In the newest episode of our Quest for the Business Hero interview series, we asked Mandy Fertetics how she would describe a Business Hero and if has ever met one.
Mandy Fertetics is a sustainability and ESG expert and consultant as well as the managing director of Alternate Consulting Hungary. She represents the three core values of the Atlas World community, ethics, sustainability and creativity in her work life as well as her personal life.
In the interview, she shared some details about her business journey and the concepts of “business” and “heroism“. She opened up about the challenges she had to go through and highlighted the mentors and role models she met throughout her career.
In this series, we already had the pleasure to interview Giacomo Pedranzini, founder of Kometa 99 and HonestFood, winner of the Atlas Award 2023 prize, Gabor Nemes, co-founder and CEO of Good People Everywhere, Michele Orzan, President of EuCham, Gabor Marton, a peak-performance coach who works in Finance and Business, Alessandro Farina, Founder of ITL Group, Omar Balducci Manager of Lucart Kft, and Luigino Bottega, coach and author of “IO – how to win the game of life”.
Quest for the Business Hero: Mandy Fertetics
1. Please introduce yourself.
I’m Mandy Fertetics and I have been working as a consultant and expert in corporate sustainability and responsibility for more than 20 years so that’s not only my work but also my profession.
I have a women-owned, purpose-driven micro consultancy that became 15 years old this year. There, we do a lot of things for different companies, help them become more sustainable through sustainability strategy development, stakeholder engagement, accountability or reporting, training, or competency building. My favourite topics are sustainable and inclusive purchasing or diversity, equality, and inclusion. These topics are my passion and I work with clients and companies from all sectors, all sizes, international and Hungarian ones on a project basis. We also have outsourced work, so I’m working for example as a sustainability manager for MVÜK, which is an organization with 500 companies as members, and in this business community, we try to find a way to bring sustainability into their life and work life. I’m also educating and giving training at Corvinus University, METU or the Green Brands Academy.
2. Let’s start with an easy game of word association. What comes to your mind when I say “business”? And what comes to your mind when I say “hero”?
Business: all of my family members were working as blue-collar workers, so when I hear business, I first associate it with factories, manufacturing, big machines, production even though it’s the 21st century when most of the businesses and services are even virtual. I also checked it in the dictionary because I was curious, and it said commercial activity and I thought it definitely means more to me. So, if I would have to give a definition to a dictionary, I would say it’s organizing and managing resources to create economic value for the social good. For me this is business.
And then hero for me is something or somebody big with a big achievement or performance or a very noble quality. Somebody who is appreciated because they made something huge for the world. Maybe it comes from history or the movies that I watch, but for me, the word hero means this. However, I definitely think that it has to be related to good qualities and talent.
3. Now, let’s combine them together…what do you think is a business hero?
I guess somebody who is working within or with the business and then using their knowledge abilities, willingness, and resources and has a desire to create something good within or for the business to make it better.
4. Every businessperson goes through a journey: When did you hear your call and how did your journey start?
I don’t remember my start, but my grandmother, who would have been 90 years old a few days ago, but who is sadly not among us anymore, always told me that she knew already since kindergarten that I will do something with poverty, social injustice or environmental or animal protection, because she already saw that I was attached to these things. I don’t remember that, for me it came much later. I was always volunteering, donating so I was always involved in these things and personally I always had solidarity and empathy to the underrepresented communities.
I think my main call at the end of the day was when I chose my first workplace after university when I started thinking about where I want to give my knowledge, my time, my energy, and my passion. So, I started in the NGO sector, which was a good decision for me. I think if I would have gone into the hardcore business, to multinational global companies, that wouldn’t have been the best for me. My ability to question business as usual has strengthened by working for and with NGOs, and then I found my place in between the sectors. I prefer to not be totally within the business or NGO or any sector, but in between them, and have a little bit of an outside view, but still be involved and help them become better.
5. Which obstacles did you encounter during your journey?
Obstacles, there were a lot. Personally, for me most obstacles were coming from my personality, my backpack that I brought from my childhood. I am first generation educated person with a diploma, so that brought a lot of obstacles. I had to learn the language, how you communicate with different people, so it started with that. Not feeling like an outsider especially because my self-esteem was also very low, in business the fact that I was a woman was another obstacle, then maybe assertiveness as well. So, these were from the personal side.
And then from the environment for sure to bring the business people more for cooperation and collaboration instead of competitiveness, that is challenging. Then the time frame: short-term optimization instead of thinking long-term or having the courage to have a vision in the long-term at all. I think also ethics because I’m more of a virtue ethic person, so for me it’s important that what we do all the time is ethical. Currently in the business and the world this is not mainstream, the utilitarian mindset is, which is basically to see what is good for most people and what we can do with that, whatever is allowed. That’s not my way, so that was challenging for me, and I remember at first, I thought it was because of my age. People told me you will learn this, you will understand how this works, you are naive and idealistic. It took time to understand that it’s not my age, but it’s my personality, my belief, and my mission.
6. Did you find a mentor or inspiring leader to help go forward?
I think I was very lucky with that, already in primary school I had teachers who encouraged me to think differently, and to go for the things I believe in, and this continued through middle school and university. Then I always chose my workplace and my employer based on values, so probably because of that, I met good supervisors, good managers, and good leaders (e.g. Tóth Gergely, Radácsi László, Braun Róbert, Kováts-Sándor Lóránt, Hartmut Sievers, Stefan Bräuherr, Dzeki Mackinovski, Petrik Ida, Inzelt Annamária, Horváth János, Urbán Katalin). I was lucky because they encouraged me to become better, to experiment with my knowledge and my skills, to learn, to criticize, and to think differently.
7. What important lessons did you learn and what is your contribution towards society?
For one, we always say people need to be open-minded, have an openness towards new ideas, different approaches, other people, other cultures, but in my opinion the big effort is to create the atmosphere and the circumstances where people can be open. The other one is the resistance to change, the fact that it is natural, it is not something bad, not something against me personally or against my topic. Human beings are resistant to change, they don’t want to change and it’s natural, so we should use this in our work somehow, not neglect it or be angry about it, but work with it.
As for how I contribute to society, I think I always try to give a voice to underrepresented groups or people, within the business, within the society or within a community. I always make sure that I represent them properly because I think it is very important and I’m proud of that. I also try to contribute to society through my ethical approach. I’m sure that within Hungarian business behaviour and culture, it is important to speak up for ethics and ethical behaviour. And I try to walk to talk, so I donate, I volunteer, I choose consciously, as a conscious consumer: when I choose a community bank, when I go to a social entrepreneur, when I buy gifts, or when I go for a carbon-neutral printing company. So, I do really try to walk the talk and I hope that contributes to society as well.
8. Atlas World is looking for business heroes with an Ethical, Sustainable, and Creative approach: Can you think of someone that embodies these qualities?
I guess I know a lot because I’m working in communities where people fight day by day to do something good, and I think those are the everyday heroes. If it is related with business, and shaping the business then it is even more important. If I would need to name somebody, well I’m always looking for good women leaders, because I think they bring great qualities into our society and into our lives so I would name Solti Andrea (Shell), Nagy Gréta (Dandelion) or Dintsér Andrea (MVÜK Női Vezetői Klub). They work with their passion and their feminine qualities within the business to make it better. Also, social entrepreneurs, who try to make a new business model. They create entrepreneurship, they create services or products, but they do it in a different way, for them what revenue means what profit means, and who the beneficiaries are different. I know a few social entrepreneurs and I really look up to them and think that they are some kinds of heroes, business heroes. It’s not related directly to business, but when somebody is teaching or giving training or educating. Réka Matolay is one person I really like to work with, since she finds new tools, and new ways, and through education and courses, she presents behavioural changes or attitude changes or knowledge, that will hopefully then contribute to a better business as well.
9. Do you consider yourself a business hero?
That’s a tough question because I mean I have a low self-esteem, I am a maximalist and a perfectionist, so of course nothing will ever be enough. I remember a story, from when I was in a career coaching course and then my coach told me that she will ask me something and I need to say immediately what I think. Then she asked when I will be satisfied with my work life and then I said if I can change capitalism. So, you can see my ambitions, so until I don’t reach this big potential I won’t really be satisfied and say that I reached my goals.
But if I try to take a step back, I mean I’m a pioneer in a profession that is currently created, and 20 years ago I was already working as a sustainability manager, which was not existing at that time. I created my job description, and I created the content of this role within a company, well not only me, but a few others as well of course, but now in the last one and a half years 200 of these professionals were trained. We made the first steps and now they can do it and I really want to give them my knowledge and my experience, so that they can make it even better.
10. Who would you nominate for the next interview?
For the next interview I would nominate János Horváth, he’s a very good entrepreneur and the roots that he made in ethics and social responsibility are also interesting. Then Solti Andrea from Shell as well, I think she does a lot for businesses, although she is not a self-entrepreneur. Maybe Kárpáti András, he’s an interesting guy with micro-mobility, green mobility and and all these topics and he is also nice personality. Molnár Csaba from Magnet Bank he’s a board member there and he was participating in transformation the bank from business as usual to a community bank, that’s very interesting. Károlyi Antal, who made a company for deaf people and to utilize their knowledge in the IT sector.
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