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manager of the year 2013

Who Are This Year’s Best Managers?Finalists of this year’s MANAGER OF THE YEAR

competition, in front of the Žofín Palace

From left: Rastislav Lukovič, Secretary, MANAGER OF THE YEAR

competition and Přemysl Čech, Moderator during the difficult

preparation for the ceremonial announcements

From left: Milan Štěch, President of the Senate of the Czech Republic, male Manager

of the Year, Karel Žďárský, General Director, Farmet, female Manager of the Year,

Jaroslava Valová, General Director, SIKO Koupelny, and Jaroslav Hanák, President,

Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, during a celebratory toast

From left: Přemysl Čech, Moderator, Jan Světlík,

General Director, Vítkovice Holding, and Karel

Mourek, Member of the Board, Česká spořitelnaIvo Gajdoš, Executive President, CMA, in discussion with last year’s

Female Manager of the Year, Olga Kupec, Director, Abydos

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Ing. Karel Žďárský, General Director of Farmet a. s., was named Best Male Manager of the Year in the Czech Republic and the Best Female Manager ofthe Year, Ing. Jaroslava Valová, General Director of SIKO KOUPELNY a. s. They were awarded their titles on April 24 in Prague’s Žofín Palace, duringthe announcement ceremony for results of the prestigious MANAGER OF THE YEAR competition. The competition took place under the auspices ofPresident Miloš Zeman and four hundred managers, entrepreneurs and important guests attended the awards ceremony.The male and female Managers of the Year 2013 received the highest awards from the hands of the presidents of the three organizing associations –Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic (SP ČR), Confederation of Employer and Entrepreneur Associations of the Czech Republic (KZPS) andthe Czech Management Association (ČMA) which was also the organizer of the competition.Jaroslav Hanák, President of SP ČR presented the award to Karel Ždárský, along with last year’s winner, manager Jan Světlík, the General Director andChairman of the Board of Vítkovice Holding a. s., and Karel Mourek, Member of the Board of Česká spořitelna, the general partner of the competition,and the President of the Senate, Milan Štěch. Jaroslava Valová received the title Manager of the Year from Jan Wiesner, the President of KZPS, IvoHlaváč, the Director of the department of Public Affairs of the ČEZ, a. s. Group, the main partner of the competition, as well as Martin Pros, the DeputyMinister of Finance of the Czech Republic.

Partner

17From the performance of Jan Smigmator

(left) at the accompanying banquet

Jan Pirk, a renowned Surgeon and medical field manager (right),

the head of the Cardiocenter and Clinic of Cardiovascular

Surgery of IKEM, past award-winner in the MANAGER OF THE

YEAR competition, also participated in the event

Jaroslav Hanák, the President of the Confederation

of Industry of the Czech Republic, during Hyde Park

From left: Jan Wiesner, President, Confederation of Employer and Entrepreneur

Associations, Pavel Kafka, President, Czech Management Association, Rostislav

Dvořák, President, Union of Czech and Moravian Production Co-operatives, and

Jaroslav Hanák, the President of the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic

TOP 10 – the ten best managers of this

year’s MANAGER OF THE YEAR competition

Those receiving awards included Young Managerial Talent up to 35 years of age, Ing. Aleš Gothard, head of the organizational unit of Metrostav a. s.in Iceland; the Exceptional Manager of a Small Company of up to 50 employees, Ing. René Kocourek, the Representative of Wolf System spol. s r.o;and the Exceptional Manager of a Medium-Size Company of up to 250 employees. The above-mentioned Ing. Karel Žďárský received this award.

Also the winners of the individual twenty-two segments were announced. See the list of the individual category winners at the MANAGER OF THEYEAR website: http://www.manazerroku.cz/vysledky_21_rocniku_souteze_manazer_roku/

Ing. Zdeněk Liška, the General Director and Member of the Board of Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic was introduced into the Hallof Fame of the MANAGER OF THE YEAR competition. He has served in this position since 1999 and, under his leadership, the Confederationraised its role of a representative of employer and entrepreneur interest in the Czech Republic, particularly in the field of Council of Economic andSocial Agreement (a three-party governmental entity). The existence of the MANAGER OF THE YEAR competition, as well as maintaining its highprofessional level, is personal effort of Zdeněk Liška, who participated in founding the competition.

Partner

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manager of the year 2013

Jan Preclík, the author of the book

Managers with a Lion III, during its launch

From left: Helena Šimáčková, Marketing Manager,Czech Information Agency and

three winners of the student essay competition, Eva Lisoňová, Jana Pastorčáková

and Markéta Řepová, all from the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava

From left: Milan Štěch, President of the Senate of the Czech Republic,

Karel Žďárský, General Director, Farmet, Jaroslava Valová, Female

Manager of the Year and General Director, SIKO Koupelny, and Jaroslav

Hanák, President, Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic

Hyde Park: in front, Pavel Kafka, President,

Czech Management Association

Jan Pirk, a renowned Surgeon and medical field manager (right), the head of the

Cardiocenter and Clinic of Cardiovascular Surgery of IKEM, in a lively discussion

19

manager of the year 2013

Jan Wiesner, President, Confederation of Employer

and Entrepreneur Associations (KZPS), presents

the award to the Female Manager of the Year,

Jaroslava Valová, General Director,SIKO Koupe

Jan Wiesner, President, Confederation of

Employer and Entrepreneur Associations

From left: Exceptional Manager of a Small Company, René Kocourek,

Representative and Director, Wolf System spol. s r. o. and the Exceptional

Manager of a Medium-Size Company, Karel Žďárský, General Director, Farmet

From left: Jan Světlík, General Director, Vítkovice Holding, a.s., Milan Štěch, President of the Senate of

the Czech Republic, Karel Žďárský, General Director, Farmet, Jaroslav Hanák, President, Confederation

of Industry of the Czech Republic, and Karel Mourek, Member of the Board, Česká spořitelna

From left: Zdeněk Liška, General Director, Confederation of Industry of the Czech

Republic, Jaroslav Hanák, President, Confederation of Industry of the Czech

Republic, Pavel Kafka, President, Czech Management Association, and Jan

Wiesner, President, Confederation of Employer and Entrepreneur Associations

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20 Leaders Magazine III/2014

interview

Ing.  Aleš Graf, MBA, is the Chairman of the Board and sole owner of the companies associated in Centropol Holding a.s. Among these is CENTROPOL ENERGY a.s., one of the largest alternative suppliers of energy. He was included among the top 72 best managers in the Czech Republic for the year 2013.

Mr. Graf, you received the Manager of the Year Award in the area of providing services for businesses. How does it now feel to be in the top seventy managers from the entire Czech Republic?

I’m a bit of a Doubting Thomas. I never treated my business like a  sport, a  race or to chase personal prestige. So when I  learned of what good company I was in, it was a chance to stop for a  while and look back. I’m from Ústí nad Labem, which is where I have done business ever since my studies and I’m proud I  was able to put together such an excellent team of managers and employees even outside the capital city and still achieve success. It feels like yesterday, when in 2002 I started Centropol Energy with twenty excited people and now it supplies electricity and gas to more than 330,000 customers.

As you mentioned, you didn’t consider that perhaps for reasons of prestige, it would be better to have headquarters in Prague? Why do you stay in Ústí nad Labem?

I was born here and I  like this city. I have my family here, people I know and what I call roots. I already said this in another interview. My great role model is Tomáš Baťa. Not only for the great success he achieved in business, but also how he approached business, how he worked with people, his customer relations, the way he could think in contexts of an entire country or the whole world and perhaps even in the fact he was a patriot originally from a small city. At the peak of its glory, Zlín was almost like a  state within a  state. Why couldn’t a  company from Ústí nad

An interview with Ing. Aleš Graf, MBA, Chairmanof the Board, Centropol Holding a.s.

CENTROPOL ENERGY a.s. was founded in 2002 as the first player in the field of alternative suppliers of electricity and today is one of the largest sellers of power and gas in the Czech Republic. The offer of cheap electricity (and from 2010 also gas), excellent customer care and a  number of bonus programs quickly became popular and today Centropol takes care of providing problem-free supplies to over 330,000 delivery points. Households are among their main customers. Centropol Energy a.s. also has a strong position among significant clients such as ministries, regional and city offices and big companies.

Labem be successful? We even continue a certain patriotism by supporting the region through our ENERGY HELPS (ENERGIE POMÁHÁ) fund.

When it comes to the approach to business. What is your philosophy? What kind of an approach do you prefer?

You know, I don’t think I’m the only one who is deeply convinced that the mere vision of getting rich is the worst possible motivation for going into business. That’s business without a  future and in this regard we perhaps shouldn’t really be called a  business. That’s mere wheeler-dealing and that’s the case even if it’s in millions. In the beginning, there needs to be a dream, an idea, a  vision or a  desire to create, improve, find or move something. The moment the energy market opened, the things that came to my head besides a business plan were all the stories I experienced and heard in regard to dominant suppliers. And more than once I was able to show that it can be done differently, that prices of energies don’t need to always go only up, that the customer is not sentenced to a  simple role of a  liege with responsibilities and nearly no rights. In the Czech Republic, there are plenty of entrepreneurs who have short-term goals in the style of ‚I’ll create, build, buy and quickly sell‘. I’ve got the desire to build a  long-term business and with it a necessarily strong relationship with customers.

How do you view the business environment in the Czech Republic in general?

Because of my children’s education, my family and I live a part of the year in the US. Therefore I have a direct comparison there and, with regret, I must admit that our country doesn’t come out too positively. There practically isn’t a day when I wouldn’t be running into problems that often look almost absurd from the US perspective. I’m not going to begin criticizing the legislative standards that unnecessarily complicate business, give way to improper practices and other things. Not everything is about the system, as people often say here. Every system, including socialism, is made by people and those remain the same. We can’t endlessly complain that some other regime is responsible for our present condition. It’s up to us now and I’m often sorry to see how many smart people in the Czech Republic waste their potential by looking for loopholes, scheming, avoiding and ‚outsmarting‘, instead of creating or building something. Too many people have no respect for rules.

What do  you see as the main reasons Centropol Energy is so successful today?

There’s a  huge amount of work behind it. Precisely what I  talked about a  moment ago caused so many people to be distrustful in our country. When you come and tell them you have something cheaper of a better quality, they

already look at you with suspicion. We had to build a  trust-based relationship between us and our customers and, according to a  poll we had done, our clients are indeed the most loyal in the market. Over time we were able to create a system that never leaves our customers without support. Then we added a  number of excellent benefits and services.

I don’t know what kind of a benefit I would expect from an energy supplier.

For example, we created a  program called Family. And the contents of this package exactly correspond to its name. For our customers, we put together services that are simply and occasionally needed in every household. We can solve small accidents, such as water leakage or a  broken window, usually within two hours. You simply call our assistance service. Or, for instance, someone incurs an injury while at their summerhouse, for this we have a  health assistance service that recommends the doctor and their opening hours. And we can even transport a client to or from a hospital. There are many things. Our clients have various discounts in hundreds of shops and our own e-shop. These days, anybody can supply energy, but we want to make sure our customers have no reason to go anywhere else.

And what are your plans for the future? What about expansion abroad?

There are many plans, but given the high competition I  would prefer to not reveal them. If you are asking about foreign markets, then our plans are certainly also directed this way, but currently we’re in a  phase where we verify the options and evaluate possible risks. In any case, the main goal is to sustain stability for our customers here in the Czech Republic. Again, I’ll go back to my favorite, Baťa. He was exceptionally successful and yet even today both his employees and customers remember him with respect and honor. That’s the Holy Grail of business I want to achieve.

Prepared by LM �

An interview with JUDr. Hana Machačová, Deputy General Director of Kooperativa insurance company.

What does the award of Manager of the Year mean to you?

It is a prestigious competition and I really appreciate the title Manager of the Year for the area of insurance. And perhaps even more so because as one of three women I was selected for the TOP 10 Managers of the Year 2013. I see it as an appreciation for my work, but mainly as an award for the company of which I’m a top manager, a company that gave me the opportunity to realize my potential. I also had the opportunity to meet other successful managers, which is always enriching.

What do you consider your greatest professional success in the last three years?

If I were to evaluate my professional career, then certainly being named the Deputy General Director in 2012. But I’m even happier that I was able to start an interesting tradition in Kooperativa... when I was celebrating an important birthday in 2012, I asked guests that instead of gifts they should financially support those who are in difficult life situations. In total we collected over 750,000 crowns and this money was donated to several charity projects. Also other colleagues were excited about the idea and over the last two years over 2 million CZK were donated from private contributions to charity purposes.

In your opinion, do women have the same chance to get to the highest managerial positions?

It’s usually more difficult for women. Often they make the mistake of trying to be like men. I’m convinced that there is no point trying to fight with so-called ‘male weapons.’ Quite the contrary, particularly in trade women have abilities that men lack. They are more sensitive, often communicate better and are better at perceiving client needs.

Who was your professional role model and who do you see at the most important personality in Czech business?

I was lucky enough to have met a number of excellent people who influenced my professional life. Here I would like to mention Ing. Vladimír Mráz, former General Director of Kooperativa, because he brought me to the company and supported me in the beginning.

The insurance field was influenced by significant legislative changes, particularly the effects of the new Civil Code. Where will this become most apparent?

The most important change is notable in covering health damage compensations. In accordance to the law, these must be settled in accordance with the principles of decency and justice. It will now be much more possible to evaluate specific situations, consider the kinds of lifestyle the persons were leading, the level of pain inflicted, how the injury or death of a relative affected the family and how much damage it was for them. Of course, this is a

correct step. Those damaged will finally receive a more just compensation. On the other hand, it’s also a challenge for the insurance companies to convince their clients of the importance of insurance. Because if they don’t become insured, they will have to cover the cost of the caused damages, sometimes several millions, from their own resources.

Prepared by LM �