Yale School of Management - Alumni Leaders

"I loved Yale SOM. Great professors and colleagues made school fun and learning a pretty painless process. Having learned about business tools --or where to look for them in need -- gave me plenty of personal confidence and faith that good teams can accomplish the impossible. This confidence made me take on business adventures -- and that's how, after some years at Citibank in New York, I wound up being involved in a newspaper start-up in Poland and eventually running a growing media company here."

Ms. Rapaczynski is the retired CEO and president of the management board of Agora SA, a Polish media company that publishes Poland's number one newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza. Agora SA is listed on the Warsaw and London stock exchanges. She was involved in the company's activities since the early 1990s, initially as a pro bono consultant and as the representative of the management board.

Before joining Agora SA, Ms. Rapaczynski worked for Citibank NA in New York where, until 1992, she was vice president and head of new product development. Between 1980 and 1982, she held the position of project director and research associate at the Family Television Research and Consultation Center at Yale University. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Ms. Rapaczynski started her career as a professor of psychology, lecturing at several universities in New York and Connecticut.

Ms. Rapaczynski is a member of the advisory board of the Center for European Reform, an independent think-tank devoted to improving the quality of the debate on the future of the European Union. She is an advisor to the Agora SA Supervisory Board, and in 2003 was elected president of the Supervisory Board of the Polish Union of Private Employers in Media and Advertising. In 2002 she became a member of the Polish Group in the Trilateral Commission.

In March 2001, Ms. Rapaczynski was recognized by The Wall Street Journal Europe as "one of the 30 most influential women in Europe," and in March 2002 was ranked 22 on the list of "25 of Europe's Most Successful Businesswomen." Also in June 2001, BusinessWeek included Ms. Rapaczynski in the list of "50 Stars of Europe," and, in March 2002, placed her on the list of the "30 Most Influential People in the Polish Economy." According to Fortune magazine's ranking from November 2001, Agora's President is "the 26th most powerful woman in the non-U.S. business world." In October of 2002, Ms. Rapaczynski was honored with the Media Trend statuette as "Person of the Year." In February of 2003, she received an Impactor Award naming her "Person of the Year 2002 in the Advertising Industry" for her drive to create a major Polish media concern.

Ms. Rapaczynski holds a PhD in psychology from the City University of New York (1977) and a business degree (MPPM) from the Yale School of Management.