Rafał Brzoska Foundation.
Good morning. Today, we have another episode of fireside chats with the scholars of the Rafał Brzoska Foundation. Our guest today is Weronika Chmielewska. Weronika, could you please say hello and tell us a few words about yourself? What do you do? What are you involved in? Where do you study? What are your passions? And why did you choose the Rafał Brzoska Foundation to support your path?
Sure. So I will start from the beginning. I am the founder and president of the Rice Wave Foundation. And my mission is, I think, to teach young people in practice, to give them the opportunity to work with the best mentors, so that they can feel much more confident later on the job market. That is also my path. I started with social projects and in fact, I developed all these soft skills through my own various initiatives, through ecology, later entrepreneurship, education, and in this way I can now develop and combine this business and social path.
Exactly. Tell me, where does this need to help other peers come from? After all, many people, once they achieve something, rather focus on themselves and on their own professional career path, instead of supporting others in choosing the right path. And what would you advise those who, as of today, still do not know where to go to university?
I think I would advise them to try as many different opportunities as possible and to talk. I think that is important. To ask questions, if they have an idea, then to use the opportunity to bounce it off other people, because that is also how it was in my case, that I simply, through conversations, through talking about my ideas, received many different cooperation offers. As Rice Wave, we create a space for such intergenerational projects. Young people cooperate with experienced people from different industries, I understand, from different industries, but especially from the marketing industry. And this is also connected with my own story, because once, when I was organizing one social project, I worked with a five-star hotel in Warsaw. And our project turned out fantastically. There was such a...
Tell us what it was about.
It was a European ball, a promotion of the European Parliament elections and engaging young people.
I think I know which hotel you mean, yes, so that they would take part in the elections. And after that project, which reached a total of 2 million people, the general manager of the hotels invited me to join the hotel’s marketing team as a marketing specialist. And that is how my adventure with marketing began. I worked in an intergenerational team and it was an ideal example of combining fresh ideas, my ideas, and bringing something like that...
Did they welcome you well in that team, or rather see you as a threat?
No, I think, I think very well and it was also great that we could draw from one another. I contributed new ideas, but I also learned a lot from those experienced people.
Because it is an incredible space for creativity.
I agree. I also love marketing. I am a marketing animal, but I was not talented enough to create campaigns of this kind at such a young age. Tell me, how do you actually combine professional work already with your studies?
It is not easy, I admit. I think it is very important to set priorities and then make sure that everything happens in line with them, so as not to get distracted by a million different areas, but if I focus specifically on combining these two paths, professional and...
So good planning, good planning and taking care of your calendar, I think, sir, comes up very often. Listen, really, looking at your career, where would you like to be in 10 years, and where in 30?
I think I would like to be a fulfilled entrepreneur surrounded by people close to me, so business too, not a manager, business, my own organization, but still with this care for others and motivating others to act, to develop. Especially young people, who at this moment, perhaps because of my age, are important to me, but I think that will also remain.
