Simona Popa Email & Phone Number

Romania

I lead the Scale to USA accelerator, a program for pre-series A startups in Europe looking to access the US market & capital.This consists of:- Building strategic relations and organising the immersive business trip to USA▪ Plan the curricula▪ Run the Founders’ Bootcamp for startup founders and organise the Demo Day at the end of the program▪ Organise the selection process and the interviews▪ Am a lead mentor for the startups, consulting them in the challenges & blockages they are facing, on topics such as: business model, innovation, team development, investment, valuation, pitch decks, partnership discussions▪ Build relations with relevant investors, networks and mentors in order to facilitate introductions for the startups to the relevant people▪ Build relations with private sponsors in order to support the program▪ Run workshops for the founders and feedback sessions▪ Moderate and facilitate national & international startup support events▪ Participate in international study visits in order to learn from other startup ecosystems and build connections with relevant potential partners

Bucharest, Romania

▪ I coordinated (was the main liaison) for 1m euro worth of IT educational projects for corporations and Ro Government▪ I built relations with the regional managers of Microsoft and Cisco in order to win large scale training projects▪ I built long term relationships with vendors Microsoft and Cisco in order to understand, align and promote their training strategy in Romania - and organised marketing campaigns accordingly

Bucharest, Romania

Createrra is a company delivering L&D (learning & development) programmes for leaders. I joined as the second full-time staff and in 1 year I contributed to building up the company to a point where it runs over 20 programmes yearly for 400 clients.The company stopped its events due to corona virus-related legal restrictions.As the executive director, I was responsible with:- Strategic planning, development and delivery of digital learning products- Managing and organising large training programs (events). This included sales, marketing, negotiations with providers, customer service;- Setting strategic priorities for growth: sales strategy, programmes, prices.- Sales, creating new revenue streams, new products and services;- Leading, coaching and motivating the team;- Collaborating with different areas of the business;- Networking and building partnerships;- Building and optimising the infrastructure of the company: creating processes, procedures and pipelines for CRM, on-line sales, website; - Creating and delivering a training program for start-ups; - Building and strengthening a community of loyal and recurrent clients; - Delivering coaching and training sessions on personal development.

Bucharest, Romania

I developed online courses for the Microsoft team around the world based on their needs.Using adult learning principles, my aim was to create interactive and easy to use courses that were taken by thousands in-house Microsoft staff and collaborators around the globe. This involved collaborating with a team in USA and in Romania on a daily basis as well as learning about Microsoft technologies and Adobe Storyline from zero to advanced in record time.

Uk

An award-winning social enterprise focused on empowering, connecting and supporting leaders aged 18-35 through innovative & experiential educational programmes. From inception to growth, I led the implementation of all key areas of the business including development and delivery of educational programmes, business development, sales and marketing. (www.practicaledu.com) We received several awards for innovation and impact including a National Award for Student Enterprise Education 2013/14 from Enterprise Educators UK and National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education.Responsibilities:1.Plan & lead all areas of the business including: development and delivery of educational programmes, business development, sales and marketing.2.Develop and deliver a project-based course in entrepreneurship in an accelerator-style, international academy; A mix of teaching, practice and 1:1 coaching;3.Develop, organise and facilitate 7 national competitions for entrepreneurs 4.Provide business consultancy and created business plans for start-upsResults:- Received a National award for impact and innovation in education from:- Facilitated practical online and face-to-face learning experience for 1,000 people- Gained excellent feedback from the participants from the courses (invited to re-do)- Renewed contract for 3 more courses, of 5 weeks each across Europe (academy)- Based on the business plans I helped create, start-ups received £120,000 in loans

As a consultant for them, I managed 2 national projects: 1. The development of an innovative educational reform for UK GovernmentMy responsibilities included lobbying the UK Government, building relationships with key shareholders, leading consultations and developing a fund-raising strategy.Results:- Coordinated the development of the proposal, the discussions with the Govt. - Persuaded the Government representatives and the senior managers in other 100 organisations to support the project. The organisations ranged from banks ( Deutsche Bank, Santander), to city councils, corporations (PWC) and universities;- Moderated consultations with Apprenticeship Minister and 15 senior executives in order to agree on a unified national standard and the appropriate way to evaluate it.2. The development of a hybrid course (a mix of online and face-to-face learning sessions) for entrepreneurs in Colleges and their teachersResponsibilities:- Identify and evaluate the stakeholders’ needs and the relevant materials & methods;- Collaborate with Subject Matter Experts to integrate the course into existent systems.Results:- Created training materials (online and offline) for students using modern platforms and methods (70:20:10, flipped classroom) by collaborating with IT team;- Negotiated with Accreditation Agencies to create tailored certifications;- Sold the pilot phase of the project to two Colleges.

Birmingham, United Kingdom

Passionate in building and developing a network of entrepreneurs within East and West Midlands, I was mainly in charge of:- Developing, connecting and training entrepreneurial student societies in 20 institutions across East and West Midlands (15 universities, 5 colleges).- Building relationships with the relevant high-level management within the institutions interested in developing and implementing an entrepreneurial strategy within their university and college.- Organizing Regional Enterprise Strategy Workshops consulting high level management staff on their enterprise strategy.

Building and developing a community of high calibre entrepreneurs

Birmingham, Uk

Enterprise Academy was a social enterprise started with the purpose of empowering aspiring entrepreneurs through experiential educational programmes and a start-up accelerator.I was responsible with the development and delivery of experiential workshops on leadership and communication in universities across the UK. I was also responsible with writing funding bids and securing partnerships with relevant departments in universities and student organisations. We ran several workshops in top universities across The UK in collaboration with national student enterprise networks such as AIESEC and ENACTUS. As the team was small all the tasks were divided between the two co-founders including marketing, logistics, materials and elements of business development. We secured European funding for two regional projects to support aspiring entrepreneurs but unfortunately we were not successful in securing the investment to set up an impact accelerator in Birmingham. Nevertheless, going through the entire process was a learning curve that provided me with many development opportunities.

AIESEC - the largest student-run organisation world-wide.The trainers pool is a network of trainers and facilitators in AIESEC UK specialised on workshops and interactive sessions for conferences focused on empowering leaders.I organised and delivered sessions at regional and international level focused on leadership, teamwork and communication with excellent feedback.

Birmingham, United Kingdom

- organise social events and day trips for 600 international postgraduate students at The University of Birmingham

Ba, International Relations

Business Mastery, Business, Entrepreneurship

This is an immersive programme on business taught by the top trainers in the world in the area of entrepreneurship and business.

Organizational Leadership

http://www.hesselbein.pitt.edu/student-leadership/overview.php

Education record