By the age of 18, Roman Sledziejowski had become the youngest National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) licensed stockbroker in the United States. At the age of 25, Roman Sledziejowski had become the Senior Vice President and Investment Officer of Wachovia Securities. At the time it was the 3rd largest investment firm in the United States with over 10,000 brokers working in 700 office locations and $680 billion in assets under management.
While he was at Wachovia Securities, Roman Sledziejowski began to make personal investments in multi-family rental properties in New York, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Through various partnerships, Roman Sledziejowski purchased and re-developed nearly 400 residential units between 2004 and 2009.
In 2006, Roman Sledziejowski founded Innovest Holdings, a New York City-based financial holding company. Then, in 2007, Roman Sledziejowski co-founded MyPlace Development, Sp. Z o.o., a Poznan, a Poland-based real estate development company. In December of 2009, RJS finalized the sale of his interest in MyPlace Development for $7.3 million in cash to Kulczyk Real Estate Holding SARL in Luxembourg.
Today, Roman Sledziejowski is the co-founder and Vice-Chairman of Savant Strategies, an international management consulting firm that provides management consulting services to middle-market companies primarily in Latin America, Europe, and South Africa.
We spoke with Roman Sledziejowski who shared how the current economic environment has affected business and his views on remote working environments.
What has been the biggest challenge for you leading the business during these past months? How did you overcome these challenges?
We have had a slew of what I’d consider “good problems” recently. Our services have been in high demand largely due to the complexities and uncertainties experienced by many businesses as a result of the pandemic and the latest economic trends.
We have been forced to make some tough decisions when it comes to choosing which clients we can provide the most value to. Sometimes this means having to not engage on assignments with new prospective clients.
How are inflation and the current economic environment of rising interest rates, a strengthening dollar, and a projected recession affecting your business?
We have found ourselves in a rather unique economic environment and businesses in all industries have been greatly impacted on many levels.
For the management consulting industry, it only means that there is more work for us to do and our clients need more advice and concrete solutions from us than ever before. The complexity of the current economic climate is actually quite positive for our industry in terms of demand for our services.
What are your thoughts on remote work and hybrid work environments?
It is a very interesting subject especially with remote work becoming so dominant during the past few years as a result of the pandemic.
While certain industries lend themselves to remote or hybrid work environments, we are noticing more and more the challenges faced by many of our clients with such arrangements. There is quite a noticeable drop in productivity and creativity of workers in many fields who work predominantly from home. This is a big problem, which I believe will force many companies to ask their employees to return to an office environment or possibly adopt a hybrid model with the majority of their work time being spent in an office environment.
With that said, many industries lend themselves to remote working and the last few years demonstrated that it works quite well for them. In these instances, I believe that a fundamental change already occurred and many jobs will never return to an office setting.