re-ceived a report from PAIiIZ about the rea-sons why foreign companies should investin Poland, and it was not so good. It wasmissing some of the most important points.Two weeks ago I received from PAIiIZ abrand new color PowerPoint presentation,and it could have been prepared by McKin-sey—extremely professional, with all the in-formation and all the charts that it shouldhave.”

The same goes for local administration,Lynch said. “Today there are heads of localadministration who are quintessentiallybusiness-friendly and know how to sell theirregions to investors.”

Lynch noted that the general perceptionof Poland by the international investmentcommunity has changed for the better too:“The image of Poland has also changed dra-matically. Poland is no longer viewed asbackward and gray. Today, the reasons in-vestors come to Poland are the country’s ed-ucated workforce and the managementteams available in the country. Polish man-agers are among the best in Europe. So it isnot low-cost lower management, but high-cost higher management that has become abig plus of Poland.”

Lynch also said that the constant develop-ment of infrastructure is a big plus for com-panies like Lynka, which is in Poland to beclose to its markets in Western Europe.“This is almost reason number one why weare in Poland and many other companies arein Poland,” he explained. “I don’t see Chinaas a threat for Poland in manufacturing, savefor some sectors.”

Getting out of a holeGrzegorz Czul, general director of FluorPoland, a subsidiary of one of the world’slargest project management and engineer-ing design companies, said that when Fluoracquired a factory in Gliwice in 1995, it in-tended to tap into an inexpensive engineer-

ing force that would have the capacity towork on international projects. Since thenthe Polish operations have evolved to em-brace the chemical, petrochemical and re-finery sectors. Czul said that once the in-vestment heyday in those industries ended,Flour was forced to downsize its engineer-ing force from 640 in 2008 to 300 a yearlater. Now, thanks to new investment activi-ties from the Azoty Tarnów Group and otherprivately-owned chemical companies, Fluorhopes to tap into promising new projects.

Czul added that foreign companies havebeen investing in the automotive sector inPoland, and this is where most of Fluor’sworkflow comes from today. “Our clientslook for quality services for reasonablemoney,” he said, “and this is why our Polishteam is busy working.”

Quality for a good priceAnother panelist, Dominik Kania, generalmanager of Woodward Governor Polska, anengineering and manufacturing company,said that thanks to client diversification, thecompany has not been hit by the economicslowdown in Poland. “While we see an eco-nomic downturn in some sectors, such asaerospace, we are diversified and success-fully deliver now to the energy sector, whichhas not been hit by the crisis so much yet.”

Kania said that as part of a huge US cor-poration, the Polish operations of WoodwardGovernor can work on international assign-ments, delivering quality for a cost signifi-cantly lower than in other parts of the world.“When the company cuts costs and jobs weare not going to be the first one to see it,”Kania said. “Even if we have to cut overall,we are probably the last on the list. The firstis the US, then Western Europe, and thenus.”

Kania also noted that it is the company’spolicy to be close to its customers, so thereis no threat that the Polish operations maybe closed and the production relocated toChina. “China is not a competition to ourPolish operations,” he said. “China is notcost-competitive anymore, and the culturein Poland is much closer to that in the US,which is a big plus.”

Best-case scenarioSpeaker David Hardiman, operations man-ager at 3M Poland, said that the 20 years of3M’s presence in Poland has been “a re-warding experience in a lot of ways.” InPoland, he said, the company has been ableto execute its full cycle of investments.“Typically the investment starts with salesand marketing, growing to manufacturingand then to R&D and laboratory resources,”Hardiman said.

This is exactly how the Polish operationsof 3M developed. “We have 1,500 employeesin Poland,” Hardiman said, “and the num-


Manufacturers’ ForumFuture challenges in production

ber is expanding. In Poland we have done alot of manufacturing investment inWrocław, and now in R&D, where we have35 people. In Poland we have been able toleverage some of our investments that wemade through acquisitions that are now re-ally growing and expanding, especially inspecial economic zones. Now we are look-ing at how we can make our products betterthrough customization to the local marketand to CEE markets.”

Hardiman said that 3M has the opportu-nity to hire good people here, “which isquite helpful as we continue to expand andgrow our operations in Poland.” Hardimanexplained that it is essential for 3M to ex-pand outside of the US, because that is theway to keep growing the business. “In 2012,some 65% of our sales come from interna-tional operations, not from the US.”

In the matrix of operations outside of theUS, Poland plays an important role. This iswhy the next step for 3M in Poland is to up-grade the supply chain and lower the costsof production, to create a super-hub, be-cause the Polish operations also support thegrowing activities of 3M in Turkey and Rus-sia. “Having our facilities well-developed inPoland helps to further establish our suc-cess in the future as we continue to expandour operations,” Hardiman said.

PM Group’s Joanna Bensz added thatwhile it is not always known to internationalinvestors, Poland is a good country to investin, especially when investors want to ex-pand their sales to Russia, Ukraine and Be-larus. The Katowice Special EconomicZone is the best example of how successfulthey can be, but other areas also appear. “Itis not so well-known yet, but there is agrowing cluster of food companies aroundthe Opole region,” she said. “The leadinginternational food companies are alreadythere.”

Despite that, she noted that other coun-tries, such as Turkey and Serbia, areemerging as strong players, attracting moreand more foreign direct investment in theirmanufacturing sectors. Poland has to do itsbest to market itself to the international in-vestment community in order to remain inthe limelight.

katowice, silesia and american investorsThe 5th edition of the AmCham Manufac-turers’ Forum, held in Katowice, the capitalof the province of Silesia, testified to themunicipal and regional authorities’ contin-uing strong commitment to work closelywith the foreign investment community toattract new investors and create the bestopportunities for them that the local gov-ernment can.

This determination was best describedby Adam Matusiewicz, the speaker of the

Silesia parliament, who said that invest-ments by American companies are of sig-nificant value for the region because theyhelp to transform it from one dominated byheavy industry to a region with a modern,diversified economy which embraces manu-facturing and business services. “The sym-bol of such changes is the General Motorsfactory in Gliwice,” Matusiewicz said. “Wehope that the presence of American in-vestors will be growing in the region year-on-year, and that it will benefit the in-vestors as well as the local population.”

investment opportunitiesKatowice Mayor Piotr Uszok said thatAmerican companies bring new technolo-gies to the region in both manufacturingand business process offshoring, and theirpositive impact in the region is universallyrecognized. “We value very highly the in-vestments by Rockwell Automation,” Uszoksaid. “When it came here, the company de-clared that it would create 300 new jobs,but so far it has created 700 jobs.”

The mayor added that the manufacturingsector has been developing especially wellin the Katowice Special Economic Zone,and noted that while manufacturing tendsto develop in the regions outside the Ka-towice city limits, new jobs created in re-cent years in the capital of Silesia havemainly been in the service sector. “Cur-rently some 40% of employees in Katowicework in the service sector,” he said, “some25% in manufacturing, 25% in trade and9% in the financial and insurance sector.”

Uszok observed that one of the sellingpoints of the Silesia region for investors isthat they can tap into the deepest pool ofthe educated workforce in Poland—esti-mated at 700,000—who live in the 14 citiesthat comprise the Silesian Metroplex—thelargest network of cities in Poland, withover 2 million inhabitants. Unlike in otherparts of Poland, thanks to the relativelygood transportation and road network theworkforce in Silesia is characterized byhigh mobility. As Mayor Uszok noted, insuch cities as Tychy, Gliwice, Sosnowiecand Katowice, only 20% of the workforceemployed there lives there. The rest com-mute from elsewhere around the metroplex.

As a mayor who has successfully utilizedmillions of euro in EU structural aid for thedevelopment of the infrastructure in Ka-towice, Uszok said that in the next Euro-pean financial perspective of 2014–2020,Polish cities may not be able to obtain asmuch money as they could in 2007–2013.Therefore, he said, he hopes it will be theprivate sector which will supply the moneyneeded for further development of the cityand the region. “It will be a major challengeand opportunity for the private sector totake upon themselves the role of financial

investor,” Uszok said.

economic zones diversifyOne of the major magnets that attract in-vestment and reinvestment in the manufac-turing sector is special economic zones,where investors receive incentives such astax holidays and other financial help. Thelargest zone in Poland is the Katowice SEZ,which despite the economic slowdownended 2012 with a better result than in2011. According to Piotr Wojaczek, presi-dent of the Katowice SEZ, “The number ofinvestment projects okayed in 2012 was 20%higher than in 2011.”

In his view, one of the reasons SEZs at-tract investors is that they diversify theiroffer to fit their potential. “Not all SEZs arethe same today,” Wojaczek said. “Those thatattract the largest numbers of investors arelocated in southern Poland, along the A1highway, and in Pomerania. Those SEZs re-spond to the market’s needs.”

Wojaczek explained that the managers ofSEZs have dropped the standard model ofoffering a plot of land for investors to buy,focusing instead on delivering diversifiedservices for investors and entering into al-liances with academia to develop a qualitylabor force for investors in the future. “Sile-sia Automotive, a platform set up by the Ka-towice SEZ, links automotive companieswith academia and the labor market tobreed future specialists in such areas as en-gineers specialized in quality assurance,”Wojaczek said. He predicted that otherSEZs in Poland will sooner or later start de-veloping such solutions for investors, inorder to maintain a sustainable businessproposition.

Flexible labor forceEven as Poland continues to generate GDPgrowth, the overall economic crisis in Eu-rope has affected the manufacturing sectorin Poland because most manufacturers hereexport their products to other EU memberstates. With declining markets there, theyneed to be flexible when it comes to output.This, in turn, affects their production po-tential and calls for reductions in employ-ment. Some companies, such as GeneralMotors Polska, had to move their productionfrom three shifts to two, while taking care oftheir redundant personnel. “We have a sur-plus of 300 people, but our strategy is tokeep them,” GM’s Jacek Żarnowiecki said.“We have a plan to employ them in other lo-cations, including Germany and Belgium.”

He noted, however, that while GM doesits best to keep its workers employed, thelabor inspectorate is skeptical and is closelyreviewing the legality of GM’s solutions. Ac-cording to Żarnowiecki, it is in Poland’s bestinterest to keep its Labor Code as flexible aspossible, especially when the cost of labor

rises—and it will in time—and the eco-nomic efficiency of manufacturing goods inPoland becomes an issue.

Another speaker, Grzegorz Smołka, HRdirector at General Motors Poland, rein-forced the message of the need for a flexibleLabor Code, saying that employers in otherEU countries can resort to such tools asshortened work time and overtime banking,which are not available in Poland. He notedthat while further liberalization of theLabor Code may not be something the laborunions in Poland are looking forward to, thebottom line is that with more flexible regu-lations in the Labor Code, thousands ofworkers will be able to keep their jobs. Oth-erwise, they would just be fired.

students and internal outsourcingQuite a different problem was addressed byTeresa Walewska, HR director at RR Don-nelley. Every summer, the company has ashortage of workers available to operate theprinting and production lines. “The sum-mer holiday season is when all of our work-ers want to go on vacation, while the com-pany has to deal with an increased numberof assignments,” Walewska said. “To meetour orders, we cooperate with universitiesin Kharkiv and Lviv, Ukraine, which send usstudents for 2–3 months of apprenticeship.They work and learn, and the best of themhave a chance to get a real contract withus.”

Another way of dealing with the staffshortage is for RR Donnelly to outsource itsentire printing line. “We outsource our ma-chines and our operators,” Walewska ex-plained. “The manpower to handle all otherprocesses, such as packaging, inserting andother simple jobs, is delivered by anothercompany. It is a very efficient system for us,because it helps us keep the costs undercontrol.”

According to Barbara Kaleta, HR directorat CMC Zawiercie, this is not a solution asteel mill can use, because a certain degreeof knowhow and experience is required forpeople to staff the production line.

Kaleta said she would like to see morehelp from the state to allow steel mills toapply more flexible employment practiceswhen the market is flagging. Kaleta notedthat in many EU countries, the salaries ofworkers who do not produce anything butremain employed are covered by the state.“There is an urgent need to have similarregulations in Poland,” she said.

Marta Fołtyn, HR director at FosterWheeler Polska, observed that flexibleforms of employment are not welcome byPolish workers because they associate themwith imminent job cuts. “This is frustratingfor the workers,” Fołtyn said. “In turn, frus-trated workers are not effective. In addition,because of the overall economic crisis, the

workers may be affected indirectly by jobcuts, when their family members lose jobs.”

To cope with the stress, Foster Wheelerhas developed a wellbeing program to helpemployees adjust mentally to the new situa-tion. The program, introduced in 2011,consists of individual coaching on how todeal with stresses that may arise at workand in private life, as well as workshops todeal with professional burnout. Accordingto Fołtyn, the program has been so effectivethat in November the management boardallocated funding to continue it in 2013.

While the need for new, flexible, innova-tive forms of employment seems inevitable,a major shift in the mentality of the workersis necessary, according to Marek Wróbel, di-rector of Hays Poland.

He said that in Poland, the concept oftemporary workers is mostly associated withsimple blue-collar jobs—unlike in Ger-many, where many highly qualified engi-neers are happy to be temps. “Usually tem-porary employment for engineers is used inareas that by their nature are project-ori-ented,” Wróbel explained. “These includequality assurance and other areas of projectdevelopment.”

a conundrum in steelWhile business opportunities lie ahead formanufacturers in most sectors, those in thesteel industry have a different story to tell.They complain about VAT-free imports ofsteel from abroad, and fixed energy prices.

According to Jörg von Weiler, president ofFiligran Polska, a producer of steel ele-ments and bars for construction, some 7%of the market, measured in value, has beentaken over by VAT-free importers of steel.“There are tested approaches to this prob-lem that have been successfully imple-mented elsewhere,” he said, “but they havenot yet been implemented in Poland.”

Another problem—fixed energy prices—is a real handicap for steel producers inPoland, who are massive consumers of elec-tricity and gas. According to Kumar Ghosh,vice president of Arcelor Mittal Poland, flex-ibility in negotiating energy prices is indis-pensable for an industry which since 2008has been facing a downturn on the globalscale. To depict the scope of the downturn,Ghosh pointed out that Arcelor Mittal hadto take offline 13 blast furnaces out of the29 it operated in Europe.

But for Ghosh, this is a natural way ofdealing with a marked downturn. “We mon-itor the global situation and we know how toadjust to it,” he said. “We are not surprised.What we are surprised about, however, isthat Poland has not done anything to boostits competitiveness when it comes to theflexibility of electricity prices for hugepower consumers.”

Ghosh noted that the global prices of

steel have fallen from over USD 200 pertonne in 2008 to below USD 100 now. At thesame time, the cost of transportation hasgone up. “This makes Poland a very advan-tageous position geographically for the pro-duction of steel,” he said. However, as heexplained, in the steel industry there arethree major cost items: raw materials, laborand energy. “Unfortunately the cost of en-ergy in Poland is not the best. We have beenseverely impacted by it.”

Ghosh also said that the government hasto take a pragmatic and practical positionon this: “We are not asking for a favor. Weask that the government create a level play-ing field for the steel industry vis-à-visother EU member states.”

Another speaker, Wojciech Więcławik, op-erations director at CMC Zawiercie, con-firmed the expectation that the governmenttake action. “We understand that energy inPoland is coal-based and costs more be-cause of CO2 allocations, but other taxes,such as excise tax and the so-called ‘colorfees’—one price for coal-based energy, anda different, lower price for renewable en-ergy—can be lowered for huge energy con-sumers,” he said. Meanwhile, other EUcountries offer discounts to massive energyconsumers. “This is a big competitive dis-advantage for us and for the entire Polisheconomy.”

According to Marcin Jakubaszek, a lawyerat Miller Canfield, there is room within theEU regulations to apply different rates ofexcise tax for different energy consumers.“The European directive that specifies ex-cise tax on energy consumers gives room forspecial, lower rates that may be applied tohuge energy consumers,” he said. “ManyEU member states actually use this direc-tive. This issue has been discussed broadlyfor a considerably long time now.”

Jakubaszek noted that there are some sig-nals that the need to introduce price differ-entials for massive energy consumers maybe recognized in Polish legislation. “In Jan-uary 2012 the term ‘heavy energy con-sumers’ was introduced into the Excise TaxAct,” Jakubaszek said. “While the introduc-tion of this term has not been translatedinto any tax relief, the fact that such a termappears in a legal act is meaningful becauseit may bode well for the future of companieswho meet this definition. It is a sign thatthis issue had been noticed by the govern-ment and the parliament. I think the issueis on the radar of the lawmakers.”

According to Jakubaszek, now is the timefor lobbying activities to demonstrate theeconomic costs of neglect in speedy imple-mentation of tax relief for heavy energy con-sumers. •

You can find video coverage of this event at

www.youtube/amchamkrakow


By Anita Kowalska, AmCham

This year the AmCham Charity Drive deliv-ered assistance to the Single Mothers’ Shel-ter in Słomczyn, a shelter for victims of do-mestic violence in Brochów, and eight fosterhomes across the country (two in Bochniaand one each in Białystok, Grabinek, Ot-wock, Rzeszów, Świebodzin and Warsaw).

Our charity program is run very hands-on,with the aim of reaching out to specific needsand supporting developmental programs.

Because of our engagement and the relation-ships we have built, we can help in ways thatreally matter.

This year we continued our support for theSingle Mothers’ Shelter in Słomczyn by pro-

viding them with basic articles, such as coalfor winter heating. After installing centralheating last year, the living conditions at theshelter are much better now, and with the ad-ditional financial help from EuRoPol Gaz theshelter could renovate the roof and paint thewalls.

In what has become a tradition, as coordi-nator of the Charity Drive, I went with AdamTomczak from X-press Couriers to visit theSingle Mothers’ Shelter in Słomczyn to bring

Christmas presents and sweets for the chil-dren. The children could not wait for theirpresents, especially the youngest ones—one-year-old Zosia and two-year-old Mikołaj,

the newcomers, who will spend their firstChristmas at the shelter.

The AmCham Charity Drive this year hasbeen another great success. Anyone visitingthe AmCham office the week before Christ-mas would be amazed at the quantity of car-tons that overflowed the AmCham officespace. Thanks to the generosity of our spon-sors, we were able to send almost 100 car-tons of goods to children across the country.

The most generous donor this year wasProcter & Gamble, which provided four fullpallets of cleaning products, which will go toall the foster homes and the single mothers’shelter. The quantity of goods should beenough to last them a whole year!

To name just a few of the most generousin-kind donors: Panattoni Europe contributedthe proceeds from its annual business partyto the AmCham Charity Drive, donating a

plasma TV and educational items to the chil-dren at the foster home in Białystok. Thesame home was chosen by Boeing Interna-tional to provide financial help, and New GasContracting donated 100 brand-new winterjackets for children.

Special thanks go to the employees ofLeasePlan, who sponsored all the Christmasgifts that were mentioned in the individual let-ters to Santa Claus from the children at thefoster home in Bochnia. The gifts were givento the children at their Christmas Eve cele-bration at the foster home.

We are also very grateful to X-press Couri-ers and the Siódemka courier company forarranging the logistics of transporting theboxes to their destinations. Without their helpthe drive would not have happened.

1. The AmCham team packing thegoods. 2. Toys meet their new owners.3. Santa Claus visits the foster home inBochnia. 4. Anita Kowalska, who coordi-nated the program, visits the children atthe Single Mothers’ Shelter in Słom-czyn. 5. Children from the foster homein Bochnia tell Santa how they like theirnew toys. 6. The AmCham office stuffedwith goods donated by members.

AmCham Charity Drive 20121

2 3

4 5

6

Our warm thanks to sponsors whoprovided in-kind goods, corporategrants and cash donations from

their employees:Antenna Volantis LimitedBoeing International CorporationCB Richard Ellis (Aneta Mandziuk)CDM SmithCapgeminiColgate-Palmolive (Poland)Crown RelocationsEstée LauderEuRoPol GazGeneral ElectricHBO PolskaHyatt Regency WarsawImperial CinepixInternational Women’s Group (CristinaMichta)LeasePlanŁaszczuk & PartnersTomasz MajMarathon OilNCR PolskaNew Gas ContractingPanattoni EuropePepsi-Cola General BottlersProcter & GambleSheraton Warsaw HotelJózef SobolewskiSofitel Warsaw VictoriaBrenda VanHorn (US Embassy)The Walt Disney Company (Polska)X-press Couriers

In 2012, for the 17th consecutive year,the AmCham Foundation arrangedand executed its holiday Charity Driveto provide assistance in cash and kindto those in need.

1. 3M POLAND Sp. z o.o. Xavier Douellou Managing Director www.3m.com.pl A

2. ABBOTT LABORATORIES POLAND Sp. z o.o. Sławomir Chomik General Manager www.abbott.pl 3. ABBVIE POLSKA Jarosław Oleszczuk General Manager www.abbvie.pl 4. ACCENTURE Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Kroc Chairman of the Board www.accenture.com5. ACCREO TAXAND Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Antosik Member of the Management Board, Partner www.taxand.pl 6. ACE EUROPEAN GROUP LIMITED, Branch in Poland Przemysław Owczarek Director www.aceeuropeangroup.com 7. ACHIEVE GLOBAL Peter James Strupp Chairman of the Management Board www.achieveglobal.pl 8. ACXIOM POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Agata Szeliga Staszkiewicz Member of the Board www.acxiom.pl 9. ADECCO POLAND Sp. z o.o. Anna Wicha Country Manager www.adecco.pl10. ADVENT INTERNATIONAL Sp. z o.o. spółka komandytowa Monika Morali Efinowicz General Director www.adventinternational.pl11. AECOM Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Karpiejuk General Manager www.aecom.com12. AES POLAND WIND Sp. z o.o. Krzysztof Pilch Senior Project Manager www.aes.com 13. AGRI PLUS S.A. GROUP William Kean President www.agriplus.pl 14. AGS WARSAW Antoine Duquesnay Polish Branch Manager www.ags-worldwide-movers.com15. AIG/LINCOLN POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Brian D. Patterson Managing Partner www.aiglincoln.com.pl 16. AIR PRODUCTS Sp z o.o. Piotr Wieczorek Member of the Board www.airproducts.com.pl 17. ALPHA HR SOLUTIONS Sp. z o.o. Justyna Iwaszko Managing Partner www.alphasolutions.eu18. ALPHA IT SOLUTIONS Sp. z o.o. Donal Charles Bailey Business Development Manager www.alphasolutions.eu19. ALVAREZ & MARSAL POLAND Sp. z o.o. Thomas Kolaja Member of the Board www.alvarezandmarsal.com 20. AMERICAN EXPRESS Zbigniew Filipowicz Country Manager www.americanexpress.pl 21. AMERICAN SCHOOL OF WARSAW Terry Gamble Director www.asw.waw.pl 22. AMGEN Sp. z o.o. Christophe Bourdon General Manager www.amgen.com23. AMWAY BUSINESS CENTRE-EUROPE Sp. z o.o. Przemysław Siuda General Manager www.amway.com 24. AMWAY POLSKA Anna Pietrzak General Director Poland www.amway.pl25. ANIMEX Sp. z o.o. Andrzej Pawelczak PR Director www.animex.pl 26. ANTENNA VOLANTIS LIMITED Sp. z o.o. Oddział w Polsce Jarosław Maślanka Branch Director www.antennasoftware.com27. AON HEWITT Sp. z o.o. Edward Robert Stanoch Managing Director www.aon.com/poland28. APCO WORLDWIDE Sp. z o.o. Tony Housh Senior Counselor www.apcoworldwide.com 29. APOLLO-RIDA POLAND Sp. z o.o. David Mitzner President www.apollorida.com.pl 30. ARCHER INC. Magdalena Bicz Director of Administration www.archermobile.com 31. ARUP Andrzej Sitko Director www.arup.com/pl

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32. AVAYA POLAND Sp. z o.o. Wojciech Głażewski Chairman www.avaya.com 33. AVIS Radosław Lesiak Vice President www.avis.pl34. AVON COSMETICS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Srdjan Mijuskovic Senior Vice President Central & South Eastern Europe www.avon.com.pl

35. BAE SYSTEMS (POLAND) Sp. z o.o. Ewa Nowaczewska Head of Business Development www.baesystems.com36. Baker & McKenzie Krzyżowski i Wspólnicy Sp. k. Marcin Gmaj Managing Partner www.bakernet.com 37. BAKER TILLY POLAND Sp. z o.o. Krzysztof Wojewoda Sales Manager www.bakertilly.pl38. BANK BPH SA Richard Gaskin President www.bph.pl 39. BANK HANDLOWY W WARSZAWIE SA Sławomir S. Sikora President, CEO www.citihandlowy.pl40. BANK POLSKA KASA OPIEKI S.A. Cezary Węgierski Communication & Marketing Support Office www.pekao.com.pl 41. BANK ZACHODNI WBK S.A. (part of Allied Irish Banks Group) Artur Chodacki Corporate Banking Director www.english.bzwbk.pl 42. BANKOMAT 24/EURONET Sp. z o.o. Marek Szafirski President www.euronetworldwide.com43. BASELL ORLEN POLYOLEFINS Sp. z o.o. Steve Dwyer President www.basellorlen.pl 44. BAXTER POLAND Sp. z o.o. Paweł Żelewski General Manager www.baxter.com 45. BMW GROUP Andreas Biehler Managing Director www.bmw.pl46. BNK Polska Sp.z o.o. Kelly Brezger General Manager www.bnkpetroleum.com 47. BOEING INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION Oddział w Polsce Henryka Bochniarz President, CEE www.boeing.com 48. BOSE Sp. z o.o. Witold Lisowski General Manager www.bose.pl49. BOSTON SCIENTIFIC POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Marcin Gołębicki Regional Director Poland, Eastern Europe & Central Asia www.bsci.com50. BP POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Bogdan Kucharski Chief Executive Officer www.bp.pl51. BPI POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Michał Kurtyka President www.bpi-group.com52. BRISTOL–MYERS SQUIBB POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Gianluigi Lisi General Director www.b-ms.pl53. BROWAR NAMYSŁÓW Sp. z o.o. Ryan Gostomski Chairman of the Board www.browarnamyslow.com.pl54. BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN Beth Haddock Associate General Counsel www.bbh.com 55. BROWN-FORMAN POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Andrzej Janota Managing Director n/a

C56. C.H. ROBINSON POLAND Sp. z o.o. Joseph Kozlak Branch Manager www.chreurope.com 57. CA Sp. z o.o. Michał Furman Country Manager www.ca.com58. CAN PACK S.A. Małgorzata Podrecka Legal Counsel www.canpack.com.pl 59. CAPGEMINI POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Frank Wagenbauer CEO www.pl.capgemini.com60. CATERPILLAR FINANCIAL SERVICES POLAND Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Myszkowski Country Manager www.cat.com61. CBRE Sp. z o.o. Colin Waddell Managing Director www.cbre.com62. CDM SMITH Krzysztof Bytomski Country Manager, President www.cdmsmith.com 63. CEC GOVERNMENT RELATIONS Sp. z o.o. Marek Matraszek Director and Founding Partner www.cecgr.com 64. CEERES Sp. z o.o. Randy Michael Mott President www.ceeres.eu65. CELLANTENNA Sp. z o.o. Renata Schluss Vice President www.cellantenna.pl66. CENTRAL EUROPEAN DISTRIBUTION CORPORATION William Carey President & CEO www.cedc.com67. CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants (Polska) Dariusz Gorzeń General Manager www.cgi.com 68. CH2M HILL POLSKA Ltd Sp. z o.o. Ruben Robles Vice President www.ch2m.com 69. CHADBOURNE & PARKE LLP (through a Polish Partnership) Włodzimierz Radzikowski Managing Partner www.chadbourne.com70. CHARTIS EUROPE S.A. Oddział w Polsce Agnieszka Żołędziowska-Kulig President www.chartisinsurance.com 71. CHEVRON POLSKA ENERGY RESOURCES Sp. z o.o. John Claussen Country Manager Poland www.chevron.com 72. CISCO SYSTEMS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Dariusz Fabiszewski General Manager www.cisco.pl 73. CITRIX SYSTEMS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Ondrej Marek Regional Marketing Manager www.citrix.com74. CMC ZAWIERCIE S.A. Jerzy Kozicz Chairman of the Management Board www.cmcpoland.com75. CMS Cameron McKenna Dariusz Greszta Spółka Komandytowa Andrew Kozlowski Managing Partner www.cms-cmck.com76. COCA-COLA POLAND SERVICES Sp. z o.o. Paul Woodward Operations Director, Northern Central Europe www.cocacola.com.pl 77. COLGATE-PALMOLIVE POLAND Sp. z o.o. Wojciech Król General Manager www.colgate.pl 78. COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL POLAND Sp. z o.o. Monika Rajska Wolińska Deputy Managing Partner www.colliers.com

80. COOPER STANDARD AUTOMOTIVE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Piotr Gąska Director of Operations Poland, Chairman of the Board www.cooperstandard.pl79. CONOCOPHILLIPS E&P POLAND Sp. z o.o. Laurie St. Aubin President of the Board www.conocophillips.com

WINTER 2013 AMERICAN INVESTOR 27

Membership directoryCorporate members as of Dec. 15 2012



82. COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT WARSAW AIRPORT Paweł Pytlakowski Director of Sales & Marketing www.courtyard.com/wawcy83. CPC EXECUTIVE SEARCH Janina Obniska Managing Partner www.cpc-executivesearch.pl 84. CREDIT SUISSE (POLAND) Sp. z o.o. Marek Gul Country Manager www.csfb.com85. CROWLEY INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT GROUP Jarosław Roszkowski Chairman of the Board & CEO www.cidg.pl 86. CURVER POLAND Sp. z o.o. Piotr Roman Serbiński Operations Manager www.curver.pl 87. CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Richard Petersen Managing Partner www.cushmanwakefield.com

88. DALE CARNEGIE TRAINING Pablo Martinez General Manager www.dalecarnegie.com.pl89. DEBENEDETTI MAJEWSKI SZCZEŚNIAK Kancelaria Prawnicza Sp.K. David DeBenedetti Partner www.dms.net.pl90. DELL Sp. z o.o. Maciej Filipkowski General Manager www.dell.pl

92. DELPHI POLAND S.A. Dariusz Adamek Country Director www.delphi.com 93. DIRECT COMMUNICATION Sp. z o.o. Angelo Pressello Managing Director www.dir.com.pl

91. DELOITTE Marek Metrycki Office Managing Partner www.deloitte.com/pl

94. DLA PIPER WIATER sp.k. Krzysztof Wiater Managing Partner www.dlapiper.com95. DOW CORNING POLSKA Sp. Z o.o. Leonidas Kolaitis Director Operations CEE www.dowcorning.com96. DOW POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Robert Stankiewicz Country Manager www.dow.com97. DUPONT POLAND Sp. z o.o. Thierry Marin Director—Central Europe www.dupont.com.pl

98. EC HARRIS Sp. z o.o. Marcin Klammer Partner www.echarris.com 99. EDELMAN POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Barbara Kwiecień Chairman of the Board, General Manager www.edelman.com.pl 100. EEZ Sp. z o.o. Krystian Stachowiak President of the Management Board www.eez.pl 101. EFEKT TECHNOLOGIES Sp. z o.o. Grzegorz Gutkowski Vice Chairman www.efektech.com102. EGON ZEHNDER INTERNATIONAL Sp. z o.o. Borysław Czyżak President www.egonzehnder.com 103. ELI LILLY POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Tomy Vahevaara Managing Director www.lilly.pl 104. EMC COMPUTER SYSTEMS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Adam Wojtkowski Country Manager www.emc.com105. EMERSON PROCESS MANAGEMENT POWER & WATER SOLUTIONS Tomasz Kosik Sales Director Central & Eastern Europe www.emersonprocess-powerwater.com 106. ENTERPRISE INVESTORS Jacek Siwicki President www.ei.com.pl107. ENVIRON POLAND Sp. z o.o. Jerzy A. Kołłajtis Principal www.environcorp.com 108. EPSTEIN Sp. z o.o. Janusz T. Lichocki President www.epstein.com.pl 109. ERM POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Irmina Nielubowicz Office Head www.erm.com 110. ERNST & YOUNG S.A. Duleep Aluwihare Country Managing Partner www.ey.com/pl 111. ESTEE LAUDER POLAND Sp. z o.o. Magdalena Kamińska General Manager www.esteelauder.com112. EURODENTAL Sp. z o.o. Michał Siciński President www.eurodental.pl 113. EUROMEDIC INTERNATIONAL POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Piotr Janicki President of the Board www.euromedic.pl 114. EUROMONEY POLSKA S.A. Martin Bauer President www.securities.com 115. EXPRESS MAP POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Janusz Przeorek President www.e-map.pl 116. EXXONMOBIL POLAND Sp. z o.o. Ville Ylosjoki Poland Lead Country Manager www.exxonmobil.com

117. FCM TRAVEL EXPRESS Sp. z o.o. Tim Hyland Managing Director www.travelexpress.pl118. FEDERAL EXPRESS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Michael Muehlberger President www.fedex.com/pl119. FEDEX TRADE NETWORKS TRANSPORT & BROKERAGE (POLAND) Sp. z o.o. Michał Rene Country Manager Poland www.ftn.fedex.com 120. FINACORP (POLSKA) Sp. z o.o. Stan Popow Managing Partner www.finacorp.pl121. FIRESTONE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Paweł Gajda Plant Manager www.firestone.polandtrade.pl122. FISERV POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Aleksandra Gren General Director www.fiserv.com123. FLEISHMAN–HILLARD Sp. z o.o. Julia Kozak Managing Director www.fleishman.pl124. FLUOR S.A. Dave Gibson General Manager www.fluor.pl125. FOCUS RESEARCH Sp. z o.o. Richard A. Żabiński President, General Manager www.focusmr.com126. FOREVER LIVING PRODUCTS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Jacek Kandefer Managing Director www.flpp.com.pl127. FOSTER WHEELER ENERGIA POLSKA Jarosław Mlonka President & CEO www.fwc.com128. FRANKLINCOVEY CEE (DOOR Poland Group) Marek Choim Group President www.franklincovey.pl129. FRITO-LAY POLAND Sp. z o.o. Oswald Barckhahn Chairman of the Board www.fritolay.pl130. FUNDACJA TECHSOUP Nick Eyre President www.fundacjatechsoup.pl

131. GE INTERNATIONAL SA, Oddział w Polsce Agnieszka Jankowska Government Affairs Director www.ge.com132. GENERAL MOTORS POLAND Wojciech Mieczkowski Managing Director www.opel.pl133. GENZYME POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Paweł Miśkiewicz General Manager Central European Cluster North www.genzyme.com134. GILEAD SCIENCES POLAND Sp. z o.o. Michał Kaźmierski General Manager, Member of the Board www.gilead.com135. GOODYEAR DUNLOP TIRES POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Jacek Pryczek President & Managing Director www.goodyear.pl136. GOOGLE POLAND Sp. z o.o. Artur Waliszewski Country Manager www.google.pl137. GREENBERG TRAURIG Jarosław Grzesiak Managing Partner www.gtlaw.com138. GUARDIAN CZĘSTOCHOWA Sp. z o.o. Zsolt Erdosi Managing Director www.guardian.com

139. HALCROW GROUP LIMITED Krzysztof Celiński Branch Director www.halcrow.com140. HANSBERRY COMPETITION Dorothy Hansberry-Bieguńska Founder www.hansberrycompetition.com141. HAY GROUP Sp. z o.o. Mik Kuczkiewicz Chairman of the Board www.haygroup.pl142. HAYS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Michał Młynarczyk Managing Director CEE www.hays.pl143. HBO POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Aleksander Kutela President www.hbo.pl144. HEIDRICK & STRUGGLES Robert Szymański Partner in Charge www.heidrick.com145. HERMAN MILLER LIMITED Maciej Karbownik Manager Russia & Eastern Europe www.hermanmiller.co.uk146. HEWLETT PACKARD Paweł Czajkowski Managing Director www.hp.pl147. HEWLETT-PACKARD GLOBAL BUSINESS CENTER Agnieszka Orłowska Managing Director www.hp.com148. HILL INTERNATIONAL Sp. z o.o. Jacek Żurawski Vice President www.hillintl.com.pl149. HILTON WARSAW, HOTEL & CONVENTION CENTRE (HGC S.A.) Erwin Vergoog General Director www.hilton.com150. HINES POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Mieczysław Godzisz Managing Director www.hines.pl151. HJ HEINZ POLSKA S.A. Adam Dyszyński Managing Director www.pudliszki.pl152. HONEYWELL Sp. z o.o. Wojciech Krajewski Chairman www.honeywell.com.pl153. HSBC BANK POLSKA S.A. Tomasz Braun Board Member www.hsbc.pl154. HUDSON Ewa Ciszek Country Manager www.hudson.com155. HYATT REGENCY WARSAW Heddo Siebs General Manager www.warsaw.regency.hyatt.com

156. IBM POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Anna Sieńko General Manager www.ibm.com/pl157. IMPERIAL CINEPIX Sp. z o.o. Sunil R. Shah President www.imperial-cinepix.com.pl158. INSTANT POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Anthony Narushka General Manager www.instant.com.pl159. INTEL TECHNOLOGY POLAND Sp. z o.o. Tomasz Klekowski Territory Manager CEE www.intel.pl

161. INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE Carina Pierre Rochard Regional Director www.global.nytimes.com160. INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL WARSZAWA Marten Schoenrock General Manager www.warsaw.intercontinental.com

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81. COPERNICUS FOUNDATION IN POLAND Jerzy Bystrowski Director of the Board www.woe.edu.pl

No Company Name Person in charge Position Company website162. INTERNATIONAL PAPER POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Tomasz Berbeka President of the Board www.ipaper.com.pl163. IRON MOUNTAIN POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Iwona Wałach Commercial Director www.ironmountain.com.pl164. IT WORKS SA Leszek Rożdżeński President www.itworks.pl165. JOHN DEERE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Mirosław Leszczyński General Manager www.deere.pl166. JOHNSON & JOHNSON POLAND Sp. z o.o. Paweł Chróścicki Managing Director www.its.jnj.com

167. K&L GATES Maciej Jamka Managing Partner www.klgates.com168. KAJIMA POLAND Sp. z o.o. Koji Oura President www.kajimaeurope.com169. KAŁUŻYŃSKI & MADEJA Sp. z o.o. Richard Kałużyński Managing Director www.kaluzynskimadeja.com170. KATO LABS Sp. z o.o. Janusz Wołejko President www.kato.pl171. KELLY SERVICES POLAND Sp. z o.o. Agnieszka Walter Country General Manager www.kellyservices.pl172. KLINEMAN ROSE & WOLF– POLAND Sp. z o.o. Małgorzata Piotrowska Chairperson of the Board www.krw.com.pl173. KPMG Sp. z o.o. Peter Kay Partner www.kpmg.pl174. KRAFT FOODS POLSKA S.A. Zoltan Novak General Manager www.kraft.com175. KREVOX EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL CENTRE Tadeusz G. Krężelewski General Director www.krevox.pl176. KROLL ONTRACK Sp. z o.o. Adam Kostecki Sales Director www.krollontrack.pl177. KULCZYK INVESTMENTS Dariusz Mioduski President of the Management Board www.kulczykinvestments.com178. KULCZYK SILVERSTEIN PROPERTIES Sp. z o.o. Piotr Krawczyński Managing Director www.ksprop.com

179. LE ROYAL MERIDIEN BRISTOL Michael Goerdt Director General www.lemeridien.com/warsaw 180. LEASEPLAN FLEET MANAGEMENT (POLSKA) Sp. z o.o. Sławomir Wontrucki Managing Director www.leaseplan.pl181. LEVI STRAUSS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Dorota Gutkowska General Manager Eastern Europe & President www.eu.levi.com/pl182. LIONBRIDGE POLAND Sp. z o.o. Jacek Stryczyński Country Manager Poland & Slovakia, President www.lionbridge.com183. LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL & SOFTBALL EMEA Region Beata Kaszuba EMEA Region Director www.eteamz.com/llbeurope 184. LOCKHEED MARTIN GLOBAL INC. S.A. Robert Orzyłowski Executive Director www.lockheedmartin.com185. LYNKA PROMOTIONAL SOLUTIONS John Lynch President www.lynka.com.pl186. ŁASZCZUK I WSPÓLNICY sp.k. Justyna Szpara Managing Partner www.laszczuk.pl

187. MANPOWERGROUP Sp. z o.o. Iwona Janas General Director www.manpowergroup.pl188. MARATHON OIL POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Carl R Hubacher Director www.marathonoil.com189. MARRIOTT HOTEL Albert Helms General Manager www.marriott.com/WAWPL190. MARS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Kutelski Corporate Affairs Director www.mars.pl191. MARY KAY COSMETICS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Ewa Kudlińska-Pyrz General Manager www.marykay.pl192. MASSIVE DESIGN Sp. z o.o. Przemysław Stopa President, Chief Architect www.massivedesign.pl

194. MAZARS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Michel Kiviatkowski Managing Partner www.mazars.pl193. MATTEL POLAND Sp. z o.o. Guy Wiesienburger Country Manager www.mattel.com

195. McDONALD'S POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Kristof Hanko Managing Director www.mcdonalds.pl196. MEDICOVER Sp. z o.o. Loic Fretard Director of Medicover Hospital www.medicover.pl197. MEDTRONIC POLAND Sp. z o.o. Wojciech Jeżewski Finance Manager www.medtronic.com198. METLIFE AMPLICO Łukasz Kalinowski CEO www.metlifeamplico.pl199. METROPOLITAN ZOOS Sp. z o.o. Jonathan Campion President www.metropolitan-krakow.com200. MEYER TOOL POLAND Michał Sękowski Finance Director www.meyertoolpoland.pl201. MHS HEALTHCARE SERVICES GmbH Wesley Berkovsky Managing Director www.centene.com202. MICHAEL PAGE INTERNATIONAL (POLAND) Sp. z o.o. Jerome Lafuite Managing Director www.michaelpage.pl203. MICROSOFT Sp. z o.o. Jacek Murawski President www.microsoft.com/poland/204. MILLER, CANFIELD, W. Babicki, A. Chełchowski i Wspólnicy Sp.k. Richard Walawender Senior Partner www.millercanfield.pl 205. MITSUBISHI CORPORATION Kunihiko Uchimura General Director www.mitsubishicorp.com206. MŁODE ORŁY S.A. Magdalena Mirski Member of the Supervisory Board www.mlodeorly.com207. MOTOROLA MOBILITY Sp. z o.o. Arek Zawada Regional Sales Director www.motorola.com/Consumers/PL-PL/Home208. MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS POLSKA Sp z o.o. Ewa Porębska President www.motorola.pl209. MSD POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Łukasz Zybaczyński Managing Director www.msd.pl

210. NALCO MOBOTEC POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Piotr Hajewski Sales Director www.nalco.pl211. NARODOWY FUNDUSZ INWESTYCYJNY OCTAVA S.A. Piotr Rymaszewski President www.octava.com.pl212. NCR Polska Sp. z o.o. Barłomiej Śliwa President of the Board www.ncr.com213. NEW GAS CONTRACTING Jakub Złamaniec Managing Partner www.newgas.pl214. NORDSON POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Jarosław Rutkowski General Manager www.nordson.com.pl215. NORTON ROSE PIOTR STRAWA I WSPÓLNICY Sp. k. Piotr Strawa Managing Partner www.nortonrose.com216. NOVARTIS POLAND Sp. z o.o. Alexandra Bishop Country President www.novartis.pl217. OPTIMA SA (PART OF DOLLAR FINANCIAL GROUP) Dominik Wielinski President & CEO www.optima.pl218. ORANGE Tomasz Nowakowski Executive Director www.orange.pl219. ORANGE PRODUCTS EUROPE Sp. z o.o. Mariusz Leoniak Commercial Manager www.orangeproducts.com220. ORCO PROPERTY GROUP Alicja Kościesza Sales & Marketing Director for Poland www.orcogroup.com221. OTIS Sp. z o.o. Stephen Ewer President www.otis.com.pl

222. PANATTONI EUROPE Robert Dobrzycki Regional Partner www.panattoni.com/pdceurope.cfm223. PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF Witold Rusin Country Director www.pbworld.com224. PEPSI COLA GENERAL BOTTLERS Sp. z o.o. Oswald Barckhahn Chairman of the Board www.pepsi.pl225. PFIZER POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Ofra Feinmesser Country Manager www.pfizer.com.pl226. PHILIP MORRIS POLSKA Aleksander Grzesiak Managing Director www.pmintl.pl227. PITTSBURGH GLASS WORKS (POLAND) Sp. z o.o. William Hall European Operations Manager www.pgw.glass.com228. PM GROUP POLSKA Sp. z o. o. Con Murphy Managing Director www.pmg.pl229. POLISH—US FULBRIGHT COMMISSION Małgorzata Krasowska Executive Director www.fulbright.edu.pl230. POLISH ENERGY PARTNERS S.A. Zbigniew Prokopowicz President www.pepsa.com.pl231. POLSKA GRUPA ENERGETYCZNA SA Robert Koński Adviser to the Board www.gkpge.com232. POLSKA TELEFONIA CYFROWA SA (T-Mobile) Miroslav Rakowski Chairman of the Board www.t-mobile.pl

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233. PRATT & WHITNEY a United Technology Company Zbigniew Gradowski In-Country Program Manager www.pratt-whitney.com234. PRIME CAR MANAGEMENT S.A. Grzegorz Czarnecki Chief Executive Officer www.primecar.com.pl235. PRINTPACK POLAND Sp. z o.o. Steve Snowden Site Director www.printpack.com236. PROCTER & GAMBLE DS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Marek Kapuściński General Manager www.pg.com237. PROLOGIS Ben Bannatyne President www.prologis.com238. PWC Olga Grygier Siddons Managing Director www.pwc.com/pl



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240. RANDSTAD Sp. z o.o. Kajetan Słonina General Director www.randstad.pl241. RAYTHEON INTERNATIONAL, INC Kathryn Buer Sr.Regional VP—Central Europe and the Baltics www.raytheon.com242. REGUS BUSINESS CENTRE Sp. z o.o. Maciej Skórski General Manager www.regus.pl243. ROCHE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Agnieszka Kosowska Legal Director www.roche.com244. RR DONNELLEY EUROPE Sp. z o.o. Jan Przepióra Vice President www.rrdonnelley.eu.com245. RUSSELL REYNOLDS ASSOCIATES Sp. z o.o. Dorota Czarnota Managing Partner, Poland & CEE www.russellreynolds.com

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246. SABRE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Michael Dietz Member of the Board www.sabre-holdings.com247. SALANS Tomasz Dąbrowski Managing Partner www.salans.com248. SANOFI-AVENTIS Sp. z o.o. Marynika Woroszylska-Sapieha President www.sanofi-aventis.com.pl249. SAS INSTITUTE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Alicja Wiecka Country Manager www.sas.com/poland250. SHERATON WARSAW HOTEL Thomas Schoen General Director www.sheraton.pl251. SIEMENS Sp. z o.o. Piotr Dobrowolski Member of the Management Board www.siemens.pl252. SIKORSKY EUROPE Stanley J. Prusinski Director, Sikorsky Europe www.sikorsky.com

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254. SITEL POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Antonio Dos Santos Director www.sitel.pl255. SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE S.A. Oddział w Polsce Stéphane Hild Country Head www.sgcib.com

253. SILGAN WHITE CAP POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Marek Rajca General Manager www.silgan.com

256. SODEXO POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Yann Gontard Managing Director www.sodexo.pl257. SOFITEL WARSAW VICTORIA Jean Michel Lathuilliere General Manager www.sofitel.com258. SONY PICTURES GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES Sp. z o.o. Michał Gryglewski Executive Director n/a259. SPENCER STUART POLAND Sp. z o.o. Andrzej Maciejewski Managing Director www.spencerstuart.com260. SQUIRE SANDERS ŚWIĘCICKI KRZEŚNIAK sp.k. Peter Święcicki Managing Partner www.squiresanders.com261. STEELCASE S.A. Przedstawicielstwo w Polsce Elżbieta Gajowska Dealer & Marketing Manager www.steelcase.com/uk262. STRZELECKI ENERGIA Sp. z o.o. Paweł Żuk Country Manager www.huttonenergy.com263. SWIFT AVIANA CARGO SERVICES Sp. z o.o. Alam Chaudry Chairman www.swiftaviana.com

264. TALISMAN ENERGY POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Tom Maj Managing Director www.talisman-energy.com265. THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY (POLSKA) Sp. z o.o. Katarzyna Westermark Managing Director www.disney.pl266. TRAVELPORT Sp. z o.o. Marcin Pilarski Managing Director Eastern Europe www.travelport.com267. TRUSIEWICZ SIWKO Kancelaria Prawna SP.P. Rafał Trusiewicz Partner www.ts-kancelaria.pl268. UBS AG Przedstawicielstwo w Polsce Marcin Jarkiewicz Head of the Representative Office, Executive Director www.ubs.com269. UL INTERNATIONAL POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Bogdan Maliszewski Branch Manager Czech Republic & Poland www.ul.com270. UNIPHARM, INC. Ernest Bartosik General Director www.unipharm.pl271. UNIVERSAL EXPRESS Sp. z o.o. Stefan Hildt Member of the Board www.uer.pl272. UNIVERSAL LEAF TOBACCO POLAND Sp. z o.o. Wojciech Lik Chairman of the Board www.universalleaf.com

T, U, V

273. UPC POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Simon Boyd President www.upc.pl274. UPS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Piotr Sitarek Country Manager www.ups.com275. URS POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Tomasz Krawczyk President of the Board www.ursglobal.com276. VF POLSKA DISTRIBUTION Sp. z o.o. Marek Hińcz Managing Director www.vfc.com277. VIKING PETROL SAHASI HIZMETLERI SA Oddział w Polsce Robert Dunn Vice President & Country Manager www.viking-intl.com278. VISKASE POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Monika Pływaczewska Managing Director www.viskase.com

279. WARDYŃSKI & PARTNERS Tomasz Wardyński CBE Founding Partner www.wardynski.com.pl280. WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Waldemar Saniewski Managing Director www.warnerbros.com281. WARSAW - ILLINOIS EXECUTIVE MBA Tomasz Ludwicki Managing Director www.mba.uw.edu.pl282. WARSAW DESTINATION ALLIANCE, FOUNDATION Alex Kloszewski Chairman & Managing Director www.destinationwarsaw.com

W, X

284. WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES Roman Rewald Partner www.weil.com285. WESTERN UNION BUSINESS SOLUTIONS Joanna Rybus Country Manager Poland www.business.westernunion.pl

283. WAWEL HOTEL DEVELOPMENT Sp. z o.o. Stijn Oyen General Manager www.sheraton.com/krakow

286. WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC COMPANY Mats Olsson Business Development Manager www.westinghousenuclear.com287. WHIRLPOOL POLSKA Sp z.o.o. Mariusz Dąbrowski General Manager Poland & the Baltics www.whirlpool.com288. White & Case P. Pietkiewicz, M. Studniarek i Wspólnicy - Kancelaria Prawna s.k. Paweł Pietkiewicz Partner www.whitecase.pl289. WIERZBOWSKI EVERSHEDS Judith Gliniecki Partner www.eversheds.pl290. WOODWARD GOVERNOR POLAND Sp. z o.o. Dominik Kania Executive Director www.woodward.com291. WRIGLEY POLAND Maciej Wysocki Chairman of the Board www.wrigley.pl292. WS ATKINS - POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Stephen Novis Managing Director www.atkinsglobal.com293. XEROX POLSKA Sp. z o.o. Marzena Tarkowska Country General Manager www.xerox.com.pl


239. RAIFFEISEN BANK POLSKA S.A. Krzysztof Lubkiewicz Head of International Desk www.raiffeisen.pl

Member Contact phone1. Elisabeth Asirifi +48-601-779-4542. Adam Bergmann +48-664-444-7773. Alain Bobet +48-513-190-2084. Brian Bode +48-887-500-4345. Bogy Cimoszko Skowronski +48-22-436-74206. Dario Cipriani +48-608-000-5117. Andrew Davis +48-22-456-45008. Adam de Sola Pool +48-22-756-32329. Peter Dembinski +48-602-677-60010. Maksymilian Ebenstein +48-600-810-10011. Richard Engel +48-508-047-51012. Ewa Esquerra +48-602-722-622

Member Contact phone

16. Kent Holding +48-22-578-300017. Chris Hutchinson +48-507-627-60818. Adam R. Karasch +48-600-880-56519. Izabella Kawczynski +48-604-601-050

20. Sylwester Klarowicz +48-668-133-03421. Jon Kolasinski +48-500-206-22722. Jolanta Koman Tourel +48-604-993-36623. Steve Krupa +1-847-564-193124. Richard Lada +48-601-207-35725. Bill Livingstone +1-512-582-215826. Matthew Lynch +48-602-333-02227. Michael Majchrzak +48-501-092-102

Member Contact phone

31. Don Mucha +1-602-402-264132. Anya Margaret Ogorkiewicz +48-510-419-14133. Włodzimierz A. Paszkowski +48-22-835-300034. Bret Schlussman +1-212-533-909035. Michal Scholtes +48-501-700-52236. Alex Shannon +48-501-515-74037. Adam Skowronski +48-603-774-49638. Christopher Smith +48-22-616-0062

39. Craig Smith +48-604-144-76940. Andrzej Szadzinski +48-58-307-262641. Tadeusz Szostak +48-605-404-001

43. Stanley Urban +48-502-709-190

28. George Michalski +48-606-917-000

13. Kenneth Globerman +48-798-234-447

15. Irene Grzybowski +48-601-802-040

30. Kurt Montgomery +48-695-877-770

45. Paul Zalucky +48-606-802-998

42. Jerzy Thieme +48-601-282-812

44. Gedeon Werner +48-515-171-799

29. Martin Miszerak +48-605-953-261

14. Thomas Gresk +48-728-961-044


Individual members as of Dec. 15 2012

For information on how to become a member

contact Barbara Pocialik at

+48 22 520 5999or write to [email protected]


Stephen Mull was confirmed as US Ambassador tothe Republic of Poland on September 22, 2012, andsworn in by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Oc-tober 24. He served as Executive Secretary of theState Department from June 2010 until October2012. Before that, he served from August 2008 asSenior Advisor to Under Secretary of State for Politi-cal Affairs William Burns, in which capacity he coor-dinated US diplomatic efforts on Iran, managed theState Department’s crisis response during the Russ-ian-Georgian war of August 2008, and led negotia-tions on a range of US national security issues, in-cluding the agreement permitting US military resup-ply flights to Afghanistan through Russian airspace.He was Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Politi-cal-Military Affairs in January 2007–August 2008.

Mull served as US Ambassador to Lithuania in2003–2006 and Deputy Chief of Mission at the USEmbassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2000–2003. Hisother overseas assignments have been in Poland,South Africa and the Bahamas. In Washington, healso served as Deputy Executive Secretary of theDepartment of State, Director of the Office of South-ern European Affairs, and Deputy Director of theOperations Center.

Mull is the recipient of two Presidential MeritoriousService Awards, the Baker-Wilkins Award for Out-standing Deputy Chief of Mission, the Director Gen-eral’s Award for Reporting, two Superior HonorAwards, two Distinguished Honor Awards, and morethan ten Senior Foreign Service performanceawards. He joined the Foreign Service in March1982, and holds the rank of Career Minister.

Opening a newchapter

Monthly MeetingAnnual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting in De-cember was a natural occasion forthe new US Ambassador to Poland,

Stephen Mull, to meet with AmCham mem-bers and deliver his policy address to thechamber. Ambassador Mull attended themeeting with the head of the Political Sec-tion, Martina Strong, and CommercialCounselor William Czajkowski.

Accepting the honorary chairmanship ofthe chamber for the duration of his missionto Poland, Ambassador Mull acknowledgedthe role of the chamber in facilitating Pol-ish-American economic relations. “Al-though I’m new as an ambassador, I knowso much about the successful record thatthe chamber has accomplished,” he said.“You are doing a great job and I’m lookingforward to working with you on how I canbest expand our partnership during thenext few years that I’ll be honored to serveas ambassador in Poland.”

commerce and technologyMull noted that while it is the first time hehas served as US Ambassador to Poland,the country is not new to him. He firstcame here in the 1980s as a US diplomatand has followed the economic changes thathave taken place ever since. “Poland is athriving, prosperous country,” he said,“with business reflecting the country’s im-pressive economic growth.”

Mull went on to say that in 2008–2012Poland has accumulated GDP growth of15.8%—growing faster than any other EUmember state. Although the 2012 numbersindicate slower growth, it is still projectedthat Poland’s GDP growth was the highestin the EU.

Mull said that part of the success mustbe attributed to US investors in Poland,who have helped the country to see “howmuch can be done when it is committed tobusiness.” He pointed out that American

technology. In Poland, he said, the embassyis working closely with the shale gas indus-try, the Ministry of the Environment andthe Polish Geological Institute “to sharebest practices and increase public under-standing of this cutting-edge resource.”

When it comes to nuclear energy, whichis also a key component of the diverse en-ergy mix for Poland, Mull said that the USremains engaged with Poland’s NationalAtomic Energy Agency and other institu-tions. “Nowhere is the connection betweenbusiness and government more clear thanin energy security,” he explained. “Promot-ing a diverse energy mix has been and willcontinue to be a primary focus of our workat the embassy.”

a two-way streetThe ambassador noted that while Poland’seconomy has been steadily growing, the pri-vate sector is looking for business opportu-nities abroad. Polish firms have recentlybegun establishing a presence in the USmarket. “So far they have invested close toUSD 1 billion in US markets,” he said. “We

firms are active in almost every sector ofthe economy in Poland. “The US is the 7th-largest investor in terms of the number ofactive companies in Poland. Our Commer-cial Section every day receives enquiriesfrom companies of all sizes that are inter-ested in the Polish market—on average,about 50 US firms a week.”

To help the US Commercial Service inPoland, the embassy is participating in aState-developed project known as DirectLine Business. “Through Direct Line, Iwill chair conference calls with US compa-nies that are looking for Poland as theirpossible market,” Mull said. “These callswill give an opportunity to companies head-quartered in the US to directly engage withme and our embassy team on specific topicsof interest. I will be delighted if some Am-Cham members could join Direct Line.”

Mull also encouraged AmCham membersto cooperate with the embassy: “I’m inter-ested in hearing ideas for future projectsthat we should work together on.”

The ambassador said that US diplomacyfirmly supports the promotion of American

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intend to continue to promote the US mar-ket as the premiere destination for Polishglobal expansion.”

One of the ambassador’s priorities in hismission in Poland is to increase the numberof Polish students attending college anduniversity in the United States, as the num-bers have dropped significantly in recentyears. “I know that you will all agree on theimportance of American higher education,so I look forward to developing a plan foranswering that call,” he said.

Ambassador Mull concluded his speechby saying that Polish-US relations havebeen so dynamic over recent years thanks inhuge part to “the excellent foundation thatAmerican businesses have established here.You can count on my support for doingeverything possible to ensure your contin-ued success.”

“Polish-US relations have been so dynamicover recent years thanks in huge part tothe excellent foundation that Americanbusinesses have established here. You cancount on my support for doing every-thing possible to ensure your continuedsuccess.

Stephen Mull

•

AmCham welcomes the new ambassador


A client-driven law firm

We talked exactly five years ago,when DLa piper was 6 months old inpoland. You told me then that yourgoal was to create a great law firm.Do you think you have succeeded?Krzysztof Wiater: Yes. Our law firm is agreat company. It is not only thanks to itslawyers but the entire team, including thesupport personnel. I’m really proud ofthem. Our young people are very attachedto our firm. They are self-motivated. Itseems to me sometimes that they aremuch more dependable than I am. But Iknow that I’m leading this firm in theright direction to become one of the keylaw practices in Poland.

What is the significance of being apart of DLa piper? Wiater: It was not by coincidence that wedecided to build this firm with ourfriends with DLA Piper. When I startedmy career as a lawyer, for many years Iwas looking for a good partner that woulddrive my company safely in the right di-rection. DLA Piperproved to be exactlythe right partner.The support andunderstanding wehave received overthe years here inWarsaw have beenphenomenal. I knowthat with DLAPiper, we are head-ing towards becom-ing one of the bestlaw firms in Poland.

how important ispoland in DLapiper’s global op-erations?Nigel Knowles: Ourvision is to be theleading global busi-ness law firm. Thepurpose of that vi-sion is to be able toact for the strongest local, national, conti-nental and global clients wherever they dobusiness around the world. Poland has apopulation of nearly 40 million, strongGDP growth and very strong indicators,for example debt to GDP is 50%, which is

American Investor’s Tom Ćwiok talks with Sir Nigel Knowles, co-managingpartner of DLA Piper globally, and Dr. Krzysztof Wiater, managing partner of DLAPiper in Poland, about the firm’s business growth strategy

DLA Piper

a very good result as compared to otherEuropean countries. Poland is seen as avery solid, resilient place to be. An Ernst& Young survey suggests that Poland isthe 7th-most welcoming country to investin globally. And foreign companies are in-vesting. On the other hand, Polish compa-nies want to transact all around the world.So all the requirements that DLA Piperlooks to have established in any place itdoes business are present in Poland.

how would you evaluate DLa piperWiater after over five years workingtogether?Knowles: Our clients want us to be hereand we have a great team. If you look atthe progress we have made in five-and-a-half years in Poland, it is pretty stunning.We have a headcount of 100. If you startabout the time when the global financialcrisis starts and you live through it andget to a hundred people, you must getsomething right. And that somethingright has got to be that you’ve done some-

thing that your clients want and support.So the facts speak for themselves.

What is driving your business for-ward in poland?Wiater: Our focus is on such sectors as

energy, including oil, gas and renewableenergy, but also technology, manufactur-ing, healthcare and defense. But what isprobably unique is that we are alwayslooking for some kind of differentiator be-tween us and our competitors, and I thinkthat we are much more focused on bring-ing our clients not only advice but also so-lutions. This is something that in eachsector is extremely important to ourclients. So this is an important aspect ofour business.

Also, the type of investment that we cando for our clients is what distinguishesus. We aim at offering the best long-termrelations. We are not interested in justone-off projects, but in building long, sta-ble relations with all clients. A substantialportion of our clients have been with uslonger than three to four years. There areclients who have been with me for 20years now, since the time I started my ca-reer. So that’s our approach.

Knowles: There are three aspects to alawyer’s life.There is the of-fice in which heor she works.There is thepractice group ofwhich he or sheis a part. Andthen there is alsothe whole notionof sectors, whereclients expect youthese days to un-derstand theirbusiness and tobe able to helpthem.

Krzysztof men-tioned investingin the relation-ship with clients.It is very impor-tant—and this is

what we base ourphilosophy on—to

give the best advice and invest in the rela-tionship, including investing in theknowhow of each of the sectors in whichour clients are strong. If you know what’sin the client’s inbox or what’s on theclient’s agenda, or what are the issues of

Dr. Krzysztof Wiater and Sir Nigel Knowles at DLA Piper Wiater in Warsaw

Going where the gas is

how was 2012 for cDm smith inpoland?First, thank you for the opportunity to bepart of the American Chamber of Com-merce in Poland. We have truly enjoyed yoursupport and efforts. It is a valuable organi-zation for all of us.

For CDM Smith—and many people inPoland—2012 was an exciting year. We ex-ceeded our sales and revenue goals, grewsignificantly, and expanded our service plat-form. CDM Smith has benefitted from hav-ing historic operations in Poland and clientsthat have been great partners in driving un-conventional shale development. Leverag-ing our local expertise and global technicalstrength, we have seen excellent results.The industry remains very dynamic and wecontinue to look for opportunities to providevalue to our customer base and achieve mu-tual success.

CDM Smith is honored to be part of thisvery exciting time in Poland.

cDm smith announced that it has ex-panded its construction capabilities.What is the company's developmentstrategy for poland?CDM Smith’s strategy is to provide full-service consulting, design, construction andoperations to our clients around the globe.Adding construction capabilities in Polandis an extension of our global strategy. We arecurrently completing construction projectsfor oil and gas clients, and we are activelypursuing additional construction workacross other sectors. We are focused on ourclients’ needs in Poland, and plan to partnerwith them to provide integrated solutions inwater, environment, transportation, energyand facilities across the entire project lifecycle, from planning and engineeringthrough construction and operation.

What are the factors that contribute tothe growth of your business in poland?The key contributors for our growth havebeen strong teams, local institutionalknowledge, industry nimbleness, and aglobal perspective on client expectations.We have benefited greatly by having an en-gaged team consisting of regulatory, engi-neering and construction experts, a clientbase that is truly interested in partneringfor success, and subcontractor teams that

American Investor’s Tom Ćwiok talks with Kevin P. Molloy, VicePresident and Oil and Gas Sector Leader of CDM Smith, an engineer-ing and project management company specializing in infrastructureprojects for a diverse range of sectors, about the company’s busi-ness plans for Poland

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Company profileCDM Smith

have displayed great initiative and attentionto detail. Our staff ’s long history in Polandhas helped us navigate the best path for-ward on projects and capture Poland’s richheritage and stakeholders’ values for suc-cess.

CDM Smith has had to remain flexible tobalance challenging economics, dynamicindustries and regulatory hurdles. Ourglobal experience and client relationshipshave been a major factor in our growth. Un-derstanding the values and needs of clients,especially those from the US, and deliveringthem locally, is critical for success. We willcontinue to capitalize on these areas forsuccess in the future.

I also have to acknowledge that there wasa little serendipity to our success in Polandto date. There was a fortuitous alignment ofour existing resources and an industry needthat materialized as Poland became one ofthe first countries outside the US to developunconventional shale.

When it comes to new projects inpoland, what are the company’s plans?CDM Smith sees a lot of potential inPoland, in areas both directly and synergis-tically aligned to shale gas development, aswell as within the Polish economy as awhole.

One of our top priorities is furthering thewater service industry in Poland. CDMSmith is universally known as a “waterfirm,” and we have developed and executed

many projects associated with water man-agement, treatment and reuse around oil &gas and industry as a whole. We are cur-rently addressing these needs in Poland andsee further projects developing.

We also see unique opportunities to useWarsaw as a central point of service for ourclient base in Central Europe. CDM Smithuses design centers to service regional proj-ect needs, and we see our Polish operationsas a great asset to continue to do this forour client base throughout Central Europe.

how would you describe your corpo-rate culture?At CDM Smith, we work together—inteams and in partnership with our clients—to solve complex environmental, engineer-ing and infrastructure challenges. Together,we create a learning culture, dedicated tofinding a better way for our clients, for theplanet, and for each other. The CDM Smithorganization operates under a set of corevalues—excellence, initiative, shared com-mitment, integrity and teamwork—that rep-resent the fundamental principles thatguide our collective and individual deci-sions, strategies and actions. This culture iswhat has driven our success in Poland, aswe have developed a team of local regula-tory, engineering and construction expertsintegrated with a global oil & gas technicalteam with the goal of making shale gas de-velopment a success in Poland.

What about corporate social responsi-bility?CDM Smith is committed to continuallyimproving environmental value, quality oflife, and economic prosperity—for the firm,our clients, and the communities in whichwe live and work. We understand that oursolutions must meet the current needs ofour clients while preserving resources forfuture generations. In our service to clients,as well as our own operations, CDMSmith strives to achieve the sustainabilitytriple bottom line of environmental stew-ardship, social responsibility and economicgrowth.

In addition, our employees have a strongcommitment to helping communities—ourown and those in need around the world.We are active, caring citizens who con-tribute thousands of hours annually to civicand charitable causes. We are global citi-zens, answering the call of those in dis-tressed communities, helping others to helpthemselves, and creating legacies of hopefor future generations. We volunteer inschools, non-profit organizations, civicevents, and environmental cleanups. We do-nate funds and volunteer our expertise forprojects with Engineers Without Borders,Water for People and other similar organiza-tions. •


•

the day for the sector that the clientworks in, you can become their trustedadviser and therefore add more value. Youthen can get repeat work, and you end upwith a partnering type of relationship.

That’s what we are trying to do. If weinvest in a relationship with clients andbecome a client’s trusted adviser, we can-not ask for anything more. That’s whatwe strive to achieve, and being sector-rel-evant is a significant component of that.

Do your lawyers go through any spe-cial training to get the best possibleunderstanding of the sectors theirclients are in?Knowles: Most of our technology lawyersare experts in technology. When it comesto the hospitality and leisure sector, forinstance, our lawyers know everythingabout this industry. They are simply in-terested in what the job is.

Wiater: The IT sector is one of the mostdynamically developing. But we don’t fol-low the trends—we are part of them. Weare one of the first law firms to use thecloud computing model, for instance.When we got into cloud computing a yearago, we were a step ahead of our competi-tors, who at that time would not evenconsider resorting to the cloud. Today wehave a very good understanding of thisenvironment, and it shows that we are al-ways open to new challenges. As a lawfirm you can be innovative, technologi-cally advanced and capable of adjustingyour business to the same path of devel-opment your clients are on.

Knowles: DLA Piper has a chief technol-ogy officer who is not a lawyer and wholooks after our technology infrastructure.He is really great. Two weeks ago I wantedto talk at a conference in Sydney, Aus-tralia, but I could not be there. In the endI opened the conference by our own in-ternal conferencing facility Lynk. I couldappear on a big screen in a hotel confer-ence center in Sydney and deliver theopening address at 10:30 on Thursdayevening for me, which was 8:30 Fridaymorning in Sydney, and saved EUR10,000 in airfare.

Wiater: We are investing in the technicalknowledge of our lawyers. It may be IT orother sectors. We decided that ourlawyers should be not only good lawyersbut also good in business managementand understanding business at large.Some of them have started MBA pro-grams, because they know that they aswell as our practice can benefit muchmore by being on the same page as ourclients when it comes to understandingbusiness.

We also have separate programs for allour associates and partners to developtheir understanding of different businessaspects. The law today is not only aboutbeing a lawyer, but about being a profes-sional with a holistic approach to life, sothe law firm you work for can be one stepahead of the competition.

Knowles: We are the only firm to have theDLA Piper Harvard Leadership Program,in which we select 17 partners a year, outof our 1,500 partners globally, for a week-long residential course at Harvard Busi-ness School in the US.

We also have the Role of Leader course,dedicated to the persons who are incharge of each practice group, who havethat unique position of having the report-ing line to the head of the office or the re-porting line to a practice group head. Weput a lot of effort into training people andgetting consistency and a good, construc-tive culture.

What is your business developmentvision?Knowles: We all believe that the globallegal market is worth USD 300 billion ayear. Historically it has always beenthought that USD 200 billion of that 300billion is spent by US corporates in theUS and around the world—althoughthat’s changing, and more of the spend isoccurring around South America, Africa,China, Southeast Asia and Australia.

In relation to that USD 300 billion an-nual legal expenditure, no law firm hasgot 1% of the market, in fact nowherenear 1%. This is much different whencomparing it with the accountancy profes-sion, where a handful of big companieshave around 20% of the total expenditurein accounting. So consolidation in thelegal market was always bound to happenas globalization took up pace. There aremore and more international companieswanting legal services over greater, diverseareas.

Then, of course, you’ve got the globalfinancial crisis, where heads of financialdepartments were under pressure to cutcosts. One way of cutting costs was to useone law firm instead of a number of firms.If they found a firm that was in all theplaces that they were and had all the prac-tice groups they needed to utilize, withthe sector expertise they were in, thenthey could start to use one law firm overmore practice groups and geographies andmake themselves more effective and effi-cient. They could also get a better valueproposition from the new law firm, be-cause they would be getting to use itmore. Then corporate knowledge wouldbuild up within the law firm, and it wouldbecome a more and more effective and

trusted adviser.This has been seen as the way to go. I

think we will find that there will be veryintense consolidation and merger activityin the market for legal services, and therewill be one company that sooner or laterwill get to that 1% of the market and be-yond that. I also think that we’ll find thatit will be driven by globalization and theglobal financial crisis, and a desire on thepart of all companies to be generally moreefficient. That intensity will continueapace now.

If you think about the worst place inthe world to be for a midsize law firm, itis London. With no other offices andnothing different to sell from any of theother law firms, what do you do thenwhen there is no GDP growth and noavailable new market?

A lot of law firms will discover that theycan no longer invest their way intoachieving what was their strategy withoutbinding themselves together and trying toget something bigger and more appealingto the clients. There will be law firmswhich will not be able to afford it now. Itis going to be a very interesting time forthem globally. The end result is that the

buying patterns of general counsel andheads of legal departments have gonethrough a paradigm shift. The old daysaren’t going to return. It is a new worldwe are heading for.

i understand there are some csrprograms in place at DLa piperWiater now. What are they?Wiater: We have so far published two edi-tions of a catalogue of small businesses inWarsaw that the members of our firmrecommend. These are restaurants,

stores, a place which has a working stere-ographic projector dating from the early20th century, and other interesting busi-ness ventures in Warsaw that we want topromote and help. This is pure social re-sponsibility, because they are too small tobe our clients. But it is our strong convic-tion that we need to support small, localbusinesses.

We also participate in other programs.One of them is maintained by our globalnetwork and helps spread knowledge andunderstanding of the law in underdevel-oped countries. Our lawyers volunteer.Last year our associate went to Tanzaniato teach students there.

We are also engaged in many local initia-tives. Our lawyers meet with children indaycare facilities on the poor side of War-saw and help them engage in different artsand cultural activities, such as filmmakingor painting. Of course the easiest waywould be to donate money to those institu-tions. But nothing is as effective as spend-ing your time, because what you are con-tributing then is your personality, yourknowledge and experience. You first needto understand the situation the person youwant to help is in. When you do, you dis-

cover that your time and your personal ef-forts are the most beneficial aspects ofyour help. So the key point is that we getinvolved in programs that can utilize notonly our money, but also our time and per-sonalities.

I have to say that we do not press ourpeople to participate in such programs. Itis just enough to let them know what proj-ects they may consider, and they just pickwhat they think suits them best. We neverreally needed to encourage our people todo that. We have a relatively young team,and maybe they are still idealists or maybethey are just well-educated and keen tohelp others.

it seems that you put a lot of empha-sis on personality and character inyour firm…Wiater: Indeed, we are not looking to haveonly excellent lawyers. Of course we wantto have the best lawyers possible, but evenmore we want to have excellent humanbeings—individuals who are excellentpersonalities outside of the businessworld too. This is the kind of people wereally like to work with.

how do you see 2013 for the companyin poland and globally?Wiater: We have the Japanese, French andSpanish desks in place. But we hope togrow our personnel to 150 people by late2015 or early 2016, including lawyers andsupport staff. It is an ambitious goal inthe flagging economy, but in the past eachyear we have exceeded our annual growthplans. We are constantly committed to in-vestment, and we actively search for newclients.

Knowles: Throughout the global financialcrisis we never stopped investing in busi-ness. We have always got investment thatwe have made that is there to mature andto make the business better. It is an evolv-ing process. On January 8 we open our of-fice in South Korea. It is a good beginningof 2013.

We know that we attract a lot of interestfrom serious law firms around the worldthat we are talking to at the moment, asthey see that we could be a better solutionfor their clients. I anticipate that the cur-rent trend of clients seeing DLA Piper asa better solution for them, as a result ofour diversity of proactive groups and ge-ography, combined with our sectoral ex-pertise, will continue to attract marketshare in Poland and elsewhere.

But some other things will not change.Fundamentally, you have to work hard.You have to work hard to please the client.But if you think that you have the right vi-sion and you are with a bunch of reallygreat people, you put that hard work in.And it is a real pleasure to see that hardwork pay off. That energizes you to keepdoing it.

Wiater: I’m very much responsible forbuilding the strategy for DLA PiperWiater. I see that some of our clients looknot just for a lawyer but for a trusted ad-viser. That is the beauty of this business,because there is still room for growth of-fering this type of advisory, in which ouroverall knowledge and expertise play asignificant part.

Company profileDLA Piper

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pare the dish, to test his own instincts. Asthe years went by this inclination towardfood took a new form. Leśniak would go toselected restaurants in Kraków, his home-town, to sneak a peek at how a real restau-rant kitchen worked.

FocusExecutive chef

Good food is the goalA young executive chef feeds guests at theSheraton Kraków and travels the world to as-sure that the Polish soccer team starts everygame on the right gastronomic foot

Tomasz Leśniak, executive chef ofthe Sheraton Kraków, has alwayshad an insatiable interest in food. As

a young boy he would peruse his mother’scookbooks for a dish he thought he wouldlike. Then he would ask his mother to pre-

When the time came to select the schoolthat would give him the education heneeded for a future professional career, Leś-niak had narrowed his choice down to two:cook or barman. “I wanted to be both,” hesays. “Eventually I decided to be a cook, be-cause somebody explained to me that it ismuch better to excel in one field than be av-erage in many.”

Soon Leśniak’s love affair with the pro-fessional restaurant kitchen began. “Therestaurant I had my apprenticeship at hadgreat, inspiring, old-school chefs, who in-stantly became my role models,” Leśniaksays. “It was thanks to them that I realizedthat professional cooking was what I wantedto do for the rest of my life.”

He became chef of that restaurant at theage of 19. Then he bade it farewell to try hishand in a new place. He led it as chef foronly a few months when his talent was spot-ted by a headhunting organization recruit-ing for a new hotel in town. He was reluc-tant to leave the new place, feeling he hadnot been there long enough to make a dis-tinctive mark. But after a succession of in-terviews he decided to join the staff of theSheraton Kraków as sous-chef. It was 2004,and Leśniak was all of 23.

The Sheraton Kraków marked anotherpivotal point in his professional career. Hisnew boss, Daniel Mayor, executive chef ofthe hotel restaurant, had a profound influ-ence on the young sous-chef. “Major was agreat professional,” Leśniak says. “He wasextremely well-organized and taught mehow to manage all aspects of the kitchenbusiness, including recipes, workflow, costmanagement... He was incredible! I’m stillgrateful to him for what he taught me.”

In three years working under Mayor, Leś-niak developed a distinct blend of manage-ment skills and creativity at the kitchen sta-tion. In 2007 Leśniak was promoted to exec-utive chef of the Sheraton Kraków, a posi-tion he successfully holds until now.

The soccer team callsIn the meantime, Leśniak’s talents werespotted by yet other people, this time in thesports arena. Following a succession of in-terviews, in 2006 Leśniak accepted the posi-tion of executive chef of the Polish NationalSoccer Team. “It was another stroke of goodluck,” Leśniak says.

Working for the national team is likeworking for a five-star restaurant. After yearsof experience, Leśniak no longer needs toconsult his new menus with the team’sphysicians and dietitians. “The most impor-tant thing is to select the right, ecologicalproduce,” he says. “The most importantmeal is the one served before the match. Italways contains light products and no fats.But it has to be energetic and must beserved at the right time before the match.”

But working for the soccer team is notonly about meal composition. It is also aboutgoing to an unknown hotel two or three daysbefore the arrival of the team, meeting theexecutive chef there and the staff, andblending with them just in time to delivermeals for the players that absolutely meet alltheir specific requirements. “I have learnedto be assertive,” Leśniak says. “I haveworked with kitchen personnel in all parts ofthe world, in all cultures. I have always man-aged to have them deliver according to ourstandards, although sometimes it was aclose call.”

a question of produceDespite his extensive travels for the soccerteam, Leśniak spends the bulk of his profes-sional time at the Sheraton Kraków. Whencomposing new menus there, it is Polishproduce he most enthusiastically turns to.“There are incredible produce items inPoland that are worth using,” Leśniak says.“There are different types of grains, lentils,and flax-seed that need to be rediscovered inPoland.”

Leśniak is lukewarm on the meat deliv-ered by domestic producers, however. “Un-fortunately, meat farming is based on theprinciple of quantity, not quality,” he says.“But this is slowly changing, as far as I cansee. Recently I had a meeting with a Polishfarmer who had just commenced the pro-duction of seasoned beef. The quality wasexcellent! I love it because it means thatquality meat can be produced in Poland. Ihope that in the future there will be enoughquality meat available from local farmers inPoland so we do not have to buy from Japanor Argentina.”

When it comes to fish dishes it is anotherstory. “There are only a few types of freshfish available in Poland,” Leśniak says. “Sowe cooperate with a supplier in Germanywho, three times a week, brings fresh fish toour hotel from the largest food market inRungis, just outside of Paris.”

Team buildingWith 45 people under him, Leśniak hasgrown to be as devoted to the art of manage-ment as he is to cooking.

Cooks who apply for jobs at his kitchen donot need to boast about great experience.“Cooking is such a broad theme that younever stop learning in this business,” he ex-plains. What they do need to have, however,is unconditional devotion to cooking. “Themost important thing I look forward to hear-ing from a candidate at the interview is thatcooking is his or her passion. Passion is anindispensable ingredient of creativity in thekitchen. You are not going to create anythingnew and amazing if you don’t have a passionfor cooking.”

But another personal quality that Leśniak

is looking for in young, aspiring cooks ismodesty. “I don’t trust individuals whoboast about their abilities,” he says. “Whensomebody asks me if I’m good, I always tellthem to visit our restaurant and judge forthemselves. Such an attitude is important ina cook, because a good kitchen is about ex-periencing food, and it is our job to offerthat experience.”

For Leśniak, his profession is more thanjust a profession—it is a way of life. “Youare not going to make a difference in thisjob unless you devote yourself to it entirely,”he says. He jokes that the key to success inthis business is having an understandingspouse. But then he adds that what hemisses most in his job is the time to actuallywork at the kitchen station.

Because he manages people, his otherpassion has become the study of motiva-tional theories and practices. “There aredifferent individuals, different charactersamong your kitchen staff. You have to knowhow to reach out to each one of them.” Thisis essential because without a great team,even the greatest chef is nothing. “It isteamwork,” Leśniak says. “You need to runa team of well-trained professionals who dotheir best to keep our guests satisfied everyday. It is not an easy task.”

Leśniak is proud that members of theteam very rarely quit.

combining experiencesThe jobs at the helm of the SheratonKraków kitchen and as executive chef of thePolish National Soccer Team both offer a lotof tough and unique professional chal-lenges. Leśniak is fully aware of this, andhopes that one day he will be able to trans-form some of his experiences into a book. “Idon’t want it to be yet another cookbook,”Leśniak says. “I want it to be a book whichwill open the readers’ eyes to the issue ofquality food and its impact on people’shealth and wellbeing.”

Leśniak says that a good selection of foodcan work miracles for the body—a fact thatdoes not seem too widely known but never-theless is extremely important for peopletoday, who live in stress and constant rush.“I lost 35 kilograms in a few months just be-cause I used proper food—food that suitsmy body,” he says. “It is only the food Icould count on, because with my presentlifestyle I have no time to spend at the gym.”

The book, which Leśniak has alreadybegun researching, will be a compilation ofrecipes from different parts of the world hehas visited in his travels with the Polish soc-cer team, served up with the insight of aprofessional whose life is devoted to thekitchen—most days, the kitchen of theSheraton Kraków. •

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Leśniak has a love affair with the professional restaurant kitchen

Despite his extensive travels for the soccerteam, Leśniak spends the bulk of his pro-fessional time at the Sheraton Kraków

According to Leśniak, there are incredibleproduce items in Poland that are worthusing


FocusTransatlantic relations Steel market

Thinking outside the tank

What are the mission and the specificareas of your work here in poland?The German Marshall Fund of the UnitedStates is an American think tank, but westarted as a foundation, so I may say weare a foundation and a think tank. Some ofour offices, such as in Bucharest and Bel-grade, are still grant-making. They givemoney for programs and privatization andsimilar things, so they fulfill the role of afoundation. On the other hand the Polishoffice, which opened in May 2011 as ourseventh office, is more like our offices inBrussels, Paris and Berlin, which are fo-cused on network building and analyticalwork.

We work with the local think-tank com-munity. We do a lot of partnering with thegovernment-related Polish Institute of In-ternational Affairs (PISM), but also withnon-governmental organizations such asDemos Europa and the Center for Inter-national Relations (CSM). We organizemeetings, conferences, and other eventsthat deal with issues we believe to be cen-tral.

My portfolio includes energy security,for obvious reasons. We have done a num-ber of events on shale gas and unconven-tional energy. We are about to launch anew program on energy that will focus notso much on these large conferences butseminars and analytical publications, try-ing to inform the debate in Poland aboutwhy shale gas and unconventional energyin general is a really critical foundation forcommercial relations between the US andPoland.

We also work on democracy promotion.Most of our programming that reaches tothe Eastern Partnership countries goesthrough this office. Some of the fundingmay be covered by our Berlin office or di-rectly from Washington, DC, but most ofthe organizational work is done from War-saw looking to the East.

The next major area of our work inPoland is to build networks between non-governmental organizations, but also workwith governments, in Poland, Scandinavia,Central Europe and Germany, on somekey issues that are now on the menu. Forexample, in 2012 we did a conference inPoland, in cooperation with the MarshallCenter in Germany, which is a govern-mental organization, an American-Ger-man partnership, on defense, economicsand the age of scarcity. In December lastyear we did a conference on the current,

American Investor’s Tomasz Ćwiok talks with Prof. Andrew A. Michta, SeniorTransatlantic Fellow and Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Warsaw office,about the agenda for Poland.

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ongoing debate on how Poland goes aboutair and missile defenses and how NATOdoes it. So whatever the current importantissues are in the security and economicareas, we try to address them.

how about network-building?One of the things that we focus on inPoland is the Marshall Memorial FellowsProgram. We partner with the Center forInternational Relations (CSM). This pro-gram allows us to select from differentcountries a small number of very promis-ing young intellectuals, politicians and ad-ministrators, and we send them to the US.But they visit not just Washington and NewYork, but go to Arizona, New Mexico, Col-orado… This is because we want them tosee the US outside of the two coastal areas.We want to show them our local govern-ment and local businesses. So they go forseveral weeks, and then they come backand become alumni for our organization,and we stay in touch with them and try tofoster networks. It is a very successful pro-gram.

We also bring people from the US here,so it is not just Europeans traveling toAmerica but it is also Americans traveling

to Europe. We just hosted a group that washere in Warsaw.

Another project that we develop is ourYouth Transatlantic Network Initiative. Weare trying to create a program that willallow a number of young Poles to meetwith American politicians, speakers, jour-nalists and think-tankers who come toPoland, to talk about America and Polandand the key issues, all in informal settings.This is important because we are talkingabout our countries not knowing eachother very well anymore, because of thevisas and other barriers. We want to createan environment where young Poles canmeet Americans and learn about theirpoints of view.

how about your analytical work? One of our key products is TransatlanticTrends, an annual polling report on whatpeople in America and Europe believe theirrelationship to be. It is an extremely re-spected and very expansive study. We havea sample of 12–13 EU countries and theUS. This year we have added Russia to itfor the first time, and we ask some of thecritical questions about security coopera-tion, the importance of Europe to the US,and individual public responses to criseslike nuclear weapons and others. We try tobuild a trend. It is a project that has beenin place for several years now on how thisrelationship is changing. It is broadly usedby journalists and politicians.

how can amcham members get in-volved in your activities?Come to our events! We advertise on theAmCham network and make sure the orga-nization’s members get invitations to ourevents.

Secondly, if you want to partner with uson some of the projects, my door is alwaysopen. If you have ideas that the companiesthink should be done here in such areas asenergy security and others, do contact us!

We are a platform. We create a space forpublic debate by bringing together differ-ent stakeholders on the US corporate sideand from the Polish side. We don’t advocatefor any particular product or policy, otherthan we want to make sure that the rela-tions between the US and Poland are asstrong as they can be. So for any initiativesfrom the AmCham side where we can helpdevelop these projects or ideas—by allmeans pick up the phone or send me an e-mail!

Room for improvement

it has already been 9 years sincecmc invested in poland. could youupdate us on the situation in yourcompany and the steel industry inpoland?In December 2003, Commercial MetalsCompany acquired 71% of the shares ofHuta Zawiercie from Impexmetal. Re-named CMC Zawiercie SA, the companyis now a wholly owned subsidiary ofCommercial Metals Company and is thelargest long steel producer in Poland,with revenues exceeding USD 1 billion ayear. During those 9 years, the companyinvested more than PLN 1 billion, mostlyin increasing the finished goods produc-tion capacity, but also expanding down-stream and upstream capabilities. We arethe second-biggest US investor inPoland, after GM. Our steel mill is one ofthe most modern and efficient in Europe.

Although the Polish economy has beendoing quite well during the last threeyears, with a positive trend in steel con-sumption, we have to remember that inEurope, with free trade and no borders,the steel industry must be analyzed inthe broader perspective, focusing moreon regional markets rather than the do-mestic market itself. Europe will be theonly continent in the world where steelconsumption is lower in 2012 than in2011. In effect, the European recessionhas influenced the condition of the Polishsteel industry in 2012.

poland is a net importer of steel.What could be done to reverse thissituation and improve the competi-tiveness of polish steel mills?It is alarming that Poland is a net im-porter of steel despite the fact that Polishsteel production is one of the most mod-ern and efficient in Europe. The mainreason for the net import situation is thatthe Polish government has been less sup-portive of the Polish manufacturing in-dustry for many years. The Polish steelindustry does not have a business envi-ronment comparable to our competitorsin other EU countries. We pay the high-est prices in Europe for electricity andgas. Not only are all of our competitors inEurope exempt from excise tax on energy,but they also pay substantially lower para-taxes to support the EU climate policy, aswell as considerably lower distributioncosts.

What seems to be a positive develop-

AmCham Kraków Director Monika Pilarska talks with Jerzy Kozicz, president ofCMC Zawiercie, about the steel industry in Poland.

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ment for the industry is that the currentdraft Energy Law prepared by the Min-istry of Economy incorporates a reduc-tion of para-taxes for energy-intensivecompanies. This is a first potential stepto reduce our competitive disadvantagerelative to other European producers. Itis obvious that the legislative process inPoland is very time-consuming, so it willtake some time before it potentially be-comes law and we see lower energy bills.There have also been discussions con-cerning reduction of excise taxes on thegovernmental level, but these changescan only be implemented after closing ofPoland’s excessive budget deficit proce-dure. The key to success of the most de-veloped countries is supporting thegrowth of domestic manufacturing to en-sure low unemployment and interestingjobs for new graduates.

The other negative aspect significantlyaffecting the situation in the Polish steelmarket is the massive VAT fraud on im-ported steel products. Rebar is the bestexample of this pathology. This singleproduct accounts for about 14% of totalsteel consumption in Poland. Based on acomparison of Polish import statistics

and European statistics, it is estimatedthat about 50% of the Polish consump-tion of this product has been subject toVAT fraud for the last two years. This is astartling statistic, with an incredibly neg-ative effect on the Polish steel industry.Through the Polish Steel Association, weinformed the Ministry of Finance aboutone year ago of the scale of this fraudu-lent scheme. In spite of these efforts, thesituation has not improved. On the con-trary, statistics through 8 months of 2012show that the scale of this problem hasincreased. This situation has generated aloss of hundreds of millions of złoty intax receipts for the Polish state budget in2011 and 2012 and undermined the com-petitiveness and production levels of Pol-ish producers. The Polish Steel Associa-tion is continuing discussions with theMinistry of Finance regarding measuresto address this issue. We do appreciatethese attempts, but the industry needsprompt and definite actions. In my opin-ion, implementation of a reverse chargemechanism for VAT by the Ministry ofFinance would eliminate this pathology.Such a solution proved appropriate forscrap. Before that, the Polish governmenthad also been losing hundreds of millionsof złoty annually as a result of its failureto implement those changes in the law.

poland has a very high unemploy-ment rate. What should the polishgovernment do to address this issue,taking into account a potential reces-sion?In my view, the Polish government shouldlook at the recent crisis in Europe in2008–2009 and review which countriescoped with the crisis in the most efficientway from an unemployment point of view.There is no doubt that Germany andAustria came through the crisis with thelowest unemployment rates, due to theirsystematic approach. In those countries,governments stepped in and promotedsolutions where during the slowdown pe-riod employees were sent on a leave ofabsence, when the government paid asubstantial portion of their salaries. Thesolutions applied in Poland during thecrisis did not prevent job losses. Govern-ments, like businesses, should always re-view how their competitors cope with agiven issue and draw conclusions. I hopethis time that will be the case in Poland.


ExpertGraphology Tax law

The writing on the wall

Professional analy-sis of handwritingcan be surprisinglyhelpful in assessingjob candidates andbusiness partners

By Lucyna Baca-Lönn,

Founder and Director,

Graphology Solutions

Group

structure of graphology analysisGraphology analysis has a definedstructure and order which a pro-fessional graphologist obliged tofollow strictly.

A graphology portrait of a candi-date is prepared according toknowledge based on research andexperimentation. It includes an as-sessment of key personality ele-ments, in the area of intellect,emotivity, activity and adaptationskills of a prospective employee orbusiness partner. It also enablesdiscovery and assessment of keypersonality traits such as the abil-ity to give and take orders, theability to keep cool under pres-sure, the ability to work with oth-ers, adaptability, ambition, atten-tion to detail, authority, clarity ofjudgment, clarity of thinking,common sense, communication,concentration, confidence, consis-tency, creativity, critical mind, de-

cisiveness, dynamism, equilib-rium, extroversion, goal orienta-tion, harmony, imagination, inde-pendence, introversion, logic, mo-tivation, organization, originality ofideas, practicality, reliability, senseof priorities, speed of thinking,stability, suppleness of mind,tenacity, and many other personal-ity traits of the person being as-sessed.

Such analysis provides a deepand thorough assessment of a can-didate for a specific position in the

company or a prospective busi-ness partner. Professionalgraphology analysis applies thefindings of Jung, Hippocrates,Le Senne, Freud, Adler andother well-known psycholo-gists.

When to apply graphologyanalysis?Graphology can effectively sup-port executive decisions in thefinal stage of the personnel se-lection process, when two orthree applicants are shortlistedby the selection committee.Practice shows that graphologyassessments, advising on thestrengths and weaknesses ofthe candidates, provide themost effective support to theselection committee at thisstage of the recruitmentprocess.

Graphological opinions lendsupport to the personal evalua-tions by the members of the se-lection committee, complementor question them. They ob-serve and assess applicantsfrom different angles, helpingreveal their pluses and mi-nuses. Graphology analysis is adecision-making tool providinga differentiated view of the can-didate’s personality. Graphol-ogy portraits may prove to be aprecious tool in the compatibil-ity assessment process forprospective business partners,when the candidates have beennarrowed down to the few whoseem most appropriate.

advantages for businessGraphology analysis allows foran assessment of personnelprofiles with a claimed accuracyof 95%, potentially generatingsubstantial economic value tocompanies. The appropriatepersonnel selection decisions

Graphology is a science thatcorrelates handwritingpatterns with personality

traits. Professional graphologistsare trained in the interpretation ofhandwriting patterns and their re-lationship to the writer’s person-ality. Graphologists identify per-sonality traits based on the thor-ough study of a handwriting sam-ple.

In recruitment, graphology pro-vides a unique, precise personalityprofile, which supports executivesin choosing appropriate key per-sonnel with minimum risk.Graphology portraits are also avaluable decision-making tool inassessing the compatibility of po-tential business partners. It is amethod that combines the effec-tiveness of a personality assess-ment with convenience for thecustomer.

The personal touch of hand-writing provides stunning insight

into a person’s psyche and life sit-uation. Graphology may also serveas a remote assessment tool forthe writer’s personality profile,leaving no room for premeditatedresponses by the candidates.Thus graphology portraits mayprovide an authentic picture ofthe author of a sample of hand-writing. The authenticity of thepersonality assessment profile of ajob candidate or business partneris invaluable for an employer or abusiness owner.

are essential for companies togrow and develop.

Graphology assessment is amethod of remote personalityanalysis, which reduces addi-tional costs. Convenience, be-cause there is no need for di-rect contact between thegraphologist and the client,and easy access to graphologyanalysis are advantages ofgraphology opinions. There isalso anonymity, which providesa sense of security, privacy andneutrality essential when mak-ing an assessment of key per-sonality elements. These ad-vantages in a business contextare clear and concrete.

national traitsGraphologists observe charac-teristic handwriting patternsacross different nations. Peo-ple in almost every country inthe Western world write usingthe Latin alphabet. However,within the West, there are sig-nificant differences in how let-ters are formed by representa-tives of different nationalitiesand countries and, accord-ingly, in the characteristics oftheir handwriting.

American handwriting rep-resents a combination of manynational traditions, resultingin a compilation of free andsweeping handwriting. Re-search has shown that Ameri-can handwriting generally re-sembles the “salesperson”type, indicated by signs of dy-namism, materialism and ex-troversion in script. In Eng-land, writing tends to berather simple, without flour-ishes, displaying reserve andrespect for traditions. TheSpanish hand is distinguishedby its expression of old-worldpride in large, old-fashioned,dignified capital letters. In-tense but controlled emotion-ality may also be visible inSpanish handwriting. TheFrench tend to write small,suggesting a more logical ap-proach to life. Italian script re-flects a sense of rhythm andgrace and an emotional, socia-ble nature. German handwrit-ing tends to appear more an-

A blast from the past

Tax regulations be-tween the EU mem-ber states resemblesolutions Polandand the US havehad since 1974

By Marcin Jakubaszek,

partner, attorney at law at

Miller, Canfield, W. Babicki,

A. Chełchowski i Wspólnicy

Sp.k.

Afairly long time ago, on June3, 2003, the Council of theEuropean Union adopted a

directive (2003/49/EC) on taxationof interest and royalties, popularlyknown as the I+R Directive. Themain goal of the directive was toeliminate withholding tax oncross-border payment of interestand royalties within groups ofcompanies by abolishing with-holding tax on royalty paymentsand interest payments in an EUmember state.

Pursuant to the directive, inter-est and royalty payments shall beexempt from any taxes in a mem-ber state provided that the benefi-cial owner of the payment is acompany or permanent establish-ment in another member state.

How the directive works may bebest exemplified by the followingsituation: If a parent companybased in one member state fi-nances a subsidiary based in an-other member state with debt—aloan—then the interest accruedon the principal at the source(where the subsidiary is based)and payable (being transferred) tothe parent company (in the othermember state) shall be exemptfrom any taxes in the memberstate where the subsidiary isbased, provided that the specificconditions for the tax exemptionare met. • The I+R Directive applies tocompanies that meet the followingconditions:• They are subject to corporateincome tax in the EU.• They are tax residents of an EUmember state.• They are in one of the corporateforms listed in the annex to thedirective.

Initially the annex included onlythe types of companies existing incountries that were EU memberstates at the time the directive was

adopted. Under a directive ofApril 26, 2004, the list was ex-panded to include types ofcompanies from the new mem-ber states which joined the EUon May 1, 2004, includingPoland. The Council also gavesome of the new memberstates grace periods permittingthem not to apply the directiveimmediately upon EU acces-sion. Poland has been allowed agrace period until July 1, 2013,to implement the I+R Direc-tive.

What does the Us have to dowith this?From July 1, 2013, forward,Poland will not apply withhold-ing tax to interest or royaltiespayable to the companies else-where in the EU of the typesidentified in the I+R Directive,provided that the conditionsset under the directive and na-

tional law are met.What about the United

States? Poland treats the USfavorably with respect to with-holding tax on interest underthe October 8, 1974, tax treatybetween the US and Poland.Under Art. 8(1) of the treaty,interest arising in one con-tracting state and paid to a res-ident of the other contractingstate is exempt from tax by thefirst contracting state.

Thus, while as a member of

the EU Poland has beengranted a grace period toachieve full implementation ofthe I+R Directive, Poland hasbeen applying such principlesfor many years in relation tothe US. The deadline forPoland to apply the directive inrelations with all other EUmember states is approaching,but for nearly four decadesPoland has been treating US-based companies in a morepreferential way than it nowtreats companies from else-where in the EU.

The directive applies toboth interest and royalties,however, while the treaty pro-vides an exemption from with-holding tax only on interest.Art. 13(1) of the treaty statesthe same principle with re-spect to royalties, but Art.13(2), when combined withnational regulations, leads to

application of different rulesto royalties payable to US resi-dents than those applied to in-terest paid to US residents.

Still, as far as interest isconcerned, Poland long agoprovided for an exemption onwithholding tax on paymentsto US residents. Now Poland isfinally going to apply the sameprinciple to the 26 other EUmember states. •

gular and precise than that ofother nations.

The national characteristicsof handwriting are not a con-straint for a graphologistpreparing a professional opin-ion. They are a significant indi-cator, and support the grapholo-gist in reaching an opinion.

ethics in graphologyProfessional graphology findingsare made for ethical purposes tosupport executives in top man-agement personnel selectionprocesses and in compatibilityassessment processes forprospective business partners.Graphology opinions need to beprepared in compliance with es-tablished American and Euro-pean criteria and standards inthis area.

Professional graphologists arerequired to comply strictly withthe ethical principles specifiedin the European Code of Ethicsfor the profession, establishedin 1992. Graphology opinionsmust be used in an ethical man-ner and for a worthwhile pur-pose. The graphology professiondemands a high level of ethics,integrity and responsibility onthe part of the graphologist.

Beyond computersGraphology has a long and hon-orable history, going back to an-cient China and Egypt. It is arespected and effective tool inpersonnel selection and com-patibility assessment processeswithin companies. Graphologyfindings help highlight whatadded value a prospective em-ployee or business partner canbring to the company.

An in-depth graphology analy-sis helps businesses arrive atwell-founded conclusions in re-cruitment and compatibility as-sessment processes, while mini-mizing the risk of selecting in-appropriate personnel. It canthus be a valuable decision-making tool for HR manage-ment. It also shows that the an-cient art of handwriting contin-ues to be relevant and revealingin our wired, digital age. •

“ ” An in-depth graphology analysis helpsbusinesses arrive at well-founded con-clusions in recruitment and compati-bility assessment processes.

As far as interest is concerned,Poland long ago provided for anexemption on withholding tax onpayments to US residents.


ExpertPublic procurement law Securities law

How far does the directive go? There are limits tothe application ofEU public procure-ment rules when itcomes to defenseand security

By Anna Szy-

mańska

Legal Adviser,

Public Procure-

ment Law

Practice,

Salans

of the European Union is of vitalimportance. Art. 346 provides an ex-emption from application of thetreaty by a member state with regardto essential interests of national se-curity. This also means that theaward of a contract otherwise cov-ered by the Defense ProcurementDirective may be subject to an ex-emption if it is necessary to protectessential interests of the memberstate’s security or if it would requirea member state to supply informa-tion the disclosure of which it con-siders contrary to the essential in-terests of its security.

This situation may arise with re-spect to contracts for defense or in-ternal security where even the spe-cific provisions of the directive arenot sufficient to protect the memberstate’s essential security interests.However, the potential applicationof such exemptions should be inter-preted narrowly so that the freemovement of goods and services isinfringed to the slightest extentpossible (see Commission v. Spain,European Court of Justice judgmentof September 16, 1999, Case C-414/97).

Consequently, a member statethat intends to award a contract cov-ered by the scope of the DefenseProcurement Directive without fol-lowing the procedures set forth inthe directive, relying on the exemp-tion in TFEU Art. 346, mustdemonstrate the necessity for theexemption in order to protect thestate’s essential security interests.The circumstances should be as-sessed on a case-by-case basis, withdue regard for the security interestsand measures in question and theprinciple of proportionality. How-ever, the basic rule is compliancewith the procedures set out in thedirective.

contracts covered The Defense Procurement Direc-tive applies to specific contracts

awarded in the field of defenseand security by the contractingauthorities and entities definedin the directive. Contractsawarded in the field of defenseand security that are not coveredby the directive are, as a generalrule, subject to the regime of theClassic Procurement Directive(2004/18/EC) or the UtilitiesProcurement Directive(2004/17/EC), unless a specificexemption is provided under EUlaw.

The definition of a contractcovered by the Defense Procure-ment Directive relates to twobases: defense and security. Interms of defense (military), thescope of the directive is based onTFEU Art. 346 and covers, ingeneral, any and all contracts re-lated to military equipment(supplies, services and works).In terms of security, the directiveis applicable to sensitive pro-curements for security purposes,involving access to classified in-formation.

The directive specifies fourcategories of contracts that fallwithin this scope: a) The supply of military equip-ment, including any parts, com-ponents and/or subassembliesthereofb) The supply of sensitive equip-ment, including any parts, com-ponents and/or subassembliesthereof c) Works, supplies and servicesdirectly related to the equipmentreferred to in points (a) and (b)for any and all elements of its lifecycled) Works and services for specifi-cally military purposes or sensi-tive works and sensitive services.

The directive incorporates thedefinition of a “contract” as usedin the other two procurement di-rectives.

Defense procurementMilitary (defense) purposes areserved by contracts for the sup-ply of military equipment, in-cluding any parts, componentsand/or subassemblies thereof;works, supplies and services di-rectly related to such equipment;and works and services forspecifically military purposes.

The Act of October 12, 2012,Amending the Public Pro-curement Law and the Act

on Concessions for ConstructionWorks or Services was published onNovember 19, 2012, and will go intoeffect on February 20, 2013. A largepart of the amending act is focusedon implementing into the Polishlegal system the rules of the De-fense Procurement Directive(2009/81/EC).

The EU law on procurement inthe fields of defense and securitywas created on the assumption thatthe gradual establishment of a Euro-pean defense equipment market isessential for strengthening the Eu-ropean Defense Technological andIndustrial Base and developing themilitary capabilities required to im-plement the European Security andDefense Policy. At the same time, asa general principle, national securityremains the sole responsibility ofeach member state, in the fields ofboth defense and security.

The Defense Procurement Direc-tive is aimed at establishing a leg-islative framework for the new Euro-pean market for defense equipment.Accordingly, it is beyond any doubtthat the Polish public procurementmarket will witness a momentouschange involving the extension ofthe public procurement regime to anew sector, namely defense and se-curity. So far, in most cases, pro-curements of this type have beenmade outside the regime of the Pub-lic Procurement Law. The interpre-tation of the new legal provisions willbe largely influenced by the wordingof the Defense Procurement Direc-tive, including with respect to thecontracts and entities covered by thenew rules.

Treaty exemptionWhen assessing what contracts mustbe awarded in compliance with theDefense Procurement Directive, Art.346 of the Treaty on the Functioning

Military equipment is equip-ment designed or adapted formilitary purposes and intendedto be used as arms, munitionsor war material.

Council Decision 255/58 ofApril 15, 1958, is of special sig-nificance here, as that decisioncontains a list of arms, muni-tions and war material, and thedirective provides that militaryequipment should be construedto mean the types of productsincluded in that list. The list isof a general nature and servesas an example, and thus shouldbe interpreted broadly, espe-cially in view of advances intechnology. The term “militaryequipment” also includes prod-ucts that were originally in-tended for civil use but later be-came adapted for military pur-poses as arms, munitions or warmaterial.

On the other hand, works,supplies and services directlyrelated to military equipmenthave to do, for example, withcontracts that are necessary orhelpful when using or deployingmilitary equipment and arestrictly related to such equip-ment (e.g. research and devel-opment, industrial design,manufacturing, repair, modern-ization, modification, mainte-nance, logistics, training, test-ing, decommissioning and dis-posal of military equipment).

The last type of military con-tracts involves services andworks for specifically militarypurposes. These are contractsthat are not directly related tomilitary equipment but havespecifically military purposes.An example would be transportof military troops or the con-struction of landing strips, air-raid shelters or nuclear shel-ters.

security procurementWith respect to security, the di-rective covers the supply of sen-sitive equipment, including anyparts, components and/or sub-assemblies thereof, sensitiveworks and sensitive services.Equipment, works or servicesare regarded as “sensitive”when they are for security pur-

Rules to be amended...Poland takes itstime adjusting tonew EU regula-tions on shortselling

By Marcin

Pietkiewicz,

legal adviser,

Capital Mar-

kets Practice,

Wardyński &

Partners

Short selling is a popular in-vestment strategy to profitfrom the fall in prices of secu-

rities and is often a component ofcomplex investment strategies. Ashort sale is an undertaking to sellsecurities that are not recorded inan investor’s securities account onthe date of sale. An investor thatdoes not possess securities, but an-ticipates that they will fall in price,borrows them, most often from theinvestor’s own brokerage, and sellsthem. If they fall in price, the in-vestor—to be able to return them—buys them back at the lower priceand makes a profit on the differencein prices. If the price rises, the in-vestor loses. Short selling is thusdifferent from the usual strategy ofbuying securities that are expectedto rise in price.

polish regulationsPolish regulations allow coveredshort selling, which is only permit-ted on a regulated market such asthe Warsaw Stock Exchange, whenan investor and a broker agree fordelivery of the securities required tosettle a transaction and the broker isauthorized to borrow securities forthe investor if the investor fails todeliver the securities on time.

Covered short selling must meetthe criteria indicated in the WSErules. The WSE maintains and pub-lishes daily a list of securities thatcan be short-sold and publishes in-formation on concluded short sales.

Detailed conditions for conclud-ing and completing short sales ap-pear in the Rules of the WSE and inthe Rules of the National Deposi-tory for Securities.

new european regime On November 1, 2012, new EU reg-ulations on short selling and se-lected aspects of credit defaultswaps entered into force (Regula-tion No. 236/2012 and certain dele-gated regulations by the EuropeanCommission). The purpose of the

EU regulations is to consolidatethe rules for short selling withinthe EU, increase the trans-parency of short selling, and en-sure greater coordination and co-herence of short selling. Theregulations apply to shares listedon EU regulated markets, debtinstruments issued by states orstate agencies (sovereign debt),and credit default swaps of sov-ereign debt.

A short sale under the newregulations is defined as a sale ofshares or debt instruments thatdo not belong to the seller at thetime of sale. A sale is includedwithin the definition of a shortsale regardless of whether theseller, to settle the transaction,borrowed (or arranged to bor-row) securities at the time ofsale. The definition does notapply to a sale under repurchaseagreements, securities lendingagreements, futures contracts, orother derivatives whereby it isagreed to sell securities at anagreed price on a future date.

obligation to report a netshort position A new requirement in the EUregulations is for a holder of anet short position in shares orsovereign debt to report involve-ment in the short sale if the saleexceeds or falls below certainstatutory thresholds.

The threshold was set at 0.2%of issued company share capital,and each subsequent 0.1% netshort position involving shares.The European Securities andMarkets Authority publishesthresholds for sovereign debt foreach member state.

Notification must be made nolater than 3:30 pm on the busi-ness (trading) day following at-taining a given position. Notifica-tion is made to the Polish Finan-cial Supervision Authority forshort positions involving shares

traded on the WSE.It is significant that not only

short sales of shares or debt in-struments on a given market areto be considered in determiningwhether to provide notice of ashort position, but also short po-sitions in securities from over-the-counter transactions andderivative transactions (e.g. op-tions and term contracts).

Moreover, as with notificationobligations for possession ofpublicly traded shares, specificguidelines apply to the calcula-tion of short positions held byfunds that are managed by thesame manager or by members ofa capital group.

The regulations make itobligatory to publicly disclosenet short positions in shares thatexceed 0.5% of issued companyshare capital and each subse-quent 0.1%. The disclosure is tobe made on a website madeavailable for that purpose by therelevant supervisory body, whichfor Poland is the Financial Su-pervision Authority. Therefore,notifying the authority will bethe equivalent of public disclo-sure of a significant net shortposition.

changes still to comeEU member states were giventhe right to impose other meas-ures on short selling, beyondthose provided in the EU regu-lations.

There is also a need for theexisting Polish regime on shortsales to be adapted to the shortsale requirements under thenew EU regulations, which setforth rules that are directly ap-plicable in all EU memberstates. Poland has not yetchanged existing measures toaccord with the EU regulations,but it is expected that the Polishrules on short selling that arestill in force will be amendedshortly.

There are administrativesanctions for failure to providenotice of a short position inshares or sovereign debt, to beintroduced by each memberstate, but Poland has not yetadopted them. •

poses and involve, require or con-tain classified information.

Such procurements relate tonon-military matters that are ofan equally sensitive nature, e.g. inplaces where the same missionsare carried out by military forcesand non-military services, or insituations where the procurementis intended to protect the securityof the EU or member statesagainst serious threats from non-military or non-governmental en-tities on their own territory oroutside—for example, operationsof the police, border guards, cus-toms services, civil security serv-ices, or the like.

At the same time, in order tobe regarded as security-related,the award of the contract must beconnected with classified infor-mation, meaning any informationor materials, irrespective of form,character or manner of presenta-tion, that are characterized by aspecific level of confidentiality orprotection for security reasonsand which—for the sake of statesecurity and in compliance withrelevant provisions of law—re-quire protection against any formof embezzlement, damage, re-moval, disclosure, loss, access byunauthorized parties, or any otherthreats.

entities covered The Defense Procurement Di-rective applies to contractsawarded by contracting authori-ties or entities. These are thesame units that are covered, as ageneral rule, by the regime of theClassic Procurement Directive orthe Utilities Procurement Direc-tive, such as the state, local gov-ernmental units, public entitiesand associations thereof (con-tracting authorities), and, in theutilities area, also certain privatecompanies if they operate on thebasis of special or exclusive rightsgranted by a member state (con-tracting entities).

Accordingly, the Defense Pro-curement Directive may be ap-plied, for example, to companiesthat provide services to seaportsand airports, operators of systemsfor transmission of gas, heat,electricity or water, and operatorsof public transport systems. •


AmCham EventsAmCham Halloween Business Mixer

AmCham’s lucky members andfriends won valuable lotteryprizes while everyone enjoyed

the great food and friendly atmos-phere of the AmCham HalloweenBusiness Mixer held in October onthe 40th floor of Marriott WarsawHotel, at the hotel’s SkyBar. AirFrance-KLM and Avis sponsored thelottery.

1. Dorota Dabrowski, AmCham Executive Director; Xavier Douellou, 3M. 2. Theparty in full swing. 3. Joe Smoczyński; Albert Helms, Daniel Sasse, Warsaw MarriottHotel. 4. Peter Dembiński; Wojciech Kożuchowski, American Express. 5. DorotaDabrowski; Albert Helms. 6. Joanna Bensz, PM Group; Elisabeth Asirifi. 7. AndrzejPawelczak, Animex; Dorota Dabrowski; Xavier Douellou; Bartosz Morzycki, 3M;Jacek Stryczyński, Lionbridge. 8. Jadwiga Naduk, Marek Wróbel, Hays. 9. WilliamCzajkowski, US Embassy; Albert Helms. 10. Daniel Hall, US Embassy; DorotaDabrowski; Martina Strong, US Embassy.

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ExpertTax law

Major VAT changes aheadThe most extensiveset of amendments toPoland’s VAT Act innearly a decade willbecome effective inApril 2013 and Janu-ary 2014

By Aleksandra

Faderewska-

Waszkiewicz,

advocate and tax

adviser, Łaszczuk

& Partners

simpler invoicingThe amending act introduces severaltaxpayer-friendly changes in invoic-ing, further simplifying the process ofissuing invoices.

First and foremost, the deadlinefor issuing an invoice will be ex-tended. Currently, the general rule isthat an invoice must be issued nolater than 7 days after delivery of thegoods or performance of the services.From January 1, 2014, it will be per-missible to issue an invoice as late asthe 15th day of the month followingthe month in which the transactiontook place. It will also be possible toissue collective invoices reflectingtransactions from an entire calendarmonth.

The act also eliminates the obliga-tion to issue internal invoices. How todocument events currently subject tothe obligation to issue internal in-voices will be left entirely to the de-termination of the taxpayer.

The act also eliminates the obliga-tion to issue invoices documentingsales exempt from VAT. Taxpayerswill be required to issue such in-voices only when requested by thebuyer.

Invoices documenting the sale offuel for a passenger car will no longerhave to include the registration num-ber of the vehicle.

The procedure of “self-invoicing,”in which the buyer issues the invoice,which is currently regulated quitestrictly, is also being eliminated. Themethod in which the seller confirmsspecific invoices issued by the buyerwill be left to the discretion of theparties. Similarly, the method of con-senting to issuance of electronic in-voices has been liberalized, and willbe left to the determination of theparties to the transaction.

The act introduces the option ofissuance of invoices for a taxpayer byan authorized third party (e.g. a taxrepresentative).

The rules for reduction of the taxbasis by issuance of a correcting in-

voice are also being liberalized.The taxpayer will not necessarilybe required to obtain confirma-tion of receipt of the correctinginvoice by the buyer of the goodsor services. If confirmation of re-ceipt is not provided by the buyer,it will be sufficient for the tax-payer to document that it at-tempted to deliver the correctinginvoice and that the buyer isaware that the transaction wascarried out in accordance with theconditions set forth in the cor-recting invoice.

construction sites definedFor the first time, the amendingact introduces a definition of“construction site” into the VATAct. This is a concept that hasbeen interpreted inconsistently bythe Polish tax authorities and ad-ministrative courts.

Under the amending act, a“construction site” is defined asland designated for developmentunder the local zoning plan, or, inthe absence of a local zoning plan,in accordance with a planning de-cision for the site issued underplanning and land use regula-tions. With this definition in-cluded in the VAT Act, taxpayersshould no longer have problemsdetermining the proper taxationof the sale of land.

Free-of-charge supply ofgoodsThe act introduces additionalchanges in the regulations con-cerning free-of-charge supply ofgoods, clarifying that free-of-charge supply of goods is subjectto taxation not only when the tax-payer was entitled to deduct all orpart of the input VAT on pur-chase, import or production ofsuch goods, but also when it hadsuch a right when acquiring theconstitutive elements included inthe goods supplied free of charge.

The act changes the definitionof product samples. It also elimi-nates advertising and informa-tional materials from the list ofitems which are not subject totaxation when supplied free ofcharge. Supply of printed adver-tising and informational materialswill continue to be free of taxationif such goods fit within the defini-tion of gifts of nominal value.

The final wording of newamendments to the VAT Actwas determined on Decem-

ber 7, 2012, when the lower house ofthe Polish Parliament accepted theSenate’s revisions to the proposalpreviously adopted by the Sejm. Theeffective date of the amendmentswas postponed, and now most of thechanges will go into effect on April 1,2013, and some not until January 1,2014. Taxpayers thus have some timeto prepare for the upcoming changes,but it is worthwhile for them to re-view the changes and their currentprocedures for settling VAT to en-sure compliance with the new ruleswhen they come into force later in2013 or in 2014.

Timing of VaT obligations Under the general rule currently inforce, the obligation to pay VATarises upon delivery of goods or per-formance of services, or if these ac-tivities should be documented by aninvoice, upon issuance of the invoice.The current rule thus allows settle-ment of VAT on transactions occur-ring near the end of the month to bepostponed by one month by carryingover issuance of the invoice to thefollowing month.

The amending act will introduce anew general rule under which theVAT obligation will arise upon deliv-ery of the goods or performance ofthe services. The ability to postponesettlement of VAT by issuing an in-voice in the following month will thusbe eliminated. This means that allVAT taxpayers should analyze theprocedures they currently follow forsettlement of VAT to determinewhether their accounting systemsbook VAT based on the date of is-suance of the invoice. From January1, 2014, this method will no longer becorrect, and if used after the effectivedate of the change will result in latepayment of VAT, with negative conse-quences under tax law and fiscalpenal regulations.

intra-community supply of goodsThe amending act will permitbooking of intra-Communitysupply of goods before the tax-payer registers as an EU VATpayer, under the condition thatthe taxpayer must register as anEU VAT payer by the time it filesthe tax declaration.

The act also eliminates the re-quirement to provide both par-ties’ EU VAT numbers in an in-voice documenting intra-Com-munity supply of goods.

acquisition of goods inpoland from non-residentsCurrently, taxpayers who acquiregoods in Poland from taxpayerswithout a registered office orpermanent establishment inPoland have been required to payVAT on such transaction underthe “reverse charge” procedure,even if the seller was registeredin Poland for VAT purposes.

From April 1, 2013, this rulewill change. If the seller is regis-tered in Poland for VAT pur-poses, the transaction will be set-tled under general rules (i.e., theseller will book output VAT andthe buyer will book input VAT).

Tax representativesUnder current law, a tax repre-sentative may be appointed onlyby an entity from outside the EUwhich has registered in Poland asan active VAT payer. Under thenew regulations, it will be possi-ble to appoint a tax representa-tive without the necessity of reg-istering in Poland as an activeVAT payer. This option will applyto foreign taxpayers who wish toimport goods to other memberstates via Poland.

The recently approved amend-ing act is regarded as the mostextensive set of amendments tothe VAT Act since Poland joinedthe European Union. Thechanges summarized above arejust the tip of the iceberg. It isimportant to review all of theamendments carefully, as it mayturn out that one of the changesthat have attracted little notice orcomment will have an importantimpact on the operations of thespecific taxpayer. •


AmCham EventsMonthly Meeting in November AmCham Manufacturers’ Forum

AmCham member companiesactive in the manufacturingsector met in November in Ka-

towice at the 5th AmCham Manufac-turers’ Forum to share their experi-ences doing business in Poland withrepresentatives of the local govern-ment. The conference was organizedby AmCham Kraków. The venue wasthe Monopol Hotel in Katowice.More coverage at page 22.

1. Adam Matusiewicz, speaker of the Silesia province parliament. 2. Paweł Tynel, Ernst & Young; Piotr Uszok, Mayor of Katow-ice; Marcin Mrowiec, chief economist of Bank Pekao SA. 3. Monika Pilarska, AmCham Kraków Branch Director; Jan Przepióra,RR Donnelley Poland; Jacek Żarnowiecki, General Motors plant in Gliwice. 4. Dorota Dabrowski, AmCham Executive Director.5. Paul Fogo, AmCham Board Member (Miller Canfield). 6. Piotr Wojaczek, president of the Katowice Special Economic Zone;Joanna Bensz, PM Group. 7. Grzegorz Czul, Fluor Poland; Dominik Kania, Woodward Governor Polska; John Lynch, Lynka.8. Wojciech Więcławik, CMC Zawiercie. 9. Teresa Walewska, RR Donnelley. 10. Grzegorz Smołka, General Motors Poland.11. David Hardiman, 3M Poland. 12. Kumar Ghosh, Arcelor Mittal Poland; Jörg von Weiler, Filigran Polska. 13. MarcinJakubaszek, Miller Canfield. 14. Marek Wróbel, Hays Poland. 15. Marta Fołtyn, Foster Wheeler Polska; Barbara Kaleta, CMCZawiercie.

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The AmCham Monthly Meet-ing in November was heldright after the US Election

Night event and was a good opportu-nity for the members to comparetheir views on the impact of the newUS presidency on US-Poland rela-tions with the views of a US think-tanker and two renowned Polish po-litical commentators. The coverageof the event is on page 16.

1. The discussion panel: Bartosz Węglarczyk, Gazeta Wyborcza; Andrew Michta, German Marshall Fund; Tomasz Wróblewski,independent commentator. 2. Tadeusz Szostak; Tomasz Wróblewski. 3. Alain Bobet; Bill Livingstone. 4. Tomasz Wróblewski;Kathryn Buer, Raytheon. 5. Paul Fogo, AmCham Board Member (Miller Canfield), comments for Polish public radio. 6. BartoszWęglarczyk; Tony Housh, AmCham Board Member (Apco Worldwide). 7. Jarosław Roszkowski, Crowley Data Poland; DorotaDabrowski, AmCham Executive Director. 8. Election Night participants watch US President Barack Obama speak after prelimi-nary results of the presidential election were announced. 9. Bartosz Kwiatkowski, CEC Government Relations; Xavier Douellou,3M. 10. Tomasz Wróblewski; Joseph Wancer, AmCham Chairman.

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Conference expert:

Ernst & Young


AmCham EventsAmCham CEO Forum

Megatrends in the world of leadership and innovation were on the agenda of the AmCham CEO Forum in No-vember. The house was full. The venue was the glassy hall of Endorfina Restaurant & Bar in Warsaw. Forour coverage of the event go to page 19.

1. Moderator Jan Cieński, Financial Times; Anna Sieńko, IBM; Mik Kuczkiewicz, Hay Group. 2. Andrzej Pawelczak, Animex;Joanna Bensz, PM Group; Joseph Wancer, AmCham Chairman. 3. Mik Kuczkiewicz; Joseph Wancer; Anna Sieńko; JanCieński. 4. Loïc Frétard, Medicover; Jean-Michel Lathuillière, Sofitel Warsaw Victoria. 5. Paweł Gajda, Firestone IndustrialProducts; Anita Kowalska, AmCham. 6. Agnieszka Jankowska, GE; Paweł Smardz, Bank BPH SA; Joseph Wancer. 7. MarekMatraszek, CEC Government Relations; Dorota Dabrowski, AmCham Executive Director; Jan Cieński. 8. Roman Rewald, Am-Cham Board Member (Weil Gotshal); Agnieszka Jankowska. 9. Waldemar Saniewski, Warner Bros. Entertainment; WładysławSzwoch, IBM. 10. Dorota Świecka, Hay Group; Judith Gliniecki, AmCham Vice Chair (Wierzbowski Eversheds); MagdalenaMagusiak, Hay Group. 11. Xavier Douellou, 3M Poland; Michael J. Majchrzak. 12. Rick Lada, AmCham Vice Chairman (eremelconsulting); Alex Shannon. 13. Joseph Wancer; Władysław Szwoch. 14. Dorota Świecka, Hay Group; Ewa Kudlińska-Pyrz,Mary Kay. 15. Urszula Gąsior, Ernst & Young; Beata Bednarska, Federal Express Poland; Angelo Pressello, Direct Communi-cations.

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AmCham EventsInternational Christmas Meeting in Wrocław

This year four international chambers of commerce, representing the US, the UK, Germany and France, co-orga-nized the 19th International Christmas Evening. The venue was Wrocław’s Town Hall. The guests enjoyed interna-tional Christmas specialties, including the traditional French Christmas cake Bûche de Noël, and the Occult Cor-

ner, where a fortuneteller and a numerologist diagnosed guests. The highlight of the evening was a lottery with valuableprizes. Due to the enormous commitment of the chambers, as well as the involvement of many sponsors, guests enjoyed atruly international evening at one of the largest business events of this kind in Wrocław.

1. Chambers' representatives: Aneta Kowalik, the French-Polish Chamber of Commerce; Iwona Makowiecka, the Polish-GermanChamber of Industry and Commerce; Michael Dembiński, Ilona Chodorowska, the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce; JoannaBensz, the American Chamber of Commerce. 2. The guests wait for the evening to begin. 3. Watching the raffle draw. 4. Santa hasa gift for everybody. 5. Joanna Bensz; Brenda VanHorn, US Commercial Attaché. 6. Rafał Dutkiewicz, Mayor of Wrocław; CraigSmith. 7. Sweets table sponsored by Kraft Foods. 8. Brenda VanHorn. 9. Michał Skraba, KPMG. 10. Rafał Dutkiewicz. 11. Hot buf-fet drew in crowds. 12. David Hardiman from 3M, a lucky lottery winner, with Santa and Iwona Makowiecka. 13. The traditionalFrench Christmas delicacy Bûche de Noël. 14. The Perła Brewery stand.

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AmCham EventsAnnual General Meeting

The Sheraton Warsaw was the venue of the AmCham Annual General Meeting in December, which included votingon the annual report and electing new members of the AmCham Board of Directors. The guest speaker wasStephen Mull, the new US Ambassador to Poland, who accepted the honorary chairmanship of AmCham. Am-

Cham also handed out the awards for its Student Essay Contest. The meeting was followed by the Christmas Reception,generously sponsored by CDM Smith, with help from Dobrewina.pl, PepsiCo, Gordon & MacPhail and Starbucks. Go topage 32 for our coverage of the US Ambassador’s policy speech.

1. US Ambassador Stephen Mull. 2. David Green, PwC. 3. Joseph Wancer, AmCham Chairman. 4. Elżbieta Raczkowska, Fiserv;Bogdan Maliszewski, UL International; Jacek Stryczyński, Lionbridge. 5. Bogusław Krzton, Foster Wheeler Energia. 6. Kevin Riley,CDM Smith. 7. Dorota Dabrowski, AmCham Executive Director; Larry Kraut, Terry Gamble, American School of Warsaw. 8. AdijaHouston, Marathon Oil; Stephen Mull. 9. Bartosz Morzycki, 3M; Joanna Bensz, AmCham Board Member (PM Group). 10. Am-Cham Board of Directors: Richard Lada, eremel consulting; Paul Fogo, Miller Canfield; Roman Rewald, Weil, Gotshal & Manges;Xavier Douellou, 3M; Judith Gliniecki, Wierzbowski Eversheds; Laurie St. Aubin, ConocoPhillips; Anna Sieńko, IBM; Stephen Mull;Joseph Wancer, Deloitte; Dorota Dabrowski; Tony Housh, APCO Worldwide. 11. Zosia Przeorek sings Christmas Carols. 12. Am-Cham Essay Contest winners: Marek Maj (Grand Prize Winner) representing Talisman Energy Polska; Joseph Wancer; KarolinaFonfara representing Fluor; Nikola Gutowska representing Animex; Valerie Popow representing Finacorp Polska; Stephen Mull;Dorota Dabrowski. 13. Magda Pavlak, US Embassy; Krzysztof Kamiński; Witold Domek; Stephen Mull; Krzysztof Bytomski, KevinRiley, Adam Locke, CDM Smith. 14. Dorota Dabrowski; Joe Smoczyński, Baker Tilly Poland. 15. Marta Sułek with the Starbucksteam; Anita Kowalska, AmCham. 16. The stand of Dobre Wina.

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ManufacturingMission: To provide a plat-form for discussing issuesand problems related to themanufacturing sector andnetworking opportunities; todiscuss conditions and chal-lenges of the manufacturing

sector; to provide extra value for members represent-ing the manufacturers’ sector. Co-Chairs: JoannaBensz, PM Group; David R. Hardiman, 3M.More at www.amcham.pl/manufacturing

Unconventional GasMission: To provide a plat-form for companies inter-ested in developing andservicing the shale gas sec-tor in Poland; to create aforum for member compa-nies to share knowledge and

exchange experience related to exploration, produc-tion and service. Co-Chairs: David DeBenedetti,DeBenedetti Majewski Szcześniak; Rob Dunn, VikingInternational. More at www.amcham.pl/unconventionalgas

Agri & Food Mission: To provide a plat-form for discussing andsolving issues and identify-ing opportunities in the agri-cultural and food sector bycreating a base for dialogueand expertise. Co-Chairs:

Andrzej Pawelczak, Animex; Maciej Łubieński, Universal Leaf Tobacco Poland.More at ww.amcham.pl/agri_food

InfrastructureMission: To discuss issues of the de-velopment of infrastructure; to pro-mote infrastructure solutions for co-operation between private and publicpartners. Chair: KrzysztofWierzbowski, Wierzbowski Ever-sheds.

More at www.amcham.pl/infrastructure

Tax & Financial ServicesMission: To provide a plat-form for identifying tax and fi-nancial issues and create aneducational forum to keepAmCham members informedon current and upcominglegislation. Co-Chairs:Marcin Matyka, DLA Piper

Wiater; Adam Soska, GE International. More atwww.amcham.pl/tax

Political Discussion ForumMission: To build relation-ships with key players in Pol-ish 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: Robert Końsk, PGE S.A.; Marek Matraszek,CEC Government Relations. More at www.amcham.pl/pdf

SME & EntrepreneurshipMission: To provide a forumfor exchange of ideas/bestpractices to improve the per-formance of SMEs; to supportentrepreneurship, corporateventuring and the developingstart-up community; to iden-

tify, understand and promote solutions to facilitate andsupport the managerial and operational efforts of SMEsthrough education, networking and lobbying that lever-age AmCham resources. Co-Chairs: Alain Bobet;Krzysztof Ogonowski, BPI. More at www.amcham.pl/sme

Employee & Labor RelationsMission: To create an infor-mation exchange forum ofHR professionals to share,discuss and learn about thelatest trends in HR manage-ment and influence local pol-icy and decision-makers.

Co-Chairs: Jolanta Jaworska, IBM Poland; Agata Dul-nik, Ernst & Young. More at www.amcham.pl/labor

Travel & TourismMission: To provide a plat-form for discussing issuesand problems related totravel, leisure and the hospi-tality industry and to providenetworking opportunitiesand to discuss trends and

standards in the industry that will allow members tofully benefit from AmCham. Co-Chairs: Stijn Oyen,Sheraton Kraków; Tim Hyland, FCm Travel Express.More at www.amcham.pl/travel_tourism

Consumer ProductsMission: To provide a forumto share knowledge and ex-change experience in allareas common and rele-vant to manufacturers anddistributors of goods. Co-Chairs: Małgorzata Ur-

bańska, CMS Cameron McKenna; Agnieszka Dzięgielewska-Jończyk, HP Polska. More at www.amcham.pl/consumer

Real EstateMission: To discuss issuesregarding the complexities ofthe real estate market inPoland, and exchange infor-mation. To be an educationaland networking forum formembers and to lobby andinfluence legislative depart-

ments of the Polish government. Co-Chairs: HalinaWięckowska, K&L Gates; John Bańka, Colliers Inter-national. More at www.amcham.pl/real_estate

PharmaceuticalMission: To discuss andidentify common interestsand exchange information re-garding Poland’s pharma-ceutical market; to act as arepresentative body and col-lective voice of pharmaceuti-

cal companies before governmental institutions. Co-Chairs: Jarosław Oleszczuk, Abbvie Polska; Gianluigi Lisi, Bristol-Myers Squibb. More at www.amcham.pl/pharmaceutical

Business Technology & Services 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 contactwith local authorities, edu-

cational and governmental institutions to present aunified business perspective and options for cooper-ation. Co-Chairs: Jacek Stryczyński, Lionbridge; An-gelo Pressello, Direct Communications. More at www.amcham.pl/business_technology

Intellectual Property Rights Mission: To advocate for IPRprotection and provide lead-ership that will bring toge-ther interested partners; toshare information with deci-sion-makers and law en-forcement. The police, judi-

ciary, prosecutors, customs officials, legislators andjournalists are among the target groups, while thecurriculum of law schools should have more em-phasis on IPR. Co-Chairs: Urszula Karniewicz, PhilipMorris; Anna Lasocka, Łaszczuk & Partners. More atwww.amcham.pl/ipr

Marketing & CommunicationsMission: To provide aforum for member firms toshare knowledge and ex-change experiences inmarketing, communica-tions and PR; provide edu-cational and networking

opportunities for member firms interested in theseareas; and serve as an advisory body for AmCham.Co-Chairs: Anya Ogorkiewicz; Tadeusz Dulian, Deloitte. More at www.amcham.pl/marketing

Innovation Mission: To monitor innova-tion initiatives within the Pol-ish government and acrossindustries and commercialorganizations, while advo-cating best practice acrossinnovation approach, disci-

pline, creativity, dimensions, and systems for mem-ber companies and the local government and busi-ness ecosystems. Co-Chairs: Alexander King; PaulaWąsowska, Cisco. More at www.amcham.pl/innovation

Defense & Security 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 gov-

ernment and people of Poland. Co-Chairs: Paul Za-lucky; Stan Prusiński, Sikorsky Europe. More at www.amcham.pl/defense

Energy & EnvironmentMission: To help members develop theirenergy and environmental business inPoland. By helping members work collec-tively to overcome any systemic difficultiesencountered in their business, the com-mittee aims to increase the level and qual-ity of investment and activity in these sec-tors. Chair: Adam de Sola Pool.

More at www.amcham.pl/environmental

European Union Affairs Mission: To provide mem-bers with relevant informa-tion on EU-related issues,including EU funds, and torepresent American in-vestors before the Commis-sion and the Polish govern-ment. Co-Chairs: Mag-

dalena Burnat-Mikosz, Deloitte; Jerzy Thieme. More at www.amcham.pl/eu

For the most recent information about the work of AmCham Committees and upcoming events visit

AmCham Committee Guide

www.amcham.pl

Documents

American Investor Winter 2013