DIGITALIZATION IS CRUCIAL FOR THE ROMANIAN ECONOMY
It’s now been three years since covid-19 came into existence, and the virus has proven to have lasting impact on the future of work. In 2023, organisations are facing historic challenges: a competitive talent landscape, a more sophisticated workforce, and a pressure to control costs. According to an annual survey conducted by research and consulting company Gartner last year, employee experience, recruiting, and the future of work are top priorities for HR leaders today. Organisations worldwide expect the competition for talent to be significantly more intense this year, regardless of broader macroeconomic conditions. This means leaders must rethink their recruitment strategies to align with current business needs, plan for multiple potential scenarios amid the shifting market reality, and make decisions with greater confidence using data.
The future of work continues to be synonymous with a remote and hybrid model. But while this shift is a major change for many companies, it is only part of the equation. Workforce planning— anticipating future talent needs—is at the epicenter of a future of work strategy and a top priority for HR leaders, according to Gartner. To highlight the complexity of the current HR landscape and as part of Business Review’s series of features that mark our 25-year anniversary, we’ve dedicated this month’s cover story to 25 of the best employers in Romania in 2023. We’ve spoken to representatives of large companies operating in different sectors, from retail and technology to banking, automotive, FMCG, and real estate—all highly sought-after employers that have implemented forward-thinking talent attraction, employee experience, and retention strategies. Without further ado, we invite you to learn all about this year’s top employers!
6 Real estate developers optimistic even as market is expected to stagnate in 2023
10 25 employers to watch in 2023
38 More of EGV’s startup investment rounds to exceed EUR 1 million
40 Sustainability in the metaverse
45 Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” back on the Bucharest stage
46 Romanian heritage is in deep need of saving, but very few people care about it
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Anda Sebesi JOURNALISTS: Aurel Constantin, Mihai Cristea, Deniza Cristian, Romanita Oprea, Oana Vasiliu
CONTRIBUTORS: Ovidiu Posirca, Claudiu Vrinceanu
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Jorge Araya is to take over the position of BAT Romania General Manager and Director of the new South-Eastern Europe Area in BAT. Jorge and his Bucharestbased management team will coordinate BAT’s business in Romania and 12 other countries: Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, and Kosovo. Before moving to Romania, Jorge was Executive Vice President for Marketing at Reynolds, responsible for all US marketing functions, including consumer, trade, and digital marketing.
A new EY survey of more than 200 companies across 15 countries in Europe has identified a critical link between effective board-level sustainability governance and business performance. The study found that respondents with stronger sustainability governance controls in place were significantly more likely to expect strong revenue prospects.
Of the companies classified as sustainability governance “experts,” 76 percent report feeling optimistic about their
performance, compared to just 45 percent of companies categorised as sustainability governance “beginners.”
Experts report being significantly more likely to avoid accusations of “greenwishing”—where green ambitions don’t match up to reality—by actually delivering on their stated climate ambitions. Just 13 percent of beginners report being “very satisfied” with the progress they have made to date in achieving the climate targets they have set, compared to more than half (52 percent) of “experts” reporting satisfaction with progress on their own ambitions. Nine out of ten of these companies reported they were planning to increase investments, including close to a third
(29 percent) planning to “increase a lot.” The vast majority of respondents thought there was room for improvement, with just 7 percent reporting that they felt sustainability issues were fully integrated into their board’s structures and decision-making processes.
“Effective sustainability governance requires boards to be prepared for the rapidly changing challenges of the outside world, including the growing environmental and social expectations. However, competence on environmental and social matters is not enough. Board diversity in terms of knowledge, experience, interests, and perspective helps an organisation navigate in shifting weather conditions by identifying and mitigating risks and leveraging opportunities,” said Massimo Bettanin, EY Romania Climate Change and Sustainability Services Partner.
Viorel Lacatus has been appointed Country Manager at Atenor. He has a strong background on the real estate market and more than 19 years of experience in the industry. His career started at CBRE in 2004, in the office lease department, and in 2007 Viorel was named Head of the Investment Department at CBRE. Between 2008 and 2014, he was part of BNP Paribas Real Estate, as Head of the Investment Department, and in 2014 he returned to CBRE as a Director within the Property Investment division.
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Iulius has signed a partnership with MedCity, the only developer of buildings dedicated to healthcare in South-East Europe, to accommodate the Emerald healthcare operator in Palas Campus in Iasi, the largest office building in Romania, which is
set to open this spring. The goal of the partnership is to create a medical centre where patients from Iasi and the region of Moldova can access innovative medical services.
The latest project by Iulius Company, Palas Campus, set to
Iasi is the tenth city included in MedCity’s expansion
Nestlé Romania has acquired Solgar, a business operating in the highly attractive and growing nutrition and supplement category, to sell its products directly on the Romanian market. The local transaction follows the August 2021 completion of Nestlé’s acquisition of the core brands of the Bountiful Company, including Nature’s Bounty, Solgar, Osteo Bi-Flex,
Puritan’s Pride, Ester-C, and Sundown. This transfer includes a group of highly specialised professionals to secure business continuity. Both the Solgar brand and its human resources will be integrated into the Nestlé Romania organisation, becoming a part of the Nestlé Health Science division. Solgar is a global leader on the nutritional supplements market. “This acquisition is an
exciting step that helps bring our purpose to life: to unlock the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come. The acquisition of the Solgar business contributes to growth opportunities for Nestlé Romania on the highly attractive market of supplements, vitamins, and minerals and presents a great opportunity for Nestlé Health Science to increase its presence on the Romanian market. This includes a dedicated team, who has the expertise to operate successfully in a specialised industry, and the pharmacy distribution channel,” says Alessandro Zanelli, Nestlé Market Head for the Southern and Eastern Europe Market. With the integration of the Solgar supplements in its portfolio, Nestlé Romania will gain substantial leverage on the health supplements and vitamins market and address more consumers with its nutrition products.
Irina Pencea
is the new General Manager of eMAG Romania. Irina has an academic background in marketing and started her communications career 24 years ago. Since then, as an entrepreneur, she has set up some of Romania’s most successful independent advertising agencies and helped build several successful brands in industries such as banking, e-commerce, telecom, retail, and energy.
open this spring in Iasi in the vicinity of the Palas mixed-use complex. It will accommodate 13 multinational IT & automotive companies, as well as retail premises and various everyday services for the area’s employees and residents.
Iasi is the tenth city included in MedCity’s expansion, and the company is planning to develop further projects in Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, and Craiova in the coming period.
Stephane Batoux has been appointed Global CEO of ETi Group. The newly created role within the company reinforces the Turkish group’s strategic vision of expansion on the international market. Prior to his new role, Stephane Batoux led ETi’s operations in Romania, Poland, and the Balkans. He joined the ETi team six years ago, bringing extensive managerial expertise.
Helian Redai has taken over as the new CEO of Porsche Finance Group Romania. The appointment comes after a 20-year career in the company, Redai having joined Porsche Finance Group in 2003 as Area Sales Manager. After four years, he became the Head of Sales and Marketing, a position he successfully held until the beginning of 2022, when he was appointed Chief Sales Officer.
More than half of real estate companies in Central and Eastern Europe expect market activity and investment volumes to decrease amid uncertainties related to the conflict in Ukraine, but a similar share (46 percent) estimate current investment average yields to increase, according to the Deloitte 2023 Real Estate Confidence Survey for Central Europe, conducted in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania.
By Aurel ConstantinRegarding the evolution of yields, players in Romania are the most optimistic, with only 10 percent expecting earnings to decrease during the target period, compared to 14 percent in the Czech Republic and 36 percent in Poland.
According to the study, 61 percent of participants expect the overall economic climate to deteriorate this year. However, most investors said they were going to buy more (44 percent), while 39 percent were considering freezing their investment activities. The lower availability of debt financing and the uncertain economic climate are the main rea-
sons companies are considering a reduction of their activity. However, if immediately after the outbreak of the war more than 50 percent of participants expected it to have long-term consequences, with a significant impact on the regional economy, while only 34 percent anticipated a medium-term effect, by the end of last year, the proportion had reversed, with 58 percent expecting medium-term effects and 31 percent foreseeing a long-term impact.
“The study reveals that the Romanian market is strongly connected with the Central and Eastern European region, with
several specific features. For example, local players are more pessimistic about the overall market activity this year, but 90 percent expect the current investment yields to be stable or to increase,” says Alexandra Smedoiu, Partner at Deloitte Romania and Real Estate Industry Leader. “Romanians are less pessimistic about the overall economic climate in their country compared to the other participants, but on the other hand, they are concerned about the tax climate prospects, namely about higher taxes, given the recently announced property tax reform, which has been postponed for the time being. However, in the current context, the results of the study indicate a balanced position among real estate players, characterised by caution and a consolidation of market activities in the countries in which they operate," she added.
The downward trend is visible in the residential sector as well. Approximately 19,000 homes could be delivered in 2023 in Bucharest and its surroundings, according to the “Romania Residential Market Genome” report published by real estate consultancy SVN Romania.
This figure is about 11 percent lower compared to last year’s, when 21,328 homes were completed in the city and its surroundings, following a 21,000 forecast made by SVN a year ago. The record was established in 2021, when 22,010 homes were delivered in the region. Another 8,000+ homes are currently
in various development stages and could be delivered in 2024 and 2025, depending on compliance with construction schedules and on the reception speed for completed residential units.
”The supply is shrinking, both as a result of the new macroeconomic context as well as due to the difficult urbanistic regime, but the decline is not as significant as we would have expected. We believe that interest rates are going to reach a plateau soon—those on the
target the mass market segment, while about 41 percent target the middle market segment. The premium and luxury segment will record its best deliveries result of recent years, with an estimated total of 800 units this year, or about 4.4 percent of the supply.
Over 40 percent of Romanians believe that a hybrid system, with 3-4 days per week of working from the office, will dominate
90 percent of respondents believe that office facilities make internal communication more efficient. The same figure (90 percent) is associated with people who believe that the existence of spaces dedicated to socialisation and free time make integration easier and strengthen teams, but also with providing a better balance between the professional and personal lives. Furthermore, 8 out of 10 respondents believe that such spaces can save them time.
The development of new projects is still on the table. This year, Speedwell started sales for the third building of its premium residential project THE IVY, located in north Bucharest. Also in the Capital, on the east side, the developer is preparing to start the works on the third phase of its TRIAMA Residence project. Speedwell is also preparing to begin sales for the MEADOWS project in June.
ROBOR segment are already more than 1 percent lower compared to their autumn peak— and while analysing transaction results, which are decreasing, we must take into account the fact that home sales in Bucharest and its surroundings have increased by over 56 percent over the last three years compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to official statistics,” said Andrei Sarbu, the CEO of SVN Romania.
The north area of Bucharest has the largest number of homes due for delivery in 2023, with about a third of the new supply, having become the most important residential development zone in the city. After years of dominance, the west area will attract about 22 percent of the new residential supply. The East and south parts account for about 17.5 percent, respectively 15.6 percent of the new homes that should be delivered this year.
The structure of the new supply will not see significant changes in 2023, SVN Romania’s report also notes. About 54 percent of the new homes due to be delivered this year
2023, and more than a quarter adhere to the practice of spending 1-2 days per week at the office. At the same time, a quarter of employees believe that working exclusively from the office will be prevalent this year, and only 7 percent are betting on exclusively remote work, according to a survey by Genesis Property, among 1,031 respondents nationwide.
“The study confirms that the future of work is hybrid. Employees want the flexibility to work from home or the office depending on their unique needs and preferences. At the same time, we understand the value of in-person collaboration and socialisation for driving innovation and building strong team relationships. Precisely to meet this need, we are developing YUNITY Park, a modern concept that prioritises flexibility, comfort, and collaboration, which are essential for companies in their mission to attract and retain top talent,” said Maria Jianu (Tudorica), Commercial Real Estate Manager at Genesis Property. The results of the study suggest that the main benefit of physical presence is face-to-face interaction with colleagues, and
Currently, Speedwell is working to obtain permits for CityZen, a large-scale project on Calea Grivitei (exGriro), which aims to improve living conditions for current and future residents of the area by developing apartments, offices, services, restaurants, cultural activity spaces, food markets, craft workshops, extended public spaces, parks, running tracks, kindergartens, public parks, and recreation spaces.
“We’ve chosen to develop projects in several areas of Bucharest, where we felt there was a demand from potential buyers, thus contributing to improving life in those communities. However, in some areas, and especially around the centre of the capital, we have noticed a need for substantial investments in order to achieve harmonious development at the city level. These investments generate a series of positive effects, including a higher standard of living, but also an improved image for the capital, with projects worthy of a European metropolis that respects its past, but especially its future,” said Jan Demeyere, Architect and Co-Founder of Speedwell.
Powered by a nifty API that is easy to integrate and extremely developer-friendly, Twispay, a brand owned by Capital Financial Services, enables businesses to process payments in any currency from customers across the globe, through virtually any payment method. To find out more about how Twispay works, Business Review talked to the company’s CEO, Augustin Dobre
By Aurel ConstantinWhat is the difference between Twispay, which is licenced by Visa and Mastercard, and other payment platforms?
Capital Financial Services, the institution that operates the Twispay brand, is an e-money financial institution—the first such institution that was ever approved by the Romanian National Bank, in 2013. Unlike most traditional payment processors, we are strictly regulated and benefit from Visa and Mastercard principal memberships. This status enables us to be autonomous and process card transactions independently, in a straightforward manner, without requiring a sponsoring financial institution. Moreover, since our license is passported across the European Economic Area, we may offer our services to merchants across the continent and support e-commerce operators in implementing their cross-border strategies.
What advantages do Twispay services provide to e-commerce customers compared to other payment services?
When choosing a financial institution regulated by the Romanian National Bank, as opposed to a traditional payment provider, e-commerce operators enjoy several benefits, the most prominent being a high level of financial security. This happens because e-money financial institutions are required to have safeguarding accounts. These ensure that each e-shop’s revenue is separated from Twispay’s operational funds and that the e-tailer is their sole beneficiary. No company creditor may access sums in the safeguarding accounts. Twispay has safeguarding accounts with 3 Romanian banks and the German subsidiary of JP Morgan. The Twispay payment gateway also provides a series of benefits, such as a solid analytics module and excellent implementation support. Our platform’s administration panel enables marketers to have a real-time view of their customer statistics. Since the gateway was created inhouse by the Twispay DevOps team, we offer 100 percent free, in-house customisation services and customer support. Another im-
portant differentiator for Twispay is the fact that we work with e-shop operators to help them increase conversions and reduce the number of failed payments. We identify the reason for any failed transaction and communicate it to the merchant. In this case, if, for example, a payment doesn’t go through because the customer has entered the wrong card details or CVC code or because of insufficient funds, we can automatically send an email to that shopper and invite them to try again using another card or using a payment link.
Last year was the first year when we crossed the 1 million transactions threshold. For a fintech that has operated in this industry for only 5 years, this is an excellent result, especially since most of our customers have come to us organically.
The average value per transaction has been around EUR 40, which is significantly lower than the 2021 figure. This is a sign that we have diversified our portfolio, having enrolled many retailers that are new to ecommerce. Now, we have quite a varied list of 300-400 B2B clients in different industries, from tech startups to sellers of music and video equipment, insurance providers or F&B delivery companies. Some of our customers include AV Store, French Revolution, My Geisha, and even NFT platform XOXNO. This was our first Web3 client, an NFT platform that allows users to purchase nonfungible tokens using traditional fiat currencies. With XOXNO, we bridge the gap between the metaverse and what we know as the real world.
Digitalization is one of the biggest programmes in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), and Romania is one of the countries that has the greatest need for digitalization. From educating the population on the use of technology to digitalizing companies, our country needs programmes at the national level. We are ranked last in the European Union when it comes to the integration of digital technologies, scoring below average on all indicators, which have stagnated or even declined over the past year.
By Aurel ConstantinThe authorities have already initiated a ”unique legislative package at the European level,” which should boost digitalization, as stated by Research, Innovation and Digitalization minister Sebastian Burduja, at the third edition of the Romanian Business & Investment Roundtable Conference hosted by The Economist. But the journey is just beginning, according to Mihnea Radulescu, Enterprise Business Unit Director at Vodafone Romania, who noted that the share of SMEs that used at least a basic level of digital tools was 22 percent last year, significantly below the EU average of 55 percent.
"We need to talk more about competitiveness and about the ways technology helps businesses be more competitive. The digitalization of the public sector in Romania is lagging behind, but we must also talk about the digitalization of the private sector. Only 17
percent of SMEs in Romania can be described as digitalized," Radulescu pointed out.
The Vodafone director also argued that digitalization is necessary and mandatory for companies because it shortens time to market, increases productivity levels, and helps companies get in front of customers faster, while offering lower prices. "Digitalization facilitates competitiveness, efficiency, productivity. You have to make yourself known to consumers and be able to offer consumers competitive prices, which can no longer be done without incorporating technology into the everyday life of a company."
It is also important to note that while corporations are almost fully digitalized, SMEs still have a lot to learn. This is a major problem given that SMEs contribute over 50 percent of Romania's GDP and employ over 60 per-
cent of the workforce, according to Mihnea Radulescu.
In terms of digital infrastructure, our country is in a good position, as evidenced by the fact that internet coverage and speed at the national level are very good. The pandemic period proved that we could rely on the digital infrastructure when we needed to work remotely and interconnect. “It took a while to figure out how we could run deals and serve companies without meeting each other. But the technology is not new. Following the pandemic and the multiple other crises or in the context of the war in Ukraine, which has had effects on the energy market, we can see how necessary it is to use technology," Radulescu said.
But infrastructure investment must continue in order to maintain a high level of quality. We are currently relying on 5G technology to build the telecommunications network of the future. "It is essential that Vodafone can install 5G at the quality level we are used to in Romania, which requires a huge level of investment," he added.
“Europe as a whole has lost its leadership in telecommunications innovation, to the US and China. These countries have 2-3 suppliers, while Europe has 120, who are fighting hard over customers and driving down prices, which ultimately prevents the implementation of much needed large investments," Radulescu also noted, adding that it was mandatory to increase investment capacity in order to maintain our competitiveness. "There is a huge need for digitalization and there are enormous sums of money at our disposal from European funds; we must make an effort to access them,” the Vodafone director concluded.
Lacramioara Daraban, Head of Human Relations at Continental Sibiu, says that mastering all of today’s challenges and staying ahead of the curve isn’t just about what the company plans to do, but also about the way it does it and with whom. Keeping the HR team agile, authentic, passionate, great at engaging employees and focused on smart solutions, results in the entire company being on board, working on the same mission.
By Anda Sebesi
At Continental Sibiu, we are essentially growing a city in the city, not just in terms of the number of employees but also in terms of skills and technologies. Our People Strategy is guided by a well-connected and strategic mix of objectives, derived from the business strategy, inspired by our experience of the last 20 years in Sibiu, and shaped by market trends. Some of the main pillars of our strategy are: making sure that Continental Sibiu is “the place to be” and offering our colleagues a great employee experience; being the most attractive and progressive employer within our market and beyond; living ownership and shaping a culture where people are empowered and leaders are inspiring; learning anytime, anywhere, on any device and shaping a proactive learning culture; developing talent and HR digitalization.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
“AT CONTINENTAL, WE ARE GENERATING IMPACT AND WE ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY WHILE SHAPING OUR OWN CAREERS, HAVING THE PASSION TO WIN AND THE FREEDOM TO ACT, TRUSTING EACH OTHER AND BEING THERE FOR ONE ANOTHER, WITH CONSTANT DEDICATION, RESILIENCE, AND FUN.”
We understand that employee engagement, development, and recognition are essential for any organisation’s long-term success. Under this umbrella, several programmes, initiatives, and events were organised last year for the #PeopleOfContinentalSibiu: from strategic ones such as tailormade retention workshops, rewards and recognitions programmes, agile learning solutions, improving work flexibility or kindergarten extension to fun activities like “Children at the Office.”
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
With a community of almost
4,500 colleagues, a hiring need of hundreds of positions per year, a vast diversity of roles and competencies, plus the goal of being one of the most attractive and progressive employers in the region, going the extra mile in our retention, recruitment, and employer branding activities has become a must. We are shaping and developing our future talent market within strong partnerships with high schools and universities. Over 300 students are working at Continental Sibiu as part of a paid internship programme with flexible schedules. Most of these students decide to stay with us after graduation, so every year, more than 150 fresh graduates join our team, mostly as engineers and developers. We also support their education by having over 40 Continental experts teaching in partner universities and by working closely with over 50 Continental Ambassadors who represent our company inside universities and organise activities for students such as competitions, technical presentations, company tours, and more. Scholarships and investments in laboratories and research projects are also major elements of this partnership. Secondly, we try to have a balanced level of expertise in our company and work on attracting professionals through our programmes such as software & technical academies, engineering training programmes, proactive networking and recruitment events in different cities, an alumni programme, technical conferences, improving our application process or rolling out cross-channel employer branding campaigns. We foster a positive and inclusive workplace culture and make sure that our employees are valued and rewarded for their hard work and dedication.
Vodafone has made history on the Romanian telecommunications services market, with a long and impressive list of first-time achievements. The company was the first to launch mobile telecom services in Romania under Connex brand, as well as the first 3G services, the first LTE network and 4G roaming services, and the first 5G network, to only mention a few. Almost two years ago, the company has entered a tranformation stage for becoming a technology player. Zsuzsanna Toth, Human Resources Director at Vodafone Romania, sat down with Business Review to reveal the HR story behind this transformation.
By Anda SebesiWhen defining our HR policy, we looked at what a Future-Ready Organisation meant and thought about how we could support this transformation through culture transformation, talent acceleration, and a focus on our frontline colleagues, by becoming an agile and efficient organisation and building a digital and personalised employee experience.
Our company has been on a transformation journey—both on the inside and the outside. This transformation is meant to bring new growth opportunities beyond traditional connectivity by offering our clients a complete proposition of connectivity and technology as we aim to become a trusted technology partner for all Romanians, at home and at the office. To support this vision, our company needs to change from within and align the organisational culture with the business strategy.. We need to grow our tech team through insourcing and reskilling as well as to bring more added value services to our EasyTech shops by training and hiring TechXperts who are able to provide end-to-end tech consultancy to our customers.
What were the main initiatives your company dedicated to its employees last year?
The transformation from a telco company into a technology one started almost two years ago. This is a group strategy that also aims to create a One Tech Team: a multicultural, pan-Eu-
ropean team of up to 7,000 IT experts by 2025, built through recruitment and upskilling. Locally, we have also adapted our organisational structure and we are investing in leadership programmes, upskilling, and recruitment, currently searching for 70+ middle and senior IT colleagues to join our team.
Last November, we also started the culture change in Vodafone Romania by defining four key behaviours and engaging our leaders to align, understand, and commit to the change we all want to see in the organisation. Earlier this year, we extended this to all employees, engaging them in strategy and culture transformation through team conversations and gamification.
Vodafone was one of the first companies to officially announce that the hybrid working model (60 percent remote and 40 percent from the office) represented our long-term vision. At the beginning of 2022, we officially launched the new Telework Policy, which states that the way the activity is organised inside teams is flexible and gets decided together with direct managers, depending on the specific needs of each team. We offer part-time options for certain categories of employees (stores or call centres), which also supports work-life balance. It is also to our own benefit, because we have access to a much larger base of recruits.
How would you describe your HR policy?
We hire for character and values; we train for skills and emotional health. Financial Health and Fit for Change are the main pillars of our HR strategy. Our priority is to invest in each of our colleagues’ financial health, as well as to become a generator of financial health in their communities. We train them to be antifragile in the face of constant changes: to not only be resilient in unstable times, but to actually thrive. These are valuable lessons that go beyond a particular career path: they have a positive impact on life. We live in an era of tech, AI, smart data, and digital transformation. But my deepest belief is that people are the golden key for any business field, no matter how digital it might be or become. My motto is that banking is a business for people that is created by people and enhanced by data & technology.
What were the main initiatives the bank dedicated to its employees last year?
By Anda Sebesi
Consistency. One of the most important aspects refers to the consistency of our remuneration strategy, aimed at building Financial Health for our colleagues. We offer a wide range of flexible benefits to be activated by each of our colleagues in their own way, based on their needs, interests, and values.
Community. We are building communities for our people to thrive in and to better connect to their values. We have the Gen Z Community, the Magic Advisors Community, the Digital Experts League, the “Scoala de Bani” Teachers Community, and many others. At BCR, we have a strong community spirit, with lots of our colleagues being involved in volunteering activities. In the past five years, we have had 600,000 people participating in our volunteering projects, led by the Money School (Scoala de Bani).
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
Learning supermarket. Over the past year, my colleagues have been focused on taking our learning and development ecosystem to the next level, so that our people could develop new skills that are of critical importance today. I am proud of our “learn anytime, anywhere, and on any device approach,” with topics our colleagues can take ”off the shelf,” just like in a virtual learning supermarket.
Convenience. We focused on making things simple and convenient, starting with a fully digital hiring process and continuing with the employee experience, which is also mostly digital.
We want to attract Gen Z, but also people with a growth mindset, no matter their age. Our main focus is on retaining the talent that we have. The L&D philosophy that guides us is "power to the people." Each employee at BCR holds the remote control for their development: they can choose the subjects that suit them and the pace of learning. On the other hand, this year we are working on redefining our candidate experience journey. Listening more, caring more, being more open—these are the simple ingredients of our company narrative. It is more than a strategy: it is a sound way of living.
Andreea Voinea, executive director of the HR division at BCR, talked to Business Review about the lender’s people strategy and how the company become a desirable employer for all generations of workers.
How would you describe your HR policy?
The main objectives of our HR Policy are focused on creating an environment where all of us, all #peopleofBT, grow both professionally and personally while delivering sustainable performance for our main stakeholders: clients, communities, and investors. Our leadership and management development programmes are among the strongest pillars of our HR Policies as they shape and transform our constructive, result-oriented, and human corporate culture, which is something we dearly treasure. Care is a competence we develop and measure regularly in all our managers, just as we measure performance and KPIs. Another strong focus for us in HR is on transparent, relevant, and continuous communication, accessible senior management, and a relaxed/casual working environment. We have repeatedly validated the fact that people want to connect with other people, both inside and outside our organisation. They want to meet, exchange ideas, have fun, and learn from each other—but they only want to do this with people they like.
What were the main initiatives the bank dedicated to its employees last year?
One of the initiatives that had an imense impact across the organisation last year was the GROW Experience, a project that aimed to map all positions in Banca Transilvania against a matrix of nine skills. We selected three core skills that we seek in all our colleagues—autonomy, collaboration, and resilience—and
all our HR processes, from recruitment and selection to learning, performance evaluation, compensation, career management, and wellbeing, are built around these key traits. Our reskilling and upskilling programmes are also very popular. Between 50 and 60 colleagues start their second career with Banca Transilvania each year, pivoting from banking positions to IT by attending intensive technical learning programmes. One other major multi-year initiative that we started last year was the in-house development of an HR platform that integrates all HR processes.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
We are constantly conducting research inside and outside the organisation to learn about the expectations people have from their workplace. We use the results of these studies to identify those very specific areas where BT is or can become the best and we are investing our efforts in developing and promoting them. One such area is our care for the wellbeing of our colleagues and their famillies. Making sure our managers genuinly care for their team members, attracting people that have similar motivations and whose values resonate with Banca Transilvania’s, who are dynamic, willing to be of service to other people, building trust and creating opportunities for growth and sharing are just a few of the strategies we are using to retain talent. We are also on a continuous lookout for new sourcing areas among less privileged communities and we are investing in supporting them to acquire the knowledge and skills to increase their employability.
Banca Transilvania’s main priority is to make sure that the #peopleofBT like each other and enjoy working together. Nevenca Doca, HR senior executive director at BT, tells BR about the lender’s main HR initiatives that contribute to achieving this major goal.
How would you describe your HR policy?
HR is shaping the future of Mondelēz International: driving top-tier financial performance, creating a great place to work, and developing world-class capabilities to help us win in our key markets. Our HR team is a valued partner to the business and our employees, managing the full people process from hire to retire. Our company policies and procedures are designed to drive fairness and consistency across our organisation. They are how we make sure we are doing business the right way. Our main pillars are resourcing and talent planning, learning and development, and performance management. We are leaders in organisational and change management, cultural integration, and employee engagement. We are responsible for recruitment, succession planning, talent and performance management, creating a strong pipeline of inspirational global leaders. We operate our Total Rewards policy so individuals are recognised for their contributions. In all we do, we are fully aligned with business priorities and to the needs of the organisation.
What definea you as a leader?
I am a person who develops daily, who does not settle for the status quo, and who constantly raises the bar of expectations; a person who will rather choose agility than perfectionism, who quickly adapts, learns, tries new approaches, and leads change, who is happy to help others and teach them and removes obstacles to enable herself and others to be successful.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
Our key initiative was investing in
people. The previous pandemic year was tough for all employers, and we know that employees experienced multiple challenges, both professional and personal, due to this context. That is why we placed a special focus on investing in improving skillsets and capabilities, empowering colleagues to grow, and enabling transformative processes, solutions, and platforms.
The health and wellbeing of our colleagues is very important and we launched several initiatives such as the Employee Assistance Programme and wellbeing seminars.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
We aim to continue to develop initiatives and programmes that help people advance their careers.
We create the perfect environment for our teams, providing opportunities to learn new skills and take on new challenges. We also focus on employee engagement and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles and we have various initiatives that drive our company culture, creating the optimal structure that makes Mondelēz an employer of choice for current employees and for attracting new talents. Our people feel cared about and are connected to the purpose of the organisation. They are actively involved in advancing our internal culture, as it is based on our daily way of working and thinking.
At the company level, we match their winning spirit and we carry out various activities that unlock professional and personal development. Our strategic approach has been proven right, as reflected by high engagement scores year after year.
For Andrijana Kupresan, People Lead for Romania & East Adriatic Markets at Mondelez International, 2022 was a year of investment in people, following a tough pandemic period for all employers in Romania and worldwide.
LEONI Romania strongly believes in human leadership, encouraging feedback, investing in people, and prioritising collaboration across the organization. According to Country Manager Andrada Verdes, LEONI’s HR concept of the year will be "people-first.”
By Anda SebesiDespite the multiple crises we have all been through since 2020, LEONI Romania has successfully strengthened its position as a high-performing member of the LEONI Group, a global provider of products, solutions, and energy and data management services in the automotive industry. The team that we have built here has made a strategic contribution to this performance. After all, our people have been the most predictable and stable element during recent events, starting with the covid-19 pandemic. We are a top choice among women—approximately 70 percent of our employees are women—and this is because we have an organisational environment that encourages and supports them, starting with the recruitment process and throughout the entire time they spend at LEONI.
LEONI is a people-first company and one of the most important employers in Romania, having more than 11,500 employees across 3 main plants and several other production satellites. We have various initiatives in our people strategy, including a cultural transformation process initiated by the LEONI Group. We aim to improve the work experience of all employees through a new set of values and positive behaviours that align with our organisation's principles. As an employer, we strive to ensure good work conditions, as well as a salary package that rewards effort, dedication, loyalty, and innovation. We also provide development opportunities based on a carefully designed career map, skills, and commitment. We are working on projects to bring
people closer to the company's values and contribute to better collaboration between employees. A challenge for us is maintaining constant and consistent communication with people who do not benefit from the traditional channels that have become the norm for us. We aim to create as many contexts as possible to bring together line workers and professionals from different departments, areas of management, and top positions.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
Our strategy is built on two main pillars. The first is nurturing each of our colleagues’ development potential. In the automotive industry, it takes dedication and responsibility to deliver the highest performance and quality standards. We encourage and transfer these attributes within the organisation to all our colleagues. We offer in-house training, onthe-job qualification opportunities, and experience exchanges with other people in the Group through training or projects carried out in other LEONI locations. We are constantly investing in this process, and this is why we have people who started their careers at LEONI as operators and are now team leaders, supervisors, financial controllers, section managers—all people with important responsibilities who have become role models for the organisation.
The second pillar is our support and engagement for education and youth development. We have built a national network of partnerships with Technical Universities. We have stable partnerships in the main locations where we operate: Bistrita, Cluj, Arad, and Pitesti. In addition to internships, we provide students with scholarships and personalised career support based on their vocations and needs.
“WE ARE THE PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GROW FROM OPERATORS TO MANAGERS AND WHERE PEOPLE CAN FIND A JOB THAT BUILDS ON THEIR EXPERIENCE OR EDUCATION.”
Cristina Mancas, HR Vice-President SEE at Schneider Electric, tells BR that 2022—when the company celebrated 25 years of operations on the Romanian market—was full of initiatives that focused on improving the employee experience.
By Anda Sebesi
How would you describe your HR policy?
Romania is one of the most important, longest standing subsidiaries of Schneider Electric in South-East Europe. We have many positions that service more than one country, as we coordinate three countries from Bucharest, and we have a team of global internal communicators right here in our headquarters. We are in touch with the entire world of Schneider Electric every day. So, naturally, our HR policy is a very digital, very global one.
We tend to practice what we preach, so as a champion of digitalization and sustainability, we offer global, digital talent platforms for our colleagues to learn and develop. We also create and implement local projects that are aimed at creating a vibrant organisational culture. We have a lot to catch up on after years of working from home and we want to do that in a meaningful and useful way.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
Last year was an anniversary year for us, so a lot of our initiatives had to do with this celebration and rewarding the loyalty and the long-term careers of our veteran employees. Apart from that, we also wanted to make it worthwhile for people to return to the office, so we organised a lot of events to restore our coopera-
tive, open, and friendly organisational culture. From team sports to informal breakfasts with the management, we encouraged people to find the pleasure of meeting in person again, with no screen between them.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
We’ve teamed up with technical and non-technical universities in several cities around the country and developed internship programmes for their students, at both graduate and undergraduate level. We are a traditional participant at annual job fairs organised by academic institutions. Last year we took part in POLIJobs, the fair hosted by the Bucharest Polytechnic University, as well as in other prominent professional job fairs around the country.
Our internship programmes are substantial and comprehensive and they usually end in job offers for the best and most dedicated performers. We believe in the energy and ingenuity of the young generations and, based on our 25-year track record in Romania, we know that our organisation has a lot to offer. We have colleagues who have been with us for 10, 15, even 25 years, with strong careers and many professional achievements and today, in the age of digitalization, being an energy management and automation company positions us on the frontlines of technology and sustainability, which adds to our desirability as an employer.
“I BELIEVE I AM DESIRABLE EMPLOYEE! I THINK MY BEST DEFINING TRAIT IS THE FACT THAT I CARE A LOT ABOUT MY JOB AND ABOUT THE PEOPLE I WORK WITH.”
HR has become a real priority for METRO Romania in recent years, and we have made multiple changes in terms of the structure of the HR team, with new roles established or developed, especially in areas like employee training and well-being. All of our company’s initiatives, both local and international, have led to us to receiving the Top Employer certification on the Romanian market for the past three consecutive years.
Our strategy for attracting new talent and retaining our people also includes the process of redefining the employer brand. We strongly believe that in order to build a strong employer brand, you must first prove that you are a Top Employer. Our regular engagement measurement surveys show a high engagement rate among our teams, demonstrating that our efforts to build a positive employee experience, from recruitment and onboarding to off-boarding, are highly appreciated by our employees.
We have developed and implemented several initiatives, namely: the digitalization of internal processes, internships, internal training platforms being made available to all METRO employees, offering training programmes at chosen locations, as well as wellbeing and consultancy programmes. We have also invested in lunchrooms and recreational corners for our colleagues.
We have acknowledged the importance of flexibility as an essential resource in our learning and development strategy, both professional and personal, to best meet the different needs of our colleagues. We have continued to develop and refine programmes to improve leadership, sales, and customer orien-
tation skills, as well as the functional skills of our employees.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
It’s important to create the best environment for them to work in, develop professionally, and feel appreciated and valued. Tools for recognition, professional and personal development, and wellbeing are important elements that generate employee satisfaction and motivate them to get involved in the company's development.
Both locally and internationally, we run long-term structured talent development programmes in various spheres of our business, including blends of multiple learning modalities, in which experiential learning is paramount. The benefits take various forms: a sense of personal development, the facilitation of professional (including intercultural) connections, team cohesion, and a sense of belonging.
Benefits and compensation packages are important in the hierarchy of employee preferences, and they are linked to the company's business objectives and market trends. This is a mechanism to attract, motivate, and retain candidates, leading to improved team performance and organisational results. METRO provides its employees with a generous list of benefits like meal vouchers, private medical insurance, extra days off for various occasions, access to psychological, financial, and legal counselling for the employee and their family, bonuses granted on holidays and other occasions, gifts for children, discounts on medical and sports subscriptions, and special conditions negotiated with banks in Romania. The company also offers several special bonuses, for holidays, loyalty, employee referrals, and retirement, practically covering the entire employee lifecycle.
Rodica Rapcea, HR Director at METRO Romania, sat down with Business Review to talk about the company’s HR policy and how it has led to the success of the leader in wholesale trade in Romania for over 25 years.
By Anda Sebesi
“THE METRO TEAM IS DRIVEN BY COURAGE, PASSION, AND SHARED INSPIRATION. WE HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT BIG. WE HELP OUR EMPLOYEES SHAPE THEIR CAREERS THROUGH PURPOSE AND WE CREATE A SENSE OF COMMUNITY.”
ProCredit Bank’s way of dealing with colleagues is unique, as it believes more in people and dialogue than in positions or titles. Andreea Ichim, the company’s Deputy General Manager, sat down with Business Review to talk about the ways in which the bank has been keeping its employees satisfied.
By Anda Sebesi
How would you define your HR policy?
Our HR Policy supports the strategic development of the ProCredit Group and reflects our identity as a developmentoriented commercial bank with strong ethical and value-based foundations. As our ethical approach to banking and respect for human dignity is fully integrated into our corporate culture, the relationships between colleagues as well as the ones we have with our clients and third parties are based on mutual respect, avoiding any form of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, religion, origin, sexual orientation or age. We are proud of the long-standing norm of gender equality at ProCredit, with 38 percent of senior managers and an even higher proportion of 48 percent of middle managers in the Group being women. This balance was the result of our approach to individual development, and not that of a planned strategy of achieving quantitative objectives. The core elements of our HR Policy include: intensive staff recruitment and integration through the international Onboarding Programme for newcomers; permanent staff development training; a transparent salary policy; and a structured staff assessment process.
“WE BELIEVE THAT WE ARE APPEALING TO PEOPLE WITH A HUMANISTIC WORLDVIEW, WHO FLOURISH IN A WORK ENVIRONMENT THAT’S BUILT ON FAIRNESS, OPEN COMMUNICATION, AND HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS.”
we decided to mitigate some of the adverse impact on remuneration by increasing the value of the financial benefits we provided to our employees.
In addition, 2022 represented a highly significant milestone for ProCredit Bank Romania, as it marked the 20th anniversary of its establishment and operation in the country. On this occasion, we invited all our colleagues to celebrate two decades of making a positive impact on the development of the Romanian economy.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
Our approach to recruitment is centred on people. We focus on candidates’ attitude, willingness, and capacity to engage in dialogue, their readiness to question, learn, and challenge assumptions, their ethics and understanding of democracy. We intensively hire young graduates with little or no experience, aiming to build long-term professional relationships. 29 percent of ProCredit Group staff started their career with us. We also look for a wide variety of educational backgrounds, as creative problem-solving strategies can come from people who think out of the box.
What were the main initiatives the bank dedicated to its employees last year?
In 2022, we increased the number of paid vacation days we allocated to our employees. This initiative was implemented to allow our staff members to spend additional time with their families, particularly in the years after the pandemic, which were marked by heightened levels of stress. Also, considering the high inflation,
The training process starts with the Onboarding Programme, which is designed for newcomers. Over 32 percent of our current colleagues, including management members, joined us via this programme. For experienced employees, specific job and Group-wide courses are offered regularly. The next level of training is provided in our unique ProCredit Banker and ProCredit Management programmes, which take place in our campus in Germany, the ProCredit Academy.
How would you describe your HR policy?
At Kaufland, we are defined by three core values—performance, dynamism, and fairness—which guide our entire activity and drive us on the journey to reach our goals as a company. As an employer that embraces equality, our Employer Branding strategy, which integrates dedicated programmes for a variety of audiences, promotes diversity and inclusion at all levels, in terms of both recruitment and integration processes. Furthermore, we also value transparency, so we aim to communicate as clearly and openly as possible to all of our colleagues and candidates. We truly believe in open communication and fair treatment between same-level employees, as well as between employee and managers, and this is one of our core approaches for a positive working environment.
By Anda Sebesiwith special needs who want to join us. As a promoter of equality, we also celebrated Diversity Month and we highlighted the successful stories of new colleagues who have joined the team through this programme.
We also provide positive professional opportunities for the young generation through dedicated programmes, such as Kaufland Internship Experience, Kaufland Trainee Program, Kaufland Talent Program or the special project, Grand Job Experience. Another well-received initiative in 2022 was “In the CEO’s shoes,” where Marco Hößl, the CEO of Kaufland Romania & Moldova, switched roles for a day with a trainee colleague.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
We are constantly in touch with
We direct our efforts towards creating an environment that prioritising wellbeing, and that is why at Kaufland, a good work-life balance coupled with flexibility are key to our team’s motivation. On top of that, we offer a series of benefits that employees can enjoy.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
As Diversity and Inclusion represents a main pillar of our Employer Branding strategy, we continued the A.C.C.E.S programme (Employment of Candidates with Special Requirements and Developments). Thanks to this initiative, we are proud to announce that we welcomed more than 450 colleagues with disabilities to our team and we have another 500 positions dedicated to people
industry trends, as well as with candidates’ requirements, and we are motivated to adapt our messages to a wide pool of audiences to reach suitable profiles. As we value transparency, we believe it is important to communicate openly in our talent attraction campaigns, so starting with September 2021, we have included the gross starting salary and contract type in job descriptions, providing candidates with all necessary information from the beginning of the application process. Our Employer Branding campaigns are key to attracting new candidates. Communicating our initiatives and organisational culture are relevant approaches that speak to people who are in search of a job and help in their decision-making process. Our internal programmes and external communications actions, such as the “It’s time for something new” campaign, contribute to us being closer to people and helping them get to know our company better.
The focus on creating an environment that prioritises employee wellbeing is key to motivating Kaufland’s teams. Estera Anghelescu, Recruiting & Employer Branding Director at Kaufland Romania and Moldova, talked to Business Review about the company's journey to consolidating their position as a Top Employer in Romania.
How would you describe your HR policy?
Our HR policy is part of the company strategy (#OrangeForward), with “People” being one of its core pillars. The End State that defines our People policy is: “Together we drive an inclusive culture that is based on trust and care and empowers people to maximise their potential.” We’ve built our HR policy on four key principles: cultural integration, people development, wellbeing & recognition, and new ways of working.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
We are currently engaged in a complex process of aligning two large companies, Orange Romania and Orange Romania Communications, and our main focus in the last 18 months has been on bringing people and cultures together. In this respect, we have put a lot of effort into delivering alignment and development programmes. Last year alone, we delivered over 81,000 hours of training to our employees, of which 23,000 were led by our Learning & Development team. One of our major projects in 2022 was One Home, designed to bring together more than 3,100 employees from two office buildings in Bucharest: Tandem and Europe House. The project’s mission was to build around two dimensions—People & Space—, taking three perspectives into account: a joint cultural journey, a common, hybrid way of working, and a new working space as a platform for growth and development.
Both project design and project execution focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability principles; we had an identical and integrated approach for both Orange Romania and Orange Romania Communications employees, with all our colleagues benefitting from “a new beginning.” This year,
we are committed to extending the project nationwide. Another high-impact initiative was related to Wellbeing & Recognition. Starting with a Recognition Gala in March, we have continued our initiatives through the Cheers from Peers concept, a public recognition module. We have provided the perfect place for our colleagues to express their thoughts of gratitude for other team members through a platform that allows them to send messages and badges of appreciation. Once a quarter, the list of winners from Cheers from Peers is made public, and they are invited to have a coffee and a chat with the HR Director.
The Wellbeing & Recognition @ Orange programme received an award in the Health & Wellbeing category at last year’s HR Club Excellence Awards Gala. We have a well-defined approach to wellbeing as part of our People strategy, and all interventions are part of an ecosystem that provides 24/7 assistance with more than 300 specialists responding to our colleagues’ needs.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
The Orange Educational Program is a 26-year-old programme that was developed in partnership with The Politehnica University of Bucharest, and it represents one of the main initiatives that allow Orange to attract talent. We offer scholarships to the best students and more than 30 percent of the graduates are hired by the company. Besides this, our company is involved in several educational programmes and initiatives, either directly or via the Orange Foundation. For our internal talent pool, we have dedicated programmes within the company and at the Group level.
Luiza Müller, HR Director at Orange Romania, talked to Business Review about the company’s HR strategy and the ways in which it helps Orange stand out on a very competitive market.
By Anda Sebesi
“BEING LOYAL, PROACTIVE, FAIR, EMPATHETIC, EAGER TO LEARN, UNAFRAID TO TRY NEW THINGS, AND ALWAYS READY TO HELP OTHERS ARE TRAITS THAT TICK THE RECRUITMENT BOXES AT ORANGE ROMANIA.”
For Cristina Corello, Country Human Resources Manager at Bosch Romania, 2022 was marked by a focus on stimulating a long-term commitment and practice towards the happiness and success of its employees, as part of the company’s HR strategy. The core belief at Bosch is that flexibility can contribute to associates’ wellbeing and team performance.
By Anda Sebesi
For Bosch, a leading global supplier of technology and services, career development is a key strategic objective. Together with our associates, we have created a new way of working, which prioritises employee wellbeing and is based on three important pillars: a flexible way of working, continuous support for personal and professional development, and a system based on feedback, transparency, and equity as core values. Our professional development process reflects two main principles: continuous learning (life-long learning) and autonomous learning (self-learning). These principles allow our employees to adapt their own learning styles to their own needs. Bosch is also fostering a leadership and collaboration culture on three levels: Leading my Business, Leading Others, Leading Myself. Other principles such as “We LEAD Bosch" and “We are Bosch" are two powerful ways to translate the fact that associates are the ones who create the Bosch culture when they bring their expertise and passion to the development of products and services with an impact on society.
“ORGANISATIONS THAT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THEIR CANDIDATES' NEEDS WILL ALWAYS BE THE PREFERRED EMPLOYERS. IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE THAT WE HAVE BEEN AMONG THE TOP THREE EMPLOYERS FOR OUR MAIN TARGET GROUPS YEAR AFTER YEAR.”
ing the Women@Bosch community or the Wellbeing Club. Closely connected to our wellbeing initiatives was the development of a hybrid collaboration model, called Smart Work @ Bosch, which was implemented globally. As many of our business lines allow for activity to be carried out remotely, Bosch has provided the framework, principles, and tools for efficient work and collaboration, rooted in harnessing the power of technology. This was a co-creation process with our teams, combining the flexibility and task efficiency of remote work with physical presence and meaningful collaboration in company locations.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
In 2022 we dedicated plenty of resources to stimulate a long-term commitment and practice towards happiness and success. The company's approach was practical and personalised. We implemented multiple workshops on mindfulness and movement, virtual book clubs, as well as other types of online recreational sessions such as virtual coffee breaks and Christmas parties. These initiatives resulted in more than 10 ongoing online and offline communities, includ-
Our main strategic initiative has to do with running our internal education centre for current and future associates. Employees and candidates can take three potential career paths: specialist, project manager, and people manager, with a focus on both soft and hard skills. Since the launch of these programmes, more than 600 colleagues have accessed customised paths towards current and future leadership roles. As a large employer, we still face the demand of finding the right talent and skills on the local market. We have campaigns and awareness initiatives around our activity, and we take part in the most important technology and recruitment events. We also have well-targeted multi-channel promotion campaigns, to make sure that candidates remember us. In recent years, we have been focused on having more interaction with potential candidates. In this sense, we’ve continued our partnerships with universities, and we provide mentorship to entire teams of students and pupils in various technical projects.
By Anda Sebesi
How would you describe your HR policy?
At EY Romania, we are focused on empowering all our colleagues to build an exceptional EY experience for themselves, every day and throughout all vital career milestones, from hiring and onboarding to retirement or exit, an experience that builds transformative leaders regardless of their role in the organisation. There are four main pillars of the Exceptional EY Experience: the first is Recognition, Rewards, and Empowering Careers through diverse experiences, learning and development opportunities, as well as a Focus on Wellbeing as primary drivers; the second is Culture, including Teaming, Learning, and Productivity in a hybrid work enviornment; the third is Attracting Diverse Talent and a sucessful onboarding experience— getting the employee experience right from the start; and the fourth is Rentless Focus on the D&I agenda by ensuring fair representation, no dilution, and no regression of a balanced workforce.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
One of last year’s key initiatives was the implementation of the hybrid working model, something new for all of us, a cultural shift that still requires us to think and act differently, as well as commit to new behaviours. Our hybrid working model is not merely a new work schedule or employee perk; it is an entirely new way of working together, whereby we all benefit from flexibility in terms of work location (client site, office or home), but also have predictability
in what we do and when we do it. It was defined by listening to and factoring in the needs and preferences of all our employees. Most EY employees spend between 40-60 percent of their time working remotely and the rest of their time working together in person on client sites or in our offices. We do in-person work, either at our clients’ offices or the EY office, for projects or activities that require connection, collaboration, and creativity. Deep or shallow individual work, be it admin, e-mails, reports, team updates or formal learning and development are best performed from home, so we continue to do that. Through an employee survey and several focus groups, we have learned that some activities are location-agnostic, meaning they can be done well either from home or from the office.
From an employer branding perspective, we focus on the right mix of strength, stretch, localisation, and differentiation of our employee value proposition across all talent profiles and engaging with talent through all the right channels. From a sourcing perspective, our emphasis is on maximising the impact of employee referrals and alumni channels and diversifying our sourcing channels, including tapping into talent markets outside Romania or outside Europe. We are focused on providing an exceptional candidate experience across the complete cycle of selection and adjusting our tactics to talent market dynamics by consistently embedding market intelligence outputs into our talent attaction strategies.
Receiving the Top Employers Romania and Europe award certification proves that EY’s HR processes are up to par with international standards. Irina Mînzală, HR Director at EY Romania & Moldova, tells us how the company manages to keep its team highly motivated even in challenging times.
Cargus focuses its HR strategy on multidisciplinary knowledge, as this approach makes professionals better prepared for future challenges.
Zoe Dobre, Chief People
and Culture
Officerat Cargus, highlights the main HR initiatives that stood behind the company’s success last year.
By Anda Sebesi2023 is an important year for Cargus, a year of business consolidation with many bold steps ahead, but also a year when we’re starting to enhance our efforts regarding HR policies and projects. Our focus now and in the years to come will be on several important pillars: increasing employee engagement, consolidating performance and talent management actions, redefining our employee learning journey, and digitalization. Our main goal is to add an important layer to the Cargus company brand and transform it from a traditional courier firm into a learning experience player. From a more practical angle, our efforts this year will be directed towards things like implementing an employee engagement survey, developing training programmes to enhance customer experience and project management skills throughout all relevant departments, launching two programmes for functional growth and technical know-how—the Operations and Sales Academy—, and the digitalization and optimisation of HR processes.
The last three years were challenging for us and for the entire industry: we faced the pandemic which affected us not just business-wise but also on a personal level, the gas price increases, and inflation. On top of all that, we also faced challenges that were specific to our industry. As such, our efforts were directed towards increasing the number of couriers and consolidating our team with new talent that was suited for future developments: IT, operations and logistics, local and international sales. We will continue to
invest in new talent and skill development, not just because our growth depends on it, but also because we believe in continuous education and learning and we have a responsibility to invest in the overall development of the labour market.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
Cargus is more than a courier, and we’ve shown that over the past 3-5 years. We don’t just take a parcel from A to B; we create a complex operational and digital ecosystem that offers customers and consumers the best experience. First, we are a digital and technological innovator: we’ve invested in consumer apps and digital solutions (Cargus Mobile, Pay by Link, Pin on Glass), but also in technologies that can make the delivery process more efficient. Second, our delivery ecosystem is a modern one: we complete the door-to-door option with the out-of-home one—a strategic pillar in which we will continue to invest. Third, we’ve made significant progress in taking our business across Romanian borders and this will become an important revenue stream for us. In short, Cargus is an attractive employer with many career options for professionals. We often work in an integrated manner, so we provide plenty of learning opportunities for our colleagues. We are a stable company with a healthy growth mindset, and this is why we have many colleagues who have been working here for 25 years and we have couriers who have grown to be station managers and team leaders. My focus as a Chief People and Culture Officer has two dimensions: maintenance (all the actionables deriving from employee surveys) and long-term focus (building and transforming Cargus into a learning experience company).
“CARGUS IS MORE THAN A COURIER COMPANY. IT’S AN INNOVATOR, A DIGITAL DRIVER, AN IMPORTANT LOCAL PLAYER WITH A FOCUS ON DEVELOPING ITS BUSINESS INTERNATIONALLY—AND THIS TRANSLATES TO SO MANY CAREER AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROFESSIONALS.”
How would you describe your HR policy?
Our HR policy ensures that people are our enduring advantage and that they contribute as strategic partners to longterm business growth. Our goal is to become the Employer of Choice on the Romanian real estate market by focusing on three crucial elements: caring for people, developing resources, and increasing collective efficiency using technology. The Care for people pillar implies that we should create a simple and adaptable organisation with clear, transparent, and equitable policies and procedures. We also need to create a total rewards strategy and structure to reduce costs while increasing employee value and promote a culture of health and safety culture. For the second pillar, we aim to develop the capability to support business growth and performance within the company, design the induction programme so as to ensure a rapid understanding of our operations, compliance with performance standards, and a shorter time to competence, and finally, to launch a programme for Interns and Trainees. As for the third pillar, we aim to design new processes and flow charts, while reporting should be based on corporate efficiency; we also need to upgrade our current administration and payroll software and create a self-service platform—the HR dashboard—that can transparently interact with employees, as well as ensure overall performance accountability across the Globalworth business through a suitable set of KPIs.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
Caring for team members has always been a priority for Globalworth, which launched its first wellbeing initiatives after the pandemic began, providing psychological support and work-life balance sessions to assist employ-
ees in managing stress and time. We held monthly wellbeing workshops on various topics such as mental health, psychological safety, anxiety, stress management, burnout, nutrition, and so on. We also promote a healthy lifestyle by instituting a monthly sports allowance for employees who engage in physical activity. We’ve increased the extent to which we delegate authority and decision-making to employees, encouraging them to find solutions and take more responsibility.
We’ve designed and implemented a employee referral programme, which gets employees involved in the recruitment process and rewards them for their work, providing ways to maintain good working relationships. We have also introduced a variety of engagement activities around four key pillars: health, charity, a joyful workplace, and
parties. Last but not least, the central goal of the Learning & Development initiative is to ensure that we contribute to Globalworth's business goals through improved learning design, appropriate technology use, and good governance principles.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
We select, develop, engage, and retain high-calibre employees at all levels. We offer competitive salaries, premium flexible benefits, and development opportunities in the most prestigious office investor in CEE, the market leader in Poland and Romania. We are committed to developing and promoting our people internally, and we acknowledge the fact that talented people represent our long-term competitive advantage. We know that great people build great companies and attract the best talent, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. The proof is our extremely low attrition rate.
With the aim of making Globalworth the Employer of Choice in the Romanian real estate sector, Marian Popa, Managing Director at Globalworth Romania, leads a company that makes a priority out of its employees’ wellbeing.
By Anda Sebesi
“AT GLOBALWORTH, OUR COLLEAGUES HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE THEMSELVES, FEEL LIKE THEY BELONG, BE PARTNERS AND CONTRIBUTORS, ENJOY THE WORK, AND HAVE A LOT OF FUN.”
Catalina Magui, HR Director at SG GSC, talked to Business Review about the company’s retention strategy, which is centred on people’s needs and business expectations. Building a positive workplace culture that is focused on people, providing opportunities for learning and career development, and giving regular feedback and recognition are some of the core tenets of SG GSC’s HR strategy.
By Anda Sebesi
How would you describe your HR policy?
Our HR policy sustains a responsible people culture by prioritising employee experience and incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility principles. Over the past few years, we have maintained a focus on our people initiatives and on creating an employee-oriented organisational culture. As we adapted to the new normal post-covid and listened to the changing needs of our people, we redesigned our EVP around a best-in-class Employee Experience (EXP). This new EXP is centred around 4 pillars providing a holistic experience that fosters growth in people’s careers (pillar #1), shows care for their wellbeing (pillar #2), creates opportunities for meaningful connections with colleagues (pillar #3), and encourages active participation in communities both inside and outside of the workplace (pillar #4).
“WE HAVE A POSITIVE WORK CULTURE FOCUSED ON PEOPLE, A MULTINATIONAL ENVIRONMENT WHERE PEOPLE LEARN AND ACCESS CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN VARIOUS SECTORS AND PROJECTS, A SAFE AND HEALTHY WORKING SPACE, COMPETITIVE BENEFITS, REWARDS AND RECOGNITION FOR PERFORMANCE.”
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
“Career” focuses on attracting future talent and providing opportunities for learning and growth, through transparent career planning and internal mobility processes. The variety of activities in SG GSC creates a large number of job openings ranging from banking operations, compliance, finance or HR to IT, so there are a lot of opportunities for our employees to learn and evolve towards other jobs internally.
“Care” for our employees means creating a workplace culture that prioritises the wellbeing of our colleagues, providing a safe and healthy working environment, offering competitive benefits, recognising and rewarding performance.
“Connections” focuses on learning from each other inside a global organisation, as well as uniting different cultures and experiences from all over the word.
“Communities” are the centre of all our CSR and volunteering programmes, which we will continue to support.
We created a more transparent process through career paths, promoting employee development and career growth. In 2022, over 250 colleagues progressed through various opportunities for internal mobility, reskilling or promotion. Wellbeing at work is also a key element. We organise monthly wellbeing sessions on different topics. We also put an emphasis on rewards & recognition, with more than 450 people having been recognised though our R&R Programme. We also launched a new Parental Programme that benefits more than 150 people. Another people initiative was related to our ambition to attract more young talent and fresh graduates. Through our collaboration with young students, we’ve created a programme that’s designed to take into account not only the company’s perspective, but also the needs of the graduates. The programme is called YGAIN! and we are in the process of implementing it to attract students from several universities in Bucharest. Last but not least, in 2022, more than 1,100 people invested over 3,000 hours in citizenship activities alongside 15 NGOs, with actions ranging from supporting education or professional integration for disadvantaged individuals to protecting the environment.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
We focus on two main directions, which complement each other to meet our business needs.
The first is dedicated to young talents that can benefit from job opportunities in all areas of our business. They can learn on the job, develop, and grow. The second direction is for experienced professionals who can access job opportunities in banking, compliance, support roles or IT.
How would you describe your HR policy?
Auchan Romania is one of the largest employers in Romania, with about 8,000 employees nationwide. For us, people are the engine and the source of energy, creativity, and joy. Through their responsibility and engagement, they are the ones who ensure the success and development of the organisation. Under the umbrella of our employer brand "Enjoy life", you will find the pillar concepts of our human capital strategy: Auchan Human Project, Auchan StarTalents and Auchan Refresh. We’ve built an inclusive workplace over the past 16 years, where all our colleagues benefit from the same opportunities for promotion and professional development. We promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, as granted by both the Ethical Charta and the Ethics Committee, which supervise the implementation of these principles in our daily activities. Work represents more than a third of the life of each employee, and its impact on their wellbeing goes beyond the limits of working hours. To address this, under our employer brand "Enjoy life", we communicate what Auchan already does for its employees, promising a routine-free job that they can engage in joyfully and a work environment that makes them feel fulfilled, relevant, and capable.
In 2022 we analysed about 400 roles in our company and completely revised our approach to job grading. This way, we make sure that both payroll and the benefits we offer are not only equitable but also competitive. Additionally, the wellbeing and mental health of our employees is a top priority for us, so the medical insurance we provide also includes individual psychological counseling. Last year we also launched our Human Project "Enjoy Life", which expresses the expectations and
aspirations of more than 50 jobs and 250 functions. Emotion is at the core of Auchan Romania’s HR strategy, so we encourage employees to share positive feelings about their daily activities, challenges, accomplishments, and success stories. In 2022, our colleagues were rewarded for their loyalty and active contribution to the company’s endeavours in various fields. For example, through the “My Job” project, a series of video episodes available on our LinkedIn and YouTube corporate channels, our employees gave voice to the principles of diversity that Auchan embeds in its HR strategy. Last but not least, “Compliance Week” is another significant annual project that helps our employees get accustomed to concepts like ethics and compliance and actively contribute to maintaining the highest ethical standards in our company.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
Our main tool for attracting new talents is Auchan StarTalents, a programme that supports the accelerated development of talented people in different areas. Through this tool, for example, we support the integration of young people on the labour market and we fight against the NEET phenomenon (not in education, employment or training) through internships and trainings. We contribute to the rapid development of young managers and also offer proffesional reconversion opportunities. As for retention, we have developed Auchan Refresh, through which we develop customised training plans for our employees. Under the slogan “YOU, to the next level,” we’ve created a centre for professional excellence in which different jobs or roles go through a series of premium evaluation, training, and development programmes. We aim to accelerate the development of professional capabilities.
Adina Nanu, HR and Transformation Director at Auchan Retail Romania, talked to Business Review about the key HR principles the company applies in order to keep its employees highly engaged as well as attract and retain talent.
By Anda Sebesi
“WE ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE OPINIONS OF OUR EMPLOYEES AND WE APPRECIATE AND STRIVE TO IMPLEMENT THEIR FEEDBACK. WE FUEL POSITIVE EMOTIONS AND AIM TO BUILD A COMPANY THAT IS BASED ON OUR COMMON VISION AND VALUES.”
Studies show that people tend to stay at an organisation for their line managers, for the fruitful, energising, and inspiring relationships they develop with their colleagues, and for an enjoyable and inclusive work environment. Irina Firstova, People and Culture Director at Coca-Cola HBC Romania, sat down with Business Review to discuss the company’s HR strategy.
By Anda SebesiHow would you describe your HR policy?
We are a growth-focused consumer packaged goods business and a strategic bottling partner of the Coca-Cola Company. Across our organisation, colleagues either sell or help to sell, and they represent our key asset. In the current environment of ambiguity, crisis, and turbulent market conditions, it is more important than ever that we stay resilient and closely connected to our teams. Our HR policy is built on three key pillars: retaining our people, driving a culture of simplicity and collaboration, and building diverse teams, aiming for gender balance across the organisation. In light of the 2025 sustainability targets, we are happy to have already reached the goal of 50 percent of management positions being held by women in Romania, last year. We’ve also launched a global “Women In Leadership” programme; 80 women in our workforce have taken part in it, of which 10 were from Romania.
“WE ARE THE BEVERAGE LEADER IN ROMANIA, WITH A STRONG SUSTAINABILITY RECORD THAT PLACES US AMONG THE MOST SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES ON THE LOCAL MARKET, AND WE ARE MOST OFTEN THOUGHT OF AS A VERY GOOD BUSINESS SCHOOL.”
ensure that management teams really understand what our people need to succeed. We conducted two all-employee surveys in 2022. Our Employee Engagement Index score, the outcome of our annual engagement survey, remained steady at 90 percent, and we continued to benchmark our employee engagement against other highperforming companies, partnering with Qualtrics. We also initiated the “Impactful Leader” programme, where inclusive culture is the key topic, and introduced the “People come first” concept, starting with basic people skills. We view mental health as an important part of employee wellness and we are equipping our people with tools to recognise and address mental health issues and early signs of burnout. In this respect, we facilitate access to our Employee Assistance Programme, which provides 24/7 confidential support for our people and their families. We have also rolled out a series of webinars and informal talks within ParenTEAM, our community dedicated to all parents at Coca-Cola HBC Romania.
A Group-wide initiative launched in 2022, Project Oxygen, aims to reduce bureaucracy, simplify processes, and allow more time for valueadding tasks. We also implemented a Group-wide organisational structure redesign, Project Dolphin, with consistent but modular functional frameworks. This ensures we have a consistent structure— with some local modification when needed to best serve customers locally—while prioritising capabilities that are critical for future growth. To fuel agility and ensure success in critical areas, we introduced a new, dynamic structure called Dynamic Pods.
Amid the rapid pace of change, in 2022 we introduced pulse surveys as a permanent part of our internal communications. This helps
We are proud to be the most attractive FMCG employer in Romania, according to a bespoke talent market survey conducted by Universum in Europe. Our reward strategy seeks to promote a growth mindset and reinforce desirable behaviours, ensuring that employees are fairly rewarded and that their individual contributions are linked to the success of the company. We aim to promote people from within the organisation. We also provide unique opportunities for cross-functional moves, mentorship, worldclass leadership programmes, and multi-channel experiences, which complement our people’s career journeys.
Our HR policy has 6 pillars that help us retain our people and attract new talent, and they are all equally important: focus on employee wellbeing; remote & hybrid work; performance management; recruitment & onboarding; compensation and benefits; and employee development and training. Our industry is known for its lack of balance between the personal and professional life, and it is our top priority to have the right working model for our people to feel cared for and understood, by investing in mental health programmes, flexible work arrangements, and employee support systems which are designed together with a dedicated internal working group. Remote & hybrid work have become the norm for KPMG and we have built the right technology and infrastructure to support this way of working. In addition, we’ve had to move away from traditional performance management systems and towards agile performance management. The system is based on goal-setting, continuous performance monitoring, establishing and monitoring objectives & key results, and the suppression of biases (such as addressing the perception that remote employees are less involved than those in the office). We have updated guidelines for recruiting and hiring, including revised job descriptions, recruitment channels, interview processes, and background checks. Additionally, a comprehensive onboarding process has been designed to speed up integration. Furthermore, we have revised our compensation and benefits structure in order to attract and retain top talent. Last but not least, rapid advancements in technology and automation are starting to create a skill gap in the workforce, so we are prioritising upskilling and reskilling programmes.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
In 2022 we refined existing initiatives and started new ones aimed at increasing employee retention by boosting the level of engagement, confidence, personal and profesional development, mental health, and wellbeing. We had great results (above 80 percent for Trust, Engagement, and Growth—the 3 annually monitored indicators in our Global People Survey). Redefining the Millennial Board structure as a NextGen Board, conducting the Stress Index Survey to measure and monitor our people’s stress levels, new management programmes, and learning accelerators for newcomers are just a few of our key initiatives.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
First, we want to better communicate our strong employer brand. We have highlighted our unique differentiators, such as solid career development, training opportunities, innovative, complex, and impactful projects, a friendly and collaborative environment, and an intrapreneurial spirit. We make a priority of empowering people to make their mark and engage in doing work that matters, so the sense of purposeful work runs across all our programmes and our internal and external communication. We’ve also developed a competitive compensation and benefits package and provide opportunities for growth and development. As the professional services industry is constantly evolving, KPMG constantly invests in the latest technology and innovation. And finally, we emphasise work-life balance by offering flexible work arrangements, including remote work or flexible schedules, and we encourage managers and teams to take time off to recharge.
Simona Podgoreanu, HR Director at KPMG Romania and Moldova, highlighed the core tenets of the company’s HR strategy and told us how the company manages to attract and retain talent on this highly competitive market.
How would you describe your HR policy?
Respect, honesty, passion, and hard work are at the foundation of our human resources policy. Of course, this is in line with our general objective of becoming one of the top players in the food industry, and it is built on 9 pillars, which we associate with each letter of the word CARMISTIN. I will go through the most important ones.
Recruitment at Carmistin: We are creative in our strategies to attract talented candidates and we use modern technologies and assessment tools to select the best qualified partners, because that's how we like to think of our future colleagues.
Career at Carmistin: Growth opportunities are real and open to all employees, regardless of their position or level in the organisation. There is also an emphasis on skills development, continuous learning, and giving colleagues the opportunity to attend external courses and training progammes.
Change Management at Carmistin: The strategies we have put in place to manage change inside the organisation and keep employees motivated and engaged, thus ensuring a smooth transition and avoiding any negative impact on productivity, are well established with long-term results.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
Many of my colleagues who unfortunately found themselves in difficult situations have received help through the foundation, whose aim is to make people smile again. In addition to financial support, we have a prevention and health education programme which is run by members of our permanent medical team, who
also provide support in emergency situations. We are also proud to be perhaps the first Romanian company to employ a psychologist, whose role is to be there for our colleagues by providing counselling and group activities that result in enhanced team unity. Furthermore, employees' children were able to benefit from the free afterschool programme, during which they took part in educational activities led by qualified staff and received hot meals.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
Implementing our development plans over the next 5 years will secure our position among the leading players in the Romanian agri-food industry. Our strategy includes—but is not limited to—several key steps. One such step has to do with our desire to inspire through success stories. As we share them on social media, people who see them could become candidates themselves; and future colleagues can make their own great stories to share. We’ve built a large community through which we reach out to people with similar achievements and passions. We will focus more specifically on our community, in order to capture the interest of potential candidates and familiarise them with our organisational culture. We will certainly launch tailor-made challenges here, being aware that once interest is aroused, we have a good chance to find the right people for available positions within the company.
We will continue to collaborate with top universities in the country as well as with professional schools, depending on our recruitment needs, allowing students to do internships in our company. But the main focus will certainly be on retaining talent.
Daniela Stanciu, Recruitment Manager at Carmistin, talked to Business Review to share the key principles of the company’s HR strategy and tell us what the organisation did last year to retain and motivate talent.
By Anda Sebesi
"A FLEXIBLE COMPANY THAT CONSIDERABLY INVESTS IN PEOPLE AND THEIR FUTURE AND A YOUNG MANAGEMENT TEAM WITH A DYNAMIC VISION THAT ALWAYS AIMS HIGHER AND HIGHER—BOTH ARE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE CARMISTIN A HIGHLY DESIRABLE EMPLOYER.”
By
How would you describe your HR policy?
Enhancing employee experience is at the heart of our HR strategy, which is built on two main pillars: Grow and Care. Designing an Employee Value Proposition that helps attract, engage, and retain new and diverse talent is key to our HR strategy. Our EVP takes into account the set of aspirations and expectations of both our constantly evolving workforce and our prospective employees. The focus areas we have mapped out for this year’s strategy include employee engagement, wellbeing, employer branding, hiring for job fit, upskilling and career growth, talent management, innovation culture, and elevating the role of the HR function. Our employee value proposition combines several elements that make us a desirable employer, including: a rewards system featuring extensive flexible benefits that are accessible via the largest platform in Romania, an inclusive culture where everyone is treated fairly and valued for their unique contribution, a friendly working atmosphere, a caring employer approach, and a digital workplace allowing for hybrid work.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
Last year we focused on providing our employees with an extended benefits package, enhanced local/cross-border opportunities for learning and development, as well as incentive and loyalty programmes that not only reward value-added contributions but also create a supportive, inclusive work environment for all. Our company promotes a culture of inclusion, non-discrimination, and equal opportunity in the workplace.
The month of May was therefore dedicated to Diversity and Inclusion, which we celebrated not only from the perspective of age or gender, but especially through our different skills, diverse level of experience or diverse approaches to our organisational values. And since the entire ecosystem of benefits at Edenred Romania reflects what it means to live a healthy, harmonious life, we turned October into EdenHealth Month for Edenred Employees, a period dedicated to health and prevention. Several workshops were organised to allow our people to widen their perspectives, to learn new things from experts in various fields, and to improve their lifestyles. As for ESG principles, we were happy to have many of our employees getting involved in volunteering activities such as blood donation, food collection, and tree planting, which translated into the equivalent of over 100 days.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
Our employer branding strategy is one of the key drivers of increasing our company’s presence and attractiveness in those places where our candidates are, so there is now more focus on social media, for instance. We bring candidate experience into the spotlight of our efforts to attract high-quality talent and skilled professionals. Hiring for job fit is embedded into our talent acquisition strategy to ensure a good fit with our culture and organisation over the longer term. All across the employee lifecycle, from onboarding to development and retention, our talent management strategy caters to our people’s needs and prioritises transparent communication, ongoing performance feedback, wellbeing, professional development, and career growth opportunities.
Diana Ghita, HR Director at Edenred Romania, talked to Business Review about the company’s approach to attracting and retaining talent, highlighting the main pillars of its HR strategy, one that has played a major role in Edenred’s success on the local market.
Anda Sebesi
“WE’VE BUILT A STRONG COMPANY CULTURE AROUND THE FIVE CORE VALUES OF EDENRED, WHICH ARE PASSION FOR CUSTOMERS, RESPECT, IMAGINATION, SIMPLICITY, AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT.”
Alfa Software’s HR strategy is to recruit people that care about the company, product, customers, and other team members. Cristian Gabriel Pavel, the CEO of Alfa Software, highlights the core principles of the company’s HR policy and how they have contributed to its performance over time.
By Anda SebesiAs the pandemic has affected the way companies work, we have also had to adapt to new conditions. Because of the nature of what we do, we can work from home and our working hours are flexible. We don't count hours, we measure performance, and what’s most important for us is that employees complete their projects on time. But we do meet in our offices in Cluj-Napoca and Zalau once a week, and we have meetings with the whole team in different locations every three months. There are also on-site client meetings, whenever necessary.
We have a very clearly defined bonus plan, which is based on certain individual and team goals and performance thresholds, but incentives and rewards are also personalised to the needs of each employee. In terms of holiday benefits, we take into account seniority, not performance.
We offer our employees private health insurance and gym memberships, and we only use payroll cards. Because we're a software company that understands how our products can streamline everyday work, we've also implemented our ERP solutions internally, so that all workflows are digitalized and our employees are more relaxed knowing that everything can be solved with just a few clicks.
Last year we started preparing the first draft of an ESOP (Employees Stock Option Plan), which means giving certain employees shares in the company based on their outstanding performance. We received professional advice and
analysis from a specialised company, and we are currently still discussing the implementation of this system internally. The whole process takes time, but we are confident that we will complete it this year so that exceptional employees can be rewarded with the option to own a part of the company. Furthermore, last year, as Alfa Software celebrated its 25th anniversary, the most committed employees received recognition in front of all our colleagues, partners, and customers.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent in your company?
One of the values of Alfa Software is that there has to be a “two way matching HR process,” meaning that the employees should “fit” the company just as much as the company “fits” them. So, while technical skills are important, we actually aim for a combination of skills. We want the people we work with to also have business and soft skills: they should know how to communicate and practice empathy. And we think these aspects are relevant because, as Alfa Software has been on the software market for over 25 years, we have employees with more than 15 years of experience in developing our ERP system.
I too started out at Alfa Soft, the company from which Alfa Software was spun off, as an intern. I stayed, worked hard, took on several different jobs, growing in each of them. The decisionmaking process at Alfa Software is usually a debate based on available information and alternative resolutions. Each of our colleagues can express any idea if they think it can positively influence the company or product.
With an entrepreneurial approach that provides opportunities to find and test new initiatives and constantly improve them, Hervis Sports and Fashion Romania successfully tackles challenges on the labour market. Iulia Lazea, HR Manager at Hervis Sports and Fashion Romania, talked to BR about the company’s approach to being a top employer in Romania.
By Anda Sebesi
How would you define your HR policy?
Our HR policy is built on several core pillars. First, it is about hiring the right people for the right roles by setting specific selection criteria for each role and using selection tools to ensure a high degree of objectivity during the selection process. Second, developing our employees is a priority for us, and therefore we constantly evaluate their skills and knowledge and organise training and specialised courses supported by the internal learning and development department. Our trainers use both classic methods and innovative ones such as Virtual Reality, as well as the internal e-learning platform. Colleagues thus have access to essential information that gets constantly updated, from product courses or sales techniques to management skills. Third, we can talk about advancement within the company, following the development of the necessary skills and knowledge. As a result, most management positions are occupied by employees who have proven themselves suitable for taking on higher level roles. Last but not least, supporting the inclusion of people with disabilities is a top priority for us. Hervis locations across the country continuously integrate people with Down syndrome or other disabilities who want to learn and become independent. We ensure their cohesion within the teams they are part of and we adapt our roles to their capacity of carrying out tasks.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
One of our HR initiatives in 2022 was to carry out an in-depth assessment of middle management staff in order to identify specific needs for development. As a next step, we built and started implementing customised programmes that would help them increase their level of knowledge and skills. These programmes are still ongoing in 2023. As for the learning process, we were among the first retailers in Romania to introduce an innovative professional training technology based on Virtual Reality. This way, our colleagues can experience different scenarios related to the organisational environment, can react to concrete situations, and can put all the knowledge they’ve accumulated into practice.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
To attract new candidates who are passionate about sports and a balanced and healthy lifestyle, we continue to expand and mix up our recruitment channels, upgrade our career page, and constantly promote employer branding campaigns on social media. We pay attention to the onboarding process and provide constant feedback, we monitor our colleagues' degree of involvement through one-on-one discussions with their direct superiors, we recognise their performance, and offer them opportunities for development within the company.
"THE MAIN POINT OF ATTRACTION IS THE FACT THAT HERVIS IS A LEADING SPORTS RETAILER IN ROMANIA, OFFERING A WIDE RANGE OF PRODUCTS FOR SPORTS ENTHUSIASTS AND ACTIVE PEOPLE. SECONDLY, THE FIELD IN WHICH WE OPERATE IS EXTREMELY DYNAMIC AND OFFERS A VARIETY OF CHALLENGES FROM WHICH ONE CAN CONTINUOUSLY LEARN."
By Anda Sebesi
How would you describe your HR policy?
“Human-centric” is the term that best describes our HR policy. First, we seek the right person for the right job both for our HQ and our stores, where 90 percent of our colleagues operate. My deep belief is that we are all different, and while standardisation is an undeniable part of corporate life, together with my team, I seek to personalise our HR processes—starting with our customised onboarding process. This approach continues throughout the entire employee journey. We have a clear focus on continuous development: just last year, we offered more than 35,000 hours of training to our colleagues, diving into both hard and soft skills—or as we like to call them, skills for life that equip our team members with a better understanding of both our business and themselves. A self-development journey naturally includes wellbeing. Our colleagues can access programmes such as Brico SOS, which offers financial, legal, and psychological counselling for them and their families or resources from our fictional character, Briana, who delivers weekly recommendations and engages our colleagues in wellbeing workshops. After recruitment and development, retention is another pillar, relying on our organisational culture and our ecosystem of benefits, including our performance-based rewards.
pact on our business. We implemented new development programmes such as the EU co-funded Digital Evolution, seeking to develop in-store colleagues’ digital skills, or the Kitchen Academy, addressed to our in-store kitchen range experts, powering technical and customer experience skills. We also designed programmes for HQ colleagues, such as Power2Manage, which aims to strengthen managerial skills innovatively—for example, adding a theatre play into the discovery and learning process.
What is your strategy in terms of attracting and retaining talent?
What
One of our favourite novelties last year was the Recognition and Appreciation programme, which rewards colleagues who (1) consistently prove our company values, (2) go the extra mile to improve customer experience, and (3) are involved in cross-functional projects that have a positive im-
First, it’s important to offer candidates a realistic view of their role to set the basis for a long-term mutually beneficial partnership. Then, I believe it comes down to fostering a healthy organisational culture that’s oriented towards the company’s mission, diversity, doing good inside and out, and continuous development. We’re all moving towards the same goal, supporting the business strategy. We have a strong commitment to diversity and take pride in the fact that 44 percent of our colleagues are women. Psychological safety and wellbeing tools such as Brico SOS and Briana ensure we can perform while taking care of ourselves. Our employer branding strategy is also internally focused. One example is our referral programme. Last year, we recorded hundreds of internal referrals, with over 90 percent being for store colleagues who were successfully onboarded and integrated. Of course, internal communication has a strategic role in our internal employer branding strategy. And for our commitment to transparency to have results, communication is never one-sided. We listen to our colleagues through our internal comms channels, as well as through our bi-annual engagement survey, “Vocea Ta.”
Cristina Ulesan, HR director at Brico Depot Romania, sat down with Business Review to provide insight into the company’s HR policy, which is strongly connected to its business strategy and has contributed to Brico Depot being the only DIY retailer on the Romanian market to be recognised as a Top Employer in 2023.
The involvement of every member of the AROBS team in the company's performance is an element that differentiates it on the market. Voicu Oprean, the CEO and founder of AROBS Transilvania Software, says that this approach enables the company to attract talents with deep expertise in the IT field.
By Anda Sebesi
At AROBS, we’ve created a culture that emphasises employee and customer success, innovation, and responsibility. Our people are of the utmost importance, so we want to ensure that employees and collaborators feel valued and connected to our culture. In fact, since our listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, AROBS has publicly stated that one of its main strategic objectives is to implement an employee motivation plan. We aim to increase opportunities for professional development, increase integration and communication between colleagues, and motivate them to contribute to the company's growth. To do that, we focus on creating an environment of trust and stability, caring for our colleagues, creating work autonomy, and stimulating learning and innovation. We want to preserve our position as an employer of choice on the Romanian IT market.
What were the main initiatives the company dedicated to its employees last year?
We continuously invest in recognising our colleagues' contributions to the company's success and aim to remain very active on this front. We are one of the few companies publicly listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange with an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP).
The first stage of the ESOP programme was implemented in November 2021, when we allocated free option rights to approximately 300 employees within the AROBS group. These option rights were converted into shares in November 2022. Also, in 2022, we launched the SOP 2 programme, which included colleagues from several companies within the group. We’re now preparing for the third phase
of the programme. Other significant initiatives from 2022 were related to supporting environmental causes with the involvement of our team. For example, we participated in two forestation campaigns along with our friends from CERT Transilvania. We also held an internal competition called "Fight for Your Green Cause," in which employees could win sponsorship for a green NGO of their choice. In 2022, we also wanted to have more initiatives that supported the wellbeing of our employees. One of my favorite projects in this area is called "Talks about life," a series of internal events in which we discuss mental health, work-life balance, and life outside of work.
Our strategy consists of a mix of internal and external initiatives that aim to position AROBS as a desirable employer for potential candidates. Additionally, the process of turning our employees into partners increases both retention rate and motivation. We have carried out several acquisitions in the past few years, and the number of employees, collaborators and, of course, projects have grown exponentially. However, what makes us stand out is the fact that we acquired several international companies, which is quite atypical for a Romanian company. Our growth and the fact that we’ve remained a company with 100 percent Romanian capital are some of our most significant value markers on the recruitment market. We also constantly look for ways to help our colleagues grow professionally. We provide them with access to learning programmes and resources and facilitate transitions between different roles and departments, and offer mentorship and leadership programmes for top-performing employees.
“WE WALK OUR TALK. WE REVEAL OUR VALUES TRANSPARENTLY AND WISH FOR FUTURE COLLEAGUES WHO CHOOSE US ACCORDINGLY. WE'RE STRONG AS A BUSINESS BUT HAVE THE INCREDIBLE CULTURE AND SPIRIT OF A STARTUP.”
For BAT, last year was about learning to always be prepared to manage uncertainty by encouraging innovative thinking and creative solutions. Ileana Dumitru, legal and external affairs director for the South Eastern Europe Area in BAT, talked to Business Review about the company’s achievements and its efforts to support tobacco harm reduction strategies around the world.
By Anda Sebesi
2022 was an important year for BAT Romania, when the company celebrated 25 years of presence on the local market. “As part of this anniversary in Romania, we reflected on how the role of corporations keeps evolving along with the social and economic context, with global companies contributing not only to the local economic growth, but also generating stability, attracting further investments, and driving structural evolution, societal development, and wider opportunities,” Dumitru says. The company currently has 3,000 direct employees across its three legal entities and it has so far created 30,000 jobs in the distribution chain. “In our 25 years of operating on the local market, BAT has had a total contribution of EUR 125 billion to the economy, of which EUR 24 billion were paid directly to the state budget, in excise and taxes*,” Dumitru points out.
The company’s transformation is a huge process and it focuses on innovation, new
technologies, and science, which are the key elements driving change. “Our scientists have conducted over 300 studies on glo, our flagship tobacco heating product, in different areas of research, and in 2022 we published our first real life clinical study spanning one year**. The results showed significant reduction in indicators of potential harm over 12 months for smokers switching to the exclusive use of glo compared to continuing to smoke.” Dumitru adds that this is a major step forward in supporting tobacco harm reduction strategies, a transition towards reduced risk*** alternatives for millions of people around the world.
Beyond the company’s achievements, 2022 was another year that taught the organisation to always be prepared to manage uncertainty by encouraging innovative thinking and creative solutions. “We pride ourselves with our company’s ethos of having bold, fast, and responsible people who are not
afraid to take calculated risks and embrace the transformation process, something that is quite visible in the local business model, which is highly reliant on digital platforms and interactions,” Dumitru explains.
Talking about her leadership style, Dumitru says that it has been focused on growth, both personal and professional, as well as at the individual and team level. She focuses on recognising and nurturing the strengths of each team member and working with them to improve the entire team’s performance. “I also believe in doing things with passion, dedication, and the excitement of finding new approaches and better alternatives, therefore I’m looking for different backgrounds, skills, and capabilities in my team, which can position me as a transformational leader who is focused on creative thinking and innovation.” She has also been increasingly aware, especially in recent times, of the importance of a balanced life, people’s wellbeing, and a safe work environment, so she strives to be adaptive and flexible to appropriately address changes in the socio-economic environment and her colleagues’ need for stability and growth.
*According to BAT’s economic impact in Romania analysis, conducted by independent consultancy and market research group CIVITTA
** Evaluation of behavioural, chemical, toxicological, and clinical studies of tobacco heated product glo and the potential for bridging from a foundational dataset to new product iterations –ScienceDirect
*** Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk-free and are addictive.
Cristian Munteanu, founder & managing partner of Early Game Ventures, talked to Business Review about ongoing actions to raise a new fund, the investment strategy for the EUR 26 million EGV Fund I, and the potential impact of the Silicon Valley Bank failure on Romania’s startup ecosystem. Munteanu is optimistic about the growth potential of startups in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and sees it as the most promising region for early-stage firms that want to scale up in the coming years.
By Ovidiu PosircaIs SVB's collapse posing any kind of risk to the European startup sector?
SVB played a leading role in the American startup ecosystem and, by extension, internationally. It was the go-to bank for tech companies, the main financial institution in the startup industry, and a substantial investor in venture capital funds as well. The collapse of SVB sent shockwaves worldwide, including in the European startup sector. European startups that were also active on the US market were severely affected, but
state interventions were fortunately prompt, so the situation did not escalate.
What are the core differences between US-based and Romanian-based lenders in terms of business relationships with startups?
The difference is quite simple, unfortunately. It is simple in the sense that there are no startup lenders in Romania. Startups are young, largely still unproven companies, with almost no assets that can act as col-
lateral. Such companies are considered too risky by traditional lenders such as banks. Additionally, most banks in Romania are retail-focused, specialising in granting consumption loans and real estate mortgages.
Historically, innovation financing has moved from banks to VC investors; this is why Romania needs more capital to be made available via VC funds.
Which industries are dominating your startup investment portfolio? Are there any emerging niches in which you aim to increase your presence?
At Early Game, we have a well-diversified portfolio of tech companies. We’ve invested in enterprise software, cybersecurity, education, consumer apps, AI, mobility, and travel, to list several of the industries in which we are active. We are still looking to deploy capital, and if I had to single out a few verticals of interest, I would mention agritech, AI, and deep tech.
How much has Early Game Ventures invested in startups to date? Do you have any plans to attract new funding?
EGV Fund I is EUR 26 million in size. We have been deploying capital from Fund I since January 2019 and will keep investing until the end of this year. In parallel, we are rais-
ing EGV Fund II, which will be significantly larger and have a more generous geographic scope. But the investment strategy will be maintained; why change something that works well?
Will the layoffs in large US tech companies have an impact on the startup ecosystem? Will it have an impact on the overall investment sentiment when it comes to tech startups?
The tech industry, mainly the second-tier companies, will immediately absorb the employees that are laid off by big tech—although this will not be the case for remote engineers from CEE. These remote workers will return to their domestic markets to look for jobs. Some will be able to find a new job; others will start new companies or join startups. Overall, I am optimistic regarding the effects of this labour market restructuring.
In which segments does Romania's startup industry have ample room for growth?
The tech industry has a bright future in Romania. It’s already a significant contributor to the state budget, so it has plenty of room to grow in all verticals and industries, be it software engineering, tech support, outsourcing or personnel leasing.
What is the average investment ticket at Early Game Ventures?
Almost a year and a half ago, I carried out an
analysis of our activity, and the result was that the average ticket we had invested was around EUR 550,000. Since then, our investment rounds have increased in size, and our most recent three or four investments were
with macroeconomic cycles. Good startups don’t only show up when the weather is good; on the contrary, many unicorns have been born in the most troubled of times, during deep crises and economic downturns.
all above EUR 1 million. I expect this trend to continue.
Is Romania's economy healthy enough to stimulate the creation of new startups this year?
New startup creation is inversely correlated
But is the market itself deep enough, in good times and bad? That is a good question. Once again, I am optimistic about the tech industry's future in Romania and, largely, in CEE. In my opinion, this is the most promising region in Europe in terms of prospects for economic growth in the coming years.
Brands are extending their sustainability practices into the digital realm to maintain eco-friendly platforms and meet sustainable goals. According to Wunderman Thompson Intelligence’s “New Realities: Into the Metaverse and Beyond” report, 71 percent of people who know what the metaverse is believe that brands should be thinking about its environmental impact.
By Romanita OpreaToday, a single Ethereum transaction consumes an average of 60 percent more energy than 100,000 credit card transactions, while an average Bitcoin transaction consumes 14 times more energy. The average NFT transaction produces 48 kilograms of CO2, which is equivalent to burning 18 litres of diesel. Despite this, the answers to the climate crisis in the real world might be found in the virtual one. NFTs are a powerful tool for building a more sustainable Metaverse. NFTs can be used to create new and exciting experiences and they can also help create new and sustainable business models. They can increase transparency and accountability, reducing waste and increasing efficiency in supply chains. NFT transactions could reduce carbon emissions by up to 90 percent compared to traditional art sales.
“Moreover, NFTs are a more sustainable alternative to physical wearables, providing a way for brands to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Compared to traditional
physical clothing, producing digital wearables results in 97 percent less greenhouse gas emissions and significantly less waste, saving 3,300 litres of water and reducing pollution. By transitioning to digital clothing, brands have the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint by as much as 30 percent. This not only benefits the environment but also demonstrates a commitment to sustainability and can help to attract environmentally conscious consumers,” according to metav.rs.
If consumers opted to buy virtual denim for their avatars instead of real denim for their physical bodies, the carbon and water savings could be substantial. Already, 21 percent of consumers intend to buy fewer physical items in the future because they expect to do more things digitally, according to the EY Future Consumer Index. At the same time, if this kind of substitution reduced the physical denim trade by 10 percent, it would reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of the annual emissions of nearly 350,000 American
internal combustion automobiles, and water consumption by the equivalent of the annual average per capita footprint of over 400,000 Chinese consumers. Taken across the various categories of consumer spending, substitution effects could result in substantial carbon and resource efficiencies.
“Although the Metaverse will never replace our physical reality completely, it can and already does offer some tools that make our lives easier and reduce our carbon footprint. We see this in many industries, including the educational areas. The RWTH Aachen University in Germany uses a VR tool that offers students and researchers around the world resources and efficient access to information on study programmes and research opportunities while reducing the need for travel and decreasing their CO2 footprint,” said Anca Muraru, founder of Sustenabilitate.biz.
As KPMG reports, the metaverse is a central technology trend in the 2020s, having skyrocketed in societal awareness. Similarly, sustainability has become an increasing market and consumer trend, with the market value for sustainability and green tech expected to top USD 51 billion by 2029. It is therefore relevant to consider the overlap between these trends and see which possibilities and challenges the markets present for each other. “Conversations about sustainability and the metaverse are essential, because the concerns about energy consumption and conservation as well as about the environmental impact may prove to be both a big driver and blocker of the metaverse,” said Daria Krivonos, the CEO of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. “But while the metaverse will create emissions, it may also create reductions in
the form of waste, materials, and emissions. It can reduce the need for global movement. People will no longer need to fly to international meetings, travel to go on vacation or move physical products across the globe. Through this thought leadership we aim to provide a nuanced perspective on how the metaverse might impact the world’s ability to become sustainable. Combining our own knowledge with insights from a series of industry leaders and experts, this thought leadership provides an initial insight into ESG considerations when starting the metaverse journey, and outlines the steps recommended by our experts,” KPMG representatives say.
According to Anca Muraru, even though we can reduce our carbon footprint by immersing ourselves in the metaverse, we need to take into account the amount of energy that requires. The more data we create, the more energy we need to store it, which generates a carbon footprint. “Global emissions from data centres range from 2.5 to 3.7 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, which means they actually exceed emissions from commercial flights (approx. 2.4 percent). Therefore, if the adoption of the metaverse becomes the norm, the energy crisis could increase exponentially. However, as we are getting closer to 2030, reducing the carbon footprint will soon be on everybody’s agenda. And the sustainability of the metaverse should be included in the conversation in order to build a more sustainable future of our physical world,” added the Sustenabilitate.Biz founder.
Digital twins have been demonstrated to have significant effects on ecosystems in research. Ernst & Young found that by using digital twins, buildings might cut their carbon footprints by up to 50 percent via more efficient use of resources and less waste. Cities are responsible for about 70 percent of global car-
bon emissions, and buildings are a significant part of that urban footprint; therefore, scaling this kind of digital twin initiative across major cities and urban corridors would have a profound effect on the global environment. This would enable progress toward a net-carbonzero world.
Using digital twin technology, it’s possible to integrate a large set of data sources to make predictions on factors such as air pollution and carbon emissions and then identify ac-
changes to make commerce in the metaverse sustainable. Whether this requires intervention by regulators, investors, consumers, stakeholders or other business leaders, time is of the essence before exponential growth makes it much more difficult,” venturebeat. com wrote.
It is clear that customers could shift their budgets for certain products to sustainable virtual options which require fewer resources to create and generate less waste. This could be a remarkable development for waste-heavy industries, such as fast fashion, that contribute to overproduction and overconsumption.
tions to address these challenges.
In an interview, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed the company was creating digital twins of real-world structures in a virtual environment called Omniverse. They can model how to improve the efficiency of air conditioning distribution, where to position solar panels for maximum light exposure, and how to alter the building’s architecture to reduce demand for air conditioning during warmer months.
The “2°C increase in temperature” scenario may be taken from paper to simulation, allowing scientists to analyse climatic impacts better. This might be a boon to scientific research and innovation.
“As business leaders invest, develop new customer strategies, and transform to pursue the potential of the metaverse, better climate and social outcomes must be front and centre during planning efforts. We must take a wider view to ensure that we bridge the gap between the costs and benefits of utilising the metaverse. As adoption increases, it will become increasingly difficult to implement
One of the most promising benefits of the metaverse could be found in business travel. Prior to the pandemic, air travel accounted for 2.5 percent of global emissions. But people soon learned that they could conduct meetings virtually. In the future, business meetings could be conducted in the metaverse, recreating some of the same benefits of inperson meetings while reducing the emissions of air travel for discretionary trips.
Furthermore, perhaps the metaverse’s greatest benefit for sustainability will be the ability to leverage the technology to better identify and implement carbon reduction plans. Virtual reality and augmented reality can increase access to educational resources, reducing the need for physical resources and increasing efficiency in areas such as agriculture, energy production, and waste management.
According to specialists, the metaverse has the potential to create a more equitable and sustainable world, but only if sustainability is integrated into its design and development. This means that the virtual world must be designed in a way that it uses resources efficiently, minimises waste, and reduces the impact on the environment. By prioritising sustainability in the metaverse, we can create a virtual world that not only provides new and exciting experiences but also sets the foundation for a better future.
The good news is that private equity (PE) managers in Romania have gained experience, while entrepreneurial firms have engaged in further investments recently. However, private equity players expect greater caution from investors in the way they allocate money.
By Claudiu Vrinceanu
THE EXPERIENCE PE MANAGERS HAVE ACCUMULATED OVER THE PAST THREE YEARS Managers of private equity funds have acquired valuable experience from the last three years, which have included the pandemic crisis and the war in Ukraine, giving them a solid foundation for the next 12 months. PE funds’ initial response, characterised by a temporary brake on investments and an extremely cautious attitude, was followed by a relatively rapid return of confidence. Private equity players operating in Romania are now even more experienced, having gone through the global financial crisis, the pandemic, and the effects of war.
A lot of things are changing at the moment, and we are in a stage that’s dominated by buyers, but market-leading companies need new financing and continue to be the most appealing for private equity funds that are looking to buy. In the last two years, activity has been dominated by large funds focused on acquiring companies. Indeed, as a strategy, 90 percent of the capital raised in the last quarter was geared towards acquisitions. It’s worth noting that technology, healthcare, and real estate have remained the most active sectors, together accounting for almost half of total private equity transaction values.
Although more than 20 private equity funds are present and active in Romania, only a few of them made direct acquisitions in 2022, a year marked by multiple uncertainties. Meanwhile, the number of private equity funds that carried out exits was similar to that of funds that made direct investments.
The private equity market in Romania is still in the development stage, accounting for only 1 percent of the total private equity capital raised in the CEE region. According to the OECD, even Romania’s average annual share in the CEE GDP is 11.7 percent. PE fundraising activity in Romania is modest compared to CEE regional volumes, and local private equity firms mainly rely on foreign investors when raising funds.
Over the next couple of years, all eyes will be on private equity players, namely new investment funds set up with the help of the PNRR. The good news is that prospective investors have submitted 20 applications for the equity investment programme, which has a budget of EUR 400 million coming from the PNRR.
In addition to the European money, a few new investment funds in Romania, such as Invenio Partners and Integral Venture Partners, are also open to founders. Bulgarian private equity firm Invenio Partners, which launched a EUR 55 million fund for investments in the CEE region, is getting ready for its first acquisitions on the Romanian market. Invenio is in advanced talks to acquire several manufacturing, healthcare, FMCG, and education companies. Integral Venture Partners, a private equity fund dedicated to investments in Central and Eastern Europe, became a shareholder of the medical imaging centres network Medima Health, a company which is part of the Morphosis Capital portfolio.
Economic conditions are expected to deteriorate in 2023 as the war in Ukraine rages on and inflation continues to affect consumption, supply chains, and interest rates. Pessimism is intensifying and private equity investors are not expecting an improvement in the general economic climate. It also remains to be seen what happens to the discrepancy between sellers' high price expectations, and investors' value thresholds, within which they must consider rising interest rates, rising inflation, and expected returns.
Barcelona, Porto, and Newcastle are the top European cities of the future based on their FDI strategies, according to fDi Intelligence. In the FDI strategy category, the judges’ endorsement fell on Barcelona in the major cities category, Porto in the large cities bracket, and Newcastle in the mid-sized cities category. Let’s take a look at what local municipalities like Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca could learn from these case studies.
By Claudiu VrinceanuThe winning cities laid out their strategies for attracting, retaining, and expanding foreign investment, and the judges awarded points on everything from aftercare initiatives to energy resilience plans.
Once again, Barcelona won the FDI Strategy category for Europe’s major cities. Technology and sustainability are at the core of Barcelona City Council’s approach to foreign investment, and the city continues to make gains on both fronts.
The flourishing tech ecosystem in Barcelona was boosted last year by Intel’s decision to partner up with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre to set up a microchip design laboratory. In this regard, Romanian city administrations could choose to designate the tech industry as a strategic priority as well as pick a basic field of the economy that could be supported by digitalization and foreign tech investors. An example could be the health sector, due to the presence of several medtech startups and the possibility of getting state hospitals and universities involved, which can bring in more foreign investors.
To promote the city, the council is launching an interactive installation called “Plaça de Barcelona” in locations across Europe, which will include a virtual reality experience.
Inspired by this approach, through its diplomatic network and through similar projects it could carry out in other parts of Europe, ClujNapoca could showcase its many strengths to the public and to economic, media, cultural, and scientific stakeholders, for the purpose of attracting new projects, investments, and international talent.
Another innovative project is the “Workation” programme, which supports digital nomads looking to work remotely from Barcelona. Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca could borrow this good practice. We should note that Romania has a digital nomad visa for long and pocket-friendly stays, aimed at non-EU citizens. Applicants must have health insurance, a clean criminal record, and proof of an income over EUR 3,300 per month from a company outside Romania. If the person’s tax residency is in another country, they are not required to pay tax in Romania under this scheme. The Spanish city is also home to the Barcelona International Welcome Desk, a service now celebrating its first anniversary, which helps investors, researchers, and overseas talent arrive and get themselves set up in the city. This could be an opportunity for the first Science and Technology Park in Romania, Tetapolis, hosting Cluj research labs and business incubators, with an investment that reaches EUR 50 million.
Porto is an emerging tech hub whose growth is supported by InvestPorto. In 2022, it lured British Kantar Group’s new global technology and innovation hub, while BMW and French bank Natixis expanded their local operations by announcing more than 1,300 new jobs. The opportunity here is for the biggest cities in Romania to create their own similar programmes, such as InvestBucharest and InvestCluj, forging stronger business networks via a new online marketplace, which connects incoming investors with local service providers and promotes shared workplaces to improve the visibility of the cities’ talent.
Newcastle is this year’s winner of the FDI Strategy category for mid-sized cities, thanks to its efforts to identify and enhance industries that are strategic for future growth. The lesson for Romanian cities is simple: specialising in targeted niche sub-sectors. For example, Invest Newcastle’s campaigns have targeted niches such as healthy aging, smart city technologies, and video games. New investors coming to Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca could benefit from a tailored soft-landing programme and access to state aid schemes.
Romania is launching a new agency for investment and foreign trade, which should become operational within the next few months and which is expected to provide valuable and tangible tools to improve the country’s investment policy. We take a look at four best practices that should be prioritised in this area: online selfassessment tools, soft-landing programmes, long-term cooperation with other countries, and partnerships with firms to attract global investors.
By Claudiu VrinceanuAttracting investors to Romania is a complex undertaking. It is time-consuming and will constantly require handling refusal without being aggrieved. This means it necessary to have an investment magnet strategy in place. Investment attraction is based on the power of the various characteristics of our country to persuade interested players. One good practice Romania could implement comes from IDA Ireland, the foreign direct investment (FDI) agency of the Irish government, which launched two online self-assessment tools to help new investors assess current activities that enable advanced manufacturing or the digitalization of services.
The first tool launched by the Irish FDI body is the Advanced Manufacturing Diagnostic, which assesses the organisational maturity of disruptive digital and sustainable technologies of manufacturing organisations. The second is the Digitalization Diagnostic for Services, which evaluates services firms' digitalization maturity. These tools could also help new foreign investors in Romania define and prioritise the activities they should carry out to build future capacity and the capabilities they need to achieve successful transformation and growth.
Key decision drivers largely depend on each foreign investor’s industry and priorities, with some aspects being more attractive than
others. To maximise the benefits of its investment attraction strategy, Romania should draw attention to the needs of potential investors and local communities. This means targeting investors whose objectives are aligned with the attractive aspects of certain regional communities in Romania. In this regard, one interesting case study comes from Germany, where Invest Region Leipzig (IRL) supports companies that are considering an expansion of their business to the Leipzig region. IRL provides essential decisionmaking data and services that are individual, confidential, and free of charge to ensure a “soft landing” for companies.
Businesses in Romania and other countries are set to forge even closer ties than the ones they have today. In this sense, a way to connect and attract foreign investors to Romania is to create partnerships with organisations from other countries. For example, Hamburg's Chamber of Commerce, Hamburg Invest, and the Israeli-German Chamber of Commerce signed a partnership this year, emphasising tech scouting. The agreement signed in Tel Aviv gives Hamburg-based companies an overview of new technologies and digital solutions in Israel and should facilitate contacts with potential partner companies. The agreement will also likely boost the settlement of Israeli startups and scaleups. What is also essential for Romanian authori-
ties is the long-time commitment. The deal has been signed for an initial two-year period. As part of their economic development strategy, titled "Hamburg 2040: How do we want to live in the future—and from what?", the Germans want to promote international networking through innovation centres.
In recent years, Romania has been experiencing a paradox in attracting foreign investments. On the one hand, public-private partnerships have not become a habit. On the other, a large share of marketing initiatives, such as studies, research reports, and events to attract investors, have been carried out with private support through the involvement of recruitment, Big 4, and real estate consulting companies. Romania’s new foreign investment promotion agency should boost mixed endeavours in partnership with private companies. One recent example comes from Qatar, where IPA Qatar and Knight Frank partnered up to attract global investors. Through this bilateral cooperation, Knight Frank's global network of clients and investors will showcase Qatar's liberalised property ownership reforms, sustainable residential developments, and lucrative commercial real estate. During the international real estate event, MIPIM 2023, in France, the two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote Qatar's real estate sector on a global scale and attract foreign investment.
“The Phantom of the Opera” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the longest-running musical on Broadway, was staged again in Bucharest earlier this month. All eight events were sold out in less than 10 hours after tickets went on sale.
By Oana Vasiliu
After the first performance in 2015, at The Operetta, Adrian Nour and Irina Baiant are back in business with “The Phantom of the Opera,” this time at the Bucharest Opera.
The performance is conducted by Daniel Jinga, the current director of the Bucharest Opera, and staged by Razvan Ioan Dinca, with the help of scenographer Gary McCann, among others.
“From my point of view, The Phantom of the Opera is not a show that one should only see once. You are meant to take in all the information, because the show has a lot to offer—from a visual point of view, from an auditory point of view, and from an emotional point of view—and I think one should see it at least twice to really understand it and take it all in. And what has been prepared and what we hold inside us and we can't wait to give other people is, first of all, something that happens in everyone's lives: that moment when life takes us into the darkest corners of our being and then lifts us to the highest
heights, precisely so that we can understand what the power of choice means,” says soprano Irina Baiant.
For the Bucharest production, the team worked with mixed teams from Broadway and the London West End Theatre. “We can say that this production required an import of know-how because it is a very complex and very expensive production—it is a franchise. The licensor has asked us to strictly follow the details of this title, so it would look just like it does on Broadway and live up to those expectations. That is why we needed mixed teams, because we wanted to go with people who already had expertise in The Phantom of the Opera. The director is Romanian (Razvan Ioan Dinca), and the choreographer, Violeta Dinca, is also Romanian. But the scenographer is from London, the sound engineers have done the Phantom of the Opera before, and so has the lighting engineer. So, it is a collaboration between us, those who are doing this for the first time in Romania and putting our artistic imagina-
tion, energy, and creativity to the test, and those who have worked on The Phantom of the Opera before and bring their experience to the table,” says conductor Daniel Jinga.
With a total of more than 145 million viewers and gross revenue of more than USD 5.6 billion (even higher than hit Hollywood films like "Titanic," "ET," and "Star Wars"), "The Phantom of the Opera" is the longest-running Broadway production, overtaking the record of 7,486 performances previously set by the musical "Cats."
"The Phantom of the Opera" has won 70 major awards to date, including three Olivier Awards, most recently the Olivier Award for the Most Popular Show in 2002, an Evening Standard Award, seven Tony Awards (including Best Musical), seven Drama Desk Awards, and three Outer Critic Circle Awards.
For the local performance, the cast includes: Phantom – Adrian Nour; Christine – Irina Baiants; Raoul – Kyrie Mendel, accompanied by the Bucharest National Opera Orchestra, Choir, and Ballet.
Who is Ana Rubeli and what is “Aici a stat” for those who don’t know about the project?
My corporate job has only stirred my passion for discoveries. I am an actuary seeking to calculate probabilities and find the expected value of buildings and lives as a whole. The mathematics behind my actuarial knowledge can go hand-in-hand with the mathematics behind historical buildings and heritage.
I was eager to find out and minimise the probability that our national heritage would perish, would disappear. And this opened up a whole new universe: my personality as a cultural storyteller. I have studied three majors and got two Master’s degrees: Actuarial Sciences in the Netherlands and Heritage in Romania. 13 years ago, I studied Communication and Finance. (…)
During my two maternity leave periods, I found my second (complementary) workplace: the street, the city as a whole. I love wandering the streets and learning the unknown stories of historical buildings. I like the fact that I can document my discoveries while I’m walking around with my children. It was especially easy when they were babies, and now we adapt the rhythm and the places depending on their preferences as well. (…)
How did your social media heritage project start?
The project started out of curiosity. Ever since I can remember, I have constantly asked myself “why,” “what is actually go-
If you use Instagram, you may already be aware of the @aiciastat project. Ana Rubeli is an actuary who is passionate about stories and dedicated to promoting culture, history, and heritage through this project. Business Review went behind the scenes with her to find out more.
By Oana
ing on here,” “where does this thing come from.” So, a whole new world was generated by answering this simple question: “what kinds of stories might be laying around, hidden behind the walls or surfaces of heritage buildings?” I used to write long stories about places I had visited or about landmarks and destinations on my personal account, and I was happy to see the multitude of reactions: my friends encouraged me to continue. I wanted to create a separate identity, an alter ego, where historical buildings, the people who built them, who loved them, their architects, their constructors would become “rockstars.” And this is how #Aiciastat started to come to life.
What were your expectations when you started Aici a stat, and how did they evolve over time?
My expectation was purely to create an alter ego, and I thought that only my friends and inner circle would read my posts, which are usually lengthy, factual, and historical. I had no idea that it would become the phenomenon it is today: being read by more than 40,000 followers and generating cultural dialogue. As soon as my account grew, I started to feel a lot more responsibility on my shoulders, striving to bring more added value, to improve my photography skills and my research. I have decided to get a Master’s degree in heritage and cultural resources at the Bucharest University and put more resources into my journey of promoting Romanian heritage. I have seen the real effect and impact of my posts. (…) And after the
beautiful online story of #Aiciastat, I have decided to also take it “offline” and founded a cultural NGO in order to be able to create projects with more impact. I have a lovely team of volunteers, I have started organising architectural treasure hunts, classical music events in historical places, and heritage tours, and I hope to engage more individuals in this quest to promote our heritage.
How do you conduct research for your page?
For some historical buildings, I go the National Archives or the Municipal Archives to carry out extensive primary research, while for others I use books from my large collection (of which I am very proud: more than 5,200 volumes, including three huge shelves dedicated to history, architecture, and heritage). If I don’t have enough time, I use credible online sources. I always use more than one source and try to back up my posts with relevant information, citing the sources (as none are infallible).
How many buildings/histories have you collected since the beginning of the project?
I have documented approximately 700 stories: some on a general (or I might call it “macro”) level, tackling cities or larger heritage areas, while others were dedicated to particular buildings or people who inhabited them. I have a special place in my pocket (pun intended) for micro-stories, where I talk about various ornaments on buildings, a specific wooden frame of a window or even a terracotta apotropaic figure guarding the entrance of a special house.
“Romanian heritage is in deep need of saving, but very few people care about it”
Vasiliu
