Ferenc Czakó

He began his professional career as an assistant professor at the Department of Atomic Physics of the Faculty of Natural Sciences (ETF) of ELTE (his research area was the analysis and numerical modeling of complex systems).

In 1990, he was one of the founders of Optotrans Bt., a company dedicated to the domestic introduction of fiber optic and network technologies; he fundamentally defined its activities, as it developed from a start-up garage company into a regional listed company.
After raising venture capital, Optotrans Rt. acquired Rolitron Rt. in 1997; thus, one of the largest IT companies in the domestic market, Synergon Informatikai Rendszerkeket Tervező és Kivitelőző Rt. (Synergon), was established, of which he was a part-owner and deputy CEO responsible for the technical area.
He organized and managed the professional work of several significant projects: inter-university special optical fiber network in Debrecen and Budapest; development of the parliamentary optical network; MATÁV (Hungarian Telecommunications Company) Cisco backbone development, MATÁV leased line and analog network development.

Synergon Plc. went public on the Budapest and London electronic stock exchanges in 1999 with additional capital raised. As a member of the Board of Directors and Deputy CEO, he participated in, and in some cases managed, the company's acquisition process of several domestic and foreign companies (Integra (H), Quality (H), Atos Origin (H), Infinity (Cz) and Span (Hr)).
Between 2001 and 2003, he managed the company's domestic and international business activities as CEO of Synergon, and as Chairman of the Board of Directors until 2006. In 2006, he relinquished his ownership stake and management position.

Since 2006, he has participated in the work of several large domestic ICT companies as a board member or consultant, e.g. Delta Systems Zrt., T-Systems Zrt.

Between 2010 and 2011, he worked as the Chief Advisor to the Cabinet of Ministers in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) at the Ministry of National Development.

In 2014-2015, he was responsible for the technology transfer area at the Big Data Institute (IDIES) at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD, USA).

Since 2016, he has been working as a consultant and mentor at RCX Business and Management Consulting Ltd., again in Hungary, helping startups and dynamically developing companies operate.

He was a member of the Hungarian Telecommunications Scientific Association (HTE) between 1997 and 2010; of the Presidential Advisory Board of the Hungarian Information Technology Enterprises Association (IVSZ) between 2007 and 2010; of the Scientific Engineering Qualification Committee (TMB) between 1999 and 2002; and of the Charles Simonyi Research Scholarship Committee from 2006 to 2010.