The Minister of Industry and Trade Jozef Síkela has selected Jan Michal for the post of CEO of the CzechInvest agency. He will replace Petr Očko, who previously led the agency from the position of Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, in charge of the Digitalisation and Innovation Section. The new director of CzechInvest will officially take office on 2 April 2024.
"The main goal now is for CzechInvest to function as a modern agency supporting innovation and strategic projects with high added value. It must create the best possible investment environment for foreign partners. This will help our economy and increase its competitiveness," says Minister of Industry and Trade Jozef Síkela, adding: "I look forward to working with the new CEO Jan Michal and I believe that his experience will help us find new and attractive investors."
"With the challenges associated with the new position comes a commitment to improving the investment and startup environment in our country. I look forward to working with the team and surpassing our shared goals. Above all, I want to build on the work of my predecessor and contribute to the completion of the current government's major investment projects. I would therefore like to focus primarily on bringing in new investors or cooperating with existing ones, whether it is strengthening Czechia's self-sufficiency in chip manufacturing or attracting investment in a battery factory for electric vehicles, the so-called gigafactory," says Jan Michal, the future CEO of CzechInvest.
Jan Michal graduated from the Faculty of Business Economics at the University of Economics and International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague. He joins CzechInvest from the European Commission, where he is deputy director of the section in the Directorate General for Communication and since 2017, he has been head of the Political and Economic Intelligence Department. During the Czech presidency in 2022, he served as Deputy Sherpa at the Office of the Government, where he focused on the response to the energy crisis. From 2010–16, he headed the EC Representation in Czechia and during his mission, he was involved in, among other things, Czechia's involvement in the InvestEU programme and cooperation with the EIB. In 2016, the President of the Chamber of Commerce awarded him the Gold Merkur Medal for his active support of the business environment in Czechia. Prior to that, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including postings abroad.