What do Alba, Bucharest, Cluj and Lund have in common? We’ll give you the answer right now: Vlad, our colleague. Today, we’re stopping for a coffee (a large Latte, to be exact) to get to know Vlad Ciobotea a little better, one of the #OameniidelaBanca for almost two years.

Nonconformist by nature, Vlad says with a smile that he’s had a few rebellious moments in his life. He comes from a family of doctors, so everyone probably expected him to one day take the Hippocratic Oath too. But International Economic Relations caught his eye and convinced him to hop on the Alba Iulia–Bucharest train to move to the capital on his own.

With published articles and plenty of conferences under his belt, his career was slowly paving the way toward a university post in European economics. There, courage, curiosity and his love for the Scandinavian countries led to an unexpected change of course, and he got on a plane to Lund, Sweden, to pursue his master’s degree.

Homesickness didn’t keep him in Sweden for long, so he came back home, to Alba, where he worked in purchasing and later in production planning and delivery. On Vlad’s to-do list, the word “challenge” is just another task he checks off at the end of the day. He negotiated and set up an entire gearbox production hall in Alba, then revived ceramic production at another plant. Cool, right?

From what you’ve read so far, you might not have expected Vlad to end up working at a bank. Even so, he’d flirted with banking since college, when he did an internship. Guess where? Exactly! At BT. That made him reconsider his path and, soon, Vlad joined the BT family, in the International Relations Department.

“I knew I’d finally found my place! We clicked from the start, even if it was all a whirlwind. I didn’t know anything about banking, but I did have a finance background.”

With a life this dynamic, it’s no surprise he still finds time to play tennis or go skiing. Traveling is his second passion, after tennis: “I’d be on a plane non-stop if I could!” He clearly likes being up high, since we also found out that on his trips he makes sure to “check off” at least one sky bar. That’s how he came to meet none other than Massimo Bottura at his own restaurant in Modena.

Vlad, with your effervescence and optimism, there’s nowhere to go but up! ❤

Photo credit: Vlad Cupsa