Pride Business Forum Heroes 2022 Awards

Frederic Guichard, General Manager Central & Eastern Europe, Danone

Mr. Guichard makes ongoing efforts to promote inclusive diversity policy throughout the CEE region from his position as top manager. We would like to particularly highlight his tenacity, when very negative feedback in the conservative Poland had not discouraged him to be a leader of Diversity and Inclusion in Danone for the whole region. It sends a message within the company that this is an important topic, but also sets an example to other business partners. For example, thanks to his effort, DANONE has equal benefits for rainbow families throughout the whole CEE region.

Mr. Johansson has been a very supportive executive sponsor to MSD Czech Republic

LGBTQ+ employee resource group, and has directly helped to raise awareness of LGBTQ+ issues in the whole CEE region. He has spoken to address the specific challenges LGBTQ+ colleagues face in countries such as Poland or Hungary. He is a great role model for LGBTQ+ employees in the company, being openly gay himself. In this sense his argumentation and explanation on the impact of bigoted actions and policies by the governments on lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, is authentic and very powerful. His sponsorship has led to the expansion of Czech ERG to Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

Stela Koleva, VP of EMEA Service and Support & Country Director, SAP Czech

Ms. Koleva has been a big supporter of the LGBTQ+ community since her early carrier at SAP, being at the forefront and standing up for equality. Now as a Country Director, she is one of the sponsors of internal programs and initiatives. She is a steering force for everything that is going on at SAP LGBTQ+ employee resource groups called Pride@SAP. Ms. Koleva is also been a key player in advocating for a more open and inclusive workplace at SAP.port.

Jaromír Staroba, Prague Capability Centre Director, Anheuser-Busch InBev

Mr. Staroba has been an amazing sponsor to promote LGBTQ+ equality, supporting the creation of LGBTQ+ employee resource group in ABinBev and several initiatives such as Joining Pride Business Forum in a partnership, bringing a transgender speaker to corporate offices or planning a Drag Queen performance in the office. He supports companies participation in external events such as Prague Pride or Fun & Run. He also sponsors a support of the company to marriage equality.

He sets an example to other businesses in food and beverage industry to be more inclusive.

Petr Dvořák, CEO, Vodafone ČR

We all remember horrible attack on gay couple that we witnessed last year in Prague, only because they were holding hands. People in Vodafone Czech Republic were very affected by this news, and came up with the idea of #ZaRuce challenge – taking photos while holding hands and posting them on social media with a supportive message. Not only Petr Dvořák immediately accepted the challenge, he was the first one who posed in the photo, holding hands with his colleague. Thanks to his active support and leadership, the challenge was quickly picked up by others – more than 15 other businesses joined the challenge as well as many individuals – maybe you remember on the occasion of last year’s award ceremony we took a photo as well – this sent a clear signal from business community that violence, bigotry and homophobia has no place on our streets.

Martina Navrátilová

Martina Navrátilová je velkou podporovatelkou rozmanitosti, kterou v plném slova smyslu poznala až po své emigraci z totalitní země do USA. „Nemusíte odlišné lidi objímat, ale musíte je přijímat. Nesnáším, když se pro lidi používá slovo tolerovat. Ne, jde o to je skutečně přijímat. Brát je takové, jací jsou. Dívám se jen na to, jaký jste člověk, jaké máte srdce a jak se chováte k ostatním,“ říká Martina Navrátilová.