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Honorary Consul George Roth/caption
George Roth was born in 1956 in the city of Cluj-Napoca Romania. He graduated from the Babe-Bolyai" University in Cluj-Napoca (M.Sc. Mathematics and Computer Science 1975-1980).
He worked for the Cluj Territorial Center for Computation (1980-1991) after which he emigrated to the United States. In the United States he worked as a Software Architect on numerous projects for large financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe (Recognos Inc. 1999 to present; UiPath 2018 to present).
George Roth is one of the founding members of the Romanian American Business Network. He is also the Honorary Consul of Romania in San Francisco (2007 to present) and the Chairman of the Romanian-American Chamber of Commerce the San Francisco Chapter (2017 to present).
On October 4 2019 Honorary Consul George Roth attended the annual
ALIANŢA/The Alliance Gala at the Romanian Embassy in Washington DC.
With that occasion Mr. Roth granted me an exclusive interview.
1. Good morning Mr. George Roth you are the Honorary Consul of Romania in San Francisco and the Bay Area. What responsibilities and activities do you have in this line of work?
So the Honorary Consuls organization there are twenty three of them in the United States. You have in Portland one too with an American gentleman. Our role is to network on behalf of Romania and to network on behalf of the U.S. in Romania. So we are a kind of organization which have to build the relationship between the two countries which can be cultural financial and then different type on multiple levels. One of the advantages of this Honorary Consuls organization which was created in the United States by the initiative of then Ambassador and later Minister of Foreign Affairs Mircea Geoană he created this network. And our advantage is that we represent continuity working closely with the Romanian Embassy and consulates when the consuls and the ambassadors are changing. But us being locals we are the link and maintain the continuity of this relationship. We are not financed by anybody we are self-financed and thats why we are a kind of independent body interested purely in the relationship between Romania and the United States.
2. Thank you so much Mr. Roth. You are known for becoming involved in promoting the Romanian IT industry in the Bay Area of California. Please elaborate for our readers your success story.
I mean I am promoting in the sense that I created an organization called the Romanian-American Business Network. Actually I didnt create it I restarted it. Our scope is to help the Romanian IT to come in the U.S. and also have the American companies to go to Romania. In time this role changed in the sense that initially we sent American companies to Romania through outsourcing but lately its nice to see that companies successful companies from Romania come to the U.S. to open a global presence through Silicon Valley or United States. Virtually I was involved with a company that I started which took a lot of years so everything what I talked about I experimented myself and I went through the history and evolution of these relationships.
3. Thank you so much Mr. Roth. Last question: what are your more recent projects and your goals for the future?
I mean my biggest recent project is that I am working for UiPath which is the first Romanian IT Unicorn. I am extremely lucky that I work for such a company seeing whats going on from inside. And my personal role is actually to help that the brain-drain which is happening in Romania to become an advantage of the country through returning the know-how of the people who left Romania to Romania. And also to help Romanians to invest in Romania.
4. Thank you so much Mr. Roth.
My pleasure thank you.
(October 13 2019)
TIBERIU DIANU has published several books and a host of articles in law politics and post-communist societies. He currently lives and works in Washington DC and can be followed on MEDIUM.
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