CAPITAL H - John Guziak

My guest, Anita Rogalska, is the Global Head of Leadership Development in Philip Morris International. She is an example of a HR person strongly connected to all business functions and interested in both intricacies of business operations and interactions with clients, which ultimately shape the corporate image. And she loves introducing changes, learning, growing, adjusting.

Today I am talking to Tomasz Suchański, CEO of Żabka Group, a non-executive board member of the Allegro Group. His professional life story is quite exceptional: at the age of 23, he became a CFO and a deputy CEO of a small company; at that time, he believed accounting would be his future. Two years later, he became the CFO in Jeronimo Martins Poland, and at the age of 30, having switched to operations, the CEO of Biedronka. Now, he is the CEO of Żabka, which owes its great commercial success to him.

In this podcast, I am talking to Jowita Michalska, CEO Digital University and the renowned "technology guru" of the Polish market. She runs an NGO, focused on teaching technology to children and under-privileged social groups, and a business, which provides tech education on the corporate market.

Let us listen to Iwona Wencel, the person whose life mission is to be the voice of HR. It took her years of hard work to become what she is now: one of the leading HR experts on the Polish market. She started from politics but having taken a few initial steps decided this was not for her, so she turned to business, and some years later, became a HR person in a corporation. Having gained substantial experience and knowledge of HR issues, she decided to start her own business and turned into a renowned HR advisor. Lately, she has published a ground-breaking book entitled "#BoldHR". How to redesign your mindset to succeed in the new normal".

Marta Jakowluk zajmuje stanowisko Chief People Officera w firmie Leroy Merlin. Pochodzi z Białegostoku i odkąd pamięta, chciała pomagać ludziom. Jej rodzice są lekarzami, ale nie zdecydowała się pójść w ich ślady, bo nie znosi widoku krwi. Wybrała zatem psychologię, którą studiowała na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim. Jeszcze w trakcie studiów rozpoczęła praktyki w jednej z prywatnych firm i - jak sama mówi - zakochała się w biznesie. Obecne stanowisko osiągnęła dzięki połączeniu wiedzy psychologicznej ze znajomością realiów gospodarczych. Przez jedenaście lat pracowała w firmie Unilever, gdzie wiele się nauczyła i spotkała kilku mentorów. Następnie przeszła do UPC, a po dalszych sześciu latach pracy – do Leroy Merlin. Moja rozmówczyni jest przekonana, że pion spraw ludzkich, zwany tradycyjnie pionem HR, musi być partnerem biznesowym pozostałych pionów i że dobry przywódca powinien znać zarówno język biznesu, jak i język HR.

Ravin Jesuthasan is a renowned futurist, a member of World Economic Forum and a bestselling author of books on the future of work and human capital. With a financial background, he has gained enormous and diversified professional experience, among others in strategy consulting and HR consulting. The future of work became his passion. In cooperation with John Boudreau, he wrote "Work without Jobs". He believes that relentless curiosity, the strive to learn more, look around corners, connect things learned in one domain with other can shape not only the future of work, but of the entire human life, and, last but not least, of businesses, which must learn to navigate the new reality, or else they will cease to exist. In the podcast, my guest explains that change and discontinuity are natural elements of existence; and that we need to try to find out the direction of future changes and to adjust to them.

In this podcast, I am talking to Piotr Hołownia, CDO (Country Digital Manager or Chief Digital Officer) in IKEA. My guest originates from a small city in north-eastern Poland and has gained vast professional experience in a variety of industries: from banking and finance to telco and retail, combining business with technology background.

I'd like to invite you to listen to a new C-suite@Transformation podcast where I talk to Andrzej Borczyk, Chief People Officer at CCC Group, CCE, about current and future challenges faced by HR and its transformation necessary to meet the future needs of each business.

I am talking to Bartosz Dobrowolski, a co-founder of Proptech Foundation, a mentor and advisor in innovative real estate projects. As a little kid he always wanted to know what was inside his toys and how they worked; during his early school years, he was fascinated with travel and adventure books, and later wanted to have his own chemical and physical lab. He ended up studying IT at Polish-Japanese Institute of Computer Technics. When he got his first job, he discovered that it was transformation and working with people he loved the most.

I am talking to Mateusz Gołembiewski, HR Head for Poland, Central and Eastern Europe, JLL. His professional biography is quite unusual. He decided to study psychology but after several months realised that he would not like to become a therapist, so he moved to SWPS, a private university in Warsaw, where he majored in business psychology and got an internship in a HR consulting company specialised in outplacement (which means helping those laid off during restructuring or acquisition to get through the process and find new jobs). His first project involved the closing of a large factory located in a small village and finding new jobs for its employees, who had never before experienced looking for a job or writing a CV.