WILD GEESE:Robert Pitt Managing director, Tesco Franchise Stores, Prague

“I JUST thought, why not?” says Dubliner Robert Pitt of his decision to emigrate to the Czech Republic in 1993.

While studying economics and economic history at UCD, the emergence of the EU and the fall of communism had piqued his interest. When a family friend already in Prague recommended the city as an alternative to home, Pitt was off.

Working first in the construction industry “rebuilding apartments and sleeping on the construction site in half-

reconstructed apartments”, Pitt describes the experience as “fun, interesting and exciting”.

But a serendipitous meeting with an Irish head of the tax and legal department at consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers in Prague, who was impressed with his ability to speak Czech, led to him swapping the hard hat for a collar and tie. “That was my first professional environment,” he recalls. “It showed me how proper businesses work and it was a great step up for me.”

Helping to put in place the risk management policy at the company, Pitt remained there for two years before being poached by a client to help set up a joint venture in China. By this time married, Pitt and his Czech wife headed for Beijing. “It was just a great adventure, a really exciting place to go,” he says. “It was still a bit secretive there but the people were really lovely.”

The joint venture, comprising English and Chinese partners looking at opportunities in property and textiles, was “a difficult balancing act” says Pitt. “In a joint venture, you are working for both sides; you end up being a referee between the two cultures.”

In terms of business philosophy, he describes the Chinese as “the nicest people I’ve ever worked with in my life”.

“They are very calm and they expect you to be calm. In Europe you could have a row and slam the door. Over there, it needs to be a lot more about letting people save face and not humbling anybody.”

Pitt returned to Ireland in the late 1990s to a role with discount retailer Lidl, helping it build stores and a distribution centre in advance of its launch. It was his first time working in Ireland post-graduation, and Pitt noticed some differences.

“People were of a higher qualification than they would have been in other countries. Everyone had university degrees and had much straighter career paths. I worked on the property side and everyone had an engineering or property qualification. In other countries, it’s much more mixed. People get out of their disciplines whereas, in Ireland, it’s about the discipline you studied and having a very straight career path.”

After he had spent three years with Lidl here, the company, aware of his experience in eastern Europe and about to set up operations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, asked him to return there as operations director, a post he filled for five years. Headhunted by Tesco, Pitt joined as operations director for the Czech Republic and Slovakia and was then asked to head up its new franchise business in the region.

“Everywhere else in the world, Tesco owns and runs its own stores. However, part of our strategy is to get into franchising. The stores are run by people who are our employees but who are franchisees, something like Centra or Supervalu at home.”

While it’s a different organisation with a different head office and distribution centre to Tesco, it leverages Tesco’s scale to make sure franchisees get the best range, equipment and prices. “It’s a brand new thing and we’ll see how it goes internationally but it’s going very well here in the Czech Republic,” says Pitt.

His day-to-day role as managing director of Tesco Franchise Stores, known as Zabka, which involves him speaking to people who want to set up their own businesses, has immersed him in the local business culture.

“Despite communism, they have a long tradition here of being entrepreneurial and wanting to have their own businesses,” he says. “There is a huge number of sole traders or independent businesses in this country. People want to stand on their own feet and they are willing to take a risk to move forward.”

While we in Ireland may have been distracted by the “glitz and glamour” of deals in recent years, he says the business culture in the Czech Republic is marked by common sense. “They always want to see the logic of where their payout comes from so you need to be very rational in how you present something. They want to see the substance of a business proposition before they’ll get into it.”

From his vantage point in eastern Europe, he feels “Irish people still have a lot of emotional buy-in from other countries,” despite reports about our financial woes. “We’re still trusted and popular,” he feels. He says being English speaking gives new graduates a head start in a global economy. He also advises them to look outside their discipline.

“Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just make sure you work. You need to show a work ethic, put your head down and work hard.”