Zuzana Nehajová
Background Information
- Zuzana is a Senior Manager at EY Advisory, leading its regional InnovEYtion Hub, based in Prague, CZ
- Her main focus spans innovation excellence, smart cities, R&D financing and digital transformation
- Prior to joining EY, she held the position of a Director General for Innovation, Digital Economy and Business Environment at the Ministry of Economy and Director of Department of Financial Strategy for Economic Growth at the Ministry of Finance in the Slovak Republic
- Zuzana studied at the Faculty of Law and Faculty of Management at Comenius University in Bratislava, earning a JUDr. In Commercial, EU and International law and Mgr. in Financial Management
- She also earned additional LL.M. degree with an International Law focus at the School of Law at University of California, Berkeley, US and another LL.M. in European and International Law and Economy jointly awarded by the University of Hamburg and University of Bologna
- Zuzana holds a PRINCE2 Practitioner Project Management Certificate
- Zuzana is a Board Member of SAPIE (The Slovak Alliance for innovative economy ) and Slovak representative in H2020 ” in the area of "Access to Risk Finance" and "Innovation in SMEs”, Member of the elite "New Europe 100" club of Status-Quo Challengers
- Zuzana is currently in charge of innovation management services for companies across traditional industries, such as automotive, steel, P&U and TMT
- Developing and applying strategic tools for innovation audit and complex assessment, e.g. EY Innovation Excellence Review – Innovation audit through the application of the EY InnovEYtion Maturity Model
- Leading the EY incubation and acceleration program for innovative SMEs, including the IoT Startup Prague Accelerator
- Innovation potential mapping for clients focused on requirements of specific projects related to product portfolio and services innovation, implementation of Open Innovation Model, incl. methodology for design thinking and co-creation
- Supporting clients by providing expertise on innovative regulation, R&D financial engineering and local innovative frontrunners – such services for Investors also includes analyzing and mapping of the regional innovative potential in fields such as IoT, e-mobility, smart energy, TMT, retail
- Development of an innovative corporate culture and embracing the future of workforce
- Designing the public policies on innovation and innovative public policies, e.g. PCP/PPI, Government as an Open Platform, Hackathons and Future Proof Regulation – design of PPP – Colloquium for Smart Mobility, including the topics such as e-mobility, autonomous driving and IoT
- Development of Smart Industry Strategy for Slovakia (incl. measure in the area of financing of innovation, access to technology, better regulation, etc.) and establishment of mobility, smart energy and robotics platforms
- Defined and implemented a national strategy for financing options and innovation policies, digital and knowledge based economy, acting also as an Advisor on Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation of the Slovak Republic and Member of Information and Communication Technologies and Nanotechnologies groups – the allocation of the Operational Program Research and Innovation 2014 – 2020 was more than € 2,25bn
- As the Central Coordination Authority for Innovative Financial Instrument, developed the regulatory environment (including the legal acts and methodologies) for use of innovative financial instruments and PPP (D4R7) in the new Programming Period 2014 - 2020, including establishment of a sovereign wealth fund – Slovak Investment Holding (€ 550mil capital with a leverage effect of 4-5x)
- Enforced the development of the innovation ecosystem and investment opportunities, e.g. by organizing innovative business delegations for the President of the Slovak Republic
- Advisory to the European Commission on EU28 policy development and supportive measures for start-ups and scale-ups – “Scale-up manifesto”, including all the relevant areas, e.g. access to finance, internationalization, clustering
- Preparation of EY’s Smart City Index methodology for monitoring of impact and evaluation scheme on success of implemented Smart City projects and identifying the potential financing options
- Implementing EY’s Smart City Index to identify areas of opportunity for improvement of Cities and Regions, prioritise pilot project investment in Smart City areas such as Smart Education, Smart Mobility, Smart Energy, business environment, etc.
- Manages SMART projects in areas of waste management, environment monitoring and data analysis for municipalities
- Definition of a Smart City vision and strategy including a detailed roadmap of initiatives to be implemented in Istanbul
- Evaluation of technological solutions for Smart City projects, implementation of sensors, data context management and data visualization
- Comparative overview of selected cities across the V4 region, using a unified EY Smart City Index methodology
- Review of client’s current SC strategy and development of a corresponding action plan and product portfolio in the are of Smart Cities and IoT
- Mapping of the innovation potential in the Smart City ecosystem through numerous tools, such as smart mobility or smart energy hackathons, innovative market places and platforms
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Project smartification and financing
The presentation will outline how EY has initiated a project to analyze a market potential in the area of Smart Cities and Regions in Slovakia and create an investment platform to support those activities through a deployment of financial instruments. The main aim is to identify projects that classify under the Smart City umbrella and identify available sources of funding. The project emhasised a need to provide assistance to municipalities in the development and implementation of Smart City projects in order to design ‚smart‘ investments with feasible financial architecture.
