The Faculty of Economics and Management at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń is celebrating its 55th anniversary in 2023. The anniversary celebrations culminated in a ceremony on June 22nd in the Nicolaus Copernicus University Auditorium. Among the invited guests was Wojciech B. Sobieszak, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Cereal Partners Poland Toruń-Pacific (CPP). A day later, as part of the anniversary celebration, an Economic Forum was held, organized in conjunction with the Business Support Center in Toruń. Sobieszak was also a speaker.

The Faculty is a key educational and research partner of CPP. Many of the company’s employees are its alumni. The flagship project implemented in collaboration with the Faculty is Yes4YETI, a workshop program that facilitates students’ entry into the job market and familiarizes them with the practice of running an international business. Ten editions of the workshops have been held so far. Wojciech Sobieszak and Małgorzata Szalewska-Urbańska, HR Director and Vice President of CPP, were appointed to the Business Council operating within the Faculty and supporting its leadership in developing a development strategy.

Shared History
The Faculty and Cereal Partners Poland Toruń-Pacific are also connected by the late Professor Jerzy Tomala, an economist, one of the co-founders of the Faculty and later the first Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Toruń-Pacific. Thanks to his recommendations and contacts in economic centers in the US, the first agreement was concluded in 1990 with foreign investors, who, together with the City of Toruń, established the Toruń-Pacific company. The assets of Przedsiębiorstwo Przemysłu Ziemniaczanego (Potato Industry Enterprise), including the Toruń cereal plant, were contributed as a contribution. The City of Toruń was the sole administrator of these assets at the time. In 1994, Toruń-Pacific changed hands and joined the Cereal Partners Worldwide group, established by Nestle and General Mills. Professor Tomala chaired the Supervisory Board of CPP until 2001. From 2001 to 2019, the board was chaired by Professor Bohdan Godziszewski, also associated with the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management at Nicolaus Copernicus University.

On the occasion of the anniversary, the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. hab. Jerzy Bohlke, Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University, President of Cereal Partners Poland, Aleksander Wasilewski, and the Chairman of the Supervisory Board sent a congratulatory letter to the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. hab. Jerzy Bohlke, Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University.

The Beginnings of the Faculty
The intention to establish higher economic studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University was realized in 1968. By order of June 13, 1968, the Minister of Education established the Institute of Economics at Nicolaus Copernicus University, operating with the rights of a faculty. Its organizer was Associate Professor Jerzy Liczkowski, Ph.D., Eng., who had transferred to the Nicolaus Copernicus University from the Poznań University of Economics. He also assumed the role of the Institute’s first director. At the beginning of the 1968/69 academic year, the Nicolaus Copernicus University Institute of Economics employed 22 research and teaching staff. In that same academic year, the Institute admitted its first 66 students.

New Hansa
On June 23rd, as part of the Faculty’s 55th anniversary celebrations, the Economic Forum, organized jointly with the Business Support Center in Toruń as part of the 43rd International Congress of Cities of the New Hansa, was held in the small hall of the CKK Jordanki. Wojciech Sobieszak, one of the forum’s invited speakers, discussed, among other things, the key factors influencing the investment attractiveness of the Pomeranian and Kujawy regions, using Cereal Partners Poland Toruń-Pacific as an example.