PMBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation 2014-2016

Tomasz Pilewicz, Professional MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation Alumnus: The thing I like the most is studying together with successful businessmen, start-uppers and mavericks from all over the world bringing different experiences and points of view; I find it the core principle of the studies, as it challenges your idea about business and make you see it different.

What stages in your life have had the greatest impact on you and why?

What impacted/affected me the most was the period of the after I graduated from University of Warsaw and started working in management consulting. It was a time of a rapid professional growth for me. I was able to meet company leaders, who found time to coach me one-on-one and enabled me to shadow them at work, by taking me to their customer visits and internal strategic meetings. In short period of time I was able to lead my own team projects and train younger colleagues. During 3,5 year career from Intern to Senior Associate at PwC I participated in over 30 business advisory projects for various industries, published more than 10 professional articles, and in the meantime graduated from post graduate and PhD studies and Warsaw School of Economics. Thanks to this deep-dive into business just after graduating I believe I made a “frog jump” in business consciousness, acumen, relationship building, and value creation.

Did you originally want to pursue a career in a different field? If so, why is it that nothing has come of your plans?

As a graduate of MA studies in Public Policies and Welfare I originally wanted to join National School for Public Administration, whose graduates were presented with firm, elite positions in national central administration. I was preparing to the recruitment rigorously for over 8 months, only to get dropped in the very last levels of the recruitment. However I don't consider that a failure. The knowledge and skills I gained through this rigid self-study period were proved useful during complicated recruitment process at PwC, through which I landed a job in public sector advisory practice at the company.