Grzegorz Preibisch
“After the first week, I stopped worrying about it at all.”
Role
Co-founder
Visa
O-1A
Hometown
Poland
01 The challenge
What was at stake for you?
Everything I had been building for the last few years ran through this one decision. My work sits between medicine, mathematics, and machine learning, and the labs, pharma partners, and investors I work with are largely in the U.S. Without the visa, I'd be running a company from six thousand miles away, removed from where decisions get made. It wasn't about a document. It was about whether the next decade of my career would happen at full speed or half speed.
02 Why Global Citizens
Why did you choose Global Citizens?
The in-person conversation with the team decided it. I'd spoken to other firms, but Global Citizens asked better questions about what I actually do. Owen understood the complexity of my work in AI-driven protein design and gave me confidence that the team could present it properly. Most people either oversimplify the science or hide behind it. Global Citizens did neither.
03 The turning point
When did you know you were in good hands?
Midway through the process, support I'd been counting on from two outside parties didn't come through.
Jomana took that part of the case apart and rebuilt it so it no longer depended on them.
That was the moment I knew the outcome was back in our hands. After the first few weeks, I stopped worrying about the process altogether.
“After the first few weeks, I stopped worrying about it at all.”
— Grzegorz Preibisch
04 The outcome
What changed after working with Global Citizens?
My case was approved without a request for evidence. I can now build inside the best network in the world for what I do and be physically present rather than dialing in. The less obvious change is internal. Going through this process reset what I consider realistic for myself. I stopped treating certain doors as closed.
