Connecting the dots between jazz and finance with Tadeusz Kuropatwinski, GM of XTB Romania

The 28 year old Tadeusz Kuropatwinski always wanted to be a professional musician, but ended up as the general manager at XTB Romania, an international brokerage house. He thought he would work in Shanghai, but finally arrived in Bucharest. When looking backwards and connecting all the dots, Taudesz thinks they were all very good decisions. It was during the Easter Holidays in 2010 and Tadeusz Kuropatwinski was at his mother in law’s house, doing the standard holiday things like preparing the dinner, when he passed by the TV and saw an image of the People’s Palace, in a documentary about Ceausescu. “I sat there with a plate in my hand and I was wired for like a half an hour. My fiancée asked me what was going on.” At that moment, Taudeusz had no idea that in less then two months he would move to Romania. “When I joined the X-Trade Brokers, I knew that I would go somewhere. At the interview we talked about Shanghai. After three months, my boss asked me what do I thought about Milan. Apparently another guy went to Shanghai. I said, Milan is also fine.” A few days after the Easter Holidays, his boss made the proposal. It was not Shanghai, nor Milan, but Bucharest. “I said I needed a weekend to reply.” Tadeusz shared this with his fiancée, and she said, of course, Romania is very cool. “Romanian writer Mircea Eliade was the first person brought on the table.” On Monday, Tadeusz went back to work, said OK and after about two months he arrived on a night flight to Bucharest to take up his position as general manager of brokerage firm XTB Romania. For Tadeusz, it wasn’t always that obvious that he would study economics. Back in his hometown Gdansk, during high school, Tadeusz was crazy about music, having studied violin in primary school and playing bass guitar in different bands, jazz music, pop music, any kind of music, as long as it was it good. Two events made him change his mind: joining a youth theater association where he was the musical director and an entrepreneurship class where the students had to establish their own business and he was chosen by his classmates as the general manager. “I started reading a lot and preparing for music in particular, but getting a wider angle than music. I also got involved in organizing things and soon I was very interested in this.” Finally he decided he would do music only on a part time basis, taking classes from the musical academy, but studying full time at the Warsaw School of Economics. “The best thing about the Warsaw School was the freedom, as you are fully responsible for your study path and this kind of freedom can bring really great results.” When Tadeusz arrived in Bucharest, in July 2010, he had some experience living abroad, some summers spent during the university years in the UK, a year in Germany, but was still unsure about what to expect from this new country, Romania. “When I arrived here it was summer, it was night, I didn’t see the airport or anything. I was picked up by a very elegant man, driving a black Mercedes and while he was driving me to my hotel through these wide boulevards, with a lot of lights, my first impression was 'Oh my god, this is not happening'; it was totally different than what I imagined.” He was supposed to stay in Romania for six months and then move to India, but he asked his supervisor in Poland to let him stay in Romania longer. “The first six months were really intense; I didn’t do too much apart from working and in the weekends flying to Poland where I had my fiancée.” He really started enjoying Romania when he understood how everything works here. “When you come as an expat to a new place, you’re in a situation that is already set for you, you’re within the circle of friends from work, so you’re not really the master of your destiny. It took me some time to get out of this set stage and discover other faces of Romania.” Now Tadeusz gets up at 6.30 am every day, walks his three dogs in the Regina Maria Park, goes to the pool, and then to work. “People here have the possibility to go the extra mile and fight for their goals, so I have no other option than to really love the job. It’s a great mission for the education of the financial market, for building this market. This is maybe why I stayed in Romania.” Together with his team, they launched a social trading platform, a tool for investors called Xsocial and they are also responsible for an educational program on financial markets funded by the company's own funds in Romania, the XTB academy program. After work, Tadeusz gets out on the streets of Bucharest, which has some kind of wildness for him and it feels like a real big city. “In terms of population Warsaw is the same, but you don’t feel this kind of speed of a big city. At the beginning I was living at Piata Victoriei and the moment you were out of your flat, you were being taken by the crowd. Next stop was to buy the pretzels and the sana dairy drink and then the crowd again.” When asked about his future plans in Romania, Tadeusz only replies he is keeping himself open to every day. “I never thought that I would come to Romania and stay here for three years. I am not saying I will leave Romania for sure, because I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe I will get old here with my Romanian dogs.”