Meet Kornelia, Product Owner at Sii Poland, whose passion makes the world more colorful! To celebrate 500 Power People at Sii Silesia, we talk to employees who have contributed enormously to our growth in recent years!

Kornelia started her career at Sii as an Event Specialist. In her own words: “the time there has taught me a lot”. Thanks to her hard work and courage, today she has the position of a Product Owner and is ready to grow and learn! 

There are already more than 500 Power People at the Sii’s Silesian branches. To mark the occasion, we interviewed employees who have made a strong contribution to the company’s development in recent years, and their attitude and commitment cannot be passed by indifferently. Read the interview with our third heroine of the “500 Power People at Sii in Silesia” campaign. – Kornelia, Product Owner at Sii Poland! 

Your adventure at Sii began over 3 years ago. How did you join our company? 

Back then I was diligently looking for a job, I wanted a creative and interesting position. I found an Event Specialist offer on one of the job advertisement portals and I thought “Oh, that sounds great!”. The recruiter from Sii contacted me very quickly and after a few weeks, I was able to join the team in Katowice. This is how my adventure in the HR area began, and at that time I didn’t know that it was also the beginning of my IT career 😊 

So, the first position you took at Sii was the Event Specialist. What were the challenges you faced at the beginning of your career path? 

In my previous job, I dealt with the organization of cultural events. I have good organizational skills and I like to make things happen. Working as an event manager at Sii was quite a challenge – I had to quickly get to know the character of the work of my coworkers, find out what is currently popular in corporate events, and adapt to various external factors that are always important when organizing these events. I was also involved in training, onboarding and all things related to soft HR. I must admit that pandemic time was quite difficult for me – as probably for all employees of the HR department. Events, trainings, contact with employees – everything was more complicated. That time has taught me a lot. 

After less than two years, you changed your position to Business Consultant. Did you plan to make that change?  

One day after work, I saw an e-mail from Joanna Kucharska, who at that time was the Chief Human Resources Officer at Sii, and she was looking for a Power User (Business Consultant) for her team. The description of duties and tasks sounded interesting – I thought it would be great to create processes in our company and support Asia in HR activities. I took part in the recruitment and I got the position! I was sad to leave my current department, as I got very close with my team. But the show must go on! Getting to understand and create the processes, first contacts with Internal IT departments – now when I think of my beginnings as Power User, I have the impression that it was quite a ride. Fortunately, I had the support of Asia and my great HR HQ team. I quickly adjusted to the new position and responsibilities. As a Power User of HR, I was responsible for the Worker Rating process and periodic interviews. I also supervised the application dedicated to our employees, SiiApp, and tools for the work of event workers. I participated in the implementation of the Buddy program and watched over the prioritization of the backlog tasks of our tools. I helped local departments in their daily work and it gave me a lot of satisfaction, although it was very busy sometimes.  

For several months now, you have been working at Sii as a Product Owner. Are you happy with this change? 

After Joanna Kucharska changed her position and left the HR HQ department, our team also faced changes and reshuffles. As a Power User, I have been in contact with Product Owners in our company, so I knew that this was a great position and a good starting point for the IT world, which I had been considering for some time. I took the opportunity and decided to make another change – I hope this one will last longer! Guided by Sii’s “Courage and Transparency” value, I was not afraid to tell my supervisors that this would be a good change for me and the best moment to move to Internal IT. If I hadn’t, I would probably regret it and my career path would have gone completely different… maybe for the worse, who knows 😊 As a Product Owner in the SharePoint team, I partially do what I did as Power User, but now I am more “inside”. I collect business requirements, take care of the backlog, add details, and make our solutions better and better. After all, working in IT means new challenges and new adventures. So far, I can see that my career path has given me a lot and today I would not be in the same place if it were not for everything I have learned at Sii during last 3 years. 

Outside of work, you are also the founder of the Natarang dance group, to which you devote a lot of time. Tell us more about your passion. 

Indian dance is my main activity after work, I’ve been doing it for 16 years. Thanks to my passion I made great friends, traveled a bit around the world, learned amazing dance steps, and developed as a person. This is how I like to spend my free time now.  

Our group operates in Chorzów and soon it will celebrate its 10th anniversary. We perform the Bollywood dance and, as the only group in Poland, we dance the classical Indian Kuchipudi. We perform in Poland and Europe, and we already had the opportunity to dance in London, Oslo, Madrid and Stockholm. I love this art form and I could spend hours in the dance hall just to have the opportunity to show my passion to the audience. What’s more, last year, I received funding for one of our performances from the Sii Passion Sponsorship Program. Thanks to the funding, we managed to stage the Kuchipudi dance performance in Chorzów, which was a very unique event. 

Lastly, tell us – what are your plans for the future? 

For now, my career plans are simple – to develop as a Product Owner and learn new skills related to this position. Privately, I want to focus on dancing and traveling. I am glad that I can pursue my passions and share them with others, in order to make the world a little more colorful. 

Join Sii’s Silesian branches – check current job offers for Katowice, Częstochowa and Gliwice.