People of Prague — Stories and Interviews

Jan Sýkora, co-owner of the investment giant Wood & Company, has proposed an ambitious plan to the state for turning Czechia into a country that attracts talent and capital. He shared his ideas at the Forbes “Better Czec...

Czech defence group Czechoslovak Group (CSG), owned by the richest Czech, Michal Strnad, is moving beyond ammunition and heading into space defence. Its finance chief, Zdeněk Jurák, spoke about the company’s plans at the...

Czech and Slovak investment groups have entered the Polish pharmacy market: Penta Investments, Sev.en, Creditas and Auctor Holding (J&T group) have jointly bought the Gemini Polska chain, one of the largest in the countr...

Jan Fabini, founder of the Czech cookware brand Fabini, has bought out the stake of his first investor, Jiří Hlavenka. After the deal closes he owns 97 percent of the company, while the remaining three percent stays with...

Czechia is the world's largest consumer of Kampot pepper. In eight years, the Czech project .pepper..field has turned it into a premium product that is shipped to homes and companies around the world. Now the founders, K...

Shopping and payments with the help of artificial intelligence are not a matter of the distant future but of the coming months. So says Marcel Hajdoš, head of Visa in Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. He is convinced that C...

Furnishing more than a thousand investment apartments in a single year is a task not only for logisticians but for those who can organize the work of dozens of specialists into a single mechanism. That is the result with...

Alexandra Monhart, founder of the Czech brand Alexmonhart and a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, began her journey in 2017 with a simple problem: she was looking for a stylish city backpack and could not find a single suitabl...

The RSJ investment group has joined forces with Finep developer co-owner Michal Kocián and his company Na Jelenách to build a new district for about 16,000 residents in south Prague, near Opatov metro station. Total inve...

CPI, the property group of Czech billionaire Radovan Vítek, has put the Spire skyscraper in Warsaw up for sale. The expected price is around CZK 9 billion. It is another step in the strategy of reducing the debt burden o...

Sewing machines from Boskovice in Czechia stitch shoes for Adidas, Puma and Mizuno, leather clothing and even items for Hermès and NASA. Behind them is Radek Toul, founder and co-owner of Anita B, the last purely Europea...

Rockaway Capital, the investment group of Czech entrepreneur Jakub Havrlant, is continuing its expansion in Europe: it is buying the British company Experience Education, which organises educational trips for almost 100,...

Slavomír Beňa, who headed UniCredit’s Czech and Slovak markets, voluntarily left a large international group for J&T Banka. At the Forbes “Lepší Česko” conference, he explained why he swapped a “sure thing” for an entrep...

Jiří Adamus of LEAD HR is convinced that Czechia has enough people, and that the problem for manufacturers is an outdated hiring strategy. A single ad on a job portal is no longer enough.Unemployment is rising, and there...

Jan Hanuš, who heads the Execution Excellence department at Notino, wants to cut the time it takes to make key decisions from six weeks to a few days. To do so, the online retailer has already deployed hundreds of AI age...

Fear of failure and fear of risk are what keep Czechs from living better today. That was the verdict delivered not by seasoned businesspeople but by representatives of the younger generation at the Forbes Lepší Česko con...

Martin Schmid and his partner Matej Moravcik turned an online poker algorithm into EquiLibre, a startup valued at half a billion dollars. Their AI trades on the market so actively that in a single week it handles sums co...

Ondřej Sinovec, founder of the Czech startup Signi, expects to bring the company’s revenue to 60 million crowns this year. The story began with a small everyday problem: around 2016 he needed to sign an acceptance certif...

Czech billionaire Ondřej Vlček has announced that his startup Aisle will become part of the Canadian artificial intelligence lab Cohere. He made the news public at the “Better Czechia” (Lepší Česko) conference in Karlovy...

Diana James, a manager at the development company Daramis responsible for new business opportunities, has talked about the company’s flagship project: the Bay 55 residential complex on the Smíchov embankment. By Daramis’...

Leon Jakimič, founder of the glass company Lasvit from Nový Bor, has added a new chapter to the brand's global expansion: the prestigious publisher Rizzoli, which works with the most luxurious brands on the planet, is re...

Aleš Zavoral, founder and owner of the largest Czech online retailer Alza and the ninth richest person in Czechia, rarely appears in public, but this time he unexpectedly spoke up on the social network X. The occasion wa...

Jakub Hollman is a lawyer and partner at the law firm Portos, as well as at CCS Premium Trust, a company that deals with professional asset management, protection of family capital and its transfer to the next generation...

The arms group CSG of Czech billionaire Michal Strnad has acquired a 9.5% stake in the Canadian company MDA Space, which develops technology for the space industry. CSG thus became the largest shareholder of MDA Space — ...

The Czech technology and media company Livesport, owned by Martin Hájek and Jiří Mareš, ended 2025 with record figures: turnover rose to 3.21 billion crowns from 2.67 billion a year earlier. The growth came in a year wit...

Publisher Danuše Siering, owner of Black Swan Media, has launched the premium project Magic Mag from Prague — a 400-page “calling card” of modern Czechia for an international audience. In mid-November the magazine will b...

Tomáš Jirku and Dušan Kastl, co-founders of the Czech development and investment group Contera, started from scratch in 2009. Today their portfolio is valued at more than CZK 16 billion, and on major industrial projects ...

Filip Teplý, owner of the Brno chocolate manufactory Ajala, is having the most successful year in the history of his business: at the International Chocolate Awards in Bordeaux and Great Taste in London the company colle...

Czech fintech startup Dateio, founded by Ivan Dovica and Ondřej Knot, has won the biggest contract in its history: the Dutch banking group ING has chosen its Tapix service to enrich the payment data of tens of millions o...

Petr Šebor, co-founder of one of the most successful Czech game studios, SCS Software, and a friend of President Petr Pavel, was seriously injured in a crash in the Moroccan desert. The news site Aktuálně.cz reported thi...

Czech billionaire Richard Háva, owner of the arms holding Omnipol, avoided publicity for many years. He has now given the longest interview in the history of Forbes magazine and, for the first time, opened the door to hi...

Stanislav Fort, a young Czech scientist and co-founder of the cybersecurity startup Aisle, gave up astrophysics for artificial intelligence — and is now challenging the world’s giants from Prague. Where the large models ...

The Brno startup Zaitra, co-founded by Marek Marušin, wants to cut the path from a satellite image to a hazard warning from hours and days to a single second. An AI device is already operating in orbit and delivers its a...

In a single week after the Kind Place children’s psychology centre signed contracts with the first health insurers in Czechia, demand for its services rose tenfold. Founder Jindřich Fialka had spent two years working tow...

Tadashi Yanai, founder of Fast Retailing and the richest man in Japan, is steadily leading his empire to the top of global fashion. His Uniqlo brand has beaten its own profit forecasts, and the first store in Czechia wil...

Britain's postal service Royal Mail, owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, plans to cut up to 2,500 jobs by the end of 2027. This was reported by Bloomberg.The cuts will affect head office and support staff. Postm...

The Latvian jewellery group Grenardi, founded by Ainārs Spriņģis, has opened a salon on Pařížská Street in Prague. The company has invested more than 85 million crowns in entering the Czech market. For the group, Prague ...

Passions run high over artificial intelligence in education: some reject it, others see it as the ideal digital mentor. Honza Dolejš, CEO of the Czech company Digiskills, is convinced that AI has a firm place in learning...

The Czech Supreme Court has rejected an appeal on a point of law by Chief State Prosecutor Lenka Bradáčová, finally upholding the discontinuation of the criminal prosecution of billionaire Zdeněk Pelc over a fatal car cr...

Czech entrepreneur Michal Žižák and his German partner Dirk Hoffmann have built a Mercedes-Benz sales and service business with a turnover of almost four billion crowns — and it all started with a chance conversation at ...

Czechia is one of the few markets in the world where Swiss Longines watches sell in such volumes that it surprises even the brand's headquarters in Switzerland. So says Martin Janna, brand manager and head of wholesale a...

The Czech company STV Invest, owned by entrepreneur Martin Drda, has received the European Commission's approval to become a co-owner of truckmaker Tatra Trucks. As a result, the automaker will belong to three players at...

Radiohouse is again giving away one hundred million crowns worth of advertising space to regional firms — the company's managing director, Štěpán Ryska, explained why local brands should invest in recognition rather than...

A 29-year-old entrepreneur from Plzeň, Václav Polanka founded the company Sunus six years ago and steered it through a solar boom, the market crash that followed, and a return to steady double-digit growth. Today his fir...

Czech artificial intelligence specialist Jakub Langr is preparing a new startup — and the path that led him there is anything but ordinary. He wrote a textbook on AI at the age of twenty, long before artificial intellige...

Czech designer Adam Elmer Železný has launched the first-ever spin-off from Prague's Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) — a project that turns discarded porcelain into raw material for new tableware. The i...

We hadn’t met Maxim Yanbekov before, but after reading a short piece on the site adme titled “A funny Czech-Russian dictionary,” we decided a story about the book’s author simply had to appear on ...

The second instalment of our “People” section is about Raulan Zhubanov. This man can’t imagine life without cars – since his teenage years he’s never been able to look away from a beautiful ...

Unfortunately, Around Prague wasn't able to meet the founder of Eurotrips in person, as the company's head, Alexey Ilyash, is constantly on the road and rarely in Prague. As Alexey himself told us, he's currently focused...

At least once a year, every one of us runs into the subject of insurance — and not just the choice of insurer and policy, but visits to the doctor and getting money reimbursed afterwards. In summer the topic becomes espe...

Today our interview is with a young musician named Gleb, the drummer of Queen Tribute Show. We talked to Gleb about what life is like for young musicians in Prague, how easy it is to balance a day job with the work you l...

Hyperloop is the transport system of the future, created by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and within a few years it could replace trains as a new way to travel. Hyperloop is a capsule riding on air cushions...

On 4 December, the students of the DK vocal studio gave their year-end recital. Meet the studio’s driving forces – its founders and teachers, Denis and Katya, who agreed to talk to Around Prague about the con...

Prague hosts a huge number of concerts, and its cultural life is rich and varied. But who is actually behind organizing all these shows? Is it hard to convince a famous performer or band to come to a foreign country? How...

The Czech property market is advancing by leaps and bounds: rapid economic growth, a shortage of properties, accessible mortgage lending and low mortgage rates are all driving demand for private housing and, as a result,...

This time, Around Prague decided to meet the founders of Beauty Makers, a trendy beauty salon in Prague, to learn all the ins and outs of starting their own business — the first steps, the difficulties, and the success t...

Artem Melnikov is the owner of the real estate agency Home Real Estate. He sells property, handles strategic planning, and breaks up his working days with triathlon. Over the past year Artem has already completed the wor...

Michal Strnad is negotiating to acquire a 14% stake in the Italian tyre maker Pirelli. At current share prices, the deal would cost the Czech entrepreneur roughly 24 billion crowns.According to the Italian press, Strnad ...

The Slovak developer Corwin, led in Czechia by the head of its local division Jakub Dobrý, is building a new district in Prague called Dvory Vysočany — more than a thousand flats, plus offices and shops, spread across fi...

The Direct group is undergoing its biggest transformation in twelve years, and its founder Pavel Řehák makes no secret of it: the company is quite literally being rebuilt from the ground up. The changes have started agai...