From humble beginnings to being named the cosmopolitan business and marketing strategist, Orsi Szabo’s professional journey is a perfect example of overcoming barriers, achieving breakthroughs, and giving birth to her brainchild. She is the Founder, CEO, and Business & Online Marketing Strategist of Zsolya Communication. She is also the co-founder of Women & Business Magazine, a TEDx speaker, and an AI marketer. Her career, spanning over 20 years, is a testament to her ability to navigate complex challenges and inspire other women to become the best version of themselves.

 

A Journey to Remember

 

Orsi’s professional journey began in law, where she initially worked as a lawyer. While she found the field intellectually stimulating, she quickly realized that her passion lay elsewhere. A strong desire for more creativity in her work and the freedom of living and working from anywhere in the world led her to take a leap of faith. She made a bold career shift into business and marketing consulting, focusing on helping entrepreneurs—particularly women—build and scale their businesses.

 

Embracing multiple challenges with determination, in 2017, Orsi founded

her online communications and business consulting company. Here, she works as a strategist, digital marketing consultant, and AI marketing expert. Her role is to guide businesses through strategic decision-making, help them navigate the complexities of the digital marketing landscape, and leverage AI-driven solutions to streamline their operations and marketing efforts.

 

The next step in her journey was to expand into the international market, which led to the launch of Women & Business Magazine in 2023. This project, co-founded with photographer Anna Kirschner, was born from a shared passion for highlighting the stories of extraordinary women in business. Their collaboration combines Anna’s unique talent for capturing powerful visuals with Orsi’s strategic insights into business growth and brand building.

 

Starting in 2024, Orsi now runs three businesses across three countries as a founder of a marketing agency, a strategist, and co-founder of Women & Business Magazine. As a women leader and entrepreneur, Orsi’s journey is one of resilience and innovation, she continuously makes efforts to evolve with the market, take calculated risks, and empower the incredible women she works with to achieve their fullest potential.

 

Strong Roots Builds a Strong Foundation

 

As an individual and a professional, Orsi prioritizes authenticity, creativity, and continuous growth. These values guide her decision-making and work approach, ensuring that she aligns with projects and clients who share a passion for innovation and a commitment to making a positive impact. She is a risk-taker, who aims to stay at the top of her game and keep the competitors at bay. She believes in staying adaptable in an ever-evolving business landscape and fostering genuine connections with her clients to help them build sustainable and meaningful success.

 

Advocating for women, Orsi reckons women are equally capable of achieving incredible success, whether as business leaders or employees. Her main goal is to support them in acquiring business and marketing knowledge through their training programs, initiatives, and magazines, and to create an inspiring and supportive community that they can always turn to whenever they need it.

 

Always Aiming for the Bulls-Eye

 

Marketing is a challenging niche to mark a presence and a few leaders who earn their titles are creating unique offerings for their clients and keeping competition away. What sets Orsi apart from her competitors is, first and foremost, her strong professional personal brand, her stability (in terms of commitment, mental resilience, knowledge, etc.), and her constant drive for innovation. She is a one-of-a-kind leader, who highly invests in herself- be it her business, marketing knowledge, or mindset, she is always willing to learn, grow, and stay ahead of the curve.

 

As a strategist, she always starts by focusing on the bigger picture. From there, Orsi and her team work their way down to the finer details. After conducting over 1,000 consulting sessions, she has gained a broad, cross-industry perspective, which allows her to bring successful strategies and best practices from one field into others, often creating innovative solutions for businesses that might initially seem unconventional.

 

Additionally, Orsi’s background in law has equipped her with excellent client management skills and the ability to handle crises effectively. This has significantly strengthened her stress tolerance, negotiation skills, and quick problem-solving abilities which are essential in the

fast-paced world of business consulting.

 

Value-Added Offerings

 

One of Zsolya Communication’s most compelling offerings is *The WIBE Program*, a women’s leadership and business development program designed to help female entrepreneurs elevate their businesses to the next level. Clients also find tremendous value in their 6-month AI-driven marketing subscription, which provides tailored support and cutting-edge tools to optimize their marketing efforts and streamline business processes.

Additionally, Women & Business Magazine has become a significant platform, showcasing inspiring stories of women in business, and offering visibility and a sense of community to their audience. These offerings reflect its commitment to empowering women in business through innovative strategies, education, and a strong supportive network.

 

A Timeline of the Win-Win Moments

 

Orsi’s professional career spans nearly two decades. With her steadfast work ethic and excellent strategic insights, she has won many achievements and recognitions under her name. Her victories include ascending to senior roles, pursuing education from prestigious universities across the globe, and inspiring fellow women entrepreneurs and leaders with her journey.

 

• At the beginning of her career, she was a lawyer and advisor for ministers and CEOs. Over the years, she transitioned into working with SMEs and multinational companies as a business and communication consultant.

• In 2019, Orsi graduated with the highest distinction from Budapest Metropolitan University, earning an MBA in Turnaround and Crisis Management. Her research focused on how online presence and social media can aid businesses during their initial stages or help them overcome development plateaus. This knowledge has been foundational in building Zsolya Communication, a multiple award-winning online marketing agency specialising in online communication consultancy, strategy development, copywriting, social media management, and more. The company’s clients range from micro-enterprises to multinational corporations, and it serves industries such as tourism, hospitality, law, HR, and the fashion and beauty sectors.

• In 2020, Orsi was honoured to share her journey and the story behind Zsolya Communication as a TEDx speaker at METU TEDx. To further strengthen her strategic skills, she completed the Strategy Execution course at Harvard Business School in 2023 and an AI course at Stanford University. These courses have allowed her to offer advanced, cutting-edge insights to her clients and provide exceptional support to value-based projects and companies.

• In recent years, Orsi has helped hundreds of businesses grow and thrive and continues to focus on empowering entrepreneurs and leaders to leverage digital tools, strategy, and innovation to reach their goals.

 

Shattering Gender Barriers and Stereotypes

 

As an Eastern European woman, Orsi started her entrepreneurial journey with a great deal of inferiority, limiting beliefs, and fears. In the business landscape, women are often looked at with questionable eyes as compared to their male counterparts and to this day, it remains difficult for a woman to succeed in the Eastern bloc. There were countless instances, where Orsi’s professional suggestions were only heard if they were repeated by a male colleague.

Over the past eight years, she has had to face many situations where she received negative comments simply because of her gender, was denied a project, or was outmanoeuvred by others. A female entrepreneur often has to adopt many traditionally “masculine” traits to succeed like negotiating, pricing, positioning oneself highly (or at least where one truly belongs), and handling conflicts and crises. All of this must be done with immense empathy, flexibility, and openness, while also balancing work and personal life.

 

When Orsi stepped onto the entrepreneurial path, her son was just 2.5 months old, and by the time he was a little over six months old, she had enrolled in an MBA program. She was the only woman in the class, and while the men indulged in intoxication activities during breaks, she was in the ladies’ room pumping milk. These were huge disadvantages, but Orsi turned them to her advantage. Thanks to this “defiance,” within a few years, she was teaching at that same university, she built an exceptionally strong personal brand, and she launched businesses in the U.S. and Austria. After overcoming every obstacle, today, the challenge is succeeding in new and unfamiliar markets, and having the courage to believe that her expertise and experience hold up in these new environments.

 

Summarising Success in its True Element

 

Success, for Orsi, is defined by the impact she can make—both in the lives of her clients and in the broader business community. It’s about creating opportunities for others empowering entrepreneurs, particularly women, to achieve their goals and navigate their business journeys with confidence and resilience. Success is not just about financial growth or recognition; it’s about the value she brings to others, helping them transform their ideas into thriving enterprises while building strong, lasting relationships forever.

 

On the other side, the ultimate measure of success is freedom. Two years ago, Orsi and her family moved to Spain for three months. Last year, she spent several months in the United States, and now they are living in Austria while she continues running her businesses remotely. This was always her goal: to work from anywhere, to have the flexibility to be location-independent, and for her work to provide the freedom, lifestyle, and creativity she had always envisioned. While this is not the final destination—there’s still plenty of room for growth and many more goals to achieve—Orsi feels deeply fulfilled and successful. She is proud of what she has created so far, and she looks forward to continuing to evolve personally and professionally.

 

Expanding Horizons

 

Currently, for Orsi and her team spreading their wings wide and beyond into international markets is the primary objective. She aims to learn and analyze the market, do adequate research, and understand the specific needs of the Western European and American target audiences. Be it a small business owner or a leader of a multinational company, Orsi is focused on figuring out how she can best support her clients as a strategist and consultant. This involves years of market research, gaining local insights, building strong networks, and, of course, consciously developing visibility in these regions. She is committed to investing the time and effort needed to make a lasting impact in these markets.

 

Orsi’s Golden Words of Wisdom

 

“My advice to the next generation of aspiring leaders is this: Embrace change but learn to be flexible. Be willing to take calculated risks, because that’s where growth happens. Empathy is essential to success—without it, leadership loses its effectiveness. And remember, success isn’t measured solely by financial gains but by the ability to live the life you’ve envisioned for yourself. Dream big and be brave enough to pursue those dreams, because, in the end, the only true regrets are the opportunities we didn’t take.”