Business Review

Law firm NNDKP announced the completion of the sixth edition of its annual summer school program, dedicated to third year law school students.

While recent local economic trends may be giving some companies a sinking feeling, others are finding ways to fly high and score profits in stormy times. Catalin Putineanu, managing director of IB Cargo, a local freight forwarder, chose to invest in some relatively unknown services on the Romanian market in 2008. Two years later, he says the gamble has paid off and he is looking forward to future growth.

Simona Bazavan

With a tradition going back more than 160 years, bakery Spicul has a new face: it became the exclusive supplier to the Romanian Royal House earlier this year and also improved its brand portfolio. But , president and CEO of the company, has more big ideas in store: he intends to increase the company’s market share from 2 percent this year to 10 percent in the next two or three years.

Anca Ionescu

Corneliu Bodea, VP, and his brother Adrian Bodea, president of Adrem Invest, started a business in industrial applications back in the 90s with just 2,000 Deutschmarks. Now the company competes with names like Siemens and ABB, reached a EUR 10.4 million turnover last year and has plans to develop a specialized department in alternative energy this year.

Dana Ciuraru

With an estimated turnover of EUR 350,000 this year, Sorin Popescu intends to develop his production house further and hopes the market on which it is active will reach a growth potential similar to that posted in 2007 and 2008 two years from now.

With a small market share on the business and private events sector, Elena Toader intends to put YaU Concept among the top three players on Bucharest’s corporate flower arranging market in the next three years.

Anca Ionescu

Starting a business when she was just 24 was par for the course for Raluca Nicoara, owner of Blinkwash, which launched in 2008, and Arts Concept Café, a coffee house which recently entered a crowded market in Bucharest. And she is not resting on her laurels: the businesswoman intends to increase awareness of her coffee house while Blinkwash grows its number of corporate customers.

Anca Ionescu

Business Review and the Maastricht School of Management organized last week the Global Best Practices in Sales Management seminar led by Sandy Vaci, adjunct senior professor at Central European University’s Business School (MBA Studies), lecturing in transnational sales force management.

Simona Bazavan

While Alma Rusu intends to increase the turnover of MioBio, her organic cosmetics store, four-fold to EUR 120,000 this year, her main objective is to grow the business in a cautious, smooth and healthy manner.

Anca Ionescu

Long heralded but never actually taking place, the reform of the Romanian education system, vital as it is, might just become reality this time if Parliament, which is currently debating a draft education bill, approves it. But is the new bill really going to bring the local education system into the 21st century? Business Review talks to some NGOs, the last line of defense for children’s education when the system fails them. And they have plenty to say.

Otilia Haraga