On 15 February, Alicja Kornasiewicz took up the office of president of Bank Pekao, succeeding Jan Krzysztof Bielecki. Here is a brief summary of the interview published in the Polish newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Are you happy about winning the contest for Pekao's President?

I am proud. I am frank about it. A different attitude would imply immaturity. When an alpinist reaches the top after a difficult climbing he or she never says: "the view is ugly. It was all wrong". I am full of optimism. The bank, its employees have great potential. My ambition is for Pekao to become the market leader, not only in terms of assets or capital. I want the customers to say: the best bank, the most friendly, the best services and quality.


UniCredit Group, which owns Pekao, among others, is conducting a process called divisionalization. For many, including Pekao's employees, it is understood as giving away competences of local banks to the central office.

Mythology. In the last years, UniCredit bought many banks in Europe, it is currently present in 22 countries. Each of the banks had different management methods, different organization structures, IT systems, etc. the Tower of Babel. And business needs to be transparent. You cannot compare pears to apples. Therefore, it had to be finally arranged. Especially now, in the world crisis, structures clarity that enables to catch threats and manage the market better is very important. In fact, it is about building a holding structure that facilitates business and risk management for a corporation operating at an international scale. This is how organization looks like in every, even medium corporation, operating on various markets. Otherwise, the formation of international groups would be ineffective. It is all with respect to local law of each market.


We have read sociological studies, according to which the crisis caused a radical decrease of trust in bankers in Poland and around the world. Are you having a hang-over about it?

In the media and in social awareness financial institutions are to blame for the crisis -„Banks caused our problems, since they were trading in unhealthy securities". The problem is more complex, however. The Fed left the rules of setting the interest rates. SEC cancelled the regulations that forbidden investment banks to raise too much debt and forced supervision over the financial instruments that almost blew the US banking system. An thus, the institutions responsible for stability made mistakes. It was overlaid by a political vision that each citizen – whether solvent or not – should own a home. In order to implement the vision, governmental agencies granted mortgage loans on an unprecedented scale and – what is worse – forgetting of basic rule of estimating credit standing. Investment banks, on the other hand, were buying mortgage loans, used them as building blocks of more complex instruments that were allegedly to be safer than their parts, and sold them to the entities that wanted to believe that real estate prices will rise continuously. A chain was being created. But it was the Fed and US Government, institutions responsible for monetary and fiscal prudence and the safety of the financial system that opened the door for the crisis. When politics intervenes with the market and it is accompanied by lost common sense,
Imaginary belief that basic laws of arithmetic stop to operate, sooner or later it ends in a smaller or bigger failure.

You provided a comfortable explanation: "We are innocent, the Original Sin was committed somewhere else". But banks are to care for the safety of money and not explain that the US Government has made a wrong decision.

I base on the studies of large teams led by famous economists. They believe that between 2002 and 2005, the Fed's monetary policy was wrong, by putting off the evil hour and delaying the crisis, it deepened what was unavoidable. But I'm not putting the blame only on the American Central Bank. Let me quote the example of the so called Internet bubble, namely a drastic decrease of the value of IT companies on the Stock Exchange in 2000. We discussed the example in Harvard. The conclusions were that all of us are to blame a little. The regulator, a it allowed issue prospectuses in which uncovered promises were sold. Auditors, since they inappropriately, wishfully examined the condition of companies. Rating agencies, since they did not warn that dreams are being sold. Analysts, as they were unable to assess the value of the company correctly. Going back to the current crisis, one can accuse banks of selling securities that they didn't fully understand.


Is it more difficult for a woman to be on the highest managerial positions?

In what sense? That they are all men there? Cause I see no other difference. For the last couple of years I have worked with men, who have been very fair professional wise. But before, it was different every now and than. I was sitting in a training with other managers, equal rank, and when it came down to writing the exercise down one of them tells me: "So maybe you can write on the board, and we will dictate for you". So I say with a smile "No problem, but first you have to bring tee for all of us, and you – please give me some mineral water". It was quiet than. So I added: "So what now? Do we distribute the cards again? Who will write on the board? Who will make some tee? And who brings water?". According to stereotypes it is more difficult for women. We have hundreds of examples for this. But it is no point in complaining – the point is to do something about it. Within the scope of a project "Women and Leadership" run by Unicredit I began to get seriously interested in women issues, gathering data from around the world. It turns out that women taking managerial positions is a very well based business case. The companies which employ more women, have better financial results – even up to 50 %. Women are more stress resilient, they are more loyal towards the company. There is plenty of evidence proving, that hiring and promoting women on managerial positions is profitable.

How many women does Pekao employ?

15 thousand – and 4 thousand men. Among the management the proportion is reversed, men are the majority – they hold 70 per cent of offices. 70 per cent out of 4 thousand…There are only 30 per cent women at this level. I want to persuade them, that they are the value of this bank, wake up their awareness of their own power, encourage to support each other in development and experience exchange. So that they know that is they want, they can achieve more. We have already started such a programme.


Are you in favour of the parity?

It is difficult to give a definitive answer. Maybe it should be introduced for some time. Why in Scandinavia there are so many women in office and they have great results? It is also because several decades earlier they introduced parity for several years. I am only afraid of one thing. After the parity is introduced, in the first run lots of women can enter the public life which are in fact not the best, the most talented. And then the solution will be intensively criticized.


Prof. Jadwiga Staniszkas said that women did not need parity. Because they are simply good, and men will soon ask for parity for themselves. Is the women's affirmity bad for them? After a few years somebody could mockingly say that the lady is in the post because she is a woman.

Is somebody has bad will, it can be said. But then let the men tell us why so many companies in the world implement diversity policy?


Because it is fashionable and politically correct?

No, because diversity is power.

Alicja Kornasiewicz (Kańczuga, 19 March 1951) joined CA IB Investment Bank in October 2000. She is currently a Managing Director of UniCredit Markets & Investment Banking in Poland responsible for capital markets and investment banking activities. Between 2001-2007, Ms. Kornasiewicz was appointed President of the Supervisory Board of Bank BPH S.A..

Mrs. Kornasiewicz held the post of Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Treasury from 1997 to 2000. She joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1993-1997), first in London as a senior banker and then as the Banks representative in Poland, where she managed the Warsaw office. From 1973 to 1993 she held numerous posts of ever increasing responsibility utilizing her financial, accounting and economics knowledge, and business and negotiating acumen in both the private and public sectors, including Moore Stephens Consulting and Chartered Accountants, Impexmetal, Norblin Rolling Mill, Interpegro Sp z o.o., Unitra Foreign Trade Company and the Ministry of Internal Trade. Mrs. Kornasiewicz served as a Member of Parliament in Poland's first free elections.

In 2003 Alicja Kornasiewicz earned her PhD from the Poznań University of Economics. She is a graduate (MSc) of the Faculty of Economics at the Central School of Planning and Statistics in Warsaw (SGH). She holds a Diploma from the Centre for High Performance Development in London and has completed the Advanced Management Programme and the Executive Management Programme at INSEAD in Paris.

Alicja Kornasiewicz is a Certified Auditor (appointed in 1978) and a Member of the National Board of Certified Auditors, where she served as a Member of the Examinations Committee from 1999 to 2003. In 2006 Alicja Kornasiewicz was appointed as a Trustee of International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation.

Mrs. Kornasiewicz has been recognized by Home & Market Magazine as one of the four most influential women in business circles (February 2004). Mrs. Kornasiewicz is the author of numerous publications and press articles both in Poland and abroad, and she has delivered many presentations and speeches concerning investment banking and capital markets to domestic and international conferences and symposiums. Mrs. Kornasiewicz's book "Venture Capital in developed countries and Poland" was published in March 2004, hailing her as the first author to address this complex topic in-depth.