“Take a friend home to play with,” read his very first copy — written as a kid to help sell his dad’s rabbits, instinctively shifting the pitch from livestock to companionship, from features to EQ. That ad-kid prodigy resurfaced later through a few adventurous lateral moves: two bus transfers via Iași, then a “heavy metal” foundation — three years as an automation engineer at the Galați Steel Works. But he didn’t stay an implementer: he engineered his own escape into ideas, trading hustle for lecture, building a PPC agency, rolling up his sleeves for a startup, then dissecting applied creativity across every learning platform he could get his hands on, studying “the DNA of greatness backwards to its source”. Today, he’s a hybrid Copywriter & Product Manager at Bookzone (lucky bastards) — a sharp, cross-disciplinary mind with a delicious Moldavian accent and a wonder kid’s restless, joyful curiosity. As a local Young Lions 2026 winner alongside Dacian Neagu, his partner in crime, he’s heading to Cannes next June, bringing the Romanian way to the table: skip “outside the box” — think brilliance rigged from wire, wit, and whatever’s left when the box is empty, broken, or stolen.

1. WHAT WOULD MAKE YOUR SOUL SING? WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?

To be honest, I don’t know what makes my soul sing. I side with Slavoj Žižek on this: „Happiness is a very conformist category.” 

Still, there are things that make me less miserable: early Fridays and late Saturdays. A glass of Domeniile Davidescu Rară Neagră Saperavi accompanied by a vinyl—either Country Western or Art Blakey’s Moanin’. The scratch of a fountain pen on A5 paper. Rainy days. And the quiet moments immediately following creative desperation.

2. A CHILDHOOD STORY THAT ANNOUNCED THE CREATIVE PERSON YOU ARE TODAY 

7th grade. My father was selling rabbits. To most people in our area, they were just livestock. I decided to make a poster to boost sales.

Instead of listing the price or weight, I wrote: „Take a friend home to play with.”

I didn’t know the terminology back then, but I had instinctively switched from a functional feature to an emotional benefit. I wasn't selling an animal, I was selling companionship. That was my first piece of copy, written long before I knew people actually got paid to do this.

3. THE BEST CONTEXT FOR INSPIRATION

The best context is the torture of a deadline. It is the friction between a blank page and a ticking clock. Creativity is a gritty, relentless exercise that I practice everywhere—in the shower, on the metro, or in my sleep. The best context is simply having a problem so annoying and complex that my brain is forced to solve it just to get some silence.

4. THE PROJECT YOU LOVED MOST

I don’t have a single favorite project yet, but I gravitate towards those with cultural or social impact, such as the launches for Primal Intelligence, Marius Manole’s book „Fericirea e în actul următor”, or the Dostoevsky editions: “White Nights” or “Poor Folks”. Separately from my work at the Book zone publishing house, I’ve worked on documentary projects, such as one about the final days of Ceaușescu, and I helped build a plant-based milk startup from scratch.

5. THE BEST THING ABOUT LOCAL CREATIVITY

The best thing about local creativity is its origin in sheer necessity. It operates as a survival reflex. We mastered thinking „outside the box" simply because the box was usually empty, broken or stolen. This environment forged a sharp instinct for improvisation: the capacity to fix a structural failure with just a piece of wire and a cynical joke.

6. THE BEST STATEMENT OF LOCAL HUMOR

The ultimate statement of local humor is not a phrase, but a monument: The Merry Cemetery in Săpânța.

It proves that our humor is a survival mechanism so powerful it transcends death itself. While the rest of the world meets the end with silence and black clothes, we meet it with bright blue crosses and limericks. The definitive replica remains the epitaph on a mother-in-law’s grave:

„Sub această cruce grea / Zace biata soacră-mea / Trei zile de mai trăia / Zăceam eu și cetea ea.” (“Under this heavy cross / Lies my poor mother-in-law / Try not to wake her up / Or she will come back home / And bite my head off.”)

We are the only culture that mocks the grim reaper to his face.

7. ADVICE FOR INTERNATIONAL HEADHUNTERS REGARDING LOCAL CREATIVES

Seek the „Swiss Army Knife" archetype. Local creatives thrive in chaos, functioning simultaneously as strategists, makers, and crisis managers. We turn constraints into fuel. Hire us for our ability to build the perfect solution from scratch, regardless of the resources.

8. BEST PLACE IN BUCHAREST

44.43045459311172°N, 26.10469934720969°E (https://www.gps-coordinates.net/driving-directions - find on) 

Follow these numbers to find the city's unfiltered pulse. It is a sanctuary for independent spirits, where the fourth wall vanishes and the energy is visceral. It is smart, raw, and unapologetically alive—the perfect antidote to a predictable evening.

9.  BEST PLACE IN YOUR COUNTRY

It is a necessary duality. Vama Veche in summer to lose yourself in the absolute chaos, and Brașov in winter to find yourself in the gothic silence. A creative mind needs both the noise and the shelter to function properly.

10.  MOST DISTURBING CLICHÉ ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY, IN THE MEDIA OUTLETS OF THE WORLD IS

The Dracula fixation.

It is the ultimate triumph of lazy branding over reality. It is disturbing because it reduces a rich, complex culture—one that gave the world Brâncuși, Ionesco, and Dadaism—to a cheap Halloween costume. It frames an entire nation through a Victorian novel written by a man who never even visited us.

11. ROMANIA SHOULD BE KNOWN FOR…

Being a Latin island in a Slavic sea.

This is not just geography; it is our defining psychological paradox. We combine the chaotic passion of our Romance roots with the deep, fatalistic melancholy of the East. We should be known for this rare cultural hybrid—a temperament that is simultaneously intense, cynical, and incredibly warm.

12. YOUR VIEWS ON SPIRITUALITY

My perspective on spirituality is best summarized by this old story:

Four rabbis are debating a theological issue. It is three against one. The dissenter, knowing he is right, appeals to Heaven. A storm breaks out, but the majority dismisses it as weather. He asks for a bigger sign, and lightning strikes a tree. The majority dismisses it as a coincidence.

Finally, he screams at the sky. The clouds darken, the earth shakes, and a booming Voice echoes: „HE IS RIGHT!".

The dissenter crosses his arms, triumphant. The other three look at him, shrug, and say: „Fine. So now it’s 3 against 2."

13. YOUR VIEWS ON MONEY

Money solves the problem of worrying about money. Beyond that, it simply amplifies the kind of person you already are.

14. AN INSPIRATION SOURCE YOU RECOMMEND FOR A YOUNG CREATIVE

• Read almost everything, everywhere: books, magazines, articles, plays, product labels.

• Practice „Perspective Journaling". Don't just write, pick a modern subject and describe it through the voice of a past master (e.g., write about today's politics as if you were Caragiale).

• Move. Run, Forrest, run—or just walk. Motion dislodges ideas.

• Build your „Creative Genealogy tree". Pick a hero you admire. Study their entire process. Then, identify the three people they admired. Repeat. (e.g., You admire Hunter S. Thompson? He worshipped Hemingway. Hemingway learned from Mark Twain. Study them all.) Trace the DNA of greatness backwards to its source.

  
  

15. A LOCAL FEMALE TALENT TO BE PROMOTED INTERNATIONALLY

Megan Dominescu.

She is the perfect visual translator of the Romanian paradox. She uses an archaic, slow, tactile medium (traditional rug hooking) to document the chaotic speed of modern life. Her work turns ephemeral pop-culture trash and internet memes into permanent, heavy wool artifacts. She proves that deep social commentary can be colorful, fuzzy, and hilarious.

BIO

Almost a decade ago, he was propelled across the Prut River by a healthy dose of ambition and the unglamorous logistics of two bus transfers in Iași. His professional foundation is atypically “heavy metal”: three years as an automation engineer at the Galați Steel Works. He can still explain with scientific rigor how the sheet metal on a Dacia Logan is produced — but he lived that period as a “sentence”.

University had already sparked the suspicion that engineering wasn’t his path; the steel works confirmed it beyond doubt. So he began plotting his escape, moonlighting in marketing. Those early days ran on a creative barter system: he offered visibility to small businesses in exchange for access to expensive books and courses.

The hustle grew into founding a PPC agency — and then walking away. He realized he was driven by concepts, writing, and the architecture of ideas, not execution. To pivot from “implementer” to “creator,” he sharpened his craft through a tour of Romania’s specialized marcom programs, doubled by workshops in screenwriting, creative writing, and digital marketing — until he earned a scholarship to #FutureProofCreativity, TheAlternativeSchool’s cMBA intensive module. There, everything he already knew was refined, challenged, and rewired by the collision with top-notch trainers from around the world — the kind of pressure-cooker that helped him win the 3 briefs competition empowered by Ursus and take first place, alongside Dacian.

As a hybrid Copywriter & Product Manager at Bookzone, one of Romania’s leading publishing houses, he now focuses on high-impact launches, brand campaigns, and creative event marketing — bringing an architectural, structural approach to the creative chaos.

Photo credit: MEALCHEMY / Iulian Rătescu.

Big thanks to The Great Hill, Cotroceni, for the warm welcome and exquisite experience.

The interview is accompanied by photos from a professional shoot announcing the Young Lions local winners. Pictured: Andrian Brinoveanu, Dacian Neagu, Gabriela Crețu (VP Sales, Ursus), and Tedi Migdalovici (Founder, TheAlternativeSchool & Creative Ambassador).