Danish Days in Moldova (Day 8)

This is kind of the day I've been pretty excited about - Danish days in Moldova. The "days" is actually a single day, but lets not get caught up in small details. The danish ambassador in Romania is also responsible for Moldova, and because he's not a narrow-minded guy, he actually explored and now a lot about Romania AND Moldova. Because of his knowledge he knows of the great potential for Danish companies that exist in Moldova - something I was told the former ambassador did not. So he and and a project team had been working since the beginning of 2011 with creating this event called "Danish days in Moldova" which invited Danish companies to come an learn about Moldova, the potential, and network with local players. Since I work for a organization that has a lot of contact to SME's I thought that we would be relevant - a lot of our members are farmers and could need new pumps, water irrigation and so on. Also, there was a lot of other potential needs and demands we could fill out, so I wrote to the team leader on the project. I wrote something a long the line "Hi I'm Jesper, this is what I'm doing here in Moldova, and this is why we should be invited". The ambassador then replied and said that we should join in, and we exchanged some mails the following days about the country, who I was, and what BCD was doing.

So at 9 am I arrive to Leogrand Hotel, which is the venue of the event. Representing the Danish companies was Carlsberg, Grundfos, Danfoss, Falck, Grontmij, Sondex, Vestas, Systematic, Industriens Fond for Udvikslingslande, og 10 andre selskaber. My wonderful girlfriend made 100 customized business cards, so I could pass them along, and since BCD didn't have my business card from them ready that meant that I was passing out "Jesper Villalobos Terkelsen - Entrepreneur". Awesome :)
I got to meet and talk with a long of people (I'm getting the hang of this networking) and had a meeting with Lisbeth Erlands from IFU with Vladislav from Easy Leasing (An explanation will follow another time). I also meet a group of Danish people that lived in Moldova permanently and started their own companies within agriculture, real-estate and IT-services - really a bunch of cool guys that had a ton of amazing tips and knowledge. They have a webpage called "Dasnkereimoldova" (Danes in Moldova) and if your ever going to Moldova, you should send those guys a mail.

The day ended at a restaurant called the wine-house - at which we got served unlimited Carlsberg and Tuborg beer (both is kind of premium down here). Me and the danish entrepreneurs joked about it: "Beer at the wine house? And Danish beer for Danes in Moldova?" I shall be honest - marketing is NOT their speciality in Moldova. If you study marketing, and you get hired down here, you would tear the place up.

All in all, an amazing day which ended at a bar with some colleagues and potential business partners, watching some football (Russia vs. Andora instead of Denmark vs. Portugal - come on!)