Chat with Hydropower: Václav Lagner MBA

A few days prior to the June graduation, I had the opportunity to chat with one of our graduates. Václav, equipped with his engineering degree, has worked on various projects in numerous countries, in the field of hydropower plants and water management. As a member of the Czech Chamber of Authorised Engineers and Technicians in the field of water management structures, he has demonstrated his expertise throughout his career.

During our chat, we discussed his experiences during his residence in the EMBA Programme.

So, tell us, why an EMBA?

For me, this is a simple question and simple answer because my whole background is technical and since I started to work, I started purely as a technician-engineer.

But during the process, I shifted a bit more to management. In my case, it’s project management. When you manage projects, you also work with people, money, and everything else. As I did not have any background in this area of education, I wanted to enlarge my knowledge base and be ready for my possible future position as a manager.

As you approach graduation in a few days, what were the best parts of the programme?

The people. I mean the great lecturers, great teachers, and my colleagues, and co-students. I feel so lucky to have all these wonderful people around me during my EMBA studies. I think that was the biggest added value of the program. I had the chance to meet a lot of different people from different backgrounds, different countries, different cultures, and it was so educational for me to see their approach to solving things, how they see the problems, how they feel the problems.

What were some of the challenges encountered?

The most challenging aspect for me was the time management because when I was thinking about joining the EMBA, it was during the COVID times. As you know, during the COVID lockdowns for me, especially as a project manager everything was on hold. I had plenty of time. I was living in Prague, staying, I don’t know, half a year at a home office. Then I started the EMBA and everything changed. All the sleeping projects startednat the same time. Then, it was twice more work than before COVID. Then, our baby was born and at the same time, we were moving out of Prague, renovating the house and more projects were coming. Quite challenging to do all of it at once, but we made it through; also, with the help of the understanding people involved in the EMBA program and with your endless support Richard as well.

What were your least good experiences in the programme?

You know what is said…  the brain always forgets the bad things.  Right now, I cannot think about the less favorable if there were some, there are minor ones.  [As for the courses] there were some. Maybe it was because of my different expectations to learn something else from the courses. In terms of the hard lectures – for me, definitely, the hard ones were The Economics (micro and macro), since really, I don’t have any economic background.

What do you see yourself doing it in three to five years?

I see myself as a manager working on some quite interesting hydropower projects here in the Czech Republic, maybe somewhere abroad.  But definitely, with the gained knowledge, I think I’m ready to manage people – I would love to help set for the right people the right working environment and help them and the projects to grow.

To summarise, what would you say are your lessons learnt?

I must repeat myself, when we had the management courses, even if it was just management basics or HR management, what struck me most was, that the people, people you are working with are the key asset. Everything you have and you are counting on depends on the people you have around. If you will take the right care about the people (employees, family, friends) it’s more likely that you will succeed.

Given the circumstances of today, here is so much volatility in all aspects, financial, geopolitical, et cetera. How do you think this is going to impact your business, for example? Your profession?

Well, it depends. We saw in the last few years that because of the crises going on throughout the world, there is large volatility, for example in energy prices, which had a large impact, especially on people and companies. Since I am working for an energy producer, It doesn’t have that big impact on us, but on the other hand, we have to switch all our thinking about energy production to a completely different level. I mean the operation of our assets is so different from what it was in the past, mainly because of the green deal. The operation of especially pump storage hydro will be a lot different, so we have quite a challenging time ahead, to adapt, be ready, and to react what is going on in the market.  We will have some large and challenging rehabilitation and modernization projects going on with our key assets. It will be quite interesting a few years ahead of us.

The EMBA management team thanks Václav for his kind and frank collaboration. In addition, kudos on his final thesis, defense, and graduation. It was a pleasure to have you amongst our student membership and now as an alumnus. Best wishes and good luck in all your future endeavours.