A Very Positive and Rewarding Experience by Boryana Georgieva
Today we are happy to meet Boryana Georgieva – former Vice President for Professional Development at PMI Bulgaria Chapter and a current Community Engagement Committee member in the educational foundation of PMI (PMIEF). Boryana is PMP, Scrum Master and ITIL v3 Expert and ITILv4 Managing Professional, who works for one of the world's leading IT companies, DXC Technology.
Her journey with PMI and PMI Bulgaria Chapter started back in 2013. That year she managed to pass the PMP exam. She’s still grateful to her mentor Elena Gerdjikova, who was with her in all hard times during her self-preparation for the exam. (At this point of time she was working for a big international IT company and a mentoring program was running. That’s how she came across an amazing mentor, buddy and an inspiring leader). Elena shared with Boryana a lot of success stories, good practices and PM knowledge from her own experience in the area. Elena was also the person who spread the word about PMI Bulgaria Chapter. That’s how Boryana learned about the one and only annual Project Management conference in Bulgaria at the time – PMDAY2013 (now known as Project Management Summit Bulgaria). Boryana was thrilled by the event – its content and delivery, as well as the opportunities it created to meet and network with top speakers and peers. And all that organized by volunteers. She immediately signed up as a PMDAY 2014 volunteer. Inspired and fascinated by the event and its success, next year she joined the PMDAY2015 organizational team, and in parallel she ran for a leadership role in the PMI Bulgaria Chapter Board.
Over the years she got connected and collaborated with many dedicated PM professionals from around the globe, fired a lot of friendships and even met some of my current colleagues at work. That volunteer experience further sharpened her PM and leadership skills, while at the same time she was involved in other than usual IT projects e.g. Project Management training to teachers in primary and kids in secondary schools. Great learnings from the social good projects of the Chapter, Boryana also presented during PMI Bulgaria Summit 2019 on the topic "Could kids be Project Managers". With a team of amazing volunteers, the first ever translation and publication of PMIEF resource into Bulgarian for Project Management education to primary school students got completed. She does believe that the team made a small step towards the goal to change the way children learn and plan through knowledge of project management. "Big THANK YOU to Damayan Kasapov and Nikolay Doychev" she says.

When it comes to her current role, Boryana shares: "Moreover, this very positive and rewarding experience gave me a very meaningful and fulfilling direction for the next Chapter in the book of Life – following a couple of years of servant leadership at a local level, I accepted to join the PMIEF CEC team at the beginning of 2020. PMIEF CEC work focuses on the relationship with Chapter Liaisons (of PMI Regions) through the world for the delivery of high-impact social good programs. I have the pleasure and honor to work with Liaisons in Central and Eastern Europe Region 8 as well as with the PMIEF team. This year PMIEF also celebrates a milestone – its 30th Anniversary. Happy 30th anniversary PMIEF!"