The “Czech woman – business leader in the Czech Republic“ project is focused on Czech women business leaders. The goal of the first year of this contest was to find successful, “healthy” companies owned and led by Czech women and to honour their contribution to the development of the business environment in the Czech Republic.
There were three categories:
Small company: 11-25 employees
Middle-sized company: 26-100 employees
Big company: more than 100 employees.
Conditions for participation in the contest were: the company had to be founded before 1.1.2004, the business must be owned by a woman of Czech nationality and able to publish business figures for each year since its foundation.
Dun Bradstreet played the very important role of “judge“ in the contest. D&B data formed a firm base for the nomination of the winners. To compare the quality of different companies, various data from D&B databases were used. “The fact that D&B data formed the base of the objective evaluation of the competing ladies and their companies is absolutely unique among contests of similar character. This guarantees its exceptional quality. Usually, the jury is more focused on personal feelings and opinions than real business results,“ says Alena Seoud, Managing Director of Dun Bradstreet, Czech and Slovak Republics.
According to the contest criteria DB chose companies owned and led by Czech women and evaluated them with help of a unique tool set, the – generic D&B Failure Score and D&B Rating. D&B also supplied further economic information and pre-selected those ladies whose companies were able to be appointed the best in the Czech Republic. Only those companies that received a D&B Rating of 1 and a minimal D&B Failure Score of 96 points out of one hundred reached the final round.
However, D&B data were not the only evaluation criterion. The life stories of the different ladies, never easy but always interesting, played an important role as well. This is why the jury consisted not only of economic experts (e.g. Mrs. Alena Seoud), but also of important artists of the Czech National Theatre.
Mrs. Eva Štěpánková, one of the most important personalities in the Czech business environment, founder of the cosmetics company RYOR, and winner of many important business awards, was a patron of the contest. Mrs. Švenková (auditor and partners of Mazars) and Mrs. Kohoutová (owner of event company Helas) were also founders of the contest.
And the winners were:
Small comany – Mrs. MARČI HOROVÁ, Chromservis s.r.o.
Middle-sized company – Mrs. KAROLINA POKORNÁ, PROFIKON INTERNATIONAL s.r.o.,
Big company – Mrs. ANNA ŠŤASTNÁ, CORA-úklid spol. s r.o.
And last but not least, Mrs. Irena Ryšavá, of RI-STAV s.r.o., a General partner of the contest, received the “Exceptional personality of the Czech business environment“ award.