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E25 - Angela Achitei, President of ADV Romania Group
32 Plays16 hours ago
In this episode, Angela Achitei, a true pioneer of the social economy in Romania, shares how she built one of the most inspiring ecosystems of social enterprises in Eastern Europe. She started simple: hiring 25 people with disabilities when no one else would. Over the past 15 years, she expanded from one business into a group of businesses across sectors, from recruitment to travel services, all designed to create opportunities for people from vulnerable backgrounds. But like many social entrepreneurs, Angela faced a major barrier: access to finance. She shares how this challenge led her to co-create a community-owned financial institution, built with other entrepreneurs, to fund what traditional markets wouldn’t. This is a conversation with someone who doesn’t take no for an answer and who has demonstrated that social impact and business success can reinforce each other.
Please review the episode, share your feedback, and subscribe to the podcast!
You can also:
- Visit our website: womenchangingfinance.org
- Read Angela's full bio
- Follow Angela on LinkedIn
To go further, here are some of the references mentioned during the episode:
- ADV Romania (Alături de Voi Romania Foundation) — https://www.advromania.ro
- UtilDeco — https://www.utildeco.ro
- WISE Travel — https://wise.travel/en/
- Job Direct — https://www.jobdirect.ro
- AFIN (IFN) — https://afin.org.ro
- Social Finance Association (Asociatia pentru Finantare Sociala) — https://finantaresociala.ro
- TISE (Poland) — https://tise.pl
- Social Economy Europe — https://www.socialeconomy.eu.org
- ENSIE (European Network of Social Integration Enterprises) — https://www.ensie.org
- FEBEA (European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks) — https://www.febea.org
- Microfinance Europe (Microfinance Centre) — https://www.mfc.org.pl
Women Changing Finance is part of the Impact Alpha Podcast Network.
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Transcript
Introduction to Influential Women in Finance
00:00:05
Speaker
Hi, welcome to the podcast Women Changing Finance, where you will discover amazing women from all around the world who are making finance become a force for good.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast Women Changing Finance.
Meet Angela Acitei and ADV Romania
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm Cristina Tora and I'm welcoming today Angela Acitei, who is an international expert in social economy and social inclusion.
00:00:32
Speaker
And she's the president of ADV Romania Group, which is the grouping of six social enterprises and one of the largest social economy organizations in Eastern Europe. Angela, your work is really impressive. Thank you so much for joining the show today.
00:00:46
Speaker
So as a first question, i would like to ask you if you can perhaps paint a picture and describe the impact landscape in Romania.
Development of Romania's Social Economy
00:00:56
Speaker
What does impact look like in Romania? What are the challenges, the opportunities, or maybe some trends that you are seeing?
00:01:03
Speaker
And any reflections on how the sector has evolved up to today? Thank you very much, Cristina, for this invitation. I'm very glad to be in this interview with you.
00:01:13
Speaker
The social economy Romania is quite new as a field, and we started to talk more about the social economy, social impact, social financing in the last, let's say, yeah eight, 10 years because of different European funds that we are having in Romania dedicated to social economy.
00:01:31
Speaker
But of course, we are having some of good examples say in the community that started to do social economy before to have these European funds. And in this case, it is also my
ADV Romania's Beginnings and Impact
00:01:42
Speaker
organization. We started in 2008 just ah looking for creating jobs for people with disabilities because we didn't manage to find the different jobs on the labor market for them.
00:01:55
Speaker
And In that situation, 2008, we decided, okay, if nobody wants to hire these people, we will hire and we will provide a good example that we can trust. We can create the odd value for the community, bringing these people in the labor market.
00:02:13
Speaker
And we yeah we hired at that moment, not just one or two people, around 25 people. in three cities in Romania where we you operated. And actually we discovered that what we are doing is a social economy and we liked very much this field and we started to advocate at the national level also to have a legislation on social economy.
Growth in Romania's Social Enterprise Sector
00:02:34
Speaker
So Romania is a country that now is having a social economy law since 2015. We are having these European funds And we can say from our researches that we are doing year by year, we are speaking about 120,000 organizations with social impact in Romania.
00:02:57
Speaker
Unfortunately, not all of them are registered officially as a social enterprise, but this is not so important. it important what you are doing day by day. Officially, in our ah National Register of Social Economy, we are speaking about 3,000 enterprises registered. And we are expecting by the end of the year to have around 5,000 social enterprises registered because we are having these social European funds that are providing support, financial support for establishing a social enterprises as startups.
00:03:35
Speaker
So this is ah quite a short description of social economy sector in Romania. It's growing up The people are looking for to create this kind of companies because they are providing a very good social impact and also economical impact.
Social Enterprises under ADV Romania
00:03:51
Speaker
You've built one of the most respected groups of social enterprises in Romania. Can you tell us about those businesses, how they create impact, how they complement each other, how they work together in this ecosystem?
00:04:02
Speaker
We actually build ah this so ecosystem of a group of social enterprises step by step. and adapting ah our services to the needs of the market. So ah the first one was Utildeco. Utildeco is a work integration social enterprise authorized in ah which now we are having around 40 people that are working more than half of them are people with disabilities and people ah from vulnerable groups, especially a part of them are coming also from child protection systems. So they became adults and they actually left the the child protection system and now they are independent people that are working, aar
00:04:43
Speaker
They get married in our organization. where Some of them are having children. So it's very nice to see this ah progress. ah At Utildeco, we are producing ah protected equipment from textile for different companies.
00:04:57
Speaker
We are having printing services. We are having archiving services of the documents. physical and electronic archiving. And the most the new business line is a coffee roastery factory.
Expansion into B2C Services
00:05:11
Speaker
So we also are roastering coffee and we are selling to different companies, but also to different people and coffee shops that want to work with us.
00:05:22
Speaker
After creating these the first social enterprise, we decided to um ah go also to create something for B2C as clients because we wanted very much to speak about the social impact and to involve people from the community. So we developed the White Travel Agency. It's the second social enterprise.
00:05:45
Speaker
And we are a travel broker at the European level, and we are providing the travel services for people, but also for companies that want to organize their businesses or business trips so with us or business events. The third social enterprise Job Direct. It's a human resource placement agency specialized on recruiting and placement on the labor market of people with disabilities and from vulnerable groups.
00:06:13
Speaker
And we created this social enterprise because we are having a lot of requests from people with these disabilities to help them to go on the labor market. ah But we are not able everybody to hire in our ah group of social enterprises because we are depending on different orders from companies and the people.
00:06:32
Speaker
And we decided to to take this experience that we are having in working with people with disabilities and to help other ah companies to hire and to create jobs for people who with
ADV Romania's European Influence
00:06:43
Speaker
disabilities. So we are doing this social enterprise.
00:06:46
Speaker
During the time, ah so we started on the foundation to provide the services for developing what of other social enterprises Romania, not ours, but ah actually to use this experience and building social enterprises to help others to create.
00:07:05
Speaker
And we became the grant administrator for European Social Fund and the other ah European Commission projects. And we managed until now to build 42 social enterprises in Romania and five social enterprise in of Moldova and one in Ukraine.
00:07:23
Speaker
And this year, actually, in October, we will sign the contracts with another 21 social enterprises that will be part of this big community of startups that we created during the time.
00:07:37
Speaker
But what we saw, that it's not enough just to create startups and to help them in the initial stage of development. It's important to have other types of tools and instruments to help them to grow
Challenges and Solutions in Social Enterprise Finance
00:07:50
Speaker
up.
00:07:50
Speaker
And one was the challenge, social finance, how to access the social finance and to be eligible to take different loans or other types of financial instruments to grow your business and to become more competitive on the market.
00:08:06
Speaker
And because nobody wanted to lend money to these social ah enterprises as ah startups and with a high risk because of their social impact, We decided, okay, instead of crying, maybe it's a good time to sell some napkins, you know, and to create a new business line.
00:08:24
Speaker
So we decided to create the four social enterprise from our group, Affin. Afin actually is a social enterprise authorized by the National Bank of Romania as a non-financial bank institution.
00:08:39
Speaker
And what is very nice to this product and this service, so we are having already two and a half years of working in the market, the shareholders of this ah social enterprise actually are most of them social entrepreneurs or people that are working in social enterprises or people with disabilities, for example, that became shareholders. When we started two years and ago, we managed to bring together 170 shareholders. At this moment, we are
00:09:13
Speaker
but one hundred and eighty shareholders And we are expecting until November to increase the number around 200 shareholders.
00:09:23
Speaker
And what is the most of beautiful thing is to create ah a product, at a service that you need for the community and also to create a bank of people. And we are hoping in the future to be able to have more shareholders and more people around this concept of social financing.
Comprehensive Support for Social Enterprises
00:09:42
Speaker
And the last so social enterprise It's a social finance association as is NGO. Actually, this NGO is providing support to AFIN, also to ADV Romania Foundation as a grant administrator to help people, social entrepreneurs to understand better the social finance and to provide this mentoring, education on social finance.
00:10:09
Speaker
ah to be able to manage through different regulation, but also to use the maximum impact of these kind of tools that are existing in the market. ah We are providing, like ah in our group, ah like a package of services, one-stop shop for social economy.
00:10:27
Speaker
We are a social enterprises group. We are putting this experience in creating new startups, but also we're creating different tools like social finance, trainings, and also advocacy because we are working a lot of national level.
00:10:43
Speaker
At this moment, we are having around five legislative proposals in the parliament, the Romanian parliament, for improvement. org integration social or enterprises in Romania.
00:10:55
Speaker
Thank you so much for this description. It's not only very clear, but it's really, truly super impressive. You've really created ecosystem and it's every part is has its reason and supports the other part. So it's it's really beautiful.
Affin: Pioneering Financial Support
00:11:10
Speaker
I want to ask you some questions on Afe, because that's among the things that you have done. One of the really great, I guess, yeah, kind of achievements is to create the first non-banking financial institution in Romania that has Romanian capital dedicated to the social economy sector.
00:11:30
Speaker
I think this is really inspiring for other countries. Can you perhaps go deeper and explain how it was set up, how it works? Maybe give some examples of businesses or organizations that get financed by Affin and how they manage that finance.
00:11:49
Speaker
Sure. We started to build this idea of creating a financial instruments in around 2019, 2020. And actually... two thousand twenty and actually ADV Romania was in the situation in the past to take some money from the banks, and we didn't manage to take this money from the banks in Romania because we are a social enterprise and nobody understood at that moment what we are doing.
00:12:14
Speaker
And actually, we lent some money from a bank from Poland, TISE, specialized on social entrepreneur entrepreneurship. And for us, was very interesting, this experience, a very easy and flexible way of taking this money and using this money.
00:12:29
Speaker
And after that, we was thinking about creating something in Romania. But we didn't have the courage, you know, to go and to create a financial instrument because it's not so easy. You have some expertise.
00:12:41
Speaker
You need some expertise. But ah in one day, I was contacted by a people ah from a bank, Bogdan Merfa, and he told me, ah why one we are not having this kind of tool in Romania? And I told him that because nobody did this tool and it's important to manage to not just to have an idea, but to start to work ah in this direction.
00:13:02
Speaker
And Bogdan told me, let's go to make this financial instrument. I have the experience on the financial tools. You have experience on social entrepreneurship, and we can bring other people with ah different activities.
00:13:16
Speaker
expertise and we can build this Romania. And thought I told him, okay, let's go, let's do do this. And we started to do, the first step was to do the marketing research to see if we are having market or not for this and who will be the investors in this product.
00:13:32
Speaker
And the when we did the the first initial market research, we saw that many people with money, businessmen who would like to help and to to invest in this product.
00:13:44
Speaker
But after ah COVID pandemic, when we did again the research because the COVID ah pandemic changed a little bit the business market, we saw that these people with money, they don't want to invest. And we thought, okay, we have a big plan. We we need big plan.
00:14:03
Speaker
And one of this discussion was let's ask social entrepreneurs if they maybe they want to invest in this kind of product and to create a thing. And we had a very good response. And in five months, we managed to bring together 170 shareholders. We needed to, according to the legislation in Romania to create a non-financial bank institution, you need to prove that you have a minimum social capital of 200,000 euros. And we managed in five months actually to raise 240,000 euros, more than we needed.
00:14:43
Speaker
And we started to build this concept. We registered as a legal ah shareholder company in Romania. And after we applied for to be registered as a social enterprise and we put the conditions in our legal status that we are ah respecting the condition of social enterprises.
00:15:02
Speaker
And one of the condition is to reinvest 100% of the profit in our activity for the social mission. And we applied for ah national recognizing for the National Bank of Romania.
00:15:15
Speaker
And the National Bank of Romania, when we received our papers, they saw 170 shareholders. for They called us and asked, it's a mistake or it's something correct.
00:15:27
Speaker
And I told them, but this is correct. These are people that wants to create and to build this non-financial bank institution in Romania. And we received the approval and we started to operate in the market.
00:15:40
Speaker
And at this moment, i can say that we are having, the we gave already more than 80 loans to social enterprises, more than 1,200,000 euros in the market.
00:15:54
Speaker
We took also some money from different banks. Now we are in the process of evaluation by the European Investment Fund and we we hope to get ah to receive so additional support, additional money to become more competitive in the market.
00:16:11
Speaker
and We are having different types of social enterprises that we are helping from social field, from educational field, from culture, or ah for circular social economy.
00:16:23
Speaker
And ah when we are looking to their CV, organizational CV, and their business plan for what they want to use the money.
00:16:33
Speaker
For us, it's very important to look what kind of social KPIs they are having for their organizations. We are doing the monitoring of these indicators.
00:16:44
Speaker
And it's very nice because we helped a lot of Social enterprises NGOs with social impact, actually to be eligible for different European funds and to attract more money because we help them with co-financing or with cash flow after until they receive the pre-financing or reimbursement of the money.
00:17:06
Speaker
Also, we help them to be more competitive on different public procurements because they had the money to buy the raw materials and to start to produce or provide services and after to be able to receive the money for their work.
00:17:22
Speaker
Also, we helped some of them to establish new offices. to extend their activities, also to develop new business lines or products and their ecosystem of organization and activities that they are doing in community.
00:17:41
Speaker
And so together with them, we created a cluster of social economy in Romania. It's the only European cluster registered on European platform of clusters. And also we are encouraging them to work together. Some of them are buying different products, services from each other. Some of them ah are building together new partnerships, opportunities for attracting, for example, European funds. It's very nice. so It's not about money and product. It's about the community. This is what we created actually in Afin, non-financial bank institution.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's a Romanian community with Romanian money of investors. We are trying to build a very nice story in Romania, I
Future of Social Investment in Romania
00:18:28
Speaker
think. We are having already some very nice results.
00:18:31
Speaker
And what is interesting, Christine, maybe it's important to say this and I will stop. And so we are planning to create in Romania, and now we are working, the first social investment fund, because we don't have in Romania this kind of fund.
00:18:46
Speaker
We are planning to start the activity in 2027. At this moment, we are doing the marketing research. We are having a small fund of doing the research and to attract investors and so to make business plan from European Commission. And this is very good.
00:19:06
Speaker
And we are having two partners in this new project. idea FITRUST from France and they'll also MicroEurope from Spain and also FEBE. FEBE is the European Federation of Alternative and Ethical Banks.
00:19:22
Speaker
We hope with this support to manage to establish this fund and actually to have um another product for more mature organizations, social enterprises, with the social ah impact, and to give them other type of support. And actually to have like a puzzle, a different types of tools, instruments to be able to help ah according to the needs ah each social enterprise or organization with social and environment impact.
00:19:51
Speaker
That's really amazing. Well, I'm i'm looking forward to to seeing that come true as well. Maybe one reflection that I would love to hear from you. People think often that it's difficult to balance profit and purpose for social enterprises.
00:20:06
Speaker
What would you say to that? It's a challenge, you know, to make, and I hope to say correctly in English, an equilibrium between social impact and economical impact and to expenses and also the profits.
00:20:20
Speaker
But this is a very nice way of doing things actually in the community. Maybe you will not have a very big profit, but you will have a very nice impact in the community.
Balancing Economic and Social Impact
00:20:32
Speaker
And I think people are looking to this kind of impact and they are looking to this kind of businesses, not just to buy products and services, but also to work for this kind of businesses, to have like a meaning of day by day of what you are doing is providing ah something very good for the people, for the community, for the environment. Usually I'm saying that the social economy, it's an economy for the people, for the community. It's economy that is friendly with people, community, environment.
00:21:03
Speaker
And in this community are working, especially people with social DNA, they are having some own the reasons, you know, to work and satisfaction to do this. And I believe that the social economy is the future economy if we would like to create a better world for people and nobody to be left behind. the And I think many people, they are choosing to work, to collaborate with this kind of social businesses. And in the life, not the money is the only, the profit is the only success indicator of what you are doing.
00:21:47
Speaker
I think the impact and the very nice story to tell your children, your grandchildren, It's the biggest achievement that you can have in this life. And our mission as a people on this world.
00:22:02
Speaker
I cannot agree more. And it's a beautiful way to phrase it. Thank you. Maybe a question also because you are working in Romania, but you are a champion for a social economy in Europe.
00:22:15
Speaker
You have different hats. For example, you're president of the Romanian Social Economy Network. you are and a member of a number of European networks and coalitions on social economy, integration and inclusion.
00:22:28
Speaker
Can you tell us a bit more about those different hats that you wear and more importantly, how they help you create more impact in Romania and what are perhaps innovations or good practices that you are seeing from elsewhere that you would like to see in Romania or vicea versa?
00:22:50
Speaker
good practices that you would like to see in other countries? Yeah, very, very good question, Christina. We as EDV Romania group, one of our objective objectives is to put this practical experience in a system experience and actually to create a good environment for social enterprises, ah not only Romania, but also ah in other countries.
Angela's International Advocacy
00:23:14
Speaker
And the also working in Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, we we know very well the situation and we worked a lot and in Ukraine before the war.
00:23:24
Speaker
And we know that the social economy can be a very good tool for development of the communities. And ADRB Romania, I think we already became like a resource center that is linking them, is making this connection with Eastern and Western Europe.
00:23:45
Speaker
And we are trying, you know, to take good technologies, to provide good experience, and a so to be involved not just at the national level, but also the European level in different advocacy and lobby activities. Because of it, we became members in different coalitions. We are members in the Social Economy Europe. it's the umbrella organization for social economy, one of the European Commission dialogue of partner in this field. We became member in SPD. SPD is the European network ah of ah service providers for people with disabilities because we are hiring people with disabilities. We are hiring them on the labor market in our organization.
00:24:26
Speaker
And we know very well the situation and the challenges that are facing these ah people. And this network is a good opportunity to exchange about this and to work together for a better environment for people with disabilities. Because we created in Romania and ADB Romania was one of the member founders of Romanian Network of Social Economy.
00:24:49
Speaker
we became member of ANSI. ANSI is the European network of national networks of work integration social enterprises. So this category of the social enterprises are dedicated to creating jobs for people from vulnerable groups.
00:25:04
Speaker
And ah so we are providing our experience and the Rise Romania is ah one of the vice president of this network at the European level and we are very happy about this ah position.
00:25:16
Speaker
Another network is the IASIS Cooperative, and it's other type of tool of doing and to create innovation in the community and also to grow up the social economy.
00:25:28
Speaker
And we decided to be part of ah this network. And the last one is the UYs. The WISE is a network of companies and social enterprises that are looking for inclusive employment of people from vulnerable groups, ah people with disabilities.
00:25:44
Speaker
And i I think we need to collaborate with different stakeholders in the community And to have this continued the dialogue about what are the needs and what we can do together to build a good environment, a good ecosystem for ah the social economy.
00:26:01
Speaker
And sometimes I'm saying that actually what we are creating in Romania, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, because it's not so developed, the social economy is another country in Europe.
00:26:12
Speaker
It's a like ah high we are building a highway of social economy. and with different, you know, routes and ah services, because it's not just about saying, what look, what the the social economy is very nice, it's a very good system, it's a guess good the way of doing the economy.
00:26:32
Speaker
We need examples. ah We need but people, the example of the impact that we created to speak about this sector and building this package of social enterprises, of good examples in the community.
00:26:48
Speaker
I'm sure they will be the change that we want to build around us. Yes, I like your analogy of highway of social economy because highway is also about mainstreaming. It's about acceleration. It's about bringing things to different places.
00:27:08
Speaker
Your organization's name, a dv actually, and I'm not sure I will pronounce it well, but it's Alaturi Devoi, which means together with you. And this is so powerful. And I wanted to kind of highlight that. But it also says a lot about you.
00:27:24
Speaker
You have a real, you know, passion for impact, for social change. Can you tell us about your journey? How did you get here? Wow.
Angela's Journey and Motivations
00:27:33
Speaker
Actually, um my journey is quite interesting.
00:27:36
Speaker
I was born in Republic of Moldova and I came in Romania. when I was 16 at the university and Even I applied for a law school. Something happened in Romanian system of education at that moment. We are speaking about 1992.
00:27:54
Speaker
And somebody in the school ah management told me that you are not anymore on the law school, but you can follow the social assistance for faculty. I did nothing about social work, social assistance.
00:28:11
Speaker
And I tried to change my professional background to solve the problem and to be in the law school. I didn't manage because a lot of corruption was at that moment in Romania.
00:28:23
Speaker
And I decided, okay, let's do the social assistance faculty and to graduate. And I finished my... ah So I'm a social worker. And after I made the master on inclusion education of people with disabilities,
00:28:38
Speaker
I started my journey to work for the child protection department in Romania, but I worked just ah for six months and I decided to go in private. and I started to work for a non-profit organization from the United States. They had a big big program and that moment, financed by USID.
00:28:57
Speaker
in Romania. And after three years, but when they finished this program in Romania, they decided to create two non-profit organizations, Romanian organizations, and actually to give a chance to go further with the projects and activities.
00:29:15
Speaker
And i was asked at that moment if I would like to take the position of the Executive Director of av Romania. I was very young, 25 years. It was like a big challenge for me. I didn't know at that time what it means so to be a director. I was just a program coordinator at least that moment for that organization.
00:29:37
Speaker
They gave us $20,000 and we
00:29:40
Speaker
and we with the condition to take another four people from the organization, um this American organization. And like actually we started in five people with $20,000.
00:29:53
Speaker
It was like live or die after six months because just we had the money for six months of running the activities. And we started to write the different projects and to...
00:30:05
Speaker
look for different money and actually we build step by step this organization. But what was very interesting about your question, when we worked to design the mission of Wise Travel, one of our ah enterprises from our group, the person from the marketing department came to me and asked me, why you are doing this?
00:30:28
Speaker
the social economy, social impact. And I told him, I'm doing because I'm a social worker. I finish, i have the studies in professional educational integration of people who with disabilities and I like very much.
00:30:43
Speaker
And he told me, I'm not convinced about this. You have other reason to do this. And many days I was thinking about his question, why I'm doing this? And In one day in the morning, looking on the mirror, I just had a flash about my childhood. the And what I yeah remember was the fact that the best friend, my friend in the when ah I was a child,
00:31:11
Speaker
It was a another child with the Down syndrome. was the child of the best friend of my mom. And I was the only person that spoke with him, tried to play with him, dance with him. ah Nobody wanted to have relation with these people. person.
00:31:28
Speaker
And I was very affected at that period because I saw that nobody wants to integrate this person. I lived in a village, a small village, and the the the discrimination was the best way, you know, to communicate with others. so especially with these people.
00:31:47
Speaker
And at that moment, actually, I thought that nothing in the world is happening just for because you change you you try to know take something this some decision.
00:32:00
Speaker
i think what we are ah Living in our childhood, it's very important what kind of adult we will become and what kind of professional route we will have at the end.
00:32:14
Speaker
So at this moment, I think I cannot do the best other things that I'm doing now. I'm very happy. I'm very passionate and in what I'm doing.
00:32:26
Speaker
And I think this is the reason. The reason that actually i would like to be a voice of these people that nobody wants to hear them and to see them.
00:32:36
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, it's a really great mission that you have. One question also so that I want to ask you, because this podcast is also an opportunity to celebrate and to look at achievements.
Empowering Vulnerable Groups
00:32:52
Speaker
So could you share perhaps one thing that you're really, really proud of or perhaps things that you still want to achieve? Can you reflect on your achievements? The best achievements for me is when I'm seeing around me the people happy and to see that these people are not depending of state's so aid or compassion of other people, but these people are became free people.
00:33:21
Speaker
The freedom is very important for people with disabilities and from vulnerable groups. And I I can say that the freedom is coming with the opportunities to choose in your life, to choose to be educated, to choose to have a job, to choose to have access to different health services, community services, to have a family, to have kids and to have your own home.
00:33:47
Speaker
And these are the best achievements. Creating different entities so created to make this, of I don't know, economical um impact.
00:33:58
Speaker
It's important and so, but I think the the real impact is what you are building in the life of people. And I'm very confident that nothing in this ordeal It's so important and it's not born, you know, born from the, just for a duty to do something.
00:34:18
Speaker
But I think it's a born because you love people and you want to share this love with the people and to see them, to understand their needs and to help them according to their needs and to help them to become free people.
00:34:37
Speaker
People with a self-esteem, increased and people that um are part of the community. This is the best achievement for me. And many times I'm saying in my team, if you are happy, I'm very happy. I don't need that nothing, other things.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yes, it's at the same time, easy and difficult. and very high purpose.
Challenges as a Woman in Business
00:35:02
Speaker
One question that I ask all my guests, how does it feel to be a woman doing this job?
00:35:09
Speaker
It's nice. It's It's challenging also. It's challenging because apart that you are a woman, ah you also have to explain that social economies exist. Because sometimes, the and many times actually, the business area is men, the ah let's say a word.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I was in the position in a few public events, you know, to be in different workshops. So with a lot of businessmen from classical businesses, and I was speaking about social economy and what we are doing. And I had this different reaction like, Angela, doesn't exist the social economy. You have to do a nonprofit for economical activities with something in the middle,
00:35:56
Speaker
It's not possible. And some many times I'm trying to to explain that it's possible. And this is a good way of doing the businesses and I believe that we have to change the economical ah theory of doing the business in the community because they are not responding anymore to the needs of the people because of it we are seeing so many people that are working but they are poor people and it's not normal if you are working to not afford the a minimum but level of living, a quality level of living. Also we are seeing these disparities between ah rural and urban area, between different regions.
00:36:36
Speaker
between countries and it's not normal and not just the profit it is the only success indicator of what we are doing. But I can't say that I had some discrimination or because I am a woman. I think it's important how you are putting your ah you know different discussion is what actually you are saying and you are proving that you did. and For me, it's very simple because i have a team that is very nice and we are having ah good results achieved with this team.
00:37:11
Speaker
And it's impossible, you know, to say, okay, you manage because you are a woman. Yes, so I am ah a woman, but also have some skills of management.
00:37:22
Speaker
I understand very well the market. I learn a lot day by day. I'm looking to different books, podcasts to understand better how to develop what we are doing at ADV Romania.
00:37:36
Speaker
But it's not easy. Yeah, no, it's not easy. And actually, maybe a question around that. What helps you be your best self? You're talking about learning a lot. Is there anything else?
Balancing Professional and Personal Life
00:37:48
Speaker
I think it's very important to have a discipline in your life and to know very well to say what you are doing and to do what you are saying and to have this equilibrium also between professional activities and personal activities, family activities. I have a very nice family who is supporting me a lot.
00:38:11
Speaker
Actually, yeah this year we are having 30 years of being together with my husband and also a very child. Actually, it's not more anymore a child because few weeks ago we became adult and they are supporting me a lot. And and so our child is involved as a volunteer in ADV Romania.
00:38:32
Speaker
And I think it's important to have this synergy between a family lifestyle and also so professional lifestyle and to to encourage each other to continue what we are doing. and But you need a lot of discipline and a lot of work. It's not so easy to achieve and something just staying on the seat.
00:38:55
Speaker
and making some ah real soon social media. I don't believe in this kind of miracles, you know, to build something around.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yes. So we're approaching the end of the podcast episode. I have three quick questions. What's keeping you optimistic? People around me, their feedback, where our results together, this is.
00:39:22
Speaker
And the results that I'm so seeing that what we are doing day by day actually build the future of us, around us. What or who is inspiring you?
00:39:35
Speaker
My husband a lot because he has the business experience and I learned a lot from him about the business ah part ah of social economy because I'm a social worker and more social, but together we can very well create this balance, you know, between between in economical and social activities.
00:39:54
Speaker
And my child, because has a very maturity, let's say, way of thinking, and it's very empathic as a person, and sometimes he's giving me a very, very good lessons. And of course, my team.
00:40:10
Speaker
In our group, we are around 100 people, and I think these people, they also love very much what they are doing, and usually they are saying that ADV Romaine is like a family for them. I think this it's a good feedback also so for me.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yes that's definitely a great amazing feedback. Are you reading anything that you would recommend to the audience? At this moment I'm reading a lot of researches. I don't have enough time you know to read books in other there areas but I'm trying to invest a lot of to understand better the sector and to understand what is happening in different countries. And this is my priority.
00:40:51
Speaker
But I have some ah books that I yeah received from different people to my birthday, and it's on my list to maybe during the christmass Christmas, Christmas, New Year, it's a good period for me to look to other types of information.
00:41:07
Speaker
But what we I am doing in ah each morning when I'm doing my makeup, drinking my coffee, I prefer to listen to different podcasts ah and also in the car during my trip to the office and to. learn from different experience so congratulations that you are doing this podcast because I think this is the new way of being updated to different types of information brilliant any podcast that you particularly appreciate yeah I like very much from Romania Andrea Rojka podcast
00:41:42
Speaker
It's inviting different business people and they are speaking about ah the businesses. I liked very much Moraru. It's um another famous so person that is doing different podcasts with the interesting people. And also I'm looking, I'm very open to different types of business.
00:42:04
Speaker
podcast that ah appears in my feed list on YouTube so it's a good tool to be updated. Actually I'm not looking to the TV this is another who regarding your question how to be the optimistic you know not to not look on the TV on the news.
00:42:22
Speaker
Exactly. Because we are so negative. Yes.
Encouragement for Social Entrepreneurs
00:42:26
Speaker
Do you have any final thoughts or advice for fellow changemakers or any asks from the listeners?
00:42:33
Speaker
I think it's important to, in your life, not just to say that nothing is happening good around, somebody have to do something.
00:42:44
Speaker
I think it's important everybody to try to be the positive change that one they want to see in others and to be in action and to do something.
00:42:55
Speaker
And also I think everybody in their life is having different opportunities and they can make different choices. And I'm encouraging very very much the people that want to go in social economy sector to become social entrepreneurs.
00:43:14
Speaker
And I'm saying that sometimes we are having different opportunities, but if we are not taking these opportunities, we are losing actually the opportunity to see how could be if I took this chance. And I think it's important, but what you should keep in mind that what you are doing day by day defines your future. And you have to do this with love for people, for community and for environment. That's a fantastic conclusion.
00:43:47
Speaker
Thank you so much, Angela. It was such a nice conversation. i really, really enjoyed it. And thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much, k Christina, for this opportunity and congratulations for this kind of podcast that you are doing and your mission as organizations. It's nice to have this kind of people as you in the community. Thank you very much.
00:44:08
Speaker
Thank you.
00:44:13
Speaker
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00:44:24
Speaker
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00:44:35
Speaker
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00:44:50
Speaker
Women Changing Finance is part of the Impact Alpha podcast network. Smart conversations by and for impact investing professionals.