A foreign company entering Poland ends up with a law firm, a tax advisor, an accountant, a recruiter and a logistics provider. All competent. None of them responsible for the entry as a whole.
The head office receives five reports and no decisions. The person nominally in charge visits monthly and is 18 months behind the market. The entity gets registered before demand is confirmed, and the cost of reversing that decision is discovered afterwards — a Polish limited company takes at least 6 months to liquidate, by statute.
None of this is a supplier problem. It is a management problem, and nobody is selling the management.
What changes
I take operational responsibility for the entry: the entry mode, the local supplier layer, warehousing and fulfilment, the first team, the first commercial channel. I select and manage the specialists — I do not replace them. You get one counterpart and one line of reporting.
The mandate runs 6–12 months and ends by handing the operation to a permanent manager. It is not an advisory relationship and it is not permanent.
What exists at the end of it: the entry mode executed and evidenced, the supplier layer contracted and managed by your own people, the first commercial channel open, a permanent manager in the seat, and a known monthly cost to keep it running.
The same applies when Poland is not the destination but the base. Consolidating Central European operations into a Polish hub is an operational decision — where the warehouse sits, who handles fulfilment, what you run yourself and what you outsource — and it is decided by running it, not by analysing it.
Why this works. For 13 years I was the operation a foreign head office depended on: the Polish base of Google's dedicated vendor, from 16 people to 400, extended across 11 markets, including consolidating operations that had been running separately in Moscow, Istanbul and Hamburg into the Warsaw base. Running a Polish hub for a foreign principal is the thing I have actually done.
Entry modes
Entry is sequenced. Each level is entered only once the previous one has produced evidence, and the cost of withdrawal is known before the commitment is made.
Cross-border sales from head office, one local person through an employer of record, third-party subcontractors.
Exit cost: the current month's commitments, nothing beyond
Entry through a local distributor, operator or JV rather than your own structure. Partner selection, due diligence, contribution and control architecture, shareholder agreement, IP protection, exit mechanics.
Exit cost: defined in the shareholder agreement, before signing
A Polish limited company registered, VAT-EU active, outsourced accounting, no owned premises, people still contracted or through an employer of record.
Exit cost: minimum six months to liquidate, by statute
Employment contracts, leased premises, own warehousing, long-term commitments. Entered only after demand is confirmed.
Exit cost: severance, lease term, contract tails
Liquidating a Polish limited company takes at least 6 months because of the mandatory creditor protection period, and usually longer in practice. Most foreign companies discover this after registration rather than before.
Entry through a partner or joint venture is often the right mode for a company that does not intend to run a Polish structure itself. It is a real option, not a fallback, and it is the first thing Stage 0 tests.
No commitment is made with a horizon longer than your own decision cycle. A five-year lease at thirty percent below market is not a saving if your board reviews the market annually.
Fit
I do not provide legal, tax or accounting services, I do not run recruitment processes, and I do not act as an employer of record. I select and manage the specialists who do. That separation is what makes the advice usable.
CEE hub
The second reason companies call is not entry. They already sell in four or five Central European markets, each with its own entity, accountant, warehouse arrangement and VAT registration, and no single person accountable for the region's result. Nothing is broken enough to stop, and nothing is good enough to scale.
Consolidation runs the same sequence in reverse. Instead of deciding what to commit to, it decides what to unwind: which functions move to one Polish base — warehousing and fulfilment, customs clearance, order flow, shared administration — which stay local because the market requires it, and in what order, so that nothing stops working while it moves.
The costs that decide it are the costs of unwinding what already exists: liquidation periods in each jurisdiction, lease tails, employment commitments, and the VAT registrations that must stay open until the last local obligation is closed. Those are established in Stage 0, before anything moves, in the same form as the entry costs above.
This is the side of the work I have done longest: 11 markets run from a Polish base across CEE, EMEA and the Middle East, including three that were running separately in Moscow, Istanbul and Hamburg and were consolidated into the Warsaw base.
How it runs
A go or no-go recommendation with the numbers behind it: entry mode, 12-month budget, the supplier map, a 90-day plan with names and dates, and the cost of withdrawal at each level. Stage 0 stands alone. There is no obligation to continue.
6–8 days per month. Entry mode executed, supplier layer contracted, warehousing and fulfilment running, first hires in place, first commercial channel open, weekly reporting to your board.
3–4 days per month. Operations stabilised and measured, permanent manager recruited, 30-day overlap, handover complete.
Formal reviews at month 3 and month 6: what has been confirmed, what has been disproven, whether to continue. Reviewing is scheduled, so questioning the mandate never requires a pretext. The retainer is invoiced monthly in advance, so the month already paid for is the last one — the engagement can end at the close of any month with nothing owed on either side.
Within 10 working days of the mandate ending, however it ends: all supplier contracts and their termination terms, all access and credentials, the status of every open thread, a register of decisions taken and why, outstanding risks, the cost of closing each level of structure, and a recommendation for what to do next.
Cost
Mandate fees depend on scope and intensity, not on a rate card. Stage 0 ends with a fixed proposal for Stages 1 and 2, so you see the full twelve-month cost before committing to any of it. Stage 0 is invoiced half on start and half on delivery, so the first thing you pay for in full is something you have already read. The retainer runs monthly in advance from Stage 1, which is why ending the mandate leaves nothing owed on either side.
Milestones are paid on four defined events: entry mode executed, first local hire onboarded, first commercial contract signed, handover complete. Each is binary and evidenced by a document, and each is worth one month's retainer — across a 12-month mandate the four add a third to the retainer total.
Three of them are delivery events: they happen if the work is done and you decide to continue. The fourth, the first commercial contract, depends on the market rather than on either of us. There is no revenue-based fee in year one, because there is no baseline to set it against.
Compared to hiring. At the entry rate, the full 12 months — Stage 0, the retainers and all four milestones — comes to about €87,500. A permanent country manager for a company of this size costs €120,000–160,000 in the first year once base salary, bonus, employer contributions, benefits and recruitment fees are counted. Lower figures exist, but they buy a more junior hire than an entry needs. The permanent route also takes 3–5 months to fill, before you know what you are hiring for. The mandate moves that decision to month nine.
All prices are net of VAT. Services to EU businesses are reverse-charged, so there is no Polish VAT for you to fund.
These prices are not a binding offer — the binding figures are those in the Stage 0 proposal and in the mandate agreement.
Suppliers
Poland has capable specialist firms. What foreign companies lack is a filter — and someone to manage them once selected. I maintain 2–3 vetted providers in each of these areas:
2–3, not one. A single provider in any category is a dependency, and a shortlist of one is not a recommendation.
Alongside the panel: interim and fractional leadership in finance and marketing, for the case where a function has to be run rather than a supplier managed.
The filter is not reputation. It is the ability to operate at the standard a foreign head office expects: senior-level English, response times measured in hours rather than days, willingness to give a position rather than a list of options, and a track record with foreign-owned entities in Poland. Most well-regarded Polish firms are technically excellent. Fewer are set up to work this way, and that is the difference the panel screens for.
Providers report to me and I report to your board. I take no payment, commission or referral fee from any provider on the panel, in any form — this is stated in the mandate agreement. Provider names, credentials and indicative fees are set out in Stage 0.
Who runs this
Operating Partner based in Warsaw, Poland. Fixed-term mandates, three at a time at most.
Three kinds of mandate, all with mid-sized companies: pivoting revenue engines, entering new markets, and structuring joint ventures. The joint venture work runs from partner selection and due diligence through contribution and control architecture to financing and exit mechanics. The revenue work sits in digital and e-commerce sales channels: where demand comes from, which channels carry it, and what it costs to convert. That is the work the references below describe.
Industries: cross-border e-commerce logistics and fulfilment, usually a market entry. Commercial real estate and infrastructure — data centre development, quick service restaurants, self-storage — usually a joint venture. Typically companies with €20–250M in revenue, already operating in 2 or more countries.
Over 20 years at C-level in business process outsourcing (BPO). 13 of them building and running the Polish operation of Google's dedicated vendor — from 16 people to 400, extended across 11 markets in CEE, EMEA and the Middle East, including consolidating operations that had been running separately in Moscow, Istanbul and Hamburg into the Warsaw base. Earlier, sales operations for 380 staff across two Polish sites, serving finance and insurance clients including Citibank, ING and AIG.
Master of Laws (LLM), Kozminski University.
References
The most recent mandate, run through 2026, and the closest to what this page describes:
"Bartlomiej supported Teddy Group in setting up Calliope's entry into Central and Eastern Europe in e-commerce: the fulfilment logistics, and the order flow from both the brand's own store and the marketplaces. He successfully managed the whole business development process end to end — from the joint investment with a third-party partner to the operating and contractual setup that runs it."
Alessandro Rizzotti — Outbound Logistics Manager, Teddy Group · Italy · September 2026 · Profile
Before that, 13 years as Google's dedicated vendor. The three people below led the Google side of it.
"His skills and experience will make him a valuable asset to any organization looking to establish or expand their presence in Central and Eastern Europe."
Dino Bosco — Head of Vendor Performance, Mass Market Sales, Google · Spain · October 2024 · Profile
"Bartek is adept at developing new sales channels and successfully entering new markets."
John Conlon — Global Head of Strategic Initiatives, Extended Workforce Solutions, Google · Ireland · October 2024 · Profile
"Successfully led the expansion of sales and marketing operations across EMEA and built strong partner relationships."
Dipika Sawhney — EMEA Director, SMB Growth Client Success, Google · United Kingdom · September 2024 · Profile
All recommendations on LinkedIn · Reference calls available on request.
Questions
Figures current as of August 2026. Thresholds and timelines change; check anything you intend to rely on.
For a mid-sized company, budget €150,000–400,000 for the first 12 months with a Polish entity: registration and capital, accounting, legal, 2–4 staff, and a modest commercial budget. Selling cross-border with one person through an employer of record can be run for under €80,000. The registration itself is a small part of the total; the recurring cost of people and compliance is the substance.
Use an employer of record if you are testing demand, hiring fewer than 3 people, and want to be able to reverse the decision inside 60 days. Set up a limited company if you need to sign local contracts in your own name, issue Polish invoices, hold assets, or hire beyond a handful of people. The decision is more often driven by contracting and credibility than by cost.
Often, yes, and for companies that do not intend to run a Polish structure themselves it is the better mode. A distributor arrangement, an operating partnership or a joint venture puts local execution in the hands of someone who already has it. What determines whether it works is the contract: contribution and control structure, decision rights, IP protection, performance obligations and exit mechanics agreed before signing rather than after.
A Polish limited company registered through the electronic system takes 1–2 weeks. The traditional route with notarised deeds takes 2–4 weeks. Minimum share capital is PLN 5,000. Separate registration is required for VAT and VAT-EU, and this is where most timelines slip.
At least 6 months, and usually longer. Liquidation requires a mandatory creditor protection period before the company can be struck from the register. This is the single most under-communicated fact in Polish market entry, and it is the reason entry should be sequenced rather than executed in one step.
For most companies serving the region, yes. It has the largest domestic market in CEE, road and rail access to the Baltics, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and a deep pool of logistics and shared-services capacity. The practical questions are where the warehouse sits, who handles fulfilment and customs, and which functions stay in the hub rather than in each market.
For customers, suppliers, authorities and most operational staff, yes — Polish is required in practice even where English is nominally spoken. This is one of the reasons a local mandate holder is worth more than a visiting head-office manager.
A consultant produces a recommendation. This is a mandate: decisions taken, suppliers contracted, people hired, accountability for the outcome. A consultant hands you a plan. I run it until it stands without me. The closest label for it is fractional country manager: an executive who runs the market for a fixed term, not an adviser who reports on it.
Eventually you should, and the mandate ends by recruiting that person. But hiring first means defining the role before anyone knows the market, waiting 3–5 months, and carrying the cost of a wrong hire in a jurisdiction where terminating employment is slow.
Three things, in order of frequency. Companies register an entity before confirming demand, and discover the exit cost afterwards. They appoint a head-office manager who visits monthly, and lose eighteen months to the resulting decision lag. They assemble five capable local suppliers with no one coordinating them, and receive five reports and no decisions.
I work with them. Poland has capable specialist firms and there is no reason to duplicate what they do. What is missing is coordination. I select those providers, contract them, manage them and consolidate their work into one line of reporting.
No. The fee comes from the client and from nowhere else: no equity, no carry, and no payment, commission or referral fee from any provider on the panel, in any form. There is no revenue-based fee in the first year either, because there is no baseline to set one against.
Three at most. The work is operational rather than advisory, and each mandate needs decisions taken in the week they arise rather than in the month.
The engagement ends at the close of any month. Within 10 working days you receive the Exit Pack: all supplier contracts and their termination terms, all access and credentials, the status of every open thread, a register of decisions taken and why, outstanding risks, the cost of closing each level of structure, and a recommendation for what to do next.
Yes, and it is often the cleaner arrangement. The sponsor contracts the mandate, the portfolio company hosts it, and reporting goes to both. Nothing else changes: the same stages, the same published prices, the same right to end at the close of any month, and the same Exit Pack. A 6–12 month mandate sits inside any hold period and ends with a permanent manager in the seat, so it closes well before an exit process begins. The fee comes from whoever signs the mandate and from nowhere else — no equity, no carry, no success fee, because a mandate that pays out on an exit stops being reversible.
The mandate is run from Poland and covers Central and Eastern Europe, either as markets served from a Polish base or as an existing regional footprint consolidated into one. Entering a market other than Poland as the first step is outside what this page describes.
Contact
3–4 weeks, fixed fee, no obligation beyond itself. It ends with a go or no-go recommendation, the entry mode, a 12-month budget, and the cost of withdrawal at each level.
