The Entrepreneurship Museum

In 2017, CITR Group understood that saving the companies from bankruptcy and restoring them into the economic circuit is not enough. They had to address the stigma that entrepreneurs are facing when confronted with difficulties. We launched a corporate communication platform called “Second Chance”, in order to generate empathy towards entrepreneurs in distress and promote the Group’s expertise.

Among the tactics, we launched the Entrepreneurship Museum: 100 years of entrepreneurship in Romania: A traveling exhibition illustrating the autochthonous entrepreneurship tradition, dating back to 1918 up to date, through the stories of 30 great entrepreneurs, with their failures and success.

The names of the entrepreneurs were selected by a board of the Museum: representatives of CITR Group, the Historic Consultancy Centre, the Maastricht School of Management Romania and The Entrepreneurship Academy. The selection criteria included the power of example, business ethics, sustainability, community involvement. We hired a team of historians who, for 6 months, researched 17 national archives looking for entrepreneurs’ stories. We talked to heirs, we recovered objects from the old businesses and restored their life stories. We contacted today’s entrepreneurs and filmed their stories to motivate the young generation to start their journey. Each story comes with an artifact – personal objects of the entrepreneurs, documents, etc. The Museum was launched in a historic building – the Noblesse Palace – and became a traveling exhibition. We created a wide communication campaign around the Museum, with extensive content before and after its launch, from video interviews to stories and TV documentaries, to fill in the company’s social media accounts.

The Second Chance campaign resulted in over 900 articles mentioning CITR in one year. The Museum of Entrepreneurship had over 1200 visitors until now and generated over 350 articles, 22 TV news, and reports reaching over 14 million views. Total impressions reached 391,000+ (Video views & post data). The initiative drew the attention of the Governor of the National Bank, who was interested to host the Museum within the National Bank, where it can be visited.