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Franek Sokolowski

Undergraduate Student
Franek Sokolowski

Franek Sokolowski is student from Warsaw, Poland, with a keen interest in international relations and finance. He is currently pursuing a BA at Yale with a major in History and Cognitive Science, where he is focusing on the global financial system, Russia-Ukraine relations, and venture capital. Growing up in a region undergoing a rapid political and economic change, Franek has been inspired to gain a deeper understanding of global affairs and financial relationships.

Prior to joining Yale, Franek was involved in several initiatives aimed at promoting democratic values in Poland and Eastern Europe, including working as an aide to Lech Walesa, former President of Poland, pro-democracy dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

At Yale, Franek serves as Head of Undergraduate Research for Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Yale School of Management. In that capacity, he has played a role in several initiatives, including organizing the Yale CEO Summits, inviting President Lech Walesa to speak at the December 2022 Yale CEO summit, co-organizing an online lecture by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Yale, and co-authoring the highly popular global economic report titled "Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy." Franek has also contributed to Dean Sonnenfeld’s Yale CELI List of companies, which played a crucial role in catalyzing a global business boycott of Russia.

Washington Post: “How a Yale professor’s viral list pressured companies to pull out of Russia. A longtime advocate of corporate social responsibility gets a boost as Americans rally behind sanctions” https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/03/11/sonnenfeld-russia-ukraine-corporations/

Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey and Tian, Steven and Sokolowski, Franek and Wyrebkowski, Michal and Kasprowicz, Mateusz, Business Retreats and Sanctions Are Crippling the Russian Economy (July 19, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4167193 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4167193

In his free time, Franek mentors low-income Polish students who aspire to attend US colleges, with some of his mentees receiving offers from institutions such as Stanford, Princeton, and Yale.