Flying billions: Artem Movsesyan leads Richard Háva's defence empire

This spring, Czech billionaire Richard Háva handed control of his defence group Omnipol to a new CEO — Artem Movsesyan. It marks the biggest transformation at the holding, which has revenue of around 15 billion crowns, in the past decade.

Movsesyan joined Omnipol eight years ago, when the company was earning around a billion crowns a year, starting out as an adviser on aviation — an area that wasn't considered a priority for the group at the time. It gradually grew into one of the business's key pillars, and Movsesyan himself rose all the way to CEO — the youngest person ever to hold such a senior post in the company's history.

Omnipol Group today is home to well-known brands: ERA, with its passive radar systems; Mesit, which specialises in tactical communication systems; the Aircraft Industries plant in Kunovice, which makes L410 aircraft and survived a near-death experience a few years ago; and Aero Vodochody, with its L-39 line, which Omnipol co-owns with Hungarian partners.

“We've drawn up a development strategy for the next ten years. Our goal is to build a high-tech industrial group that plays a meaningful role in Europe's defence landscape,” Movsesyan says.

The story of the L-39 NG, today's Skyfox, is telling: after the L-159 programme was shut down, the plant that once turned out thousands of aircraft was reduced to making doors and small parts for major global players. It was then, according to Movsesyan, that Richard Háva decided to invest his own money — without state orders or guarantees — to build a new aircraft from scratch and restore the country's status as an aviation power.

Movsesyan stresses that, despite the rapid growth, the company is trying to hold on to the family-business atmosphere that Omnipol was known for from the start. For someone now at the helm of a multibillion-crown defence group, this matters to him — money, he says, calls for quiet and calm, not loud announcements.