Mentors

I am passionate about psychology, personal effectiveness, using one’s own potential, and also applying these areas in group work. I get great joy from teams achieving goals, which would not be possible individually, even for a genius.

I take great satisfaction from the development of others and passing on experience and good examples. I value daily work with people who are better than me. That’s why I established Leaders Island, where for the last four years I have had the opportunity to work with over a thousand managers and leaders.
I believe in the superiority of practical experience over theoretical knowledge. Curiosity of the world and the proximity in our global village of top class leaders led me to create the LiGHT for Leaders Foundation. Every year in Krakow during the LiGHT conference, of which I am the curator, we host excellent leaders, thereby strengthening the leadership skills in our country.

Social responsibility for the close and distant environments is also important for me. During the last two LiGHT editions we collected 100 000 PLN for charity. I am also a member of the CEO-volunteers Coalition, which promotes the voluntary giving of skills.
I really like to talk with experts. I run a podcast “From the workshop of a leader”, in which, together with invited practitioners, I share experiences from the fields of management and leadership.

After work, I change the context but remain in the role of a leader. My most important team is made up of my wife and four inquisitive children.
I love the distance of 42 km 195 m and have completed a few marathons. I have also taken part in many yacht cruises as a helmsman.
That’s all, I don’t have any time for others. 🙂

In the role of a court mediator, I help the parties to find the optimal solution to their dispute. I help people to settle conflicts which are sometimes so old that they can not remember when they started. I have participated in over 4,000 mediations conducted inside as well as outside courts.

I share my experience, which is no less of a challenge, as a scientific worker. I have created courses and conduct educational activities in the area of the psychology of conflicts, mediation and negotiation. For many years, I have been passing on my knowledge to students of such institutions as Jagiellonian University, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University and AGH University of Science and Technology.

My profession has become my passion. The second one I have is Kyokushin karate, which can be defined by a road to look for the truth about yourself, about others and the art of dialogue. I help people, teaching them how to speak and agree on the common truth, especially in the most difficult situations. Therefore, I have succeeded in obtaining agreement even between … work and hobby.

From the very beginning of Leaders Island, I have been sharing my experience, leading workshops in inter-personal communication and mediation in business. I show people how to effectively understand each other and, thanks to that, how to achieve… agreement!

At that time, I could already boast about leading a scout group, my own company and the champions of England in American football. Even today, I love to combine my various worlds: sport, scouting and business, in order to transfer experiences and managerial “lessons” between them.

Away from business, I built a scout group which was awarded the title of the best at the world jamboree in Canada. As an American football player, I was a three-time champion of Great Britain and multiple captain of the national team. As a trainer, I created the Kraków Kings team, the champions and vice-champions of the Polish American Football League.

I am most passionate about identifying and developing the personal potential of people in the team. I am linked to Leaders Island through my passion for training the new generation of leaders by practitioners. By such people as me, who share their successes (and also failures), in order to create a space for the development of the next leaders in our country.

When I am tired of my duties as a director in Shell Energy or running the Kraków Kings youth team, I get on my motorbike and relax my mind, visiting the beautiful places of Lesser Poland. On two wheels, I have reached each country in Europe and most states of the USA.

When 15, I had a dream of getting a teaching degree in English. I wanted to share both the language and an international mindset that would open my students’ minds to the world. And so I did. I really believe that sky’s the limit. While simultaneously graduating on two faculties, I wanted to take up two new challenges – doing a PhD and a conference interpreter’s training. And so I did.

I have been teaching for 10 years: kids, adults, students at the Jagiellonian University… and the Dutch. I had interpreted for, among others: Harvard Business Review, University College London, Ringier Axel Springer, Krakow Technology Park, film and science festivals, nuclear and meat businesses, as well as… Mike Tyson. We parted ways with my PhD just before graduation, when I came back from the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship in LA because Polish humanities were too rigid and just not enough.

I wore many hats in my first IT job: project and client management, marketing, sales and team building. The next company allowed me, among many other things, to build a project managers’ team. From 3 ppl in 2016, we now have 20 highly-skilled leaders in a 200 ppl organization. A group of creative nerd unicorns is now helping me to further improve the company’s delivery, knowledge sharing, and HR. The world of UX/UI design, development, QA, and AI moves at crazy speed.

And me in the middle of it? I listen a lot, test and iterate (winning and failing on a daily basis), make C-level decisions… and most of all, educate and help people grow.

Once a teacher, always a teacher.

Although I derive great satisfaction from what I do in my professional life, my passion does not end there. I also have a huge love for music, which materialized in its peak in the form of managing (again! 🙂 an internet radio station (Radio Pantheon). Creating it, pro bono, a dozen other people and, of course, listeners, were involved.

I believe in social responsibility: that it is necessary and worth sharing my knowledge and experience with others. Hence my active involvement in various initiatives, such as: mentoring, meetups, conferences and supporting Krakow universities, including my alma mater – the AGH University of Science and Technology.

Over 200 “W Pełni Dźwięków” radio broadcasts still live somewhere on the Internet.

I conducted over 300 recruitment interviews.

My managerial experience, gained among others in the positions of Sales Director and Managing Director of production and trading companies, helps me in my work as a trainer and coach. Currently, I also work as an Internal Coach in a corporate manufacturing company in the automotive sector. I am responsible for the development of leaders in an organization currently numbering 750 employees. I have twice conducted workshops in Korea as part of the Global Leadership Course for Top Managers of global companies from the USA, Korea, Brazil, Germany, Poland, India, and Mexico.

My strong point is mindfulness and the ability to focus on the other person. In life, I am driven by a strong need for self-development, discovering the truth about myself, and answering the most important questions regarding life. Privately, I am a happy husband and father of two wonderful daughters, and a lover of music, sports, cars, and Harley-Davidson. I run marathons, but I derive much more joy when I participate in charity runs, raising funds to help others.

My generators are physical activity, lack of routine and comfort, and curiosity about the world. As long as I base my actions on them, I am consistent and determined. I base this knowledge on my Reiss Motivation Profile. I love working with clients to find ways around their limitations. I also work out my own challenges in my mind, and later in reality, overcoming the limitations of my own body in mountain ultra-runs. I have over 2500 hours of working with groups in Polish and English behind me. I have conducted over 1100 hours of business coaching and discussed over 300 RMP profiles for individual and business clients (NPS from discussing profiles is 9.8 on a scale of 10).

Being a speaker at my first business conference in 2010, I did not expect that 12 years later I would be invited to deliver a keynote speech at one of the largest IT industry conferences in Europe. As a Java developer co-creating one of the first internet banking systems in Poland, I did not realize how important a role social skills and emotional intelligence play in IT projects, and today I believe they are crucial. On a daily basis, I am the General Manager of Grand Parade – the Polish branch of a global IT organization.

After years spent working on IT systems, I realized that the knowledge and experience we gain is not everything. Our ability to build satisfying relationships at work is extremely important for the effective development of IT systems. In my daily work, I combine strategic thinking with empathetic leadership. I believe that in times of widespread automation and artificial intelligence, empathy is key and its importance will only grow. In 2016, I tried coaching tools for the first time, implementing Agile methods in the IT teams I led.

The Facilitators’ School of the Jagiellonian University Extension and the Meritum Coaching School had a great influence on the shape of my workshop. They helped me in my coaching work with senior executives. Living in Toronto and Vienna, I experienced a diversity of cultures, perspectives, and ways of working, from which I still draw today, both privately and professionally. I am passionate about public speaking, teaching others, as well as skiing and sailing.

My second passion is guiding people in the mountains. I am a Beskid mountain guide; for me, every trip is a meeting that also requires proper facilitation, whether in the scorching summer sun, autumn rain, or cracking minus twenty-degree frost. The ability to react and “handle” unforeseen behaviors in the mountains comes in very handy in everyday corporate work. Mornings bring me respite from my duties: I wake up before six in the morning and spend a longer moment reading historical and psychological literature, unable to get over my amazement at how much people of the 21st century are similar in their nature to those from thousands or hundreds of years ago.

I obtained knowledge during numerous training courses both in Poland and abroad. I am also a graduate of the Military University of Land Forces in Wrocław in commanding divisions. I graduated from the Gdańsk University of Technology in the Faculty of Management and Economics in the area of production process management. I also participated in postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Ocean Engineering and Ship Technology.

Already in my second year of professional life, I obtained the FRIS trainer’s certificate. I am also an accredited consultant of the Facet5 methodology, a certified practitioner of The Coaching Maps method as well as a business trainer of the SET Academy. I have obtained certificates in the areas of Prince 2 project management and MSP programs, Change Management and M_o_R APMG International risk management.

After this rather long list, which you have probably skipped, I can tell you something about myself. I follow the principle that you can not manage co-workers. They should be guided, supported and developed so that they can take our role when the time is right.

I am a strong advocate of teamwork. I focus on areas connected with conscious leadership and believe deeply that “it’s not necessary to be a hero to send people into battle, a hero should be one of those that go into battle”.

I deal with building effective project teams using the above-mentioned methods of FRIS, Facet5 and The Coaching Maps. I try to inject the participants of the training with ideas taken from the world of special forces, mainly in the areas of managing risk in projects and programs. I am also interested in building long-term business strategies as well as supporting individual development through mentoring and coaching management staff.

Based on the experience of my former professional life, I founded the True Leader firm. I created the “Grow up to True Leadership” development program directed at management, which is based on the most effective tools of the military world.

For over 25 years, I wake up no later than 6 am in accordance with the “The faster we start… the later we finish” principle! During my free time, I explore wilderness of Europe on a Harley.

I started my professional career as a crisis interventionist. For 10 years, I supported people in various types of crises. I am a practitioner in working with people who use violence, experience violence, are addicted, are at risk of social exclusion, are psychologically overloaded, live in a state of high stress and tension, and experience difficult life changes. I have intervened in situations threatening life and health. I also supported people who suffered as a result of mass events. In the area of crisis intervention, I also served as the Deputy Head of the Intervention Center, and coordinated the work of the Center’s Hostel. Crisis intervention taught me creativity in action, quick decision-making, working under stress, and responsibility for the safety of the client towards whom I take action.

Since 2012, I have been cyclically running Correctional and Educational Programs for perpetrators of domestic violence in freedom settings and in penitentiary isolation. This experience has taught me humility and respect for human stories. It is no trick to communicate with people who are open to agreement. The art is to establish a dialogue with people who are closed to agreement. No one has taught me as much about communication and human emotions as the participants of these very groups.

I also work as a readaptation specialist at the Pomost Foundation in Zabrze. At the Foundation, I work with people who have left prisons. My work is based on individual and group contact with mentees in freedom settings and penitentiary isolation. I conduct workshops in the field of crisis intervention, violence, interpersonal communication, and assertiveness. The completed Study of Therapy and Solution-Focused Approach (advanced TSR course), years of experience in intervention, as well as a series of trainings preparing for work with people, are the basis for me to conduct individual consultations in the field of crisis support and short-term therapy.

Outside of work, I am passionate about travels near and far. I love the mountains, which allow me to breathe deeply. Dance cleanses and frees me. Winter swimming in wild bodies of water gives me energy.

Today I support clients from various segments in this, facilitating their achievement of business, professional, and somewhat personal goals. The experience of a practitioner who knows the challenges faced by managers helps me better understand their reality and needs. It is easier for me to get to know them and enable them to get to know themselves without suggesting ready-made solutions. I believe that to do well as a coach, one should not give advice… to others. It is the client who is creative and inventive, and I am only (and as much as) to help them unleash their own potential. I proved this during business coaching sessions with representatives of staff at every level. I now also share the knowledge and experience of a manager and coach as a trainer in the training industry. Thanks to this, I continue to improve my interpersonal and leadership qualifications.

Working on the development of others, I constantly develop myself and verify the values I believe in. I subject them to constant reflection, and they shape my authenticity, ethics, distance to myself, and humor. It used to be hard for me to breathe without dancing, but I swapped it for wandering along mountain trails. Every year I cover at least 250 km. I live without a television, but I can’t imagine functioning without music and people. It is hard for me to pass by people who need material support. The work of a coach is mainly asking questions. So: what do you need to know how to do to fulfill your function and achieve what you have?. Perhaps I will be given the chance to hear your answer someday, but for now, the most important thing is that you hear it yourself!.

I have worked in international corporations, leading and training diverse teams of smart people creating valuable products. I helped implement complex changes in unpredictable conditions at all levels of the organization. A day when you can talk to the board, a moment later to engineers, and then make them talk to each other – is a successful day!.

I am an organizational psychologist (Jagiellonian University) and a coach accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ACC ICF), a Scrum trainer accredited by its creator, Dr. Jeff Sutherland (Registered Scrum Trainer, Product Owner and Scrum Master™), a practitioner of change management (PROSCI Change Management Practitioner) and the Kanban method (Kanban Management Professional). In my work, I am guided by a strict ethical code – confidentiality, mindfulness, and a total human-centric focus (and focus on the solutions they create themselves).

I teach User Experience / Product design students at the SWPS University. I also have a history with my Alma Mater – teaching digital product design to students of the Management Faculty at the Jagiellonian University. I am interested in everything (literature is a treasure trove of knowledge for leaders!), but especially in discovering vintage items and giving them a new life. A good result of my work, in my eyes, are leaders and teams that create friendly technology helping people discover and understand the meaning of changes happening every day in the world.

Currently, I am employed full-time at one of the FORTUNE 500 companies, where I manage the global well-being team and run a global mindfulness program for 80,000 employees. Previously, I worked at IBM and led a global program for 350,000 employees. I am also a teacher at the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.

I believe that only leaders who are aware of their emotions and motivations can effectively inspire their employees and lead them to success. That is why, as a coach and mentor, I focus on developing leaders’ self-awareness, supporting them in overcoming both professional and personal challenges.

In addition to working in the IT industry, I have also been a magician for almost 15 years, which has significantly influenced my communication skills and ability to attract the audience’s attention. The art of illusion has taught me precision, creativity, and how to work on my own skills – qualities that I also transfer to the business world. This has given me natural confidence in public speaking, which has become an important part of my career. I regularly speak at conferences in Poland and Europe, where I share my knowledge and experience and inspire participants to push their boundaries.

My main goal as a trainer, coach, and mentor is to help leaders and teams develop their skills and discover their own potential. I am convinced that the greatest successes start with small but consistent steps towards personal development, and that the key to success is the ability to learn from one’s own experiences and to continuously improve.

For this reason, in my work I combine my experience in IT, my passion for personal development, and the skills I have acquired as a speaker and illusionist to support others on their path to success.