Chairman of the Economic Forum Programme Council

Social activist, member of parliament of the first and third term, Himalayan mountaineer.
He was born on 9th September 1960 in Krynica-Zdrój.

He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Jagiellonian University (1987). After the introduction of martial law, he was an active member of the Solidarity underground, arrested twice and sentenced to prison terms. Between 1991 and 1993, he was a Member of the Sejm of the first term on the People’s Agreement list. Between 1997 and 2001, he was a member of the Sejm from the Solidarity Electoral Action list. In 2010-2014, he was a councillor in the Małopolskie Voivodeship Assembly.

Since 1992, an initiator and organiser of the Economic Forum, the largest political and economic conference in Central Europe.

For his social and charitable activities, he has received numerous awards, including the Jerzy Giedroyc “Rzeczpospolita” Award in 2009, and the St. Brother Albert Award in 2007. In 2011 he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Zygmunt Berdychowski actively practices sports: skiing and running, he has completed, among others, the New York marathon. He is the initiator and organiser of the Running Festival, the most comprehensive running event in Poland – over 30 races with a total route length of over 300 km take place over 3 days – in which over 10,000 runners participate.

In July 2015, climbing Denali (McKinley), the highest peak in North America, he won the Crown of the Earth.