"In business, I am guided mainly by my experience. The important thing is not to give up," says Petr Kavrentzis, the spiritual father of the "rainbow Škoda"
You started out as a bridge crane designer and I'm wondering if you were already thinking about managerial positions and a career in management at that time? Or did you go with the flow and decide to respond to what life brought?
I have an engineering degree and when I started my first job after my studies, my ambitions were zero. I had no expectation of ever getting to the position I have today. I'm still of the "you do what you study" generation, then you retire and get a garden and a dog. A lot of people still get grandchildren, but I knew even at this time that that was definitely not going to be the case for me.
After a few years I got into my current job, what I call from the fitting room to the suit, and if I had to say why it happened, I guess it was because I wasn't afraid. I was carried along by the current and I just reacted and took the opportunity. Someone saw potential in me and I decided to give it a shot. I asked myself what was the worst that could happen, and at the same time I told myself that I would either get fired or give up on my own. That's all. And I certainly didn't want to give up, because that would mean I was afraid. I'd be going against myself.
So the impetus to get some dream position never came from you? Did the right offer always come at the right time?
That's basically it. But not to make it look like I'm such a child of luck, for example, in my previous position I felt that I had nowhere to push the content of it. So I was actively looking for another position. But certainly not with the goal of wanting to move up into a managerial leadership role. However, it is true that since I have been at Skoda, I have been entrusted with a larger or smaller team of people in each position. And I have always enjoyed this responsibility and working with people and still do.
So I could sum it up by saying that the fundamental motivation for your professional and personal life is to grasp the opportunity and not to give up? Can you think of any major challenges where this determination has brought you great success?
The answer to the first question is definitely yes. The answer to the second is much more complicated. There have been many challenges, each of them completely different, but I remember mainly the ones when I didn't make it and gave up. Not that I regret it in hindsight, even that eventually moved me on. To be a little more specific, I once had the feeling that my management and I weren't exactly riding the same wave. It turned out to be a pretty strong personal antipathy. When my team started to suffer because of it, I gave up and went elsewhere. But today I know I wouldn't do it again. My current job is so fulfilling that I would hate to give it up for any reason.
The biggest challenge when you work in a corporation is "fighting" the corporation. A lot of things don't go because... And what you think should go, you have to get political support and get enough people on your side first. Those are difficult hurdles, especially for small projects like the Skoda Enyaq Coupé Respectline. When I first came up with this concept, I was told many times I would never be able to materialise it into a real car. Well, it ended up being two cars.
The corporation has an advantage, but actually a disadvantage, in that it is bound and governed by certain processes. It's necessary and desirable, but sometimes it gets in the way of a creative person's work. Especially nowadays, when everything is moving so fast. I would compare it to legislation. It is currently struggling to cope with AI, for example, because the laws relating to this sector are already several years old. This means that they cannot be applied well enough to the current state of reality. The same thing is happening in corporate processes. But if a company is smart and keeps an eye on the world around it, then it can advance it a lot. Like Respectlin has done for us. Thanks to this model, which really involved a lot of people from many different roles working together, we were able to adapt some older and entrenched processes.
When we talk about Respectlin, we are actually talking about LGBTQ+ issues. You've been at Skoda for 12 years and I assume a lot has changed in this area in that time...
The perception of people from the LGBTQ+ community is definitely somewhere else today, especially in Škoda. It is a multicultural company, the management is largely from abroad, mostly from Western countries, so this topic is dealt with much more intensively here than, for example, in a smaller regional company.
Apart from your own car model, have you been able to promote anything else here in relation to LGBTQ+ people?
For me personally, nothing. I'm frankly not exactly a gay activist who would take a rainbow flag and march in a parade. But we have a lot of guys and gals like that active within Skoda. Firstly, there's the Diversity and Inclusion team in HR, which is quite intensive and quite good on these issues, and secondly there's the Skoda Proud employee community, which brings together LGBT+ employees. I'm only marginally there because I just don't have the necessary activist spirit in this.
But I don't want to make it sound negative. The work of these groups is generally important and takes people's thinking a little bit further, but I feel that these activities are not really for me. I'd rather help create an extraordinary car and hopefully, if anyone thought so, show the world that our company is not a 19th century dinosaur, but that Škoda is a progressive brand that really thinks about the future in this area too.
So how do you personally feel about the special department for diversity? And what value do you think it has when company management introduces it into the process just to be free from potential criticism, but doesn't really care about LGBTQ+ issues, which is actually happening in some companies?
I have to start by saying that, fortunately, our board of directors is leading by example in this regard. It supports the LGBTQ+ community where it can, but certainly not on the grounds that it has to. As far as these departments in general are concerned, three years ago I would probably have said it was unnecessary because I wouldn't have understood what they were in charge of. But a lot of things have happened since then, even in my personal life, and so I now know that they are indeed needed.
The Skoda Enyaq Coupé Respectline has become very popular, so it's no wonder that a new model is being developed todayPhoto: Škoda Auto/Se svolením
In companies that want their employees to be happy, related activities are important to form a friendly environment. You can't see inside people's heads and it's hard to influence the opinion of someone who has grown up in a homophobic environment all their life. But the diversity team makes it very difficult for such like-minded individuals to get into senior management positions.
Has your sexual orientation ever affected your career in any way?
Yes. I have experienced prejudice in my career. And in one interview I was told that the team of people I would be put in charge of needed to get some staff culture, so they would prefer a woman in the position, but on the other hand they also required a firm hand, which they said would in turn require a man. I said that's great because being gay means the company gets both in one. And I got the job.
Compared to heterosexuals, gay men are said to be more likely to want success and recognition at work because they can compensate for oppression or discrimination from those around them and they want to prove that they can do it. Have you ever encountered this prejudice yourself?
No, and I've never felt the need to prove myself just because I'm gay. Not even to those around me. For me, it's simply that I've never been afraid. I've never suffered from feelings of inferiority or smallness, I've never even encountered a negative reaction to my orientation in my life. I moved up that imaginary career ladder at work mainly because I wanted to move things up, not because it was in any way related to my orientation or how others treated me in life.
Do you have anyone in the business world who is a role model for you in any area, or is the underlying inspiration more your own shift in life?
The latter is correct. I am purely driven by my own needs and focus mainly on my own journey. And I draw primarily on my own experience, trying not to delegate the responsibility of deciding where to take the next step to someone I don't really know at all. Because, as in everything, once I've settled my accounts, I'll only be settling them for myself. It's not that I don't listen to interviews and podcasts with people in the business, but I don't have anyone I would listen to devoutly and follow their advice.
How do you feel about organizations and movements seeking equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community? Because sometimes I hear from the community that these groups, and sometimes individuals, tend to hurt LGBTQ+ people through their excessive activity. And if nothing was done, it would perhaps be better...
I see it in much the same way as the situation regarding special diversity departments in companies. A few years ago I would have told you that I saw them all as unnecessary. That life in the Czech Republic is beautiful and ideal for our community. But then I was still living in my bubble. You only have to go a hundred miles outside of Prague and it's not so ideal. Suddenly you realise that all the rights we have gained over the last 30 years have not just fallen from the sky and that we can lose them at the snap of a finger. So today I see that all these organisations are doing a commendable job, even though sometimes I may not agree with the way it is being done and the pressure that is being put on the minority society.
Has anyone ever told you, either at work or in your personal life, that you are an inspiration to them?
Yes. So at first I didn't understand that it was directed purely at me, because it never occurred to me that anyone could take my lifestyle or work as an example. But it was a pleasant shock, so I didn't blame the man for his enthusiasm. What can we say, my ego was pleased.
Do you have any other milestones you'd like to conquer in your work now?
There's a lot going on at work at the moment, because firstly we're launching new models, but also, and hopefully I can reveal this, we're in the process of launching a second Respectlin model. I'm in charge of that again, but there are more people involved in the creative process, so this new model will be much more sophisticated. Most of the energy is now going into this project.
Are you fully satisfied in your current position, or are you thinking about further growth?
You can't grow completely where I am, but you can move up. I have some strategic plans that my manager and I are bringing to life gradually, and I'm very excited to see the results, but in any case, it's not a position I want to stay in until retirement. For example, I'm thinking about a job abroad, even within Škoda. I like my job, I enjoy it and it fulfils me, but I have been doing it for six years now and I think that in three years I will move on again.
Finally, I am interested in your free time. Is it connected to your work in any way, perhaps in the form of an interest in cars?
My interest in cars ends the moment I lock mine up and starts when I get in it in the morning. Of course, I'm generally interested in what's going on in the automotive industry, I look at how the competition is approaching various problems and what they offer, but I certainly don't dig into engines and know all the models of Škoda cars from their inception to the present day. I enjoy travelling a lot, I like to get to know different countries, people and cultures.
Do you research a country's attitude towards LGBTQ+ people before you go, or do you not give it a second thought and just go?
This is what a traveller has to do. If I go to Italy or Germany, I won't address it, but I've been to Saudi Arabia, for example, where the attitude towards LGBTQ+ people in general is a bit different. This year, as part of my Christmas travel, I'm flying to Brunei, where homosexuality is even punishable by death, so this is definitely good to know in advance. And my current approach to various associations to support and protect the LGBTQ+ community stems from this. What we have in the Czech Republic is definitely not a given. I would encourage everyone to travel to see how people are faring beyond our borders.
