A key feature of IMSA is the professionalism and trust between our offices worldwide, working together to satisfy the needs of our international clients. This empathy and trust is reinforced by representatives of all offices meeting together, and also developing a good social spirit.
At the conference, information was exchanged about many international projects – see Case Studies for many recent examples.
Our Polish hosts Carpenter Consulting, organized another excellent and memorable programme, in the tradition of IMSA events, and they decided that the event would be held in the Tricity area ( Gdansk, Sopot, Gydnia) due to beautiful scenery and unique atmosphere. The first business day of the conference was organized at Sofitel Grand Hotel situated on the Sopot beach near to the longest wooden pier in Europe. In the course of our conversations we shared details of the economic climate in individual countries, which had improved over the past 6 months in the majority of them. We also enjoyed listening to a presentation by two newly joined IMSA partners from , Italy and Brazil. The Italian company replaced a previous IMSA member that decided to leave the organization but Brazil is a new member.
Among other things we learned that Brazil is one of the most dynamically growing countries in the world. Encouraged by its vast potential, numerous foreign companies have entered the Brazilian market. Our Brazilian partners have been seeking qualified candidates from all over the world; mostly engineers, specialists and middle management on the oil, power and mining markets and in services in a broad meaning of this term.
A presentation by Accor Poland’s HR Director, Katya Sokolsky, was another interesting issue, focusing on changes in work standards introduced in the organization which was regarded as quite atypical a few years ago. The business day ended with a dinner in the Knight’s Room of the beautiful Jan III Sobieski’s castle in Rzucewo.
On the second day of the Meeting we partook of a sightseeing trip with lots of attractions. We visited the Kaszuby region, specifically, a village of Szymbark, where all IMSA members learnt how to take snuff ( and sneeze….), walked the ceiling of an upside down house we caused much dizziness, saw the longest plank in the world (the Kashubians once again set a new record!) and houses of Siberian exiles. Another item on the agenda was visiting the most beautiful spots in Gdansk and finally a history lesson which was on everyone’s lips – the Gdansk Shipyard and the Solidarity movement. We visited the Shipyard driving around in a real Jelcz 043 bus resembling a cucumber and Lech Walesa’s colleague presented the history of the Shipyard to us. To many of our Partners the trip brought back memories of great changes which had occurred in Europe at that time which they also witnessed.
Another IMSA meeting is scheduled to take place in Amsterdam in October!
