Pavol Kopecny
Founder and general manager
Pavol is the founder of ECENTER in Slovakia. He previously worked in the United States with Teradyne, Inc. – a high tech manufacturer and a Fortune 1000 company as a Project Manager. His previous experience includes working for a mobile network operator Orange, where he was responsible for business intelligence, AIDR in Slovakia, and The Economist.
Within ECENTER, he has worked with a large number of clients including Pfizer, the American Chamber of Commerce, SPPP, Aperian Global, SwissRe, Indonesian Embassy in Slovakia, eLanders and has a deep expertise in complex project management, interim management, financial and operations consulting.
Pavol has been recently re-elected to the Board of Directors of American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia and published numerous articles on Slovakia’s business environment and investing in Slovakia for The Economist and The Slovak Spectator.
Pavol earned his MBA degree at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachussets (U.S.) and BSBA at City University in Bellevue, WA – Campus in Bratislava.
Tomas Just
Partner
Tomas has been with ECENTER since 2003. He has assisted the company in several successful projects including procurement management for building houses in Germany, holding General Manager Deputy position in a new facility producing wooden products for West European market.
Furthermore, Tomas has screened business acquisition targets in Slovakia for an international client, he carried out sales of complex IT solutions for a global company, worked on GAP analysis for a couple of automotive clients, and he has been managing Slovakia’s market leader in dental industry. He’s overseen mystery shopping activities and provided assistance on benchmarking of eBanking sector in Slovakia. He also assisted with projects involved in Slovak Tourism enhancement and on Foreign Direct Investments promotion efforts.
Tomas is an expert in operations management, sales, process reengineering, and change implementation.
Tomas holds undergraduate degree in Political Science and master’s degree in marketing & communication from University of Saint Cyril & Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia.
Naiyana Pisitpaibool
Project Manager
A native Thai and having joined ECENTER team in Summer 2007, Naiyana has brought a truly unique set of experiences. She is specialized in new business development as well as in operations for small and medium enterprises.
Throughout her 15 years of work, Naiyana has been played a part in businesses of various sizes across industries. In manufacturing she was assisting a plastic rope manufacturing plant with 30 employees and co-managing a foundry factory with over 200 employees. Naiyana has a very strong background in service industry. She assisted with a start up of a below-the-line marketing company hiring and managing over 350 product counselors and started up a restaurant with capacity of 250 seats. Naiyana assisted entrepreneurs and shareholders in defining and reshaping business directions, identifying key success factors, forming business strategies, designing revenue models, drawing blueprint for business operations, and other business functions as necessary to get the businesses off the ground and move towards full and efficient operations.
Naiyana is also a successful entrepreneur. In 2006, she founded her English language training education center in Thailand, which has now served over 3,000 students and is expecting to double its size by 2012.
Naiyana received the Fulbright scholarship and an MBA degree at Bentley University. She graduated with Distinction in Entrepreneurial Studies major. In addition to Slovakia she has worked or studied in New Zealand, China (PRC), and U.S.A.
Blanka Knizova
Office Manager
During her professional carrier, Blanka worked at Slovak Rail Headquarters where she acquired wide range of experience and various job positions. One of her important company roles was a position of a teamleader responsible for company organization standards and organization document management.
Blanka become the Ecenter team member in 2006 as a office manager responsible for all office activities.
Tomas Vysny
Project Manager
Tomas has joined ECENTER in 2007 and has since worked on numerous projects including a complex gap analysis for an automotive industry client, ECENTER’s Slovakia Guide for Potential Investors and Business Partners publication, euroconsulting agenda and recently a project aimed to align Slovakia’s education system with domestic job market requirements.
Tomas holds undergraduate and master’s degree in European studies and International Relations from University of Comenius in Bratislava and Mphil in Management from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.