Zbigniew Roch
Lawyer, former diplomat and expert for innovative technologies
Already during his studies in 1978, Zbigniew Roch founded a multi-sector production and trading company, which soon became a major private export entrepreneur in southern Poland.
From 1981 onwards, he provided business, legal and tax advice for private companies in the Krakow Chamber of Commerce on a voluntary basis and in his spare time, together with the “Siemacha” educational center, he ran rehabilitation programs for at-risk young people. Between 1977 and 1980, he was actively involved in the structures of the opposition Student Solidarity Committee in Krakow (SKS), whose ideas and demands formed the basis for the Solidatnosc movement founded in September 1980.
After the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981, he led underground structures in cooperation with the Krakow Curia to support members of the opposition who were being persecuted by the security authorities. For political reasons, he moved to Germany at the end of the 1980s, where he immediately founded his own company.
In addition to planning and building complete industrial plants and production lines, he also advised foreign companies operating in Germany and German companies planning to expand into Eastern European markets.
As part of this activity, he managed the construction of a vehicle paint shop at Audi Neckarsulm, the planning and construction of a Mercedes production line in Rastatt (A-Class), the reconstruction of the Massey Ferguson plant in Coventry and, on behalf of General Motors, the preparation of the construction of an Opel production plant in Gliwice Poland, as well as a VW paint shop in Poznan for Dürr AG.
In 2003, he was accredited as an expert in export marketing and market research under the European Union’s PHARE program and subsequently registered as a consultant and lobbyist with the Parliament and the European Commission.
