Functional Ecpertise
- 19 years of experience working with global and regional organizations providing them guidance on key strategies related to technology, innovation and business development
- Particular expertise assisting R&D and Strategy teams in leading companies with the development and implementation of their growth strategies in: 
- Technology strategy development 
- Commercial due diligence 
- Future R&D focus/strategic partnership development
 
Industry Expertise
- Experience base covering broad range of sectors and technology clusters, providing thought leadership guidance to leading industry participants’ CTOs, R&D & Business Development Heads and Senior Executives across: 
- Technologies: Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning, Deep Learning), Sensors, Software, Cognitive etc.
- Industries: Energy, Environment, Building  Tech, Aerospace, Automotive, Consumer, ICT, Healthcare etc. 
- Types of Organizations: Companies, Start Up’s, Research entities, Venture Capitalists, Private Equity, Banks, Government Organizations etc. 
 
Career Highlights
- Worked at Space Applications Center (Indian Space Research Organization) on applying AI for mission functions
- At Frost & Sullivan, worked extensively with range of companies, government organizations, R&D Labs including:
- European Commission, KIC, 3M, Siemens, Hitachi, BAE, VTT, Fraunhofer, HSBC, ING, Thales, EADS, Lockheed Martin, Gore, SABIC, Total, BP, Kimberly Clark, SKF, Clariant, L’Oreal, Rusnano, Hitachi, Yorkshire Water, Schott AG, BAT, National Physics Laboratory (UK), Rusnano, Technology Strategy Board (UK) and many others

Martin Janacek is Managing Director of SAP Labs Czech Republic, an R&D centre in Brno focused on development, localization, and maintenance of SAP solutions. In addition to that, he was appointed Vice President of the AIS team in May 2020. Martin started out at SAP headquarters in Germany in 2001 as a software developer and later worked in various positions, including internal auditor of the Environmental Management System. 

Martin identifies with SAP’s global approach, which aims to help the world run better and achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals by 2030. In his personal life, he doesn’t like pollution either - every year he actively participates in various clean-up activities.

Alice Machova is a Partner and a Central Cluster Leader for Climate Change and Sustainabilty Services where she helps companies understand the risks and opportunities arising from climate change and sustainability issues. Alice also been a frequent speaker internally and externally on the topics of sustainability and non financial reporting, and she is a member of a jury at Association of Social Responsibility for Non-financial reporting SDGs awards.

Barry is responsible for planning and managing Y Soft’s sales and business development activities across the entire Y Soft product portfolio, as well as helping lead Y Soft’s growth trajectory.

Barry has over 20 years of sales and business development experience. He spent two years managing international customer success and advocacy for Nuance Communications’ Imaging Division, later Kofax, which acquired the division in 2018. In the seven years before Nuance Communications, Barry oversaw EMEA sales for its Imaging Division. Before that at Equitrac Corporation, he established their presence in the EMEA region and led its revenue-generating activities and expansion.

Christian is recognized as a leader in turning cutting-edge technology into business opportunities that improve people’s lives. In his current role as Head of SAP NVT Sustainability Engagement, Christian and his team help companies creating sustainable business models with close collaboration of customers, academia and governments.
 
Christian combines over 20 years of consulting and business development expertise, with a deep understanding of technology and its impact on people. In his role as Head of SAP Machine Learning Business Development in SAP’s Global Innovation Centre Network, he was inspired by the vision of the human and machine interface and helped adapt machine learning capabilities to business processes with the aim of creating intelligent business applications. He was also responsible for SAP’s Supply Chain professional services business and incubated next generation logistics and supply chain planning solutions.
 
Christian is a true globetrotter and has been based in Singapore, Germany, USA, South Korea and Italy. He has collaborated with many of SAP’s fortune 500 customers on global projects, including Nestle, Unilever, Daimler, Whirlpool, Liverpool, and 3M.

František Vašek, Director of Nano Green, deals with energy product and service innovations in mobility, renewables, energy savings and smart technologies.

He has experience in regulating energy network activities and the development of the electricity and gas trade. He worked in big energetics companies, freelance and consulting.

In line with the motto that "one learns all one's life", he continues to study innovation at HEC Paris, where he is currently working on a project of modular prefabricated buildings equipped with renewable resources and smart technologies.

Jan Najvarek is a co-founder of software company Artin and robotic spin-off Roboauto. He established Artin in 1998 and since then the company has grown to more than 300 employees. He is also the founder and technical leader of start-up BringAuto, whose goal is the robotization of last mile delivery. Jan’s vision is to make people’s lives easier by using robots. He specialises in artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous driving. In his personal life, he is a lifetime walker– his longest journey was 900 km from Prague to Venice by foot in 21 days (following the same schedule as Karel Hynek Mácha in 1834).

After graduating from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Technology in Brno in 1973, Jaroslav joined what was then State Enterprise TESLA Brno. He began his career as a service engineer for electron microscopes. After 9 years, he moved to the R&D department, where he worked as a system engineer and later as a development team leader. In 1991, when it became clear that Tesla can survive changes in Eastern Europe, he and four of his R&D colleagues founded TESCAN, a company focused on developing and manufacturing accessories for electron microscopes. In the second half of the 1990s, they began to develop and manufacture complete digital microscopes. The company's organic growth continued smoothly until 2013, when it merged with the French company ORSAY PHYSICS and created a holding structure. The holding established and acquired subsidiaries and expanded its product portfolio. It currently employs 615 people in 6 countries.

Entrepreneur, serial investor, influencer, philanthropist, public figure. 

Jiří Kůs heads the Czech Nanotechnology Industries Association, whose establishment he initiated. He holds a degree in  electrical engineering, as well as sociology and psychology. He has over 20 years of experience with industrial automation. In 2012, he founded nanoSPACE, the first company in the world to manufacture anti-dust mite nanofibre bedding. He popularizes nanotechnology and the concept of the third industrial revolution and a sharing society. His vision is that of a world where energy is decentralized and free, self-driving electric cars fill the streets and people’s health is monitored by nanosensors.

Johannes Naimer-Stach, country manager Austria with EIT Climate-KIC, has spent almost all of his professional career since university fighting the climate crisis in various functions and industries. Johannes started his career as a carbon emissions trader before joining WWF Austria as a dedicated expert on climate action, working both locally and internationally. He started his own business in 2016 right after building up the innovation and sustainability department of the Austrian Federal Procurement Agency. Also in 2016, he brought EIT Climate-KIC to Austria by introducing different programs, like the startup accelerator, the Climathon, and the Deep Demonstrator to the city of Vienna. Different organizations, ranging from corporations to public administrations and NGOs, have relied on Johannes’ expertise in and passion for serious climate action over the years.

Maria Vassilakou started her political career as Secretary General of the Austrian Students’ Union. In November 1996, she became a Member of the Vienna Provincial Parliament and Head of the Parliamentary Group of the Green Party in 2004. From November 2010 until July 2019, Maria served as Deputy Mayor of Vienna and Executive City Councillor for Urban Planning, Traffic & Transport, Climate Protection, Energy, and Public Participation.

Michal Zavisek is Director of the Electronic Solutions department with the Honeywell Aerospace Engineering EMEA division. Michal started in Honeywell in Brno in 2006 as System Engineer for Flight Controls systems. He went through various technical and leadership roles in Honeywell Aerospace in Czech Republic and United States and he is now leading teams of ~230 aerospace engineers in Czech Republic, France and Switzerland. Sustainability is one of key values for Honeywell, one of the new markets where the company is building strong position and where sustainable technologies will be key even for the commercial success is Urban Air Mobility.

Poland has steered more than 80 consulting assignments during his 13 years tenure at Frost & Sullivan. Mubarak Moosa has experience in long-term strategy formulation by focusing on Macro (Mega) trends and the application to the clients business covering wide range of industry such as electromobility, urban mobility, aftermarket and automotive telematics, used cars, fleet leasing and off-highway market. Consults to companies across the automotive ecosystem on advisory topics such as geo & market expansion, product line strategy, commercial due diligence and competitive benchmarking.

Peter has been working in the European Commission for more than 20 years with positions in environment, enlargement negotiations, industry policy, innovation, and research. He was a Cabinet Member for Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen and Head of Cabinet for Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik.
Since 2010, he has been at Directorate-General Research and Innovation, where he was first responsible for Innovation then for Industrial Technologies. Following the re-orientation of DG Research and Innovation towards sustainability, his competencies have expanded to include industrial R&I agendas and business intelligence as well as knowledge valorisation policies.

Before joining the European Commission in 1991, Peter worked as a lawyer in a German law firm. Peter holds doctorate degrees in German constitutional law and European law.

As a physicist from Masaryk University Petr started out in R&D, where he later spent a decade nurturing operations to grow startups which became the largest electron microscopy company, FEI. After that, he spent a decade leading global engineering and implementing processes. He eventually left these roles to work on new technology at an Australian university and came back to lead Brno R&D department of what is now Thermo Fisher.

His passion is helping people develop and fostering creative, open, and honest cultures.

He believes in behaving responsibly toward our home and planet and feels privileged to work on technologies that enable the discovery of cleaner, more efficient industries, energy, transportation. He envisions the realm of atoms will one day reveal many solutions to our health and environment challenges, yet still embraces a simple, natural lifestyle.

Petr has 9 years of management consulting experience in Strategy, Performance Improvement and Human Capital at Deloitte. Petr served as CFO. As their co-founder, he is responsible for managing Impact Hubs in the Czech Republic with a focus on acceleration and innovation programs that accelerate 100+ finance-first and impact-first projects annually. He has been serving on the Board of Trustees at NGOs (e.g. Amnesty International) and Foundations (Vodafone Foundation Czech Republic, Česká spořitelna Foundation). He has co-founded an impact investment fund Tilia Impact Ventures. He hopes to visit the universe one day and to become a child or a woman for an hour.

Simon works within a specialized sustainability team tasked to incorporate IKEA’s People and Planet Positive strategy into the day-to-day retail operations and the representation of the IKEA brand in the CZ/HU/SK region.

Václav Muchna co-founded Y Soft in 2000 in Brno, Czech Republic, with the vision of creating a global organization that operates without borders. In his mid-teens, Václav started the path toward his professional career by exploring software development, network administration, and learning the value of a customer-centric approach to business. During his early professional years, Václav and a small group of partners embarked on many projects, ultimately finding success with what is today YSoft SafeQ. Václav has led Y Soft’s international growth by establishing subsidiaries in Japan, Singapore, USA, Israel, Emirates, and many other locations. He has also established Y Soft Ventures, the venture arm of Y Soft, providing promising startups in Central Europe the capital, resources, and expertise needed to accelerate their path to global markets. While focused on growing the business and exceeding customer’s needs, Václav also invests in technology, people, and cultivating an active company culture.

Cyril is a CEO and founder at Cyrkl.com - green-tech startup and trading platform with focus on circularity in waste management. In the European biggest recycling platform one waste could be a wealth for another and when using machine learning Cyrkl can manage the right match. Cyril has long been focused on meaningful innovations, especially in the circular economy. He received awards for a Global Digital Disruption by Globent and was selected among top innovators in Czechia for a year 2020.  He stood behind three publications Circular Czech Republic 1,2 and 3. Previously Cyril worked as an innovation leader in the Direct People, leading Czech innovation agency and before as a manager responsible for the corporate part of innovation at Raiffeisenbank, where he co founded Raiffeisen Advisory. He is a graduate of the University of Economics, where he continued to his doctoral studies.

David returned from the United States in July 2018, where he had spent more than 12 years working for Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and SpaceX. In his role as Chief Information Officer at Kiwi.com, he helped to build a robust and scalable company platform to support exponential growth.

David joined Kiwi.com from SpaceX, where he was the only Czech employee at the private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. At SpaceX, David supported the company's aim to revolutionize space technology in his role as Software Automation Program Manager. David also brings extensive experience from some of the world's top tech companies, where he has worked in a variety of positions, ranging from Service Delivery Lead at Microsoft to Engineering Manager at Netflix.  

His position at Kiwi.com, which began in July 2018, put David in charge of determining the IT strategy and systems needed to support the company's unique objectives and goals, as it continues to bring its superior and proprietary technology and customer service to innovative travel products. David was involved in improving internal processes and tools in order to guarantee effective communication, maximize productivity, and keep the organization running efficiently and at the optimum level.

David graduated from Masaryk University in Brno (Advanced Informatics) and Nottingham Trent University (Management Studies) and is passionate about scaling companies by focusing on automation and technology. David has worked on some of the most innovative concepts, such as Chaos Engineering at Netflix. He loves to spend his free time with his family of five, cooking, and travelling.

Luděk Niedermayer is a Czech politician and mathematician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since July 2014 for the TOP 09/EPP Group. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in the European Parliament.
Niedermayer studied theoretical cybernetics, mathematical informatics, and systems theory at the Masaryk University in Brno. From 1991 until 2008, he was employed at the Czech National Bank serving in various roles, including expert, director, member of the bank's board, and 8 years as a Vice-Governor. From 2008 to 2014, he was a director in the Consulting Department of Deloitte in Prague.