The Heart Announces Leadership Transition

• Tomasz Rudolf, Chief Executive Officer, to become Executive Chairman of the Supervisory Board as of July 1, 2020
• Maciej Marszałek, Managing Partner and previous Head of The Heart Ventures, to become Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors on July 1, 2020
• Witold Rzewuski, Chief Financial Officer, joins the Board of Directors on July 1, 2020 to oversee the finance, legal and administrative teams
• Jędrzej Iwaszkiewicz becomes Vice-President and a member of the Board of Directors responsible for Strategic Partnerships and Business Development
• Sergiusz Sawin to retire as a member of the Board of Directors on July 1, 2020 but stays with the business to support product development teams

The Heart today announced that Tomasz Rudolf Chief Executive Officer, will transition to the role of Executive Chairman of the Supervisory Board of The Heart on July 1, 2020. At the same time The Heart Shareholder Meeting appointed Maciej Marszałek, Managing Partner and Head of The Heart Ventures, to become Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors on July 1, 2020.

“As The Heart profile so successfully transitioned towards “Venture Building” we worked really hard to make sure the company in this new phase of growth is supported by the right team and process. In terms of venture building and digital transformation capacity I am convinced we now have the strongest team in Poland and one of the strongest in this part of the region, ready for exciting greater challenges,” said Tomasz Rudolf, ex-CEO. “Maciej played a crucial role in making this possible and we felt this was the right moment to allow him full responsibility to take us to the next level. He has a proven track record of building innovative products and successfully running digital businesses in many countries in challenging markets. Over his career, Maciej has held leadership positions overseeing digital and data transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa and in Latin America across insurance, data, banking services and technology. He’s also a key architect behind my vision and dream of building a strong central european hub for new digital ventures. I am excited to continue working closely with Maciej and supporting The Heart’s success in my new role as Executive Chairman.” - added Tomasz Rudolf.

“It has been the biggest challenge of my entire career to leave the corporate world, join a startup and adjust to this turbulent and demanding environment” said Maciej Marszałek, the new CEO of The Heart. “Tomasz, Jędrzej and Sergiusz together with the team have built an incredible platform able to deliver remarkable acceleration to digitization efforts of big corporations. Something exactly I’ve been looking for while searching for a partner to launch a startup factory. Without this platform it would be impossible to move so fast towards a venture building model. We are now well-positioned for future success as we continue to use our unique know-how on spotting and embracing emerging and new technologies, trends and market opportunities. We’ve built a growth-oriented mindset and learned to work with uncanny efficiency, almost doubling our business year on year since the very start. All of this would not be possible without our closest partners - Ghelamco who believed in our ‘Polish Level 39 concept’ and Mastercard who year after year support so strongly our vision to digitally transform customer journeys across finance and retail sectors. And there are more exciting partnerships we will be announcing soon.”

Sergiusz Sawin, The Heart’s current vice-president and the member of The Board of Directors, after completion of his mission to build strong administrative and finance operations, will retire from the Board and make way for Witold Rzewuski. Witold joined The Heart last year as Chief Financial Officer after a career in finance and investment functions working for top brands such as Deloitte, EY and a portfolio company of Enterprise Investors. “We have spent months looking for the right CFO and I am fully confident that Witold’s expertise and mindset would strongly contribute to the secure transformation of The Heart into a much more complex venture building model,” said Sergiusz Sawin, the former vice-president. Sergiusz remains an important shareholder and is coming back to his core of running ideation and product development workshops for key clients… as well as focusing more on producing excellent wine within his family winery business.

“On behalf of the new Board of Directors, I thank Tomasz and Sergiusz for their outstanding leadership and commitment to making The Heart such an exceptional place to work and business to be part of. I feel fortunate to have partnered with them and I am very happy that we will continue to benefit from their experience and unique expertise in their new functions”, said Maciej Marszałek, The Heart CEO.

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