PEOPLE >
UP&DOWN
Written by: Monika Mudranincová
Photos by: ČTK, MF Dnes, Strategie, archiv

PEOPLE UP

Photo: Strategie		David Perutka The marketing director of Pribina was declared the Brand Manager of the Year 2001. He won with a project that aimed at changing the corporate image and relaunching the Pribináček brand on the market, during a time when it had to face massive competition from foreign products.
Photo: MF Dnes		Aleš Valenta At the opening of his Acrobat park at Štíty in the Šumperk region, the Olympic gold medalist donated his helmet to the Archa Chantal Foundation, which sold it for CZK 200,000. The money will be used to build a "fairy world" in the Šumperk hospital.
Photo: Archiv		Miroslav Kůla Despite the global decline in air traffic, Czech Airlines' general director kept his company in the black, reaching profit of around CZK 260 million last year, according to international accounting standards. The number of travelers on ČSA rose by 16.5%.

PEOPLE DOWN

Photo: ČTK		Jaroslav Tvrdík The Minister of Defence lost his biggest battle during his term at the ministry, when the Senate refused to pass a bill financing the purchase of the Jas-39 Gripen jet planes. Tvrdík did not hide his disappointment, and pointed out that by 2005 the Czech Republic will not have an airforce with supersonic capability.
Photo: ČTK		Zdeňka Němcová The chief of the National Property Fund lost her chair after the NPF resisted the will of the Government and rejected the interconnection between ČEZ and the electricity distributors. Němcová said her removal was a political maneuver..
Photo: ČTK		Jan Stiess The ex-chairman of the National Property Fund is facing fine of CZK 200,000 for presenting an uncertified copy of a forged screening document. He must either pay the fine, or go to prison for six months.

Photo: Tomáš Kubeš

Zdeněk Burda: The king of builders
ZDENĚK BURDA (51), the chairman of the board and general director of IPS Skanska, the largest construction company on the Czech market, was named "Czech Construction Industry Person of the Year 2002" by the Union of Construction Entrepreneurs. This construction engineer, who started with IPS as a site manager assistant 25 years ago, is today responsible for a company with 7,000 employees and annual sales of over CZK 27.5 billion.
Under his leadership, IPS Skanska has gone through revolutionary development: it reached the acme of the Czech construction industry, with a market share of over 10%, and became a part of the strong international Skanska group. Burda attributes the company's successful accession to the Swedish holding company to a cooperation built on absolute openness. "When we were negotiating with Skanska in 2000, we made no effort to hide any skeletons in our closets; we gave the Swedish specialists the most open information we could. This paid off for us, because their audit's results corresponded to ours, so a good foundation for our partnership was laid down," Burda confides. This is borne out by the fact that the local management is entirely Czech.
With his laurels still fresh, Burda, known for his modesty and reluctance to present his successes in the media, admits that he is pleased by his colleagues' recognition, which spurs him on to perform even better. "In the last four years we tried to capture the market. Now our goal is to hold on to it," says Burda. This outstanding manager's recipe for success is simple: "You must not care too much for the carreer, because if you work only for the promotion, most likely you will not get it. I only did my job as well as I could."

Photo: Tomáš Kubeš

Petr Novotný: Nothing ventured, nothing gained
PETR NOVOTNÝ (41), the general director of The Electrolux Czech Division of the world's largest manufacturer of household appliances, is living a tale that could be taken from a textbook on successful managers. From a door-to-door salesman, he has risen to become the head of a company with annual sales in excess of CZK 2.5 billion.
This college-educated robotics expert, who until 1990 worked for Strojimport, confesses that he knew next to nothing about business until he decided to respond to a classified ad of the Swedish company looking for salesmen. "That was a fantastic opportunity for me," he says, fending off objections that he degraded his college education by selling door-to-door. "To this very day I remember the address of my first customer, to whom I sold, on 10 June 1991, a vacuum cleaner for nearly CZK 20,000 at a time when the average monthly wage in Czechoslovakia was CZK 4,100." His desire for success and "the satisfaction of male vanity" was completely fulfilled when, in October 1991, he sold a record 50 appliances in one month, earning more than governmental ministers. He rocketed upward through the company until, in 1994, he was named to his current post as general director of the company, which sells 2,000 appliances a day.
Since his family owns several real estate parcels in Prague, he is not financially dependent on his work for Electrolux. "It's a sport, a hobby," he says convincingly, speaking of his sales experiences in thousands of households, about his employees, as well as of the product line, of which he is very proud. Why doesn't he found his own company and become his own boss? "I was born for Electrolux," he says with a laugh, proudly tapping the corporate emblem on the breast pocket of his jacket.