I speak up.
I make waves.
I work across business, public policy, and innovation. I lead Change for the Better. I grow Alaigned. I consult, speak, and host events.
Mostly about hosting an event or consulting.
Business, public policy, and innovation barely talk to each other. They rarely notice how much they shape one another. And what works in one of them does not always make it into the next.
I have been in all three. I started with social media back when companies still did not trust it. Then political campaigns, marketing, sales, management, and public affairs. These days I am back around startups, and I spend a lot of my time on what AI is doing to companies.
Leading people came later. Depth in a single discipline was never the draw. Breadth was, and so was running the whole thing. I went through the ATAIRU programs, and since then what happens inside a company matters to me as much as the strategy it takes to market.
Two organizations, two different worlds. Their overlap is where the work gets interesting.
A business platform of more than 100 companies representing roughly 11% of Czech GDP. One thing holds them together: they treat the shift to a sustainable economy as an opportunity, not an obligation. I lead the team that makes the case for sustainable, responsible Czech business in Prague and in Brussels. We are the Czech business voice in the European policy debate.
klepsimu.czA Strategy Operating System: define the strategy, align the organization around it, and evaluate it in the regular business rhythm. It came out of one frustration. Companies have a strategy, but most of the people inside either do not know it or cannot see how it applies to them. Alaigned makes strategy a live tool instead of a document someone opens once a year.
alaigned.comWhere is the company going, and why there? I help you answer that, then turn the answer into something people can make decisions with. Most strategies are not wrong. They just stop moving the day they get approved.
A strategy starts working when people know what it changes for them. I work on team alignment, on internal change, and on how you lead through it. I have run sales and I have run marketing, so I know how easily two teams in the same company end up talking past each other.
Who you are, what you do for your customer, and why they should choose you. Positioning and messaging get tested on real buyers, not written in a boardroom. I have worked this from the marketing side and from the sales side, so I know where it usually breaks: between what the company decided and what the customer actually hears.
Someone writes the rules you do business under. For the last few years I have watched that happen up close, in Prague and in Brussels, and I can tell you what a specific piece of regulation will do to your business. This is not lobbying for hire. It is knowing the environment that most companies notice only once it is too late.
I take on a handful of engagements a year, few enough to do each one properly. People come to me for three things.
I host conferences, panels, and company events, and I facilitate internal workshops. Do not expect a neutral moderator. I have a view and I use it on stage. I have hosted the Vyspělé Česko conference on Czech competitiveness and events for Whalebone and ForArch. I have spoken for CzechInvest and Impact Hub.
Usually it comes down to one of three things: setting the strategy, getting people to actually use it, or getting sales and marketing to pull in the same direction. I am done when you can run it without me.
I mentor founders and leaders, in startups and beyond them, in the JIC network and outside it. We take whatever is keeping you up: positioning, first customers, growing into a bigger role, or finding your way around EU regulation. One session, or on a regular basis.
I am an extrovert who likes networking. I usually fill the room, though I can step back and listen. I am good at starts, so getting something moving with me is easy. The finishing details I would rather hand off. Sometimes I push when waiting would have worked better. I know this about myself and I work with it. I like learning, hearing how other people won or got burned, and passing on what I have picked up.
Gallup CliftonStrengths puts Influencing at the top. Talent Dynamics says Creator. PrinciplesYou says Shaper.
“Thanks to his systematic approach and empathy, Jenda was able to build Sales and Marketing teams from scratch and set them up for delivering consistent performance. Thanks to the established processes and Jenda’s management of acquisitions, we have grown by tens of percent.”
“Working with Jenda, in my role as CEO, was a key insight into the field of marketing from a different perspective. He helped me understand the connections, making me a better partner for discussions and decision-making with my marketing colleagues. I appreciate his friendly approach, which does not mean he avoids speaking directly.”
Alongside business and consulting, I have been around slam poetry since 2007. I started out with the group around Lenka Zogatová at Fléda. For over eight years my friends and I have run exhibitions and regional rounds in Brno.
I lead the Slam Poetry Brno association and I host most of our events. I enjoy that stage as much as the one at a conference.
Send me the date, the format, and who it is for. I will get back to you.
Tell me what is on fire. If it is not for me, I will point you to someone who fits.