Lewiatan Awards 2019 go to Akszak-Okińczyc, Grycan, Haładyj, and Bochniarz
2019-07-17
Michał Akszak-Okińczyc, Elżbieta Grycan and Zbigniew Grycan, Mariusz Haładyj, and Henryka Bochniarz are this year's prizewinners of the Lewiatan Confederation Awards. The awards were handed out on 27 June 2019 at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw.
Andrzej Wierzbicki's Award in the category small and medium-sized companies, for showing that vision and strategy are key to the success of SMEs, went to Michał Akszak-Okińczyc from ASO MR, a company which is one of the leading distributors of luxury cars in Europe.
"Located in Cracow, the Lexus showroom managed by the Prizewinner made a large-scale transition in the course of 20 years, from a small lot selling several cars a year to the best Lexus dealer in Europe, beating even the one in London," says Marek Zychla from the Lewiatan Council of Regions. It should be added that as a result of excellent sales volume, in Cracow there will soon be a new Lexus and Toyota showroom, which will be the biggest of its kind in Europe.
Andrzej Wierzbicki's Award in the category large companies, for showing how to successfully combine craft and industry, went to Elżbieta Grycan and Zbigniew Grycan, the creators of the Grycan company - Ice Cream for Generations.
"Today, you can eat Grycan ice cream in over 150 establishments, and the company hires 2,000 employees. They are still a family company, they still personally tend to the quality standards, and endorse each scoop they sell with their own name. But they are also well-recognised entrepreneurs whose business scale is impressive," says Henry Orfinger, with his laudation being concluded with a joke: I got a reliable recipe for such a major success. Are you interested? Write it down: a litre of milk,
12 pieces of jolk, 35 dag of sugar, 100 ml of cream, and 100 years of experience. This is the recipe for the Grycan dairy ice cream.
Władysław Grabski's Award, for building a dialogue between administration and business, went to the President of the General Counsel of the Republic of Poland, Mr Mariusz Haładyj.
"For the last several years, Minster Mariusz Haładyj showed that a dialogue between administration and business is not only possible, but also necessary. In the course of many, often difficult debates, we had an opportunity to express our needs, explain the consequences of applicable or draft regulations for the business. If our arguments were convincing, Mr Haładyj took them into account in the operations of the ministry. Our dialogue showed in practice that the cooperation between the employers and the administration may be conducted by way of respect and through an informative exchange of arguments," says Maciej Witucki in his laudation.
For the entire impact of her public activities, the Barbara Skarga Award for Bold Thinking granted by the Lewiatan Confederation and Barbara Skarga Foundation for Thinking went to the President of Lewiatan, and currently Chair of the Lewiatan Main Council, Ms Henryka Bochniarz.
A strategic partner of this year's Lewiatan Award Gala is Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).
