CULTURAL BRIDGE
Our Story
The world around us is becoming more and more diverse, technologies help us to communicate with people from any corner of the planet, we travel more than ever before, the globalized economy allows us to reach out to clients from new markets, we work with colleagues and managers from various countries. The interaction with people who are different is no longer reserved for those who work at multinational corporations. Cross-cultural encounters are reality to each of us. And each of us acts differently in face of a difference.
Since 2015, the consultancy and education company Cultural Bridge has been helping dozens of organizations, teams and individuals to succeed when working across cultures. Our clients from different continents and from a variety of industries have used our services to better understand needs of their diverse customers and business partners, to strengthen customer relationships, to generate more revenue and to create an inclusive workplace for their employees.
21st century requires culturally intelligent people
My name is Andrej Juriga, and I am the founder and managing director of Cultural Bridge.
Being born and growing up in the communist Czechoslovakia strictly controlled by Soviet Union who intended to create one culture within the whole Eastern bloc, I wasn’t exposed to much cultural difference. Until I started studying at the University of Vienna (Austria) and the University of Granada (Spain) where I had to find a way how to cope with the cultural shock and to adjust to a whole new environment.
The cultural differences were substantial part of my corporate career as well. Years of sales to clients from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and then few more years in HR supporting managers from the USA, India, Australia, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates and from all over Europe who were leading teams based in Slovakia, helped me gaining rich experience with adjusting my behavior to different working styles without losing myself in the process. My cross-cultural skills were further developed when I relocated to Morocco where, as an HR Business Partner, I was designing strategies how to make collaboration of teams based in Africa and Europe more efficient. After years in Sales and HR leadership roles at national and global level, I have become a CQ (cultural intelligence) educator certified by Cultural Intelligence Center (Michigan, USA), and an EQ (emotional intelligence) coach certified by Roche Martin (Australia). I have completed my formal education in Intercultural theory at the Intercultural Communication Institute (Oregon, USA) and have become a qualified facilitator of IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory – globally and academically validated assessment of intercultural competence), and also a certified facilitator of Cultural Detective, a renowned intercultural development method.
It will be my pleasure, to offer you my own experience from living and working in six different countries in Europe, Africa and America, skills gained working at global business organizations, and deep intercultural knowledge acquired from some of the leading educational organizations in the field.
