We help purpose-driven entrepreneurs to grow social ventures.

Mara Oltean

Co-founder & Finance Manager

Mara is the operational and financial manager of Synerb. Mara was the Finance Specialist of NESsT and the Euroregional Center for Democracy. For the past 20 years, Mara has been leading the financial management of over 75 programs and organisations working with public and private funds. She divides her time between Bucharest and Timișoara, and she loves jazz music.

Zoltan Bereczki

Co-founder & President

Zoltan is the manager of Synerb.

He was a Board Member and the Romanian Country Director of the international organisation NESsT, then, for seven years,  the Regional Portfolio Director for Romania and the Balkans. He contributed to the growth and development of over 200 social enterprises through strategic advisory services, training and tailored consulting.  For nine years, he coordinated the organisation’s activities,  investments and grants, managing a portfolio of 1.5 million US dollars.

Before joining NESsT, he developed a series of economic development and international cooperation programs with the Euroregional Center for Democracy, specifically in the Balkans and Central Europe. He is a member of numerous local organisations and an Aspen Fellow. He is an active jury member in several social entrepreneurship competitions and impact competitions (CSR Awards, Social Impact Award) and he is involved in a number of projects developing the social business ecosystem in the region. In his spare time, he is an advisor for entrepreneurial young civil society leaders and an amateur actor.

Sonia Oprean

Co-founder & Managing Partner

Sonia manages the Synerb portfolio, develops the management tools and the organizational strategy to support our social enterprises and visionary NGOs. Sonia was the Senior Portfolio Manager of NESsT Romania, a global organization that supports social enterprises, where she designed and implemented entrepreneurial education and mentorship programs for over 140 social entrepreneurs and nonprofits, while being an active mentor in Financial Management, Human Resources, Fundraising, Social Impact, and Business Performance Management. Before joining NESsT, she worked in India for Villgro Innovations Foundation, the oldest and most reputed social enterprise incubator in the country.

Her professional experience includes 4 years with PwC Romania and one year in the Philippines, where she coordinated an international team in establishing a legal process outsourcing company. Sonia holds an Advanced Diploma in Accounting and Business from ACCA and is the author of the first research on the financial sustainability of social enterprises in Romania. She is a Board Member of Mai Bine, one of the pioneers in sustainable development in Romania and an aspiring data scientist.

Daniel Nan

Senior software engineer at ulip.ee

Daniel is a senior software engineer and he is helping Synerb to develop a tech product for the early stage social enterprise sector. 

Cristina Donoaică

Investment consultant

Investment professional and consultant with a vast experience of working in private equity investments and in strategic and financial management consultancy.

Having both a technical and business background as a PhD chemist and an MBA graduate, she successfully completed and managed start-ups, turnaround, growth and buy-and-build investments in sectors of telecom retail, pharmaceuticals, healthcare services, industrial services, scrap recycling and real estate in Romania and Spain. She successfully managed the financial distress of investee companies and saved investments adversely affected by changes in the entrepreneur’s conduct and/or in the economic, fiscal and legislative environment. She also completed a series of profitable exits through trade sale.

Her consultancy activity was mostly concentrated on financial management and strategic planning of growth for small and medium enterprises by closely supporting the management teams to plan, implement and control the development of their businesses and organization in sectors like packaged food, outdoor power equipment and other industries.

Daniela Florentina Gheorghe

Venture growth expert & social entrepreneur

With 10+ years of experience, Daniela started in political marketing in Romania and specialized in impact driven start-ups in India. She spent 7 years in India and helped grow 4 businesses, across 4 sectors and 4 states. She founded vChalk in 2014, an award-winning for-profit education technology company,  with a vision to use evidence based solutions to improve English learning outcomes of low-income students. In 2018, Daniela received the Skoll scholarship by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and the Skoll Foundation and completed her MBA from Oxford University.

Daniela is really excited about working closely with amazing entrepreneurs and contributing to the strategic growth of impact businesses at scale. She brings to the table a get-it-done approach, attention to details, great communication skills, the courage to ask difficult questions and manage conflicts, and a great ability to listen and to promote change in diverse teams.

Florin Ghindă

Founder of romaniapozitiva.ro, trainer, facilitator

Florin is a trainer and facilitator for different educational projects and he delivered his trainings to more than 8000 participants during the last 16 years. Florin is specialized in delivering key trainings on topics such as solution thinking, train the trainers, social entrepreneurship and project management, human centered design, negotiation, team management, recruitment and selection, and career management.

Moreover, Florin been actively moderating high-impact conferences and events such as TEDx Bucharest, Social Impact Award, Impact HUB events, RoWin, Diplohack, Shift+Vieți, ASPEN Leadeship Program, Bucharest Integrity Gathering, The Conference about Happiness, “Fabricat în Țara lui Andrei” with NESsT & Petrom, WWF Green Schools.

Florin gained more than 16 years of working experience in training and consultancy within AIMS Romania and the Romanian Institute of Training, the FMCG industry, working for InBev Romania, and Godrej Sara Lee India. He works with clients from various industries: financial and banking, automotive, IT, FMCG and the NGO community.

Florin is A.N.C. certificated trainer, White Belt @ ABInBev. He loves to work with the art of hosting and processes tools, the “U” theory, Business Model Canvas and Human Centered Design methodology, and TED related resources.

linkedin.com/in/floringhinda

Dragoș Gavrilescu

Design Thinking expert

Dragoș Gavrilescu founded both the first Romanian Design Thinking Community and the Design Thinking Society. Before specializing in Design Thinking, Dragoș was a CEO, and then a business consultant for four years, working with his clients spread in 13 countries on four continents. His experience also includes working in the FMCG, pharma and market research industries. Dragos is an investor and a supporter of startups and social enterprises, providing them mentoring and coaching.

Constantin Pătăşanu

Manufacturing expert, trainer and consultant

Constantin worked more than 4 years for Takata Petri Steering Wheels as a Project Coordinator for General Motors, Ford and Mercedes. In 2009, he started working as a Continuous Improvement Manager for Johnson Controls Company, a plant producing metallic seats structure for cars and mechanisms, where, in June 2014, he became Senior Continuous Improvement Manager for Europe.

Since 2007, Constantin works as a Senior Trainer and Consultant for EMC Consulting, where he delivers technical consultancy and trainings to all EMC customers. During his career, he has worked with over 4000 participants in different training and consultancy sessions and he delivered over 7000 hours of training and consulting.

Constantin is certified by IASSC as Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Certified ISO 9001:2015, IATF 16949:2016, VDA 6.3 Qualification for Process Auditor, internal auditor according ISO 19011, Lean Manufacturing, Kepner Tregoe (KT), REFA, APIS – IQRM FMEA .
He is certified by CNFPA as a Trainer and Project Manager, by EANLP as Master NLP, and by Human Synergistics in utilizing personal and team development instruments (LSI, LI & GSI).

He graduated with a Bachelor in Engineering from the Politehnica University of Timișoara, Faculty  of  Mechanics – degree in Industrial Robots.

Constantin is an energetic, positive, highly organized person who’s always open to new ideas. His professional experience consists of over 12 years in automotive field, for multinational companies and 12 years in training and consulting.

Cristina Donoaică

Investment consultant

Investment professional and consultant with a vast experience of working in private equity investments and in strategic and financial management consultancy.

Having both a technical and business background as a PhD chemist and an MBA graduate, she successfully completed and managed start-ups, turnaround, growth and buy-and-build investments in sectors of telecom retail, pharmaceuticals, healthcare services, industrial services, scrap recycling and real estate in Romania and Spain. She successfully managed the financial distress of investee companies and saved investments adversely affected by changes in the entrepreneur’s conduct and/or in the economic, fiscal and legislative environment. She also completed a series of profitable exits through trade sale.

Her consultancy activity was mostly concentrated on financial management and strategic planning of growth for small and medium enterprises by closely supporting the management teams to plan, implement and control the development of their businesses and organization in sectors like packaged food, outdoor power equipment and other industries.