Leon Jakimic: how Lasvit's founder turned Czech glass global

The founder and owner of the Czech glass company Lasvit, Leon Jakimic, has told the story of how a small firm from Nový Bor grew into a brand with roughly 1.4 billion crowns in revenue and twelve studios around the world, working with Hermès, Cartier and celebrated architects such as Norman Foster.

Jakimic founded the company in 2007 with money from his father, and just a year later the global financial crisis hit. Oddly enough, crises have always worked in Lasvit’s favour. “Everyone else was on edge, but crises have always been kind to us. Back then it probably came down to sheer efficiency and energy — the way it is for any startup. And I was lucky with the people: top designers, engineers, project managers,” the entrepreneur recalls.

Still, there were mistakes along the way. One of the most painful, Jakimic says, involved the company’s former CEO — someone who, in his view, would have thrived elsewhere but couldn’t handle the job at hand. “His only mistake was not honestly telling me the assignment itself was a bad one. That’s probably my biggest historical failure: we decided to grow rapidly within a year, hired around eighty people, and suddenly found ourselves with four hundred employees. But we had no guarantee we could finance that unless we saw an immediate breakthrough. And it didn’t come,” the head of Lasvit admits.

The company had to gradually scale the headcount back down. The last two years were difficult, but according to Jakimic, this year is already much better, and next year looks even more promising. A significant part of that turnaround is down to the new CEO, Jakub Konopásek, who, as the founder notes, isn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and dig into the company’s most complicated internal processes.

Lasvit’s work is in demand around the world today — from luxury yachts to the renovated Cartier boutique in Geneva. Japan poses a particular challenge, where wood and paper lighting has traditionally been prized. But with the opening of the MGM Grand Osaka casino, demand has shifted toward European and American design. “Even Asian and Middle Eastern cultures don’t want what’s typical of their own traditions — they want what’s authentic to Lasvit, so it’s clear it’s ours,” Jakimic explains.

The entrepreneur describes his personal mission as turning Czech glass art into a global phenomenon — uniting glass, object, architecture, light and the human touch. And by all accounts, he’s succeeding: today architects such as Norman Foster, Kengo Kuma, Daniel Libeskind and David Chipperfield turn to Lasvit for help with façades, sculptures and works of art.

It’s with Foster, who will be one of the headline names at the Pulse festival, that the company is now preparing a large-scale project — featuring sculptures, a bridge over the Thames, and the involvement of the British royal family.