The country ahead of him, the country behind

Steve DeBretto interviews TPSA's investor relations director, Artur Tarnowski, about the cultural gap between east and west, and what it means to be a repatriated Polish émigré.

Artur Tarnowski is troubled by ghosts. Not the sort that go bump in the night, but the kind that lurk in the imaginations of some westerners not yet comfortable with the idea of a free-market Poland poised on the brink of European Union membership. This is especially troublesome when those westerners have deep pockets.

From his bright second-floor office at Telekomunikacja Polska, the director of TPSA's investor relations department is charged with the task of luring the euros and dollars of international investors into a company that a mere two years ago was still a state enterprise. A bright second-floor office, moreover, in the otherwise dark, hulking building that once was the Communist Party headquarters.

The irony is too much to overlook. Tarnowski scans the room thoughtfully. "I wonder who the hell was sitting in my office in the 1970s."

Whoever it was certainly would not have been pleased with the direction Tarnowski sees TPSA taking, or with the man spreading its message.

"There is a heritage we need to deal with," he says, "and coming to terms with privatization poses challenges. The company now clearly understands the necessity of becoming lean and mean. It's a global, not a local, industry, and our investors look at us as being one of many possible investments."

Tarnowski says investors recognize the company's progress. "It's not only that I sense the difference - I monitor it with surveys."

Tarnowski has spent much of his life countering the message that for many years emanated from the building where he now spends the better part of each day. Before his arrival at TPSA in September of last year, he headed Standard & Poor's business development activities for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Prior to that he was with KP Consortium, and before that an advisor at the Privatization Ministry, a job he was offered on returning to Poland in 1991 after 10 years away from the country.

He had left Poland to vacation in Vienna in 1981, and found a job there. "So I decided to prolong the vacation," he explains, "work and save a little bit of money and come back to Poland able to buy myself a car. But in December, a gentleman in dark glasses proclaimed martial law. So I made a decision - and it wasn't an easy one - not to come back."

He supported the opposition movement by helping to channel funds back into Poland. Though he downplays his role, he participated in demonstrations at the Polish embassy in Vienna, an activity he continued when he was granted political asylum in the United States. While there, he graduated from New York University with a bachelor's degree in foreign trade and marketing, and went to work for IBJ-Schroder bank.

Upon his return to Poland, Tarnowski found that investors' negative perceptions of the country were not ghosts, but tangible and flourishing, mired deeply in the local workforce's misconceptions about the role of foreign capital. His position at the Privatization Ministry placed him at the center of this clash of cultures. He recalls a meeting with union representatives from a paper mill teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Tarnowski had brought an offer from a Swedish investor, and was confronted with the union's list of demands.

"I looked at the list and there were some silly issues, things like Christmas gifts and subsidies for vacation homes. So I told the workers 'Look, I'm presenting you with an offer from the investor...you'll be able to build a house for the next 200 years, and when I look at your requests, it's as if you were asking me for a golden bidet; it's silly, absolutely silly. If you want to be responsible for breaking the negotiations and the investor walking away, it's up to you.' And I left the room. They were in shock. They thought I'd be all soft in trying to convince them, but I had no patience left for that sort of thing."

Ten years away, especially 10 years that saw the complete reshaping of the region's political economy, had created a gap between his values and those of his compatriots.

"I was looked at by people who had lived in Poland their entire lives as a strange species - somebody who was born here, spoke the same language, yet had a totally different view of reality, who wasn't approaching work 'from 9 to 5' but staying until it's done, who had certain quality standards and asked the question 'Why can't we do it?'"

He hopes that he left Standard & Poor's with a reputation as "the guy who was very pushy," someone who tried to adapt their rigid policy to the new realities of central and eastern Europe. And on his first day at TPSA, Tarnowski was reminded - by the building itself - of the past he had to exorcise. What he recalls most vividly are the floors.

"Squeaky floors which reminded me of my time at the Privatization Ministry, a similar feeling - a governmental building with a certain climate and smell. A smell of communism."

Spooky.