"For every entrepreneur, it is important to know that their people stand behind them and are willing to accept and fulfill their vision. Innovation makes sense if it motivates your co-workers and if they embrace it. Without that, you won't bring your idea to life, regardless of how amazing it may be," emphasizes Eva Poláchová, member of the board at two of our major insurance companies, namely ČPP and Kooperativa from the Vienna Insurance Group. Mrs. Poláchová has dealt with innovation throughout her whole career, so she is well familiar with the topic.
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Architect, seamstress, IT specialist, metalworker, artistic carpenter, glassmaker, and costume designer. Pastry chef, electrician, interpreter, pilot, restorer, and stonemason. These seemingly disparate, highly specialized professions have a common denominator - the film industry. These, and many other fields in which the Czechs are experts on a global scale, function as suppliers to the audiovisual industry. They’re one of the reasons why Hollywood producers like to come back to us,” says Helena Bezděk Fraňková, director of the Czech Film Fund.
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"The most important thing is the ability to listen," says the CEO of the Czech wholesale company EURO NÁŘADÍ Martina Pěčková. "Our team is made up of both men and women, despite the often demanding manual work. It is crucial for me that they keep friendly relations within the team, besides achieving good economic results."
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"Board game players are really passionate about what we do. We like to play and sit at the same table together – and that is also reflected in our business. There is huge competition, as up to three thousand new games appear on the market every year. But unlike computer games, board gaming is not a mass-market activity. If a game is produced in about twenty thousand copies, it’s a success. But if you're lucky and come up with something amazing, it can go way beyond these numbers. We have already sold fourteen million copies in forty-five languages of our most successful game called Codenames. We’ve sold more than half of that, which is over seven million copies, in the US," says Petr Murmak, founder and co-owner of Czech Games Edition (CGE). We have talked to him at the company’s HQ in Prague's Černý Most, surrounded by – not too surprisingly – board games.
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One day, when I have the opportunity to travel around California, I would love to go to Los Altos, a small town in the San Francisco Bay area, on the western edge of Silicon Valley, and visit the unassuming house where Steve Jobs spent his childhood. This is where he and his friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976. The house is already a historical monument, but Jobs' message and vision keep resonating.
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Bijan Sabet took up the post in Prague about a year ago, presenting his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic in February 2023. The son of immigrants, this former tech executive and venture capitalist brings to his diplomatic assignment deep experience in business and business development. A co-founder and leading figure at Spark Capital, he has helped many tech start-ups grow into large multinationals. He has left his mark on brands such as Twitter, Slack and Discord. In line with the overall focus of this issue of TRADE NEWS, we spoke mainly about California, where Mr. Sabet worked in the tech industry and as an investor for twenty years, ten of which directly in Silicon Valley.
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