The director of Poland’s government-owned Institute of Natural Fibers and Medicinal Plants (IWNiRZ) has left his position to become vice-president for financial affairs at Grupa Lotos, a state-held petroleum company.
Robert Sobków, who was in the IWNiRZ position for one year, led the commercialization of Institute assets worth more than $1 million annually, and early this year engineered government financing of a 14.5 million zloty ($4.2 million) project to expand research of Polish hemp.
Also during Sobków’s tenure, IWNiRZ signed a contract with U.S.-based hemp Bija Hemp to sell certified planting seed in The Americas in what the Institute in January called “the largest contract for the sale of industrial cannabis seeds in the history of Poland.”
