Wojtek Kostrzewa elected as the new President of the Polish Business Roundtable

(Warsaw, May 29, 2019) On May, 28th the Polish Business Roundtable, an association of owners and top managers of the largest companies operating in Poland, has elected its new board for the next two-year term. Wojtek Kostrzewa, the CEO of Billon Group, an entrepreneur and manager with nearly thirty years of professional experience, became the association’s president.

Wojtek Kostrzewa replaced Jacek Szwajcowski, the CEO of Pelion Healthcare Group, who had led the Polish Business Roundtable for the last four years. During that time, Mr. Kostrzewa has served as a vice-president of the organisation and chairman of the of the Competition Jury of the Polish Business Roundtable Award, one of the most prestigious business awards in Poland. Since 2007, he has also served as a vice-president of the Polish Confederation Lewiatan, a leading Polish employers’ organisation.

The new president of the Polish Business Roundtable is the CEO of Billon Group, a Polish-British fintech company which offers a unified enterprise grade DLT system based on its own version of blockchain. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Stadler Rail, member of supervisory boards of the Ergo Hestia Group’s companies, owner and president of the supervisory board of Pascal Publishing House, and investor and chairman of Quedex Bitcoin Derivatives Exchange.

Mr. Kostrzewa is a graduate of the Department of Economics at Kiel University (Germany). Upon graduation, he worked as a teaching assistant and researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. In 1989, hebecame an advisor of the Polish Minister of Finance, Leszek Balcerowicz. In 1990–2004, he led large Polish banks, such as Polish Development Bank and BRE Bank (currently mBank), and served as a head of Commerzbank’s operations in Middle and Eastern Europe. In 2005–2018, he was a CEO of ITI Group and long-term chairman of the supervisory board of the TV broadcaster TVN. He is a member of the Polish Business Roundtable since 1995.

– It is a special moment and a great honour for me to become the President of the organisation to which I have belonged for twenty-five years – says Wojtek Kostrzewa. – My agenda for the coming years is not revolutionary. We will continue our work to promote entrepreneurship in Poland, monitoreconomic and legal situation of Polish business, and support civic campaigns – declares the new president of the Polish Business Roundtable.

The new board of the Polish Business Roundtable comprises of some of the most distinguished business figures in Poland. The association’s vice-presidents are: Małgorzata Adamkiewicz (Adamed),Teresa Mokrysz (Mokate), Zbigniew Jakubas (Multico), Jacek Olechowski (Mediacap), Marian Owerko (Uno Capital), and Marek Żołędziowski (Group One).

The Polish Business Roundtable is an association of owners and key managers of the largest Polish enterprises and international companies operating in Poland. Members of the Polish Business Roundtable represent most sectors of the Polish economy. The association’s mission is to promote the development of business in Poland.

About Billon

Billon created the first enterprise DLT system unifying national currency transactions, document management, and identity management into a single architecture. The system solved the challenge of transacting micropayments at scale, and it also encrypts documents and data on-chain, unleashing the transformational capabilities of blockchain technologies in the regulated world. Billon’s high-performance DLT system is designed to deliver tangible business results in the areas of digitised cash, trusted documents and identity & data sharing.

Billon Group Ltd. was founded in the UK in 2015, following several years of R&D in Poland. Its unique DLT protocol has been supported by many R&D grants, including the EU Horizon 2020 program. Billon is licensed to issue electronic money by regulators in the UK and Poland and employs a global team of more than 90 people in its two offices in London and Warsaw. 

Billon works to implement its technology commercially with leading business partners, such as FIS in the US and BIK (the Polish credit office) in Poland. In 2018, the company joined the FIS Venture Center accelerator, and won the Global FinTech Hackcelerator at the Singapore FinTech Festival, showcasing a solution to zero-cost blockchain micropayments. Most recently, Billon entered the Elevator Lab accelerator, qualifying to work with Raiffeisen Bank International on e-money transactions with digitised euro on DLT. 

For more information, visit www.billongroup.com.