Few people embody the spirit of transformation and resilience quite like Zofia Radosław. Her life reads like an epic tale, one of ambition, discovery, struggle, and ultimately, self-acceptance and purpose. From a young girl dreaming of changing the world, to a successful entrepreneur navigating the highs and lows of business, and finally, to an outspoken advocate for transgender rights, Zofia has lived through a labyrinth of experiences that have shaped her into the formidable woman she is today.
Born with an insatiable curiosity and a hunger for justice, Zofia initially set her sights on the stars, literally, dreaming of becoming a cosmonaut. But reality guided her toward a different battlefield: law. Graduating summa cum laude from Poland’s top law faculty, she quickly realized that her passion for justice was not suited for legal frameworks alone. Instead, she ventured into the world of internet startups, seeking financial independence to support causes close to her heart. What was meant to be a temporary endeavor became a 17-year odyssey through the unpredictable world of business. She built and lost fortunes, navigated the devastating blows of the pandemic, and ultimately confronted the deeper truth that success without fulfillment is hollow.
But the most profound transformation in Zofia’s life was yet to come. In 2021, she uncovered a truth about herself that had been hidden for decades, she was a woman. What followed was a rebirth, a journey of unparalleled joy, clarity, and self-discovery. However, stepping into her authentic self also meant facing the harsh realities of a world that too often seeks to suppress those who dare to live truthfully. Armed with determination, intelligence, and a fierce sense of justice, Zofia channeled her experiences into advocacy, founding Imago, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at dismantling systemic barriers for transgender and non-binary individuals.
Zofia is not just a fighter; she is a thinker, a dreamer, and a lover of life’s boundless possibilities. A passionate rationalist, an advocate for science and human rights, a storyteller, and an educator, she embodies the courage to stand for truth, even when inconvenient. Whether dancing at psytrance festivals, engaging in deep philosophical discussions, or savoring the sensory joys of femininity, she embraces life with an intensity that is both inspiring and contagious. At the core of her dreams is a vision for a world where trans people can thrive, where oppressive systems crumble, and where every individual has the freedom to embrace their true self. And beyond the grand fight for justice, she dreams of love, family, and the completion of her own transition, goals that, like all the best dreams, are deeply personal and profoundly universal.
In this interview, Zofia shares her extraordinary journey, from entrepreneur to activist, from seeker to leader. Join us as we explore the mind and heart of a woman who is not just changing her own world, but working to reshape the world for others as well.
Monika: Hello Zofia! Thank you so much for accepting my invitation!
Zofia: Hello Monika! Thank you for having me! I’m truly glad we’re having this conversation.
Monika: You are a successful businesswoman. Could you share some key highlights from your professional journey?
Zofia: During my second year at university, I co-founded my first startup. It was often referred to as “the Polish LinkedIn,” and for over a decade, it successfully outperformed the actual LinkedIn on the local market. That project was many firsts for me: my first job, first business, first success, first earnings – and my first exit. It opened the door to a career as an entrepreneur and investor, and granted me access to a level of financial comfort that would’ve been out of reach for most people in their 20s.
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| "Over the years, I became involved in nearly 40 startups." |
Monika: And despite everything, your businesses continued to grow.
Zofia: Over the years, I became involved in nearly 40 startups – rarely as a founder, sometimes as a mentor, but most often as a minority investor, either as a business angel or through venture capital. In 2016, I reached a turning point – a so-called “cash-out all moment” – and seriously considered walking away to reinvent my life. Instead, I chose to reinvest, launching two or three more ventures to secure long-term stability and funding for the impact-driven work I truly cared about.
I couldn’t have foreseen how catastrophic that decision would turn out to be. Within months of the pandemic’s first lockdowns, 90% of my portfolio’s value was wiped out. Most of the companies I was involved in were devastated. To make matters worse, I discovered that one of my key business partners was a fraud who was deceiving me all along.
Financial collapse was only the prelude to the darkest and most dreadful period of my life, a long night filled with pain, betrayal, terror, and despair with only nothingness and not a dawn laying ahead. And yet, that descent became the catalyst for a profound rebirth – a multidimensional metamorphosis that reshaped not only my path, but the core of who I am.
Monika: Women excel as leaders and business professionals, often bringing unique perspectives that surpass traditional norms. In your experience, what qualities do women bring to leadership roles that make them particularly effective? And let’s be honest, do you ever sit in a boardroom, look around at the men in suits, and think, ‘Wow, if I ran this place, things would actually get done?’
Zofia: To be honest, my biggest problem with the business world wasn’t about gender – not at first. Something deeper, more universal was burning me out. Over time, I developed a growing contempt and disgust for how dishonesty, ruthlessness, and incompetence disguised as expertise weren’t just tolerated in business – they were rewarded, practically seen as virtues.
That quiet rage smouldered inside me for years, leaving little room for other desires for change. But it is crucial to note, my mind was still exposed to the toxic influence of testosterone, clouding my own perception. I could only access a narrow slice of truth, a distorted fragment of reality.
To answer your question properly, we need to differentiate between the qualities women could bring to leadership, and the ones we usually end up bringing. Too often, success demands that women suppress their femininity and imitate masculine styles of power. Acting like men becomes the price of admission. You see it everywhere: in the leadership styles of high-profile female CEOs or government executives, in how they manage, how they speak, even how they dress.
Now, I want to be careful not to oversimplify something that’s deeply complex — to explain it fully would require an entire book. But I’ll say this: there are cultural and biological patterns that can’t be ignored. Statistically, men are more competitive and willing to take risks. Women have broader emotional range, greater empathy, and interpersonal skills.
We already know what masculine leadership looks like: competitive, hierarchical, often centred around a single dominant figure – a kind of “CEO-dictator” model. That model brought us innovation and progress, yes – but also an unravelling planet, a collapsing ecosystem, and workplaces built on fear and status games.
Greed has no gender. But inflating one’s ego to grotesque proportions to mask insecurity – that particular disease, often called “toxic masculinity,” is really false masculinity, and it’s arguably the most destructive force in our societies.
Monika: Women are still strongly underrepresented in top management position. What would be an alternative to male-run business world?
Zofia: We still don’t know what true feminine leadership would look like on a large scale. It hasn’t been given the space to exist. As of 2023, only 8.2% of S&P 500 companies have female CEOs – yet those companies outperform the market by 20% on average in the 24 months following her appointment.
But if we’re being intellectually honest, we must treat that data cautiously. Correlation doesn’t equal causation. We don’t know how “masculine” or “feminine” those CEOs’ leadership styles were. We don’t know what mix of values led to those results. And most of all, we haven’t tested what happens when entire systems are led in a truly feminine way.
Still, I’ll risk proposing a fragile hypothesis — one that needs rigorous testing. I imagine feminine leadership would rest on empathy, emotional intelligence, and horizontal collaboration. It would lean toward collective strategy rather than a singular vision, stronger employee engagement, and more grounded, less reactive risk management.
But here’s the hard part – and it hurts to say it. The greatest vulnerability of this model is exactly why patriarchy still thrives: too many women are not confrontational or defiant enough when it truly counts. We struggle to stand up to abusers, viciously turning on other women, especially those perceived as potential competitors for male attention.
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| "I would rather not exist at all than remain indifferent to the injustices and stupidity." |
Zofia: Men are more willing to build hierarchies – and to obey their “führers”. Women are capable of immense individual emotional support, but we often lack solidarity when it comes to achieving large-scale ethical goals. Too many of us still choose proximity to power or capitulation over justice and righteous anger and resistance.
Need an example? In the U.S., according to exit polls, 55% of white women voted for a man who is known to treat women as merchandise, who was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil court case involving a credible allegation of rape, and who promised to strip women of their reproductive rights. Indirectly, they voted to bring back one of the most powerful tools of women’s subjugation. They voted to put rapists’ right to choose a mother of their children over women’s dignity, safety, and freedom. No amount of ritual and hypocritical social media pledges of sisterhood can ever hide that fact.
Now… imagine if someone tried to pass a law forcing men to become human incubators. There would be blood in the streets.
Monika: Shifting to your activism, many of us embrace our roles as wives, mothers, and daughters, often trying to leave the past behind. However, you’ve chosen to be a visible advocate for transgender rights and to promote a positive image of our community in Poland. Have you ever felt the temptation to stay in the background, simply living as a woman rather than as a transgender woman?
Zofia: What a fascinating and emotionally complex question – one that deserves a layered answer.
I would rather not exist at all than remain indifferent to the injustices and stupidity that continue to plague humanity. I see it as my moral obligation to act, to stand up to bullies, and to defend truth, reason, and decency. Simply living a life in hiding was never an option for me.
That said, I want to acknowledge the deep privilege from which I speak. My life, though far from pain-free, has been relatively comfortable – free from persecution or discrimination, one that cannot be compared to the suffering of those who are tormented, psychologically or physically tortured, excluded, and left bruised for life. It would be dishonest to pretend that everyone has the same freedom to be visible.
And yet – and I say this fully aware of how unpopular and emotionally charged it is — I still find it tragic that so many trans people who once lived in misery and despair, once they finally climb the ladder to liberation and gender euphoria, make the cold and cruel decision to turn their backs on those still suffering.
Monika: Have you ever witnessed that kind of reaction yourself?
Zofia: One of the most reprehensible things I’ve ever been told came, to my dismay, from a trans woman: “I had it hard, and I don’t want anybody to have it any easier.” Rarely does someone admit, so bluntly, to that kind of calculated inhumanity – but the sentiment, sadly, is far more common than the honesty used to express it.
Of course, it's dangerous to generalize. I mourn what is lost when visibility becomes so dangerous that entire lives must be lived in hiding – and when brilliant and sensitive trans people are silenced by fear, exhaustion, or shame. There is no shame in survival. Disappearing into anonymity can be a strategy of protection, and in many cases, the only one available. It is not what I condemn here. But the shocking truth is: while some risk their lives, their safety (going as far as to being subjected to torture and execution), or their freedom to help others, many simply cannot be bothered to make even the smallest effort. Not because they’re in danger – but because they don’t feel like it.
We say that visibility is strength – and that’s true. But even more importantly, visibility is hope. It is a beacon for the helpless, a signal to those in despair that they are not alone, that joy and freedom are possible. To have the power to uplift others and choose inaction is not neutrality. It is a moral failure.
Monika: You founded Imago, a pioneering gender clinic that provides healthcare services to transgender and non-binary individuals across the European Union. When did the clinic begin its operations, and what services does it offer to support the transgender community?
Zofia: Imago’s launch wasn’t a single moment – it was a long, uphill struggle. We accepted our first patient in December 2023, but the process of building a fully operational clinic took much longer. We received almost no support, and frankly, a lot of people were quietly hoping we would fail.
Today, against the odds, we have a team of passionate professionals and the capacity to support 1,000 new patients per month. Our core service is Gender-Affirming Hormonal Treatment (GAHT) – which, for many of our patients, is not just medical care, but a life-saving intervention.
But Imago is about more than just hormones. We also provide:
- Psychiatric counselling with a trauma-informed specialist who is herself a trans woman,
- Fertility counselling tailored for trans and non-binary patients,
- Vocal coaching (also offered by a trans professional),
- And starting this year: gender-affirming surgeries performed by some of the most skilled surgeons in their respective fields who agreed to build with us unique model of exceptional care for trans people.
Our next major project, already underway, is the creation of peer-support groups and a safe-space digital platform – a place where all trans people, not only our patients, can connect, share, and feel safe.
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| Link to Zofia's Choice. |
Monika: You mentioned that the clinic provides access to a range of gender-affirming surgeries performed by highly experienced surgeons dedicated to exceptional care. What criteria did you use to select these specialists?
Zofia: Designing the patient journey at Imago was actually one of the easiest parts – because I built it around a simple question: What kind of care would I want for myself, as a trans person?
It was never enough for me to find a clinic or surgeon who was merely competent. I needed to find someone I could recommend with a clean conscience – not only capable of performing gender-affirming surgeries at the highest level of technical expertise and artistic sensitivity, but also willing to create an environment where trans people feel respected, safe, and seen.
That proved to be far more difficult than I anticipated. Many clinics were eager to take trans people’s money – but hesitant to implement even the most basic policies to ensure respectful care. Some tried to play the same dirty business games I’d seen countless times in my past life. Each time a potential partner revealed their dishonesty, I walked away – no matter how profitable the collaboration could have been.
This ethical alignment was the most difficult standard to meet. But it wasn’t the only one. Medical excellence and experience were equally non-negotiable. I spent months reviewing portfolios, analyzing patient outcomes, speaking directly with surgeons, and scanning every corner of the internet for red flags or negative reviews.
And in the end, I volunteered to become the test case. I placed my own face – quite literally – under the knife of the selected surgeon. I refused to send a single patient until I had personally verified the quality and ethics of the work.
That, to me, is the minimum standard when your goal is to provide a trustworthy service to a community that has already been failed too many times.
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Zofia Radosław.
© 2025 - Monika Kowalska
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