{"id":10960,"date":"2021-10-27T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.adrem.ro\/30-years-of-capitalism-its-frustrating-when-youre-trying-to-build-a-business-like-outside-and-youre-surrounded-by-trickery-imposture-and-hypocrisy-how-hard-was-the-road-to-success\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T15:50:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:50:48","slug":"30-years-of-capitalism-its-frustrating-when-youre-trying-to-build-a-business-like-outside-and-youre-surrounded-by-trickery-imposture-and-hypocrisy-how-hard-was-the-road-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrem.ro\/en\/30-years-of-capitalism-its-frustrating-when-youre-trying-to-build-a-business-like-outside-and-youre-surrounded-by-trickery-imposture-and-hypocrisy-how-hard-was-the-road-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"30 years of capitalism. “It’s frustrating when you’re trying to build a business ‘like outside’ and you’re surrounded by trickery, imposture and hypocrisy.” How hard was the road to success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Interview by Corneliu Bodea, CEO of Adrem for economica.net<\/em> Adrem is today one of the largest Romanian entrepreneurial businesses in the field of energy services, with 1,200 employees and annual business of 45 million euros, involved in some of the major energy infrastructure projects carried out in Romania over the last few years. How did it all start, 30 years ago, how difficult was it, where did it reach and to whom is this journey due and where will it go from now on? <\/strong> How was the first day of entrepreneurship? Can you tell us how it all started? <\/strong> Without pretending to clearly remember the first day of entrepreneurship, I am sure that it was one of those days when the 23-year-old who had already worked as a turner, technician and was finishing college, woke up with a zest for life and activity, with the confidence and optimism that only age, needs and ambition can feed to such an extent. I’m sure it was a day started early and finished late as the following ones were… about 6000 days that followed… That’s how it started, with such a day! My brother had the dream of modernizing the industry left behind, widowed by too many years of investments and conquered “revolutionary and patriotic” by too many “inventions”. I wanted to get out of the shortages and offer myself a future. He was a researcher at the Institute of Atomic Physics, I was a somewhat matured student earlier, already burdened by responsibility. While he was repairing electron microscopes after hours, in the evenings, at hospitals and other institutions, I bought various items from the wholesale store of a colleague’s father and sold them from restaurant to restaurant in Bucharest or in the Prahova Valley. We earned the money to support our families, we laughed, we worked, we dreamed and we supported each other. What was the biggest challenge then, in the beginning, and what is it now?<\/strong> The biggest challenge then was to ensure our stability and income from day to day, today it is the same, only it refers to the income and stability of 1,500 families from year to year. That’s how it is in life, you solve one problem to make room for another. What matters is involvement, responsibility, respect. We have always loved what we do and I don’t think there would have been another way for both me and my brother. The challenges are in such a context what builds strong characters, experience and resilience. Have you ever thought about giving up and, perhaps, selling? What made you move forward? <\/strong> I have often thought about giving up, selling, or simply leaving. Disappointment, lack of prospects, despair often surrounded me and I felt chased away and disrespected. Almost continuous frustration torments you here, when you are trying to build a business “like outside” and you are surrounded by trickery, imposture and hypocrisy. But I am so connected to these places, to the people, I owe so much to them, that I have so far found the strength to continue, to overcome fleeting feelings and to make my contribution as much as I know and can. Then, I feel responsible to many wonderful people who believed in me, employees, clients, or friends and to them and my ideals, it is worth making even greater sacrifices. What was Adrem’s most complex contract? What about the one that gave you the biggest headaches? <\/strong> The last one is always the most complex and this is because a feature of our activity is to dare more and more. If I had to choose the most complex contract from a technical point of view, it would be the first liquid steel degassing plant, at COS T\u00e2rgovi\u0219te (which today almost no longer exists), exclusively worldwide based on a technology patented by my brother. Years of work and testing, dust and dirt, ambition and reality. In terms of financial complexity and value, the most complicated contract was the construction of the 30MW cogeneration plant in Suceava. The construction of the SCADA infrastructure at Electrica Transilvania Sud was the contract with the greatest impact in terms of volume, importance in the customer’s processes and volume of data. Then the same SCADA system installed at the national gas carrier, Transgaz, for the entire transmission infrastructure, the takeover through an outsourcing contract of the reading and then measurement and maintenance activities from CEZ Romania had the greatest impact on our organization and many other works, contracts. Recently, together with CIS Gaz, we completed the Romania-Moldova connection for natural gas, which will provide more stability to our brothers. I am glad to have had the chance to make our contribution to the development of Romania’s industrial and energy infrastructure in almost 30 years of activity and for this I am grateful and satisfied. You work in a complicated field, where, in order to resist, you need both capital and know-how. How did you manage to attract them?<\/strong> In our field, we really need know-how first and foremost. My brother gained it from his time as a researcher and then had the chance to do his job and apply what he learned to the industry. I had to learn. In 1996 I started studying at a British university through the distance learning system and obtained a certificate in management, then a diploma followed by an MBA. In parallel, I added to my basic technical education complex knowledge of the energy industry, spending over 20 years working, investing and contributing to the development of this industry. And today I am a student at the University of Reading and I have obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Governance and Board Management and I am preparing to complete it with a degree in the same discipline followed by a Master of Arts. I strongly believe that continuous learning is the way to be connected to modern society with its sometimes absurd pace of development and change. I have attracted a lot of know-how from society through my colleagues and I have continuously exposed them to challenging projects that are likely to develop both their skills and their know-how and attitude. Capital has always been the main problem of our group and I think of the entire Romanian economy. The dependence on bank loans and the lack of guarantees has “pressed” businesses and I think that what we are seeing now happening on the stock exchange is a much better solution for supporting the economic environment. Of course, this took years of accumulation and only the businesses that managed to withstand the periods of inflation, of lack of capital, will be able to be the beneficiaries of what I believe is the real period of economic growth in Romania. What do you think is now the most important resource in your company?<\/strong> The people! I answer without hesitation, because the quality of the human resource but also the number differentiate us from competitors. There were hard times when it was extremely difficult to manage such a large number of employees, but our strategy was to support and strengthen the team, to have job stability as a priority. Today, when it is so difficult to find specialists, the only thing that is still missing are large investments in the energy system… We are ready! What changes or adaptations have you made in your business? In recent years, including in the difficult context of the pandemic? <\/strong> Of course, for a group with more than 1500 employees who work to a large extent in the interaction with the energy consumer, it was difficult to manage the initial pandemic period. We reacted quickly and organized and we got through 2020 well. Rather, the multitude of legislative changes in the field of labor legislation or industry-specific legislation and regulations generated the need for adaptation and structural changes. In a way, it is good that for such large organizations there are periodic changes to maintain the interest and concentration of the management mainly. We continue to be concerned with protecting the health of colleagues and those we interact with in this pandemic context and personally I am directly and sustainably involved in communicating with all team members. How has Adrem’s business evolved, in terms of figures, business, employees, profit and how do you see the evolution further in the coming years, especially in the context of the future needs of the energy system, and I am referring especially to digitalization and smart electricity grids?<\/strong> I’ll start with the plans: we have an ambitious goal of reaching a turnover of 100 million euros in 2025, today it is about 45 million. If in 2007 we had about 50 employees and about 10 million euros in turnover, the period 2008-20012 brought an important increase both in terms of the number of employees (about 200 in 2009, 600 in 2010 and over 800 later) and in the turnover (increases of about 30% each year up to 35-40 million euros), after which there was a slower growth rate, periods of profit fluctuation. In 2017 a more abrupt intervention was needed in the management and organizational structure. Without reducing the staff, efficiency measures were taken that began to make their action felt starting with 2019. Today our group records an EBITDA of approximately 7-8% of turnover, and the target is 10% for the period 2022-2025. The main supporting factor of our activity was represented by the activities provided to distribution operators, critical activities such as maintenance and intervention in case of breakdowns, or activities related to the installation, verification and reading of meters. The main risk was represented by large fluctuations in the investment plans of the most important players in the energy industry, whether they are manufacturers, transporters or distributors. We are talking about an energy, segment with a strong presence of foreign capital. Do you think there is still room for Romanian companies and, especially, in what field?<\/strong> If we are to talk about this sector, I think that a separation should be put between private capital and that of the Romanian state rather than between foreign and Romanian capital. I say this because, with small exceptions, we observe a slowness in the implementation of the investment plans of companies dominated by the Romanian state and rather a compliance with regulations or the proposed targets of private and foreign-owned ones. I think there is room for companies with Romanian capital also because, paraphrasing a classic, there will be a period of large investments in the energy sector, or we will no longer have energy at all. Who else except Romanian companies and the local workforce can practically implement and execute these projects? Until other developments in technology, the poles are installed by people, the concrete poured by them, the electrical panels the same. Romania needs about 6,000-7,000 MW installed in renewable projects only to comply with the assumed targets, we urgently need the modernization and\/or development of stable generation projects of about 2,000-3,000 MW installed only to replace the capacities that come out of production in the immediate future. These are facts! Unfortunately, we are late and we will do things without a well-thought-out strategy and in a hurry, but they will be done with the contribution of private companies, especially those with remaining capital. Read more on economica.net<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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