Sound adviser
By : Celia Barnes
Consultant Tadeusz Filipowicz and cofounder Andrew Kinast (right) of Potworowski Kinast Grant Thorton.
It's hard to imagine mild-mannered chartered accountant and auditor, Andrew Kinast, going undercover on an exciting "spy" mission.
But in November 1989, as the border controls fell between East and West Germany, Kinast and a couple of other Anglo-Polish friends were crammed in a Leyland Maestro en route to their ancestral home of Warsaw on behalf of the Polish government in exile.
"Our mission, which we chose to accept, was to find out what the hell was going on in Poland," said 43-year-old Kinast with boyish enthusiasm.
"Given my economic, finance and accounting interests, I made contact with a number of MPs in the new Polish government who were responsible for changing the country's accounting regulations," he said. "In those days, getting introductions was no problem at all. I just said I'm here from the West, I have Polish parents and I'd like to talk to you."
Kinast, who had already visited Poland on business a number of times during the 1980s, reported back to the London-based Polish government saying: "Yes, the changes are happening. It's irreversible. It's definitely going to lead to presidential elections and you better start packing the silver to ship over here."
That was almost 11 years ago, and since then Poland has undergone massive changes and so has the fate and fortune of Kinast, whose first job out of school was driving trucks for a wholesale delicatessen business.
A jovial, sanguine man with Santa Claus proportions to match, Kinast took heed of his own advice back in late 1989, and promptly began commuting between London and Poland, dossing with his Polish aunts, uncles and cousins, while he held down two positions. One was consulting on a joint program between the World Bank and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, reviewing new accounting legislation in Poland. The other, with London-based accounting firm Blick Rothenberg, involved assisting German and French companies investing in Poland. As such, Kinast discovered that foreign investors were falling over each other to come to Poland.
"There was a tremendous feeling of optimism; that the manufacturing revolution will work in Poland 10 times over," recalled Kinast. "And that convinced me that the time was right to set up (an accounting) practice in Poland, which I duly did."
In late 1990, Kinast and another Anglo-Polish colleague, Tadeusz Potworowski, established the Potworowski Kinast accountancy firm. Their first client, a North American corporation that was gung-ho about investing in Polish power stations, defaulted and never paid its bill. Thankfully a couple of more secure clients, including the British Know How Fund, "provided the bread and butter," Kinast said.
There were times he considered tossing it in the long hours, the stress. "But what stopped me is the thought of going back to a 9-to-5 job for an employer," he said.
Describing himself as intuitive rather than analytical, Kinast's hunch finally came good. By 1993, things took a turn for the better when they bought into the Grant Thornton International network of accounting and auditing firms, providing Kinast with "immediate legitimacy." The senior partner of Grant Thornton just happened to be the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, whom Kinast was doing work for in Poland (a form of "excellent networking" he highly recommends).
"It was actually the kick-start we needed," said Kinast who, obviously feeling much more secure about the future, then brought over his wife Alexandra, and daughters, Anna and Ewa, from London.
Today, operating out of modest Warsaw offices, Potworowski Kinast Grant Thornton, which now has a corporate finance consultancy fronted by another Anglo-Pole, Tadeusz Filipowicz, has more than 300 clients and 70 staff. About 85% of the firm's customers are inbound investors.
"What we really offer clients is a 'hand-holding' exercise," Kinast said. "What a client values most is the ability to interpret what it's like to actually do business in Poland."
And at times, it's frustrating. "The worst thing is hearing the words 'no problem' then you know you're really in trouble," said Kinast with a hearty laugh. "Certainly for our Anglo-Saxon clients, it's very difficult getting used to the idea when somebody enthusiastically says 'yes,' they are going to become a business partner, it doesn't mean that they are going to stand by you. It may be just that they're keeping their business options open."
In the early days, the hardest thing was finding qualified staff willing to work for a small foreign company. These days the challenge is "holding together a team that may be pulling in different directions."
And back then, there were high levels of low-level graft and corruption that permeated Polish business deals. Today, Kinast said this problem has now percolated to the upper echelons of business.
"But the reality is that by being thick-skinned in your normal, everyday relationships and working life, you can ignore the problem, he said. "You will get things done, but it might take a little bit longer."
