Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Websites
Languages
Additional work and experience
Computer Literacy
Training
Hobbies and Interests
Timeline
Generic

Ignas Paukštys

Vilnius

Summary

Over 6 years of direct relevant experience at LBSA (now Innovation Agency) at exactly the same position as you are looking for and with a passion and proven track record in constantly providing daily top-level support to colleagues and clients.


With expertise in redesigning and measuring customer journey, satisfaction, and effort across multiple organizations.


Excels in leading CRM change management projects and thrives in fast-paced, demanding, growth-oriented environments.


Over 13 years of managerial experience honing leadership, team-building, training, coaching, and stakeholder management skills.


Background in Project Management, Finance & Consultancy industries bring valuable insights into client perspective, communication, and problem-solving techniques.


Valuable asset for creating state-of-the-art CRM solutions at ILTE and cold calling and upselling targets.

Overview

18
18
years of professional experience

Work History

Business and Sales Support Lead

ILTE (National Promotional Institution)
03.2025 - Current
  • Responsible for providing and coordinating all internal administrative, IT, managerial and advisory support to core teams working in Front Office doing daily business, sales and operations. Achievements:
  • - Successful initiation and implementation of IT clients application pipeline management solution based on Atlassian JIRA for Large Corporates (LC) team to ensure sound and fruitful daily cooperation between LC and AML team, Credit Risk team, and various internal services;
  • - Became the to-go contact point for in-house advisory services, together with dedicated team started to design processes and requirements for future CRM, client self-services and core banking systems, was selected as a representing member for strategic and operational IT committees, and transformation team responsible for creation and documentation of future client model and all of its processes;
  • - Constant proactive change management of suboptimal products design and legal requirement based on external and internal feedback (7 products redesigned)
  • - Preparation of compliance verification tools, forms, questionnaires, excels for ILTE project managers who gave positive feedback
  • - Without normal CRM and core banking system tools, still managed to create excel based multidimensional weekly reporting of client’s debt collection process for all core products connecting data from 3 databases and providing easy to use tool for front and back office teams;
  • - Proposals for automation and simplification where possible without compromising sound risk management (not yet implemented)

Head of Grants Unit

INVEGA / ILTE (National Promotional Institution)
11.2021 - 02.2025
  • Responsible for administration and evaluation processes of all non-repayable products’ applications, motivation, training, managing and team-building of Grant managers. Participation in development and amendment of existing and new grant products, IT systems used for administration of those Grant products as well as internal rules governing administration and evaluation processes. Close cooperation with other Units: legal services, compliance services, customer support, marketing, internal control, IT. Team consists of 6-12 grant managers. Clients – all private sectors excluding ineligible sectors. Achievements:
  • - Grants Unit’s KPIs were increased and successfully reached 2 consecutive years in a row (customer satisfaction percentage, NPS, and time-to-contract)
  • - Proactive and successful products change-management ensuring product relevancy due to changing external circumstances and meeting clients’ expectations (for example partial reimbursement of investment loans product)
  • - Regular and systemic use of clients’ feedback to ensure constant improvement of IT systems used for applications, application forms and application process itself, leading to better customer satisfaction (for example EPIS)
  • - Demonstrated management competence during historical peak-times to mobilize, motivate and concentrate team efforts ensuring good results in evaluation marathons (for example during 2021-2022).

Mandate manager / Senior Mandate manager

INVEGA (National Promotional Institution)
05.2020 - 11.2021
  • Responsible for development of traditional financial engineering and temporary covid relief aid and grant products (measures), including drafting concept papers, preparing forms, harmonizing with stakeholders, preparation of calls of project proposals, participation in budgeting process, facilitation and coordination of internal efforts to ensure key enabling conditions for successful implementation of those products (leading creation of product-specific user-friendly IT application systems for clients and staff, writing internal rules and processes) training of colleagues and customer support unit, preparation and delivering public presentations for potential clients, providing guidance and consulting on a daily basis, supervision and reporting of results. Achievements:
  • - I joined the Unit during COVID pandemic and immediately received tasks to launch “hottest” COVID relief aid related products (Two compensation mechanisms for partial reimbursement of lease payments for lockdowned business, one compensation mechanism for reimbursement of COVID testing related expenses for business, then temporary subsidies for incoming tourism agencies as well as grants for accommodation sector (hotels).
  • - Swiftly took over administration of newly created financial engineering product “Portfolio guarantee for Loans – No. 2”, prepared QA for 17 financial intermediaries which were selected to implement this product regarding practical situations and specific contract clauses and requirements for final beneficiaries and portfolio itself. This product reached a total portfolio of 126mEUR. I prepared smart excel spreadsheets used for monitoring performance of these 17 financial intermediaries, based on which I initiated reallocations of funding in a well-timed fashion, provided warning notices of impending unilateral decrease in portfolio guarantee upper limit in case of continuing underperformance also initiated several dissolutions of contracts for financial intermediaries who even after early warning notices were systematically not delivering expected results.

Head of Technical Assistance Projects Unit

CPMA (Central Project Management Agency)
11.2017 - 04.2019
  • Responsible for administration of EU funded Technical Assistance Projects ranging from institutional capacity building to publicity and marketing as well as external evaluations and consultancy projects. Altogether 28 institutional clients - ranging from Rail Line and Horizontal Ministries, Agencies and Companies under Ministries implementing sectoral policies, as well as some law enforcement agencies and State Audit Office. Basically, all institutions who participate in implementation of EU Funded Development programmes in LT. Main duties included – critical assessment of institutional financing needs (on a yearly basis) and issuance of recommendations to MoF, verification of payment claims, on the spot checks, introduction of risk based approach by using sampling in management controls and verifications, organizing calls of project proposals for communication and marketing about EU funded projects (for public sector institutions as well as NGOs), hiring external experts, scoring applications, contracting best ones and controlling their implementation. There were 7 Technical Assistance Project managers in the Unit. Achievements:
  • - Successful introduction of new activity for CPMA – possibility for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to apply and get funding in order to participate in communication and marketing of EU funded projects in more innovative, original way than the public sector. For assessment of those project proposals known marketing and communications professionals were hired.
  • - Development and adoption of a new methodology and related excel tool for managing and controlling clients’ expenses using risk-based approach.
  • - MoF were positive about Unit’s support and help in critical assessment of institutional budget needs and possibilities for optimization
  • - Was selected to represent CPMA in interinstitutional working groups working with Communication and Evaluation Projects.

Head of Projects’ Experts Unit

LBSA (Lithuanian Business Support Agency, now – Innovation agency)
01.2016 - 11.2017
  • Responsible for organization of internal and external expert support for project managers, evaluators and controllers carrying out their daily duties for tasks which require special knowledge, for example R&D&I project assessment, supervision of construction works, IT development projects, LEAN projects, ISO projects, as well as in-house capacity training events and methodological leadership. Also responsible for finding, negotiating and hiring or otherwise procuring temporary external experts in various industrial fields, ensuring no conflict of interest and high professional expertise in relevant field. Personal consultation specialization – EU and national structural funds requirements and EU state aid requirements and their practical application. Organization of training events, preparation of presentations and drafting expert opinions regarding subject matter. Achievements:
  • - The Unit and its processes as well as expert database were developed practically from zero to hero all by me. It all started from few experts but grew to 6 full-time experts and 86 part time experts as well as 12 institutional framework contracts with leading research organizations each had an external team of 12-25 experts in practically all high-tech industrial fields. When LBSA was reorganized into Innovation agency this Experts Unit become one of core units in its activity.
  • - To establish best-practice Experts support unit I organized and participated in study visits in Research Executive Agency (Brussels), Vinnova (Stockholm), Tekes (Helsinki), also other institutions in the region to learn from the best and adopt best practices in LT.
  • - Depending on application influx I created permanent expert competences and flexible system for reaching out to external experts, I wrote internal procedures as well as expert questionnaires, declaration forms, methodological memos with relevant extracts from Frascati and Oslo Manual (OECD), also established expert panels in evaluation of R&D&I project applications.
  • - I created external expert database, and for in-house experts I helped them create common practice database in their relevant fields (e.g. for public procurement expert – all highest court decision practice and Public Procurement Office practice based on article).
  • - The unit become irreplaceable internal methodological and expert support service for project managers dealing with assessment of R&D&I project applications, managing contracts, verifying payment-claims, performing on the spot checks, dealing with irregularities and fraud as well as auditing management verifications.
  • - When I started this role, there was no real expert support service, when I left the organization each more complex project had from 1 to 3 experts for most important control points in project’s lifecycle.

Deputy Director of Project Management Department

LBSA (Lithuanian Business Support Agency, now – Innovation agency)
12.2011 - 12.2015
  • Responsible for application evaluation management processes (all positive and negative funding proposals/decisions to Project Selection Committee) and customer satisfaction management processes (systematically using customer feedback to improve processes, forms, requirements, also dealing with complaints and litigation). Additional responsibilities: finding, negotiating, and hiring temporal experts, support to evaluators dealing with complex and most difficult project applications, support in the field of evaluation methodologies. When needed based on decision of Director of the Department I was involved in contract management, on the spot checks, dealing with irregularities and potential fraud cases, as well as working with audit findings and recommendations (improving internal procedures, questionnaires etc.). There were 5 Units in the department (4 thematic (Energy Efficiency, R&D&I, SME support, promotion of Tourism) project management units, and 1 support unit), altogether more than 80 employees in the Department. Clients – all Lithuanian SMEs (private), some public companies and organizations. Achievements:
  • - Personally prepared and supervised application evaluation management process and customer satisfaction management process as well internal legal acts which specify the processes. Also participated in development and requirement setting for development of organizations IT systems used by the staff and clients. Some systems are still used by Innovation agency. Several times reviewed and updated Client support standard, carried out plethora of trainings and public presentations about various calls of project proposals for potential clients, as well as in-house trainings for staff – how to evaluate certain calls of project proposals applications.
  • - From 2014/06 to 2017/11 by decree of Director General I was additionally appointed to carry out duties as Management Representative according to ISO 9001: 2008 standard requirements, because as a Team we managed to independently prepare all the necessary documentation and practices and get external certificate that organization is ISO 9001:2008 compliant.
  • - I proactively participated in developing LBSA CRM (Client Relationship Management IT system) and project management tools ensuring that the final products will be useful and convenient for staff and clients. Looking for new ideas, I initiated study visits in other sister-organizations in EU.
  • - My formal approval was needed for all negative as well as positive funding recommendations going to the Project Selection Committee (about 1.36 billion EUR altogether was contracted over the years, with many thousands of partially funded projects). Final decisions were subject to litigation, so I personally helped legal service explain those decisions in Courts and even participated in trials myself. In rare cases I also had to organize redresses.

Act. Head of Economic Growth Operational Program

MoF (Ministry of Finance)
03.2011 - 12.2012
  • Responsible for coordination and management of EU funded Economic Growth Operational Program implementation. This was a multiannual multi institutional social-economic development support program covering both public and private investments in the form of grants and financial engineering instruments in the areas of Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Transport and Communication, Ministry of Education and Science. Supervision of Lithuanian Business support agency and INVEGA (national promotional institution). The team consisted of 7 specialists. Achievements:
  • - Personally most of my focus was allocated to ensure compliance of MoF, MoEn and MoTC measures because their KPIs were most significant for sustaining economic growth. During this period of time there was a case when EU audits determined that Transport Investment Directorate under Ministry of TC management and control system was lacking in the field of public procurement control so the funding for this organization and it’s clients was temporarily suspended. I coordinated efforts to improve their internal procedures, capacities as well as public procurement irregularity detection and recovery procedures, and pushed for full implementation of audit’s findings. After 4 month and much efforts spending to demonstrate to Brussels that Lithuanian Transport Investment Directorate as an organization is now fully capable to appropriately implement EU delegated fundings, the funding was renewed.

Senior Specialist at Evaluation Unit

MoF (Ministry of Finance)
10.2008 - 03.2011
  • Responsible for public procurement of external EU Funds related evaluations and audits by leading audit and consultancy companies. Proposals for policy evaluation projects, preparation of annual evaluation plan, formulation of evaluation questions, preparation of tender documents, cording public procurement task force made of legal, policy evaluation and EU fund experts, preparation of ToRs, implementation of tender procedures, quality control of delivered services, management of commitment / decommitment, verification of payment claims as well as working with audit follow-up actions. Presentation of findings to policy makers, responsible institutions, monitoring of implementation of recommendations. Achievements:
  • - Prepared numerous tender specifications (3-5 per year) for international public procurement (published in TED, EU Official Journal of Public Procurement) to independently evaluate performance, results and impact of various EU Funded Programmes.
  • - Even though the service providers were solid and experienced, still there was a need to ensure quality control and full implementation of all ToR requirements and answer all formulated audit and evaluation questions sometimes leading to temporarily rejecting interim payment claims to ensure value for money.
  • - I have prepared budgeting excel which was used by other colleagues to calculate evaluation project budget prior to public procurement
  • - I have prepared recommendation follow-up excel which helped the Unit to monitor the status of all recommendations and findings and periodically request from responsible institutions to provide proof of implementation.

Junior project manager

ESTEP (European Social, Legal and Economic Projects)
01.2008 - 10.2008
  • Preparation of bidding documents for public procurement tenders, preparation of proposals, applications, technical documentation, assistance with statistical data analysis and visualization, assistance preparing surveys, reports, presentations. Achievements:
  • - Some successful bidding in the field of development (EuropeAID) cooperation projects in Eastern Europe
  • - Even more successful bidding in the field of policy evaluation in national public procurements
  • - Gained practical experience in forming international consortia for international public procurement to win EuropeAID calls

Education

Master (Magna Cum Laude) - European Studies, major in public finance

Vilniaus University, Institute of International Relations And Political Science
01.2010

Bachelor - Political Science

Vilniaus university, Institute of International Relations and Political Science
01.2008

Graduate - undefined

Young Physicists school “Photon”
01.2004

Skills

  • Creative problem-solving
  • Consulting and Coaching
  • Process enhancement, streamlining and IT transformation
  • Proficient in public speaking and representation
  • Data analytics & Reporting
  • Cross-functional communication
  • Effective teamwork and organizational skills
  • Strategy formulation and implementation
  • Pipeline management
  • CRM software proficiency
  • Supplier relations
  • Corporate financial statement analysis
  • Analysis of corporate ownership structures
  • Application and business plan evaluation
  • Practical experience in AML and KYC
  • Application of relevant financing regulations

Languages

Lithuanian
Bilingual or Proficient (C2)
English
Advanced (C1)
French
Upper intermediate (B2)
German
Elementary (A2)
Russian
Intermediate (B1)

Additional work and experience

  • Other short-term, pro-bono, or additional part-time jobs and projects:
  • 12/2020 – 2021/11: Invega: Deputy Chairman of INVEGA Staff Representatives Council (elected) – representation of INVEGA staff interests, ensuring constructive social dialogue with top management of INVEGA, pro-actively raising issues which are important to staff regarding motivational packages, salary policy, work-safety, internal justice, internal career policies etc. The Council consisted of Chairwoman, Deputy Chairman and Secretary. Was nominated and elected when I was mandate manager (Product manager), later was promoted and had to resign.
  • Nuo 2017/03 – on demand: European Training Center Paris (ETCP), European Academy for Taxes, Economics and Law in Berlin (EUROACAD), Europos socialiniai, teisiniai ir ekonominiai projektai (ESTEP), Ministry of Finance, Environmental Projects Agency: Lecturer (EN & LT) – non regular lecturing, preparation of workshops and trainings about EU structural funds and investment funds, financing requirements, evaluation methodologies and requirements, EU State Aid and de minimis aid regulations and their application. Had some consultancy work improving Environmental Projects Agency’s internal processes, sampling methodologies, training their evaluators and legal service.
  • 2017/07 – 2017/10: Lithuanian Research Council, EU funded Research & Development Projects Unit: Programme Coordinator – temporary assistance to Lithuanian Research Council organizing evaluation of R&D projects applications, preparation necessary methodological tools, questionnaires and evaluators spreadsheets and templates, proposals for evaluation processes. The applicants were research teams from various Universities & other Research Organizations.
  • 2017/3 – 2017/06: Vilnius Municipality Urban Planning Company “Plan of Vilnius”: Specialist – assistance in preparation of General Vilnius Urban Development Plan, in the field of user-friendly visualization of survey and other statistical data, preparation of presentation, formulation of findings.
  • 2007/03 – 2008/04: Students’ Scientific Society (SSS, - SMD in lt.): Chairman (elected), leading a Council of 5 members, ensuring friendly dialogue between students and academia at Vilnius university. Preparation, editing and publishing of Annual Almanac of Best Students Original Research Papers, organization of conferences etc.
  • 2007/02 – 2007/12: Eastern Europe Studies Center (EESC): Project assistant – responsible for writing project proposals for various calls by international development donors and international organizations, assistance in preparation of publications, data analysis and statistical work with surveys, data sets, reports, presentations, support in conference organization.
  • 2006/03 – 2008/02: Freelance journalist: Preparation of articles covering various topics from economic and finance to international politics

Computer Literacy

ECDL, outstanding knowledge of MsOffice package, as well as specialized project and process modelling software (e.g. Ms Project, Bizagi) and graphical design software.

Training

  • Baltic Management Institute: Executive Education program course in Finance. Corporate Finance, Analysis of Corporate Financial Statements, Evaluation of Business plans, cash flows, companies. Lecturer Prof. Francisco Lopez (IE Bussiness School, Spain).
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers: Management according to EN ISO: 9001 standard’s requirements
  • Primum Esse: Training cycle for managers: (1) Manager’s role in the success of the organization (2) From management to leadership; (3) Team collaboration (4) How to ensure successful work results of your Team.
  • DOOR: Training & Consulting: Training cycle to increase various managerial competences
  • OVC Consulting: Negotiation and representation, Strategic management, Managerial skillsets
  • Lietuvos Laisvos rinkos institutas: Economic analysis, ISM, 10 topics course.
  • VRP | Hill & Knowlton: Specialized trainings in Communication “Wave of Crisis”
  • DG Regio, DG Comp, DG Empl.: Study visits, representation and presentation in other organizations
  • Research Executive Agency (REA), Brussels: Study visit to learn best practices and know-how
  • Google Europe HQ, Dublin: Study visit. Google Inc. European Headquarters covering entire Europe.
  • Vinnova Stockholm: Study visit to learn best practices and know-how
  • FMMC: Public procurement trainings
  • Žinių centras: How to communicate with Media representatives: ways and methods
  • CPMA: Planning, Preparation and Implementation of Public Private Partnership projects
  • VPVI: Preparation and implementation of programme and policy evaluation projects
  • EIPA, LEXION: Various EU State Aid and Competition Law trainings
  • ESTEP: Evaluation of business plans: 1) analysis of project’s financial plan; 2) analysis of companies financial data; 3) Negotiations and representation

Hobbies and Interests

For many years I am dancing in various styles, love travelling, reading books, watching old movies, classical music, gym, riding motorcycle. In 2023 won 1st place at national Tango improvisation competition in AM-AM category.

Timeline

Business and Sales Support Lead

ILTE (National Promotional Institution)
03.2025 - Current

Head of Grants Unit

INVEGA / ILTE (National Promotional Institution)
11.2021 - 02.2025

Mandate manager / Senior Mandate manager

INVEGA (National Promotional Institution)
05.2020 - 11.2021

Head of Technical Assistance Projects Unit

CPMA (Central Project Management Agency)
11.2017 - 04.2019

Head of Projects’ Experts Unit

LBSA (Lithuanian Business Support Agency, now – Innovation agency)
01.2016 - 11.2017

Deputy Director of Project Management Department

LBSA (Lithuanian Business Support Agency, now – Innovation agency)
12.2011 - 12.2015

Act. Head of Economic Growth Operational Program

MoF (Ministry of Finance)
03.2011 - 12.2012

Senior Specialist at Evaluation Unit

MoF (Ministry of Finance)
10.2008 - 03.2011

Junior project manager

ESTEP (European Social, Legal and Economic Projects)
01.2008 - 10.2008

Bachelor - Political Science

Vilniaus university, Institute of International Relations and Political Science

Graduate - undefined

Young Physicists school “Photon”

Master (Magna Cum Laude) - European Studies, major in public finance

Vilniaus University, Institute of International Relations And Political Science

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