By Corina Neagu, International HR Consultant, Business Strategist & Coach

I think I am born under a very lucky star. I have been endowed with many talents that I still discover, and I want to give back as much as I can to the world.

📍I became an #entrepreneur in Human Resources and #Leadership Consulting in 2014.

📍I founded Dare (www.dare.com.ro) in 2016 as I always dared to dream, to want, create, share more and more, to do good.

📍I have trained, mentored, and career coached thousands of people starting 2010, including teenagers, students, and employees in many organizations.

📍I started to deliver training in Asia (Singapore, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Qatar, Bangkok) in 2015.

📍 In 2015, I also became an #HR and #Management professor at the #Business Academy in Bucharest.

📍In 2020, I founded Sweets & Spices (www.sweetsandspices.ro) as I am passionate about healthy food and nicely wrapped gifts. 😉

📍I am a mentor in the Professional Women's Network, HR School, and She is Mom, and I am a volunteer in many organizations.

👉 I am passionate about everything I do and my mission is to change the world, step by step, through education.

❤️ I have a very beautiful and supportive family, which gives me a daily dose of motivation and energy.

🙏 My motto is: "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Dalai Lama

I hold a Master’s Degree in International Practice in HR granted by CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development), in addition to being certified as a Career Advisor & Coach and in using the Human Synergistics assessment tools (Life Style Inventory, Group Style Inventory).

I have more than 1000 days of HR, Management & Leadership training delivered in Romania, Asia & the Gulf (Singapore, Dubai, Doha, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila) and coaching hundreds of people for career changes or for finding their professional target.

I am passionate about writing, working with people, always willing to learn, and gifted in finding and developing people’s huge potential.

I have always been very independent, and I have always been a fighter for justice. With a father in the army, most of the time away from home, and a mother who was an engineer and raising two daughters on her own most of the time, with demanding grandparents and friends all over the country, I have had a very challenging but happy childhood.

When I was a child, I wanted to become a “boss”. I used to read crime books (I am a fan of Agatha Christie, Rodica Ojoc Brașoveanu, and Arthur Conan Doyle), and my father was desperate, as I needed to read my school books, too. The Romanian Revolution caught me when I was 14, and it had a big impact on me as a teenager, as I have seen people dying, the Romanian president and his wife killed, and I thought this was the end of something and the beginning of the unknown, the beginning of freedom.

I studied English and French in high school and by the time I finished it I had read hundreds of books and become passionate about psychology, philosophy, and literature to which I got an A on my final high school exams. I became a volunteer in Romanian Association against AIDS at 16, when I also got my first job as a Project Manager for the same Association. I remember that I bought a pair of sandals for my mother and lots of books from my first salary.

After high school, I was immediately hired as an Assistant to the Legal Department at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and I got the opportunity to work with lawyers and consultants and learn a lot from them. They convinced me to go to the University of Law, where I graduated in 2001. I have always believed in justice, and compared to my childhood dream, I started to think about becoming a prosecutor.

Instead, I have been given the chance to work in an HR Department, first as an Assistant, then as a recruiter, and trainer, and after a few years as a Project Manager and Head of Human Resources. After all these years in HR, I have discovered my true vocation, and I am thankful to that CEO who one day told me I would be great in HR and gave me a chance to hire into the HR Department.

I am still passionate about criminalistics, I am still a fighter for justice, and I think one of the most important competencies for an HR person is integrity. And now, I am my own CEO since 2014, so my childhood dream actually came true, and I have my own company – Dare (inspired by the verb “to dare” and called Development Advice & Resources), which is focused on HR services and consulting covering all areas in HR, development programs and career orientation, coaching, and guidance.

People come to me to find answers; instead, I help them to find the answers and the solutions in themselves. I am not a wizard; even if some of them call me that, what I do is listen to them, pay attention to what they say and what they do not say, restore their self-belief through my never-ending enthusiasm and optimism and work together with them to find the best solutions.

Sometimes the best solutions are not the easiest ones, and most of them need to put some effort into changing the current status, but once they realize everything is meant for their future and to improve their life, they become flexible, and the results even exceed their expectations. And this is completely rewarding for both them and myself. It is a common effort and a partnership, and I could not succeed by myself.

I decided to go on my own when I considered I was mature enough to set up and grow a business and when I was convinced that I could bring more value to more companies instead of only one.

It was not easy, and it is still not easy, but my life is much more challenging, stimulating, and rewarding compared to being an employer. I am really happy with everything that I do, my purpose is to make a difference in the HR world and community and not only through my work and through the way I do things. Being passionate about HR and loving people, I try to send this message through my programs so that people get “infected” and realize they could do better, they could be better both personally and professionally. And “sometimes I win, sometimes I learn,” depending on everyone’s motivation, perspective, willingness, etc.

This is how I help the organizations, too. I try to identify their issues, I listen to all people involved, I come up with ideas and recommendations, and we work together on implementing the action plan. Everything is based on the company's wish to change and evolve. Otherwise, none of my plans would work. And again, I want to emphasize the “partnership” between me, as a consultant, and the companies involved, as I do not impose anything, but we do work together in order to find the right solutions and to make the correct decisions depending on the context.

Everything is about people and getting results through people. It is not only about numbers and results, even if all the businesses in the world are meant for profit. At the end of the day, if you invest in your people, they will bring results, as happy, motivated, and engaged employees deliver and overachieve. So before we complain about turnover, lack of motivation, lack of results, lack of engagement, and not finding the right employees, we need to ask ourselves if we have done everything in order to attract, motivate, retain, develop, respect, and reward our current employees.

And last but not least, starting the end of September, I have accepted a huge professional challenge as Head of HR for a high-tech company in Dubai, and I will move there for an undetermined period. I really consider this opportunity as the next career level for me and I have the chance to prove that Romanian people can be great wherever they go. Not to mention I will be able to send the HR community and „She is Mom” community’s message at the international level. Fingers crossed!