By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – She speaks seven languages, has a PhD in particle physics, an house in Budapest plastered together with her personal pastel drawings of nudes, and a profession that took her round Africa and Europe doing humanitarian work.
What Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, the Italian-Hungarian CEO and proprietor of Hungary-based BAC Consulting, says she hasn’t executed is make the exploding pagers that killed 12 individuals and wounded greater than 2,000 in Lebanon this week.
After her firm was revealed to have licensed the design for the pagers from their unique Taiwanese producer Gold Apollo, Barsony-Arcidiacono informed NBC Information that she did not make them.
“I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong,” she stated.
Since then, she has not appeared in public. Neighbours say they have not seen her. She didn’t reply to messages searching for remark. Her flat in a stately previous Budapest constructing, the place a door to a vestibule had been open earlier within the week, has been shuttered.
Discussions with acquaintances and former work colleagues paint an image of a lady with a powerful mind, however a peripatetic profession in a string of short-term jobs by which she by no means fairly settled down, regardless of embellishing her CV alongside the way in which.
An acquaintance of hers, who like others who knew her socially in Budapest requested to not be recognized, stated she appeared like somebody who “could easily be used”.
“Good-willed, not a business type, more like someone who often tries something new, who quickly believes things and then gets enthusiastic about that,” the individual stated, including that Barsony-Arcidiacono had been in search of revenue as she wished to go away one other job.
‘ONE OF THE BIGGEST MISTAKES OF MY LIFE’
Kilian Kleinschmidt, a veteran ex-U.N. humanitarian administrator who employed Barsony-Arcidiacono in 2019 to run a six-month Dutch-funded programme to coach Libyans in Tunisia in topics similar to hydroponics, IT and enterprise improvement, described her as a “bullying” supervisor, and stated he launched her earlier than her contract was over.
“Cristiana. That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I think,” Kleinschmidt informed Reuters. “It was simply awful on a personal level… Then at some point I said enough is enough. I should probably have done it sooner. I said that’s enough and I sent her home a month early.”
Barsony-Arcidiacono has not responded to Reuters calls and emails and there was no reply when Reuters visited her personal handle in downtown Budapest.
At her Budapest residence, a metal outer gate encloses a small vestibule the place life drawings of nudes sketched in pink and orange pastels might be seen taped up on the wall. An internal door main into her house was ajar when Reuters first visited the constructing on Wednesday, and closed when the reporter returned on Thursday. Nobody answered the bell.
A lady residing within the constructing for the previous two years stated Barsony-Arcidiacono was already a resident when she moved in, and described her as variety, not loud, however communicative.
She practiced her drawing as a part of a Budapest artwork membership, although she hadn’t attended for a few years, stated the organiser of the group, who stated she appeared like extra of a businesswoman than an artist however was upbeat and outgoing.
A college mate of Barsony-Arcidiacono stated she grew up in a household with a working father and housewife mom in Santa Venerina, close to Catania in japanese Sicily, and attended highschool close by. He described her as a fairly reserved teen.
Within the early 2000s she earned her PhD in physics at College School London, the place her dissertation on positrons – a subatomic particle with the mass of an electron and a constructive cost – stays obtainable on the UCL web site. However she seems to have left with out pursuing a scientific profession.
“As far as I know she has not done scientific work since then,” Akos Torok, a retired physicists who was one among her professors at UCL and revealed papers together with her on the time, informed Reuters by e-mail.
A resume she used to get the job working for Kleinschmidt included references to different post-graduate levels, in politics and improvement, from the London Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Oriental and African Research, which Reuters was not in a position to confirm. She then went on to explain a string of jobs engaged on NGO tasks in Europe, Africa and the Center East.
In a separate CV on the BAC Consulting web site, she described herself as a “Board Member at the Earth Child Institute”, an academic and environmental charity in New York. The group’s founder, Donna Goodman, informed Reuters Barsony-Arcidiacono had by no means held any function there.
“She was a friend of a friend of a board member, and contacted us about a job opening” in 2018, Goodman stated. “But she was never invited to apply.”
That CV additionally described her as a former “Project Manager” on the Worldwide Atomic Power Company in 2008-2009, who organised a nuclear analysis convention. The IAEA stated its information indicated she had been an intern there for eight months.
On BAC Consulting’s web site, which was taken down by the tip of this week, the corporate gave little concept of its precise enterprise in Hungary. Its registered handle is a serviced workplace in a Budapest suburb.
“I am a scientist using my very diverse background to work on interdisciplinary projects for strategic decision-making(water & climate policy, investments),” Barsony-Arcidiacono wrote on her CV.
“With excellent analytical, language, and interpersonal skills, I enjoy working and leading in a multicultural environment where diversity, integrity, and humour are valued.”
