Mgr. Iva Dvořáková LL.M.

Iva Dvořáková is a lawyer and a politician. She is a member of the Council of the Ústí nad Labem Region and is responsible for preparation and implementation of projects and EU funds. Apart from this, she is also a long-time member of the City Council of Teplice. Mrs. Dvořáková represents the Ústí nad Labem Region within the Just Transition Platform which brings together EU coal regions. She initiated the preparation of the project „Transformační centrum Ústeckého kraje“ and is the chairperson of the TC ÚK managing committee.

Ing. Radana Leistner Kratochvílová

Director of the Department of Low-Carbon Economy Transition Support, Ministry of the Environment

Mrs. Leistner Kratochvílová works on the implementation of the Just Transition Fund with a particular focus on social, economic and environmental impacts of the transition to a climate neutral economy. She is responsible for the Operational Programme Just Transition. In the past she worked as a head of the department responsible for the Regional Development Strategy at the Ministry of Regional Development. She graduated at the Prague University of Economics and Business, in International Politics and Diplomacy specifically. For years she used to work at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs as the managing authority of European Social Fund and also for the European Commission itself on DG EMPL. One of her most important contributions and successes is the government-approved Regional Development Strategy 21+ as well as the action plan and RE:START-Strategy for economic restructuralization of three Czech coal regions, which was prepared by the Ministry of Regional Development in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The strategy specifically included the revitalization of brownfields programme.

Mgr. Gabriela Nekolová

Chairman of the Economic and Social Council of the Ústí nad Labem Region (HSR-ÚK)

As the chairperson of the HSR-ÚK, Mgr. Gabriela Nekolová is in charge of a non-profit organization which fulfils the role of the regional tripartite and connects and brings together dozens of organizations and institutions with the aim of developing a social dialogue and contributing to the sustainable regional development. She dedicated her carrer and professional life to the issues of regional development and structurally disadvantaged coal regions in accordance with the national and European policies and instruments of support.

Mgr. Petr Votoupal

Programme Manager, European Commission Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Department F4, Czechia and Slovakia

Petr Votoupal is a European Union official working in Brussels since 2005. He works for the European Commission as a Programme Manager for Czechia, dealing with European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). He is currently responsible for the Operational Programme Just Transition as well as the Operational Programme Prague – Growth Pole. Within the Department he coordinates several horizontal issues (financial instruments, the link to the Recovery Plan and is a member of the coordination team of the European for Czechia. Before his career in public sector he worked in corporate banking. He earned his Master’s title in international relationships at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and later completed his postgraduate studies in economics at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Petr Globočník

Member of the City Council of Litvínov

He is a long standing member of the City Council of Litvínov, who actively participates and is dedicated to improving the infrastructure, supporting education and developing an active, cultural life of the city. He is very interested in the topic of regional transofrmation and actively pushes for solutions of the environmental impact caused by the brown coal mining. The main goal of his political efforts, as he himself says, is an increase of the interest and participation of the population (especially young people) as well as their political involvement. He strives to help the regeneration process of the Ústecký Region; he initiated the foundation of CHKO Krušné hory (Protected Landscape Area Krušné hory), he also assisted in topics and problems regarding the decline of brown coal mining and helps to find solutions regarding poverty and poor economic situation of many people as well as the issue of social exclusion through community work in such economically/socially impacted areas (e. g. socially excluded locality of Janov). Nowadays he is busy with activities at the Sousedský Dům Libuše project in Janov.

Patrik Pizinger

Mayor of Chodov and regional councilor (Karlovy Vary Region)

From 2014 up to this day he works as the Mayor of Chodov (Sokolov Distric) and sice 2020 also as the Councilor for Regional Development and Project Management of the Karlovy Vary Region. In his opinion, the innovation is an integral part of the development of both our own lives (and living conditions) as well as the regions'. He strongly supports the transformation process (i. e. transformation of coal regions into strong competitive regions) which stands on the principles of innovation, modern technologies as well as a long-term sustainability and minimizing negative environmental impacts.

Petr Zahradník

Economist, member of NERV (Czech government's National Economic Council)

Petr Zahradník is an economist specializing in the field of EU economic policy; he is also a member of the strategic and economic analyses team at Česká spořitelna bank. As stated above, Mr. Zahradník is the member of the Czech National Economic Council (NERV) and a ministerial advisor for European affairs. In the years 2015 – 2020 he was a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels, where he currently works as an advisor. In the past he was the director of the EU Office of Česká spořitelna or for example a senior/chief economist at Conseq Finance. He is a graduate of European studies at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, Management of economic policies at Columbia University and Finances at the Prague University of Economics and Business. He frequently cooperates and collaborates with the media as well as the academic sphere.

Ing. Jakub Unucka, Ph.D., MBA

Deputy of the Governor, Moravian-Silesian Region

Jakub Unucka is the first Deputy of the Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region in the area of industry, energy and smart region. He is one of the leading personalities propagating the „smart city“ and „smart regions“ concepts, who actively participates in many projects, particularly regarding infrastructure of Smart Grids, IoT and digitalization. In Czechia he is one of the pioneers of the „smart region“ concept, making it an autonomous agenda on its own.
In the field of industry he actively pushes for the development and use of hydrogen technologies into daily practice and particularly in this area he became the leading Czech politician advocating for creating a so called „Hydrogen Valley“ in the Moravian-Silesian Region.
In the past he worked as the CEO of an IT company working in the field of automatization and digitalization and up to this day he pursues such topics both in the field of enterprise as well as in the academic sphere. He wrote his dissertation thesis at the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. The thesis deals with sofisticated automatization in automotive industry. He is also the founder of the Czech-Korean science and research laboratory for the RFID technology research (which is connected to both the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava as well as the Dongguk Univerity in Seoul).
Among his specializations and topics is also the climate and environmental protection. He is the chairman of the environmental association „Čisté Klimkovice“ and stands behind many citizen participation activities, e.g. building a wheelchair-accessible Lesní park (forest park) in the nearby woods or the replacement of coal boilers in the spa city of Klimkovice.

Ing. Jan Kříž

Chief Director of the department for Environmental Economics, Minsitry of the Evnironment

Ing. Jan Kříž was born in 1976. He graduated at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU). During his career he became very experienced with the problematic of the EU Funds as well as the field of finance in general. Previously had already worked at the Ministry of the Environment in the years 2007–2010 as the Director of the Department of the Operational Programme Environment (OPE) and later as the Deputy Director and Head of the Department of European Structural and Investment Funds at SFŽP ČR. He was also involved in the area of finance of the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education in the years 2010–2013 as a department director and later as a department chief director at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Currently he works as the Chief Dir

RNDr. Roman Matoušek, Ph.D.

Advisor to the Minister for regional development

Advisor to the Minister for evidence-informed policy making, regional development and housing. Long-term experience with consultation on changes to municipal and regional social and housing policies. Co-author of an index of social exclusion used to target state policy and professional publications on housing policy, energy poverty and regional development.