Ten years ago, CEO Clubs, one of the most prestigious international business organizations, made its official entry in Romania. How would you characterize the evolution of the network on the local market and what would be the main milestones reached during this period?

Indeed, time flies. The first positive sign for the growth of the Club came quite early. We reached 100 Members in just 1.5 years after the launch of a Club that was totally unknown to the local business environment. This proof of concept gave us courage to continue. I think that today, we are still the fastest growing Club in our global network. The launch of Executive Club in 2014 (as “Next Gen Club” at the time) was another very important milestone and that as well started with 90 Members in the first 3 months of operation. In 2018 we created a subgroup within the CEO community and that is called Owners Club, which today has an amazing dynamic with 45 great business owners as Members and our strategic target in 2022 is to make it one of the most important poles for growth and collaboration for the best entrepreneurs in the city and not only. In 2017 we started visiting high schools with our CEOs Back To School program and so far we’ve met more than 5,000 students, discussing about life. For me that is the most important milestone. Today, we are very proud that many other countries have used our projects as inspiration and we intend to keep on innovating and set the standard. This is the identity that all of us in CEO Clubs have chosen for Romania to have abroad.

The pandemic continues to significantly influence the way we socialise. In your opinion, how much have the dynamics of professional interactions changed in the current context?

Network is Networth for ever and ever and in all forms. At the same time we are all coming out of this unprecedented situation changed. I personally believe that people are already more oriented towards meetings where the topic is very relevant to them, where the quality of people is more important than their number and where the dynamics of a small group favour elaboration on the topic. People already prefer environments where they can have more impact and from which they can leave not only wiser but with sustainable relationships in place. Thus, in 2022, we are changing the way we will be meeting with our Members and we have created a new model called “Panorama” that combines large scale networking with small size meetings and multiple topics being chosen after thorough research and are delivered by the best in the field. And all that simultaneously! Sounds interesting, eh? That will be our secret sauce for next year and our Members are already thrilled about it. As I said before, our Community is one that has chosen to lead change.

To what extent have online virtual meetings been able to compensate for the reduction in physical events? Can hybrid networking already be considered a long-term solution?

It would be too early and a bit unfair to claim that for the “online”. Definitely it is here to stay and rest assure that in only a few years, today’s solutions will seem like the Flintstones era. 5G and AI will transform them to a point where they will manage to imitate in an amazing way many kinds of communication, from a distance. Not replacing the physical contact but substituting quite realistic a part of it. So, making an assessment today, the answer can only be a big “future yes”, which is mainly based on science fiction (but doable) assumptions. Please keep in mind we live in an era that “if I can imagine it, someone’s already doing it”. What is available today is just a hansaplast that was all we had in order to stop the communication bleeding that the pandemic period generated, and I have to admit we did pretty well. Therefore, hybrid is here to stay, physical presence will always be a priority, BUT only for what is REALLY meaningful to us. Very soon, the importance of people and topics will become more and more obvious every day just by where we choose to show up. Apropos, can we handle that…?

During our previous discussion a year ago, you said that you were aiming both to attract strong leaders and to strengthen the team by co-opting valuable people. How has CEO Clubs, Executive Club and Owners Club activity evolved in 2021?

You know, one of the best things that I’ve learned in my life these last years is to get rid of the unnecessary drama that we add to everything. It’s awkward for me to say that as I’m Greek and we invented it :))))), but it saves lives. After a challenging but very successful 2020 (with 36 new members who came to us and who we mostly met via zoom, and a renewal rate of 80+%), we dared again to act boldly. We quickly realized that people had already been fed up with online events so, as soon as the weather started getting better, we switched

immediately to live meetings, adjusting them fast to the new audience that our people had transformed into. People reacted responsibly and in numbers. In what we do, what matters is the quality and not the quantity. It is the feeling people are getting when they come together in our meetings. It is the quality of the people that seats next to them. If they leave thinking “very nice people” then we’re on the right track. The doctrine is: good people bring good people. Simple as that! Of course, there are many other things at play but this is definitely the cornerstone. In general, in any kind of crisis, agility is what makes the difference. I’m extremely proud to say that our Team reacted fast, failed fast and won fast and I’m glad that we were finally able to prove worthy of the kindness of our Members. Did I tell you that I have a great Team?

The three clubs you founded bring together leaders of major players with a substantial contribution to the economy. What is the general perception of the members regarding the business development in the coming period?

One of our main values is optimism. Our members are optimists by nature. Many people wrongly believe that optimism is dreaming when in fact optimism derives from realism. Winning 10 consecutive passes in Black Jack on a lucky night can happen. What makes the difference between the winner and the loser is that the winner type knows that that night is an exception whereas the loser type believes that this is the normal cause he’s amazingly lucky and competent. For CEO, Owners and Executive Club Members, success is a mathematical result based on statistics. We know that tough times are just part of the game so what really matters is what you do when -against the odds- you are winning for a long period. It is about how levelled you can remain when you are ahead so that you can have enough distance from the second in case you need to stop to tie your laces. Those who accept this as normality are the ones who win all the time: sometimes big, some others little. But they win! And that’s the spirit we are looking for when we recruit a new Member.

Launched at a challenging time, the bilingual publication TheBizz Magazine is celebrating its first year of existence. Please send a message to our readers from the CEO Clubs!

As I said before, challenging times are great for good projects and TheBizz is a good project. Great content, good people and a quality publication. It clearly addresses to those realists-optimists that we mentioned above and that makes it unique as it evangelizes positivity with a witty character. Those of us who read it know that the result of our lives is the sum of thousands of small decisions. Good decisions, good outcome. And reading TheBizz is definitely one of those. Happy Anniversary TheBizz!

Interview by Ioan Dornescu

Share

Share