I found oikos by a sheer coincidence while searching for a student organization to join as a freshman at the Warsaw School of Economics. The international reach and the focus on sustainability in economics and management, a topic I knew very little of, appealed to me so I showed up to the introductory meeting. I certainly had not expected that it would lead to long and rewarding journey that will last this long.
My first gateway into the oikos international community was the Spring Meeting ‘08 which was also an accelerated course about oikos agenda and sustainability in general. The spirit and engagement encountered in Cologne fueled my involvement in the Warsaw chapter. Some of the most memorable initiatives I was a part of included “Energysavers”, a competition of all of Warsaw’s student dormitories in reduction of energy consumption, and the oikos Autumn Meeting ’10, which was hosted by the oikos Warsaw chapter and which I had a pleasure to coordinate. In the meantime I became the president of the local Warsaw chapter in 2009 and a member of the oikos International Executive Board in 2010. The opportunity to support the overall oikos network while working for oikos International was a particularly rewarding experience.
Upon graduation I threw myself into work and my career path was not exactly aligned with the previous oikos involvement. I started out as an investment banker working on M&A transactions in the City of London. Later I switched to consulting and joined a boutique focused on strategic advisory in the technology, media, and telecoms space. While my professional development kept progressing I started feeling void due lack of connection with my previous experiences. This motivated me to re-connect with oikos and apply for an Auditor position in 2018. Auditing oikos International financials for 2018 allowed me to use by professional background to support oikos activities. Now I am looking for ways to inject more of the oikos thinking and ideas into my professional life, so stay tuned!
I would like to thank all the fellow oikees I met on my path thus far and I am looking forward to the next chapter as an oikos alumnus.
