Dušan Šenkypl to head jury of EY Entrepreneur of the Year

The 27th season of the prestigious EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” competition in Czechia has kicked off — and the main jury will once again be chaired by Dušan Šenkypl, co-owner of the investment group Pale Fire Capital and winner of last year’s competition.

Applications and nominations from entrepreneurs, the general public or organisations are accepted until 21 October 2026 on the website podnikatelroku.cz. For the third year running, the competition is held under the patronage of the president of the republic. Besides the regional winners and the overall national title, awards will also be given in the categories “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year” — the last category is overseen by Czech Television, while the newspaper MF Dnes and the portal iDnes.cz will, as usual, hand out their own readers’ award for the best entrepreneurial story.

The regional winners will be announced in January–February next year, and the final will take place in early March at a gala evening in Prague. The winner will represent Czechia at the world final, to be held from 24 to 28 May 2027 in Monte Carlo.

“More than a quarter of a century on, the point of the competition remains the same — to find and celebrate entrepreneurs whose vision is moving Czech business and society forward,” says Marek Jindra, lead partner at EY in Czechia. The jury assesses integrity, an impeccable reputation and the story of how the business was built — both start-ups and family companies or firms with a global footprint can take part, regardless of industry.

Šenkypl won his title back in March this year — in three years he turned the American company Groupon profitable, becoming a rare example of a Czech at the helm of a Wall Street-listed company. Before that, together with partners Jan Barta and David Holý, he built Pale Fire Capital and sold the insurance comparison service ePojištění.cz for more than one hundred million euros. Now, as jury chair, he says he intends above all to look for companies that know how to harness the opportunities of artificial intelligence.

“Right now business is going through an exceptionally formative period. AI is radically changing how companies are created, how they operate and how they grow, and it’s sharply lowering the barriers that until recently gave an advantage to large, established players. This is a great moment for a new generation of entrepreneurs,” Šenkypl notes.

EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” is the world’s most prestigious competition of its kind, held regularly in nearly sixty countries across six continents.