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HR Director of JUSDA Europe s.r.o. Jitka Kratochvílová has already been introduced in our special Stories of Leaders. However, since she is another woman to whom we dedicated the cover page of our magazine, we focused in this interview on the current position of women in leadership positions in business with an emphasis on industry.
In addition to being HR Director, Jitka Kratochvílová is also the company’s Sales Director. As she mentioned during the interview, she has held a leadership position practically her entire career. “But not every woman wants to go this way,” she says. “I think that by nature I am an energetic, performance-oriented person who likes challenges. And that motivates me to keep going. Building a career is more a question of internal attitude than gender. It is about whether you can deliver results, and it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. It is important to have people around you – colleagues and superiors – who support your growth and don’t hold back stereotypes. It is important for companies to create conditions in which women can naturally develop their abilities without having to prove that they ‘have it’.”
When you first took the first step in your professional career, did you have a vision of being a director?
It is true that at the beginning, when I started my first job, I did not aim for a leadership position at all. My first direct superior was also a woman. She held her leadership role with elegance, calmness and a natural authority that did not pressure anyone, but at the same time inspired respect. She soon entrusted me with leading a small team focused on development and training. That’s when I realized how important it is when someone sees your potential and gives you space to grow. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman. People around you need to see competence, motivation and results. And it’s equally important that companies can recognize talent in young people and are not afraid to give them opportunities.
Have you encountered any distrust because you are a woman?
I guess I was lucky with the people around me, but I personally didn’t encounter distrust just because I was a woman. I spent a long time at Foxconn, where my direct superiors were from the UK. They perceived the HR manager as a business partner. Right from the start, I was able to participate in customer negotiations, which allowed me to understand all the context and the impacts of individual steps, which made working in HR much easier for me. Human touch and understanding of business is a great combination. In my role as HR Director, I have sometimes seen situations where the opinions of younger colleagues were not perceived with sufficient attention. I see this as my responsibility – to give them space and weight and to show that good ideas do not only come from years of practice, but also from a fresh perspective and willingness to learn.
I believe that it does not matter whether you are a man or a woman. The key is for people around you to see competence, motivation and courage to deliver results. However, it is equally important to be able to recognize the potential in younger colleagues and give them the opportunity to grow. Respect does not come automatically – it is created with support, openness and the environment.
Did you perceive that you were entering a man’s world, or did you simply go into business?
I perceived it more as entering business, not a “man’s world”. I have never had a problem functioning in a male team. My mental set-up is such that after a certain period of time I need a new impulse – to learn something new, to move forward, to accept a new challenge. And this often led me to change roles or expand my responsibilities. I spent most of my career in HR, and when that was no longer enough for me, I started taking on other things in order to have new ideas and to be able to use a wider range of my experience. Thanks to the fact that I can solve complex back-office issues and I consider HR to be a role that must be extremely flexible and able to fill in for practically anyone, I also took over the management of the store after the sales director left. I must say that this was exactly the new impulse that opened up new possibilities for me. In the store, strategic decision-making, communication with customers, work on business cases and at the same time a deep understanding of human resources are interconnected. And it is this combination that fulfills me professionally today – because it shows that leadership is not about gender, but about the ability to combine different skills, make decisions and move things forward.
Logistics is a field that does not sleep. How do you handle crisis situations when something goes wrong?
The key is not to panic and to be able to quickly find alternative solutions. Logistics is a field that changes very quickly, so you need to stay calm, but at the same time be able to act. It helps a lot when you have trust in your team and know that you will help each other. We try to create an environment where people know that they can openly talk about the problem and find a solution, instead of feeling like they have to hide something. Every complication is simply part of the job – it is important to be able to handle it quickly and professionally. And in logistics, one rule applies twice: the customer must be informed in time. It is always better to say that there is a complication, but at the same time offer a specific alternative. Honesty, speed and a constructive approach are key in a crisis