Ambassador Krzysztof Olendzki has been appointed director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (AMI) with immediate effect. Olendzki will oversee the running and direction of AMI, its cultural diplomacy objectives and promotion of Polish culture around the world.
Olendzki, who received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of the Republic of Tunisia, was appointed Titular Ambassador in 2011.
The diplomat has a rich history working in academia and holding major positions in government. As vice minister of Culture from 2006-07 (the body that supervises AMI) he initiated the Polish cultural season in Israel and in the UK, he also served as Government Plenipotentiary for the EXPO 2012 in Wrocław.
Olendzki has served as advisor to the minister at the Department of Western Europe, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was deputy director of the Polish Institute and first secretary at the Embassy of Poland in Rome. He has also been advisor to the Minister, first Secretary, and counsellor at the Department of Foreign Policy Strategy and Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2007-08 he was deputy director of the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Later he served as Ambassador of Poland to Tunisia, deputy director of the Development Aid Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from September 2014 was the general consul of Poland in Vancouver.
AMI promotes both the heritage and contemporary achievements of Polish culture and aims at increasing the value of Poland’s brand as a cultural asset. In the years 2001-10, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute implemented promotional projects in 26 countries and organised over 3,000 cultural events which gathered an audience of 18 million people spread over three continents. In 2011 the Adam Mickiewicz Institute accompanied the Polish Presidency of the European Union’s Council with a cultural programme which took place in 10 capital cities in and beyond Europe.
More recently it has been involved in large-scale projects supporting performances and recordings of the music of Szymanowski and Lutosławski; the centenary of Andrzej Panufnik in 2014 and the Royal Opera House’s first production of Szymanowski’s Król Roger in May 2015.