Dr inż. Dorota Gierej-Czerkies

Dr inż. Dorota Gierej-Czerkies, Operations Director and Member of Management Board of Helix Immuno-Oncology. She has 7 years of experience in the area of management of innovations. She co-founded BMC and currently she is a shareholder of the company. Earlier she worked as a business and technology analyst and commercial proxy of BTM Mazowsze and as a Technology Transfer Specialist in the Nencki Institute of PAN (Polish Academy of Sciences), where she was responsible for searching and analysing projects of application potential and for intellectual property management. Earlier on, Dorota held the position of Clinical Tests Specialist (Monitoring of Tests) in AstraZeneca. She co-founded Microbiology Laboratory Quanteam. Graduate of industrial biotechnology at Warsaw University of Technology and of biotechnology at Warsaw University of Technology and she holds a doctorate in biological sciences in the field of neurobiology, obtained at the Nencki Institute. Award winner of the competition Warsaw Innovation Potential City and scholar of Network of European Neuroscience Schools. Dorota is a co-author of scientific publications and conference communications presented at international conferences. She is also an expert at the National Centre for Research and Development in the area of evaluation of biomedical projects.

Andrzej Kuśmierz

Andrzej Kuśmierz graduated from the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw, and obtained his PhD in economics in the field of management at Kozminski University. He is an expert in strategic management, e-business models and leadership. As assistant professor at the Department of Business Strategy at Kozminski University he oversaw over 100 graduation advisory projects for Executive MBA and Kozminski MBA programmes related to startup company development, strategy implementation and restructuring processes. In recent years he has concentrated on promoting innovation in medical and natural sciences as well as in the high technology sector.
He is a member of the Intel Business Challenge Europe Coaching and Mentoring Team, Intel Global Challenge and the hub:raum accelerator. As an advisor he has cooperated with enterprises such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, T-Mobile, ITM sp. z o.o. and Asseco SEU. He was the head of the European Competence Centre and, subsequently, head of the Development Centre at Kozminski University. Additionally, he was a supervisory board member at Polsport SA. He has been managing the work of the Centre for Management in the Health Sector since its establishment in 2011. The centre is Kozminski University’s research institute, specialising in projects concerning health sector management, economics of technology and medical procedures, and the application of innovative system solutions in the field of public health. He has co-authored several publications in the field of health sector management.

Jacek Kaczka

As Senior Manager at KPMG Audyt Sp. z o.o. Jacek Kaczka took part in several financial statement audits and reviews for several multinational corporations and capital groups in various sectors of the economy. These included Exbud Skanska S.A, Elektrim S.A., Echo Investment S.A., Metro AG.

Between 2004 and 2006, while working at the accounting consultancy department of KPMG, he participated in the development of the proposal for changes in the ‘Cash Flow Statement’ Polish Accounting Standards project for the Polish Accounting Standards Committee within the Ministry of Finance. During that time he participated in the development of professional auditing standards, and in the development of amendments to the Accounting Act, related to the Polish accession to the European Union. He also participated in the development of the Polish language version of the International Financial Reporting Standards for the Accountants Association in Poland. Additionally, he was a consultant to the World Bank in a project evaluating Polish balance sheet law and financial statement audit regulations.

He has extensive teaching experience including lecturerships at several renowned Polish universities (University of Warsaw, Warsaw School of Economics). He has published numerous articles on accountancy in trade magazines, including commentaries on Poland’s biggest 500 companies ranking from 2004-2006 by ‘Prawo Przedsiębiorcy’ magazine and ‘Rachunkowość’ monthly magazine.

Andrzej Podszywałow

An established expert in intangible assets, derivatives and company valuation (over 22 years of experience). He specialises in the valuation of trademarks, know-how, patents at the early commercialisation stage, databases, customer networks and other unique intellectual property rights holders.

Certified expert in intangible asset valuation at the Regional Court in Warsaw (since 1999). Author of several expert reports used in litigations (concerning copyright infringement compensation, industrial property right, unfair competition and excessive risk management).

Copyright Commission arbitrator (since 2011).
Member of the Specialist Group for the assessment of applications for ‘Innovativeness Creator’ and ‘Patent Plus’ programmes at The National Centre for Research and Development (since 2010).
Programme Board member of the Transfer Pricing Centre Association (since 2012).
Experienced derivatives broker.
Owner of wycenapraw.pl website

Tomasz Poniński

Tomasz Poniński is a project business development expert. He was board advisor responsible for the investments and development of a public company for which he prepared development projects and supervised their implementation. He was a member of the board responsible for the strategy of an FMCG sector company, developed market entry strategy for a bank entering the Polish market, and prepared and implemented strategies for investment and restructuring projects.
He is a member of supervisory boards of the Orenore investment fund portfolio companies (AirWayMedix S.A., Adiuvo S.A.), and a board member of various other companies such as Sahel S.A. and Netiology Sp. z o. o. Since 2003, starting right from the technology patenting stage, he has been involved in a polyolefin recycling project and is the president of the company VipTech Sp. z o. o. – one of the shareholders of Claritel SPV – the entity developing the project. Prior to this he was a supervisory board member of a leasing company, several FMCG sector companies, a Hungarian energy sector company, a cooperative, and an investment fund from the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.

Tomasz Poniński is currently the CEO of Orenore Sp. z o. o., an investment fund that forms a capital group operating in the sectors of life science and biotechnology, internet, and renewable energy. He is also the president of Innowacyjna.pl foundation. He obtained an MSc in management, and an MSc in finance and banking at the Warsaw School of Economics. He has recently been conducting research as a PhD student at this business school.

Karolina Dzwonek

Innovation manager at Warsaw Medical University and biology director at OncoArendi Therapeutics. She assists scientists in identifying research results with commercialisation potential, and provides help in the field of intellectual property protection. She creates cooperation platforms for business and research and provides tools for improving the technology transfer process. At OncoArendi she coordinates drug discovery projects in the field of biology, and facilitates cooperation between the company and research institutes.

Karolina holds a degree in biotechnology. She has conducted research at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS and the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology in Warsaw. She led a research team at a pharmaceutical company for several years, managing research projects for innovative targeted antineoplastic drug development. She has written several scientific publications, and is listed as the inventor in patent applications for new oncology drugs. She completed research fellowships at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, and at the Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine at the National Research Council (CNR) in Rome. She has studied the scope of intellectual property, communication efficiency and also project and human resource management. She links the worlds of business and science. She provides professional assistance.

Marcin Szumowski

Marcin Szumowski, PhD, has over ten years’ experience in the management of implementation-oriented research projects. He has conceptually developed and/or managed over 40 research, development, special purpose, and investment projects with a total value of approx. 0.25 B EUR. value of 0.25 B EUR. Co-founder of several biotech and medtech companies, he was the CEO of three, including Medicalgorithmics S.A. which is currently listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, and valued at approx. 0.25 B EUR. At Medicalgorithmics he obtained approx. 2.5 M EUR of public funding and private seed capital for the development of the business. From 2008-2009 he supervised the global market introduction of a medical product, which included EU and US (FDA) marketing authorisation. In 2013 Marcin Szumowski was a member of independent expert panels, advising the European Commission in the process of interim evaluation and socio-economic impact assessment of Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – the world’s largest public-private partnership in the field of pharmacy. He co-authored two reports published by the European Commission and IMI (www.imi.europa.eu). Marcin Szumowski graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), obtaining MSc and PhD degrees as well as an MBA in international business and finance. Currently he is the CEO of OncoArendi Therapeutics.