One responsibility, one decision-maker

The group is led by its founder. Decision-making is concentrated, direct and without intermediaries – which, in the environments the group works in, is a condition of trust.

Jaroslav Birčák, PhD.
Jaroslav Birčák, PhD.
Founder and Managing Director, ALFA GROUP SR s.r.o.

Founder of ALFA GROUP SR (2002) and leader of the group. More than 30 years of cross-sector practice – from information technology, automation and mechanical engineering, through advisory and consulting services and real estate development, to defence- and security-related fields and environmental technologies.

The combination is not accidental. He has worked with computers and programming since the 1980s. In the 1990s he designed, administered and secured corporate computer networks and, with the first internet service providers in Slovakia, took part in building internet infrastructure. A technical education and years in technology development, automation and mechanical engineering make it possible to judge what can be built; years in advisory work and transaction structuring, what can be agreed. Most projects fail on the second, not the first.

The core of his work is orchestration: bringing individuals, companies and institutions together into structures capable of reaching a result. Since 2011 he has also advised international companies in information technology and in the defence and security industry on business development and project coordination, with a focus on Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Israel. A large part of that work – in the private sphere and in public administration alike – is governed by confidentiality and is not a matter for public presentation.

A defining feature of his career is the absence of disputes. In three decades he has neither started nor provoked a conflict that became public; on the contrary, he has repeatedly acted as a mediator and resolved situations that were heading that way. In an environment where a reputation takes years to build and a week to lose, that says more than any list of projects.

Positions
  • Managing director or chairman of the board – in several group companies.
  • Chief executive officer – in some of them.
  • Consultant and adviser – to companies and institutions in the private sphere and in public administration.
Education
University (doctorate)
PhD. – Mechanical Engineering Technologies and Materials, study programme Manufacturing Technologies. Technical University of Košice.
University (master’s)
M.Sc. (Ing.) – Computer Aided Manufacturing Technologies. Technical University of Košice.
University (bachelor’s)
B.Sc. (Bc.) – Computer Aided Manufacturing Technologies. Technical University of Košice.
Secondary
School-leaving examination with distinction – low-current electrical engineering, specialising in automation engineering.
Languages
Slovak, Czech; English, Polish and Russian at working level; Ukrainian (passive)
Base
Bratislava, Slovak Republic. EMEA region.

„The best-resolved problem is the one nobody ever heard about.“

One centre of decision, many tracks

At holding level, decisions sit with the founder. In a structure of this kind that is a strength, not a weakness: the counterparty knows who they are speaking to, and an answer does not have to wait for a round of approvals.

At project company level it works differently. There, decision-making takes the form of rules agreed between the partners – defined powers, quorums and a mechanism for settling disagreement. The group designs that architecture at the beginning, when agreement comes easily, rather than later, when it does not come at all.

What the group demands of itself

  • Legality.

    Every structure the group designs and every step it coordinates has to withstand legal scrutiny, even years later. If a goal cannot be reached within the law, the goal changes, not the rules.

  • Absolute discipline.

    What is agreed, holds. Deadlines, scope and confidentiality are not renegotiated after the fact, and do not depend on how the project turns out.

  • Trust.

    Relationships built over years are the group’s principal asset. No single transaction that would damage them is worth the price.

  • Accountability.

    Whoever makes a decision answers for it. No passing it on, no alibis, and no rewriting afterwards of what was agreed.

  • Directness.

    The answer is quick and unambiguous, even when it is no. A plan that makes no sense is said out loud at the start, not after months of polite evasion.

A direct line

Proposals and questions reach the group’s leadership directly.

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