WSJ: Grupa Lotos: The Mouse That Roared

When Pawel Olechnowicz took the reins at Poland's Gdansk oil refinery in 2002, the Polish government was vacillating over whether to sell it to its larger domestic rival, PKN Orlen SA, or to a Russian buyer. The company, then called Rafineria Gdanska, was considered too small to survive on its own.

Since then, successive governments have made several more attempts to privatize the business on Poland's Baltic coast, but amidst it all Mr. Olechnowicz has plugged away at an expansion strategy that since 2002 has increased revenue six-fold, to 30 billion zlotys ($9.46 billion) in 2011. All the while, Mr. Olechnowicz has nurtured the company's brand, which he effectively created from scratch when he renamed the company Grupa Lotos.

"When I came, there was no Grupa Lotos, there was just a refinery," says Mr. Olechnowicz.  MORE