About me
Carolina Pietyra is the Director of the Krakow Festival Office (KBF), an institution that for over 20 years has been responsible for Kraków’s flagship cultural festivals, including the Film Music Festival, Sacrum Profanum, Misteria Paschalia, the Conrad Festival, and the Miłosz Festival. KBF also delivers the city’s emblematic public events such as Wianki in Kraków, coordinates the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature programme and the Krakow Film Commission, and publishes cultural media outlets including Karnet, Czas Literatury and Kwartalnik Jutra.Beyond developing these brands, Carolina initiated and founded FestForum, a national platform aimed at networking festival organisers across Poland. Since 2023, KBF has also been responsible for coordinating the socio-cultural programme of the Wesoła Creative District in Kraków. It is within Wesoła that Carolina designs and leads a participatory process accompanying the district’s revitalisation, grounded in placemaking principles. In 2023, she also founded Apteka Designu — a new space dedicated to integrating design communities and developing design knowledge and competencies among Kraków’s residents.Carolina was awarded a Ministry of Culture scholarship in placemaking for cultural professionals.By profession, Carolina is a strategist and service designer. She specialises in co-design, change management, innovation design, organisational culture building, user experience design, and the application of digital marketing tools. She has collaborated with and supported the development of numerous institutions and companies, including Credit Agricole, Danone, Michelin, Capgemini, Tatra National Park, the National Bank of Poland, UNICEF, the City of Kraków, and the Marshal’s Office of the Małopolska Region. Her work is strongly rooted in human-centred design methodologies, particularly ethnographic research, co-creation, and prototyping.Carolina is a member of the board of the Association of the Tourist Organisation of the Royal Capital City of Kraków, the Council of the Potocki Palace Gallery, and the Social Council of the Faculty of Humanities and lecturer at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, the Executive Director of the Conrad Festival, a speaker at international conferences such as Cities Forum, OEES, and Placemaking Europe, and the host of the podcast KBF bliżej, dedicated to culture from a Kraków-centred perspective. She is a fellow of the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative.
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