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Tomasz Grzelak

PhD

He graduated with MSc from the Institute of Computer Science at Warsaw University of Technology (1992), and with MBA from the School of Business of Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), at the time a joint initiative of WUT, London Business School, Paris HEC and Norges Handelshøyskole. In 2004 he obtained his PhD (Economics) from the University of Warsaw, School of Management.

Throughout his professional career he initially worked as a software engineer in Poland and the UK, then in mid-management finance positions in Polish subsidiaries of multinationals such as Sara Lee or Shell, followed by board-level CFO positions in independent companies backed by financial investors. In the late 1990-ties he was a CFO at ORFE, a pharmaceutical distributor and one of top-100 Polish companies by turnover at the time, throughout the process of market consolidation and acquisitions, to double listing on the Warsaw and London Stock Exchanges, and to the final sale of the company’s controlling stake by financial investors. Later he was a CFO at a leading media retailer in Poland, Empik, throughout its post-privatization restructuring and development stage.

Subsequently he worked for AIG Capital Partners, advising one of their private equity funds operating in Central Europe, where he was primarily engaged in supervising the fund’s investments. He was also a CFO/COO at Julius Baer Investment Management, working from its Warsaw and New York offices on the set up of a private equity fund focused on large companies in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

More recently, for several years he has been engaged as an independent advisor for a number of corporate transformation, development, M&A, and investment projects for company boards, business owners, and institutional investors, in industries including retail, IT, media, healthcare services.

Expertise

  • Finance
  • company and project valuation
  • business plans
  • business models