Dorota Winczewska
By : Greg Goodale
For Dorota Winczewska, chairwoman of ING BSK Investment Funds, the attraction of finance is the way it allows industry players to influence the way foreign ideas are adopted in building Poland's financial infrastructure.
Initially hoping to travel the world in the diplomatic service, Winczewska completed her political science degree at Warsaw University only to find that jobs in her chosen field were open solely to the Communist Party faithful. Instead, she went into international trade at Poland's Foreign Trade Center (CHZ) where she worked for eight years, during which time she married and gave birth to a daughter.
After 1989 her knowledge of foreign trade regulations enabled her to launch Cadeaux, a company that imported stationery and cosmetics, eventually opening a store in Plock. The business went well and Winczewska began to consider a move to Plock. But in 1991, with the emergence of the Polish financial market and the launch of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), she was offered an opportunity with far more exciting prospects to establish PWS International, Poland's first agent for U.K. insurance broker Lloyd's of London. She found her knowledge growing in line with the market and was soon headhunted to set up mutual funds for U.S. investment fund Pioneer in 1993, which led her to a management course at the University of Columbia.
When Dutch financial group ING sought to expand its range of investment products, Winczewska was attracted by the challenge of building a barely established company in the middle of the Asian and Russian crises. She was appointed chairwoman in 1998, seeing the company rise from No. 9 to become the fifth largest investment fund on the market today.
Past notes:
1975 Graduated in political studies from Warsaw University
1989 Started her own importing firm
1991 Involved in launching PWS International
1993 Appointed regional marketing director of Pioneer
1998 Appointed chairwoman of ING BSK Investment Funds
A word of advice:
"Remember that money never sleeps. Use your head when investing don't be a lemming following the crowd work against the flow."
