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    A stretch assignment leads to career growth

     

    July 27, 2020

     

    How chasing his passion changed Bartosz Kostrzewski’s career path for the better

     

    Bartosz Kostrzewski is someone who doesn’t like to sit still. From his start as an intern to his most recent roles this has been a defining fact and strong motivator for him.
     

    Initially, he had a job in Market Intelligence. A job he was good at and was comfortable doing. And for him, that became a problem.
     

    “70% of questions that came to me I could answer easily. It was great, but it wasn’t really exciting for me anymore. I'm this type of person that likes uncharted territories,” he explains.

    Global Aspirations


    He initially spent three years in the Central and Eastern Europe market, sourcing knowledge that would help colleagues in sales and marketing perform better. However, he was looking for more.
     

    Bartosz asked his manager for more responsibility. “I said to her: after three years in my role, I would like to move on, do more, have more complex things to do.”
     

    The Head of Marketing Excellence, Emil Adigyozalov, noticed him working with End User roles and saw an opportunity for Bartosz to fulfill that desire – and add more value to the team. From there it was decided: a stretch assignment would be his next move, with Emil as his manager."

    Bartosz find your meaning

    Building a vision


    The stretch assignment put Bartosz in contact with colleagues around world, finding solutions to their problems. One running theme was a lack of consistency across roles in different markets.

     

    Sensing an opportunity to clarify things, Bartosz used his research and intelligence background to help standardize the ways of working within the role, so that no matter what region, all End User Marketeers knew what was expected from their role, and were enabled to take their marketing to the next level.

    The moment you see that something can be done that adds value to the company, do it. I can tell you from own experience, it is really worth it"

    It took half a year to develop the materials and another six months to implement them. It wasn’t easy, but Bartosz found it ultimately rewarding. “The moment you see that something can be done that adds value to the company, do it. I can tell you from own experience, it is really worth it.”
    foosball

    The motivation to stay


    Early on in 2020 a position as Global End User Marketing CoE within the central Commercial Excellence team became available and Bartosz took up the role. His dream of handling global complexity came true.

    Life experience is like a painting; the rational thought is the frame and the actual experience is the paint"

    Aside from the stretch assignment that gave him the chance to experience this role, Bartosz credits his previous managers as helping him grow within the company. “There was big trust put in me to work in a non-standard way, particularly in the beginning – as an intern I had the possibility to work fully remotely from a foreign country!”

     

    The stretch assignment unlocked the next stage in his career path. “In life you have a rational frame, but experience makes you feel certain things. It’s one thing to have a rational frame and a completely different thing to actually experience it! Life experience is like a painting; the rational thought is the frame and the actual experience is the paint!”

    About the author:

    Michael Sprehe

    Michael Sprehe

    Recruitment Marketing Intern

     

    For further information, please contact:

    Signify Global Integrated Communications
    Neil Pattie
    Tel: + 31 6 15 08 48 17
    Email: neil.pattie@signify.com

    About Signify

     

    Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) is the world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our Philips products, Interact connected lighting systems and data-enabled services, deliver business value and transform life in homes, buildings and public spaces. In 2022, we had sales of EUR 7.5 billion, approximately 35,000 employees and a presence in over 70 countries. We unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We achieved carbon neutrality in our operations in 2020, have been in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index since our IPO for six consecutive years and were named Industry Leader in 2017, 2018 and 2019. News from Signify is located at the Newsroom, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.

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