Every year in May Startup Grind hosts our #SGWomen Leaders Month — proudly recognizing the accomplishments of successful women leaders all over the world. These women are founders, venture capitalists, engineers, executives and more, who represent our community.
They are the women who exemplify profound leadership skills, hard-work, humility, and success and demonstrate their strength with devotion to the work they do everyday. They encourage and inspire us all.
Listen to the stories of 4 women who stood behind their dream and have successfully built their team or company from scratch. What is behind their success?
Devi Clark (Program Director, Impact Hub King’s Cross)
Kim Najman (CMO and Co-founder, Travel a la Carte)
Andrea Gontkovicova (Director Commercial Development CZ, SK & HU, Philip Morris)
Kiriaki Kritidi (HR Director CZ, SK, Coca Cola HBC)
The event will be moderated by Pavlina Louzenska (Founder, #HolkyzMarketingu).
Thanks to our partner Online marketingová agentura KREJTA for promoting our vision and ideas.
Devi Clark is Programmes Director at Impact Hub King's Cross, providing support to entrepreneurs start up or grow their businesses, including the UK arm of the Impact Hub Scaling programme which helped 110 social enterprises scale up their businesses across 8 European countries, Feeding the City, an ethical food start up programme and the Next Steps Programme, which offers mentoring on entrepreneurship to people who have experienced homelessness. She has been advising entrepreneurs for over 15 years.
Devi is founder of the Outsiders’ Network, ran TEDxAylesbury 2015 and blogs at Huffington Post, Brazen Careerist, Life Hack and Third Sector magazine. Her book, People, Planet, Passion, reached #2 in the Amazon Kindle store for books in the Nonprofit Organisations and Charities category. Devi has an MA (Hons) English Literature and History from the University of Edinburgh and a Postgraduate Certificate in Careers Guidance from University of East London.
Kim Najman’s expertise is in the hospitality industry. She studied hospitality and international business management at the Hotel Institute Montreux and Northwood University, followed by a postgraduate diploma in digital marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute in Dublin, Ireland. Her professional life has centred on the hospitality industry, but she also worked in the private aviation sector before co-founding Travel a la Carte alongside Olga and Ivana. Kim brings her marketing and hospitality expertise to the startup. Kim also works alongside Ivana on a separate venture, at creative agency Arta & Design in Prague.
In 1997, Andrea started her career in Philip Morris International and held various leadership positions within the company at local and regional levels. In 2004, she was relocated from Slovak affiliate to Philip Morris International in Switzerland and gained new experiences in the regional Strategic Planning Department. Upon her return in December 2005, she was appointed Head of the Corporate Affairs Department in Slovakia. In September 2009, she started a new role as Director Corporate Affairs and Member of the Board of Philip Morris ČR a.s. Post 2012, she acted as Director Corporate Affairs for EU Region in Switzerland. Andrea works in the field of PMI smokeless products as of 2016. Currently, she acts as Director Commercial Development CZ, SK & HU. Mrs. Gontkovičová holds an university PhDr degree in philosophy.
Kiriaki joined Coca-Cola Hellenic in 2007 as Group SC Capability Development Manager. In 2010, Kiriaki assumed a role of the HR Business Partner for SC function for Greece & Cyprus BU, and in 2014 - during a 6-month developmental assignment - she acted as the HR Director for Greece & Cyprus BU. In December 2014, Kiriaki joined the Adria Business unit as a BU HR Manager. In this role, she ensured a significant increase of the BU HR functional capabilities and built a strong and engaged HR team. Moreover, thanks to her close cooperation with the Senior Leadership Team, BU increased Employee Engagement to 90% and built a strong talent bench across all functions, while strengthen One Adria team culture. From october 2017 is Kiriaki in role of HR director for Czech Republic and Slovakia.
