Interview with Roman Sledziejowski – Vice Chairman of Savant Strategies

Savant focuses on servicing companies with $25 to $250 million in annual revenues, Roman Sledziejowski reveals.

Roman Sledziejowski began his professional career in New York City at Salomon Smith Barney, Member of Travelers Group at the age of 17, working for the investment bank part-time throughout his final year of high school.

After graduating from high school as the class valedictorian, he began his studies at Columbia University in the field of Economics. While in high school he was the captain of the school’s varsity soccer team, playing as a striker, and was awarded the most valuable player (MVP) distinction three years in a row. He also competed on his school’s varsity track and field team at various meets throughout New York State.

At the age of 18, he became the youngest National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) licensed stockbroker in the United States and began working full time as an Investment Associate at Smith Barney, a Member of Citigroup.

In 2002 Roman Sledziejowski became the Vice President of Investments at Prudential Securities in New York City. In 2004 he was promoted to the position of First Vice President of Investments. At the age of 25 Roman Sledziejowski became the Senior Vice President and Investment Officer of Wachovia Securities; at the time the 3rd largest investment firm in the United States with over 10,000 brokers working in 700 office locations and $680 billion in assets under management.

While at Wachovia Securities, Roman Sledziejowski began to make personal investments in multi-family rental properties in New York, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Through various partnerships, Roman Sledziejowski purchased and re-developed nearly 400 residential units between 2004 and 2009.

In 2006 Roman Sledziejowski founded Innovest Holdings, a New York City-based financial holding company. Innovest Holdings operated through four main subsidiaries: TWS Financial, LLC, a full-service broker-dealer based in Washington, DC with over $500 million in annual market transactions, servicing primarily foreign high net worth individual clients and international financial institutions; TradeWallStreet.com, one of the leading online Broker/Dealer platforms at the time, catering to individual investors; TWS Investment Partners, LLC, a real estate investment and finance company with over $100 million in real estate projects); and TWS Capital Partners, LLC, an offshore investment advisor with client assets exceeding $1 billion.

In 2007 Roman Sledziejowski co-founded MyPlace Development, Sp. Z o.o., a Poznan, Poland based real estate development company, together with Sebastian Kulczyk who served as the company’s CEO with Roman Sledziejowski serving as the Company’s Chairman of the Board until early 2010. In December of 2009 RJS finalized the sale of his interest in MyPlace Development for $7.3 million in cash to Kulczyk Real Estate Holding SARL in Luxemburg.

After significant initial success, TWS Financial, LLC. suffered debilitating financial losses during the financial crisis of 2008.  Between October 9, 2007, to March 9, 2009, the S&P 500 lost approximately 50% of its value.  Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and dozens of other financial services firms suffered extraordinary losses, with many others seeking bankruptcy protection or mergers with other investment companies.

In 2013, Roman Sledziejowski co-founded Savant Strategies, an international management consulting firm. Due to personal and legal issues, he took an extended leave of absence from the firm in 2016.

In 2021, Roman Sledziejowski returned to Savant Strategies, the firm he co-founded back in 2013, as Vice Chairman. Savant Strategies provides management consulting services to middle-market companies primarily in Latin America, Europe, and South Africa.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Roman Sledziejowski and learn a little more about his professional background and his consulting firm.

How did you get started?

During my 15 years of working on Wall Street, I had a lot of exposure to members of top-level management at companies operating in various business sectors. Beyond providing investment advice to these individuals and their enterprises, I always took great interest in their business models, management style, and the characteristics of the industries in which they operated.  Often times I was being asked to provide independent advice relating to various strategic business decisions that were about to be made.

A number of my executive and business owner friends suggested to me that my calling was precisely in management consulting, as opposed to Wall Street. When the time came for me to change my career path, it was a natural fit for me to forge a new career in the management consulting field.

What inspired you to start this business?

From casually speaking with my acquaintances working in the management consulting sector overseas, it became obvious to me that middle-market companies are largely underserved by top management consulting firms. McKinsey, Deloitte and other firms focus primarily on providing services to very large, established enterprises with very deep pockets.

The more I listened to my friends, the clearer it became to me that there is a business opportunity worthy of exploring if only a highly experienced, skilled and intelligent team of management consultants could be brought together to form a new venture. One thing led to another and the concept of Savant Strategies came to life.

Savant’s focus from the beginning was on servicing companies with $25 to $250 million in annual revenues. These businesses are already out of their infancy stage and for the most part, have their business model well tested. They are usually still managed by their founders who need advice and guidance on how to transition their companies into the adolescent stage. This is a very exciting, yet challenging time in the evolution of any business and management consulting services are invaluable at that juncture.