In this concise interview, Professor Pete Alexander hosts Aleksander Poniewierski, a partner at EY who leads the firm’s global digital and emerging technologies practice and authored the bestseller Speed No Limits in the Digital Era. Poniewierski shares why consulting excites him—constant exposure to new problems and successes—and stresses that companies must deliberately manage and evolve their organizational values during digital transformation. He argues that leaders must adopt a habit of continuous education, staying current with technology, culture, and generational shifts, otherwise they risk obsolescence. He highlights the importance of understanding regional and generational perspectives, noting that practices from the 1970s‑80s often no longer apply. Poniewierski recommends Stanford professor Sudarshan, an authority on autonomous vehicles, IoT, and AI, as a guest for future conversations. He recounts his first job as an IT security manager for Poland’s first mobile operator in the 1990s, where he was thrust into budgeting and leadership responsibilities, illustrating early lessons about teamwork and the rarity of immediate managerial roles today. The episode concludes with contact information: EY profile, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and his book’s website.
Chapters
This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Hello everyone, Alexander Ponijewski. As you can see, right now I am in Europe. I am partner in the company called Ernst Young, or previously was Ernst Young, now it's EY, and I lead globally digital and emerging technologies for our consulting practice. Also, I am author of the bestseller book Speed No Limits in the Digital Era.
Pete Alexander, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
Oh, this industry, I mean the consulting professional firms, this is all the day, all the day you have completely new people, you have completely new opportunities, you see people talking to you with their problems, but also people who want to share with you their successes. So it is, in my opinion, the best thing you can achieve. I mean, you have both problems and great things at once.
Oh, that sounds so fun. And I can hear the passion in your voice. It's so great. Question number 3, I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think there is one chapter in this kind of book everybody should read or must read. It's about how to manage values, values of the company and values of the people working for companies. In this digital era time, in the digital transformation era time, many companies need to change their values. I'm not talking about only about the values of the people or values of the leaders, but the values of the organization. And what I observe is that the leaders, the owners of the companies, they are unable to do that. They are unable to manage values, cultivate values, but also change the values, adopt the values. So I think this kind of chapter should be a really, really nice part.
I couldn't agree with you more. You make a very compelling case for that. Thank you. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
It is a very difficult question because it depends on the geography you come from. You can advise very, very different things. But I think, you know, everywhere we have today one huge problem. This problem is a continuation of education. And massively leaders need to understand that they need to continue their education. They need to educate, they need to read books, they need to talk to other people. Because when you stay, you are going back. And in today's world where everything is so, so fast, right? You need to motivate yourself as a leader to educate you and then your staff, your personnel, your people will replicate your habit. So they will educate themselves. So in my opinion, the leaders need to today understand that the education, knowledge, wisdom, and awareness of the change is a must in the business.
And it's really interesting that you mentioned about that, that if you don't continue to learn, you know, you became stagnant. And I think that that is such a critical, critical understanding because, you know, things change so rapidly. I'm sure you see that that as you're consulting with various organizations, especially with technology, and if you sit with the same mindset without being willing to adapt, you potentially are going to become obsolete. Am I correct?
Yes, you are. And very often I observe that the leaders having no, let me say, habit to educate, they are bringing examples from their past life. And very often those examples, those best practices from '70s, from '80s are completely inaccurate to the ways they work, right? And if they talk to the millennials, if they talk to the Generation Z, I mean, people who really use telecommunication as a third hand, right? So if you talk to them, you need to understand their world. And you cannot just understand the world during a dinner with the friends from your, let's say, college, right? Because they probably don't understand this world as well. So education doesn't only mean that you need to study another science, but you need to study the examples from today's world. You need to study culture, you need to study You know, everything related to diversity, for example, right? So you need to understand what is going on and how this world is changing.
Very, very wise. Thank you so much for that. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
So I have plenty of names, plenty of names, and probably I can give you plenty of great leaders and great personas who live in Europe or in Asia, Middle East, or Africa. Because I mean, plenty of them, they have completely different perspective on business, right? I mean, what we understand as a business is based on our understanding of the market. So if you spend all your life in US, You understand that this behavior, this market needs to be the same everywhere. It is not, right? So, I will give you the whole queue of really great leaders, but there is one lady I'd like to really introduce, and she is a great person. She's named Sudarshan. She's a Stanford professor and the expert of autonomous car, Internet of Things, AI. She is an author of plenty of books in this topic and really, really amazing, amazing person. So I love her because she's so wise. I mean, she's very open for people and she's very, very, let me say, creative in the completely different, not existing today way. So recommend you.
Wonderful. I'll reach out to her. Thank you so much for that recommendation. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
It is really funny because my first job was just after study. When I finished my Master of Science, my first job was to— I was IT security manager. So from the first day of my career, I worked as a manager. I had assistant, I had, you know, the barrow, I had, you know, the room and table and everything was great. So I don't remember time working as a staff, as someone who needs to really photocopy a paper or something like that. So it was IT security manager, IT security officer for the first Polish mobile operator. It was '90s, so very, very old time when the first mobile phones were developed And it was really, really, really fantastic experience. And what I remember from this first day of work was not the technical problems because I was quite good in technology. I was quite good in, you know, in talking to people and building a network, but I've been asked to prepare a budget. And I said, "What's budget?" Right? "Yeah, you need to prepare the budget, the spendings for the next year." I said, well, but what kind of spending? I mean, what do you want to invest? What kind of consultants you want to hire? What do you want to build, etc.? So I remember this day because then I recognized what does it mean, the teamwork, because my colleagues are older, much older than myself. They said, rookie, you don't understand what they are asking you, right? I said, yeah, I don't understand. So we will help you to prepare this budget. We will prepare for the whole department, you know, the spending and everything related to the project. So it was my— and I, when I repeat this story to, you know, to my colleagues, to my professional colleagues or private life colleagues, they are laughing because this experience is really, really amazing, right? Today, probably you have no chance to become a manager day one in your job, right? For one of the biggest companies in Central Europe, but it was the time, right? So yeah, it was really fun.
Great story. I love listening to that. So Aleksander, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
So you can find me in EY. So if you just search me in EY as a global lead for digital emerging technologies, or you can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, of course. And also you can find me on my book's webpage, www.speednolimits.com.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
