AmCham in Brief

I have the unique privilege of leading Citibank’s franchise in the Czech Republic as the first Czech Citi Country Officer. My priority, as AmCham President, is to promote the Czech Republic as preferred destination for investments and business. Citibank is in a unique position, serving individuals, communities, institutions and nations, in more than 160 countries, connecting millions of people in over 1,000 cities and I hope to be able to use the scale of Citi’s presence as well as more than 200year’s history globally and 22 years in the Czech republic to the benefit of the country and AmCham activities. I focus with on healthy development of both local and international businesses in the country. Together with my colleagues I work on solutions to key challenges in business, which AmCham is dealing with in order to make the business climate in the country transparent, professional and competitive.

I´m happy to build on my 14 years AmCham Board experience (last six years as 2nd Vice President) and to contribute to a further expansion of AmCham as the leading voice of the business community in the Czech Republic. I am sure you have noticed that the Executive Committee and the Board of Amcham have successfully followed the approved strategic plan in both Advocacy and Networking agendas. I am pleased to hear from many members that our efforts are truly appreciated.

As a member of the Executive Committee I concentrate mainly on Amcham networking agenda. I am happy to see that in the last couple of years an increased number of members participated in targeted, high level events that have been organized by Amcham, including our “crown jewel”, the traditional Thanksgiving Ball.

I am also proud that Constellation Executive Search company is an active Corporate Patron of Amcham in the Czech Republic. In Constellation we always aim at attracting new investors to enter the Czech market and to create new job opportunities in the Czech Republic.

As a board member, I would represent the hospitality industry and would focus on promoting Prague and Czech Republic as a viable destination for holding congresses and conventions and a high-profile destination for demanding travelers.

As a Board member I would like to utilise my Honeywell career to demonstrate how fostering diversity across nations and cultures can bring valuable knowledge and experience.  In our ever changing environment we are able to diversify our technological abilities to also deliver Cyber security to reduce vulnerability in our personal and professional lives.  Honeywell is successful in providing cyber security to build defences against the growing threat of cyber-attacks. 

Continuing to diversity across all levels enables our community to strengthen and improve the environment in which we work and live. Such a close collaboration in terms of business’s and education will enable Czech Republic to gain a stronger position within the EU and world, this will allow us to show off the wide ranging technological and engineering abilities that can be found here in the Czech Republic helping our community to grow and ensure that business and education continue to respond and deliver in a productive manner to compete in the fast changing economy.

I try to devote my energy to three areas :

1. Create a vision for Czech Competitiveness/ Collaborative-ness 2030/2040 and a related action plan to attract and retain the best talents from the region.
2. As also President of Prague Convention Bureau to create the synergy for the ecosystem that promotes applied research and high value added services by bringing together R&D, investors as well as businesses into incubators and accelerators.
3. Explore further the responsibility of business to society through more responsible and informed leadership.

My energies is especially devoted to small and medium enterprises, which do not have resources commanded by large corporations.

AmCham has become an increasingly influential part of the Czech business community, thanks mostly to the hard work of its staff, and I am proud as a longtime member to see the progress from year to year. I was especially happy to see AmCham spearhead the formation of the Platform for Transparent Public Procurement, which culminated in the passage of a new law.

I was also happy to see the way AmCham recruited like-minded groups to push for passage of the procurement law. It’s sometimes better for the legislative effort to come from someone other than the Americans.

As a Board member, I like to build upon more than two decades of work of previous managing partners of KPMG in contributing to AmCham active role in enhancing the local business environment. AmCham has a strong record of achievement and KPMG is proud to have been an active member. Our contributions have included, in particular, the very active involvement of my predecessors, Jan Žůrek, František Dostálek and Charles Randolph in the area of tax policy, sustainable development, and good government. As a lawyer by background, I intend in particular to focus on the legal and tax reforms of the new government and their impact on the business environment. 

I would also like to continue to strongly support development of transparency and ethics in the Czech business and public environment.  Government and the public sector in general remains far from efficient and operates below its potential. I am convinced that AmCham as an independent, reputable and respected representative of the business community can play a key role in promoting best practice in this area.

Amcham has proved to be an important and influential body in the Czech business community. As a representative of a company that has long-term involvement in, and respect for, the communities it serves, I assist Amcham in leadership and CSR activities aimed at the development of local communities – especially in terms of increasing the level of community participation in programmes that support a healthy active lifestyle and environmental responsibility.

As we are out of crisis now the key question should be how we can utilize this momentum - as a board member I try to support AmCham in its effort to make the Czech Republic more competitive and better place to do business both for international and local companies. Sharing best business practices among members, unleashing innovation and then helping others to implement it is my main objective. As 3M is active in many areas of business like industrial, electro, electronics, healthcare I offer support of experts in their areas to make Czech better place to live and do business.

Working for many years in area supporting research, development and engineering I would like to influence and use position of AmCham to influence development of “innovative economy” – economy with advanced and high quality production. I also believe in even distribution of economy and research activity evenly in all country and want to promote development of regions.

Since the early days in my professional career I tended to take part in public debates – as a (part time) journalist, as advisor, as participant in various task forces in governmental and NGO sector. Today, AmCham is probably the best place for an intelligent public debate. The atmosphere of openness, level of engagement and quality of contributions in AmCham debates significantly exceeds the current standards. The most recent political and security development in Europe in general and in Central and Eastern Europe in particular, AmCham can and should play a role in preserving Czech Republic as a member of Western security and political structures.

I focus on legal reform and economic development the new construction law. With my experience advising businesses here for the last 15 years, I know there are many aspects of Czech law that need improvement. As a board member, I try to facilitate communication between members and AmCham to identify legal/business issues that are worthy of attention. Promoting economic development is another priority, and specifically in the regions. Industrial zones, brownfields, and public-private partnerships can attract new investment and business opportunities while also improving quality of life. As a member of the Board of Directors, I work on combining the skills of our members that are interested in these projects with our success in government policy-based initiatives.

It would be an honor for me to continue my work as a Member of the Board of AmCham.  Being on the Board allows me to contribute more than twenty years of experience with Czech law in the context of some of the most complex transactions for the benefit of improving the business environment in the Czech Republic. 

My own ideas how to bring about such improvement are perfectly aligned with AmChamʼs major goal of increasing the economic competitiveness of the Czech Republic.  I am keen to play an active part in improving existing laws, and to contribute to the debates over draft bills with government and parliamentary representatives.  Consider for instance the recent amendment to the Insolvency Act or the reforms related to public procurement in this country: in both cases, AmChamʼs clear-headed, efficient and principled involvement made an important difference.  I am drawing continuous inspiration from examples like these, and would like to contribute to similar endeavors in the coming years.

AmCham pursues policies and investments that will help the Czech Republic increase GDP per capita by 60% by 2025. During my time on the board and as president, I have been involved in many initiatives that have led toward this goal, and strengthened the voice of business as part of society. If re-elected, I would very much like to continue being a part of this effort with a focus on improving the processes and outcomes of municipal procurement and improving AmCham's channels to communicate the important events of all the businesses in our community.

AmCham has achieved a lot and is respected among business and political community. I try to contribute to the better co-operation between business and state administration / government to improve entrepreneurs environment and competiveness in the Czech Republic.
- Transparency and ethics in business
- Economic Development differentiation and business opportunities
- Infrastructure development
- Networking