Bucharest, August 16th 2023: Octavian Vucmanovici – CEO of Vifrana, Vlad Hâncu – cofounder of Shoteria, Anca Gheorghe – head of business at DIUD and Andrei Dunuță, Founder of “Arta de a NU vinde” share the obstacles and professional failures that marked their careers at the 18th edition of Fuckup Nights Bucharest (FUN). They will talk openly about the challenging experiences that influenced their professional activity, offering new insights into understanding professional failure as an essential element on the road to success.
The event will take place at Stup on Thursday, 24th of August, starting at 18:30. Participation is free and can be done by registering on the Stup platform, according to availability.
Fuckup Nights changes the narrative about professional failures and mistakes and stimulates creativity to find new solutions at the turning points in our careers.
FUN XVIII invites four successful people from different fields of work who have managed to turn professional mistakes into a learning opportunity. Each talk will conclude with a Q&A session, where attendees can learn more about the guests’ experiences and insights.
“The key element in a successful career is the knowledge that we most often gain through mistakes and obstacles. Professional failure can help us find the right direction, revealing things in a new light. Fuckup Nights events demystify professional failure with the help of our guests – successful people who have each embraced hardship in their own way, and show us that every mistake can be a catalyst for growth and development”, says Diana Iosu, the organiser of Fuckup Nights Bucharest.
The moderator of the event is the radio and TV journalist Julia Nagy.
Octavian Vucmanovici is the CEO of Vifrana. With roots in the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Octavian Vucmanovici has a background in architecture. However, the world of entrepreneurship has attracted him like a magnet since his youth. He has been active in multiple markets and in various fields: from free trade to tourism, through the luxury flooring industry and finally finding his passion in viticulture.
Octavian Vucmanovici is currently CEO of Vifrana, a company known for its bio brand wines “Bob cu bob” and “Patrician”. A promoter of ecology and sustainable development, he describes himself as “resilient, tenacious, a man who does not accept defeat, a true Montenegrin”.
Octavian believes that we should be concerned first and foremost with what happens after failure and how we deal with it in our personal or professional lives.
“However badly you have been hit, betrayed, perhaps, by those close to you, you prepare your family for a crash landing and take a break; you move to the country, plant roses, peonies, but don’t collapse.I think it’s important to stay dignified and true to your principles, even when you’re down. Dignified in your failure! And turn around. When everyone thinks you’re broken, finished, written off, to bounce back and shock with resilience! I think first and foremost of my people, my customers – and for that reason, perhaps, some ancestral force won’t let me fall apart. Because I’m not alone!”, says Octavian Vucmanovici.
Anca Gheorghe is head of business at DIUD. She started her “career” at festivals (“Noaptea Devoratorilor de Publicitate” being among the first of them), helping with everything (including good vibes, her No. 1 specialty). Then she joined the communication agency MSL The Practice, in the Events & Experience department, where, in almost eight years, she ended up by leading it (team & project management, her specialty #2).
For another three years she swapped apples for pineapples (both fruits, totally different species): more concretely, she switched from Events & Experience to video production and from the management of an agency department to that of an entire full-service AV agency, i.e. DIUD. Dynamism, creativity, accountability and improvising, that’s what an almost haiku about her would sound like.
About failure, Anca says that “to fail is not in our culture, to fuck-up is not a lesson that was often talked about a few years ago and back then it all came with a lot of pressure to perform, Olympics, crowns, 1st prize, you don’t get a diploma just because you participated etc. But you realise, as life goes on, that just as you stumble on the street, so can a little professional fuck-up happen anytime. And just as you can even break an arm when playing a sport, so can the fuck-up at work be a bit bigger and harder to manage. But if bones heal, fuck-ups heal too:)”.
Vlad Hâncu is cofounder of Shoteria. In the 90s he went to Barcelona for four years of school. He started his career as an insurance negotiator at AIG, but soon became a winery manager in Transylvania.
He went on to set up Calif and then founded the ‘family’ business Shoteria with his brothers. Not brothers by mother, but by glass and business, for 22 years now.
Of failure Vlad feels it’s “the necessary evil, that something I can’t evolve without“, adding that “one shot in the ass, a million steps forward”.
Andrei Dunuță is sales&public speaking coach and founder of “Arta de a NU vinde”, a new sales philosophy. He coaches speakers and/or sales teams of some of the largest multinationals in Romania. His passions include chess and sales. He will talk to us about “(Cham)pion on the board of life”.
“Failure seems like “failure” for the past and present but it is “success” for the future. Why? Because failure is a lesson in what I have learned not to do. It’s a blessing that if you accept & receive it properly, you turn from a PAWN into a CHAMPION”, says Andrei.
Fuckup Nights Bucharest is part of a series of events taking place globally in 215 cities in 62 countries around the world. The events change the paradigm on career failure and are aimed equally at small and large entrepreneurs, corporate workers, freelancers and students.
Some of the previous Fuckup Nights Bucharest editions are captured here: Vol I, Vol II, Vol III, Vol VI, Vol X.
Event in collaboration with Stup.
Event partners: Vifrana, FAN Courier, Radio Guerilla, Complice, Sandler Training România, Fonduri Structurale, Techcelerator, Bizilive, Learning Network, Psychologies, Cooperativa FruFru, IQAds, SMARK, IQool, SocialPedia, Revista CARIERE, ClujHub, ROTSA – Romanian Tech Startups Association, Savoir Events Academy, Urban Monkey și Sabina Cornovac Online.
Event details are available on Facebook.
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About DiFine PR
DiFine PR is a full service communication agency that combines the team’s solid experience of over 20 years, both nationally and internationally, with the satisfaction of creating success stories. In addition to full PR, communication and business consulting services, the agency also organizes technology and business events (e.g. NASA Space Apps Challenge, TechFest, Fuckup Nights Bucharest). The agency’s current portfolio of clients includes NN, Sodexo, Stefanini, Alexandrion Group, Seedblink, Black Sea Fund, GapMinder VC, startup accelerator Techcelerator, Growceanu, Goldring, Restart Energy, Tema Energy, Romcab, Cognite, Bitcoin Romania, Tradesilvania, Undelucram.ro, ClujHub, bpv Grigorescu Ștefănică, and over 100 tech startups.
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Contact
Diana Iosu
Corporate Communication Senior Advisor, DiFine PR
