Marek Čmejla (born 7 June 1967) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

fraudster In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover mone ...

and musician.

Career

Čmejla completed his studies in technical cybernetics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the

Czech Technical University in Prague Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) () is one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic with 8 faculties, and is one of the oldest institutes of technology in Central Europe. It is also the oldest non-military technical universi ...

and has acted as a manager at NFMG Financial Management Group (NFMG), Appian Group and other companies. In the 1990s, he was the

bass guitarist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), keyboard bass (synth bass) or a low bra ...

of the band Tichá Dohoda. In 2013, he co-founded the band Všichni Svatí, which released its debut album “Vytáhni mě z davu” (“Pull Me Out of the Crowd”) in 2013. Čmejla can be labelled, with a bit of hyperbole, the embodiment of the

American dream The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the ...

in the

environment. He started his entrepreneurial activities while still at university, first selling books. After a number of years working

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

, he partnered up with a classmate from basic school, Petr Kraus, who founded NFMG, a financial group, in the mid-1990s. NFMG gradually became one of the most important non-banking companies in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. Mr Čmejla was the company’s Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors. NFMG was originally established by Petr Kraus and

Antonín Koláček Antonín Koláček (born 7 August 1959) is a former Czech entrepreneur. In 2008, he sold his shares in his companies and became an advocate and practitioner of buddhism. He was involved in the voucher privatization of Czech Coal Group, Mostecká ...

. Over time, Čmejla acquired fifty percent of NFMG, and held on to this share until 2001, when he sold it to Kraus. In 2002, he became the CEO of

Appian Group Appian of Alexandria (; ; ; ) was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who prospered during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. He was born c. 95 in Alexandria. After holding the senior offices in the prov ...

Europe. In 2003, Čmejla, together with Jiří Diviš, coordinated the strategic entrance of Appian Group into Škoda Plzeň, which, following Lubomír Soudek’s era, was in a state of clinical death. Appian Group purchased a part of the company for 350 million Czech crowns from the State and the remainder from the receiver in bankruptcy for 450 million crowns. The company then underwent successful restructuring, and today is a leading producer of

transportation system A transport network, or transportation network, is a network or graph in geographic space, describing an infrastructure that permits and constrains movement or flow. Examples include but are not limited to road networks, railways, air routes, ...

MUS case

In October 2013, the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

courts sentenced him to 48 months in prison for fraud and

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

. He was to have committed these crimes when Appian purchased a minority share in Mostecká uhelná společnost (MUS) from the Czech State in 1999. He appealed against this decision at the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland in Lausanne. In an interview for the daily ''

Právo ''Právo'' () is a Czech daily newspaper published in Prague, Czech Republic. History and profile ''Právo'' emerged in 1991 following the Velvet Revolution, when some editors of the daily '' Rudé právo'' founded a new company unaffiliated ...

'' on 16 April regarding the MUS case, he said that "the idea that someone in the mid-1990s was chewing on the end of a pencil and planning to defraud the Czech State over the next twenty years and steal MUS is so bizarre that a person who makes such a claim has to be mentally ill or have something up his sleeve, or both." In the same interview, Čmejla provided his assessment of the situation in which MUS found itself in 1999. To quote: "The fact that the brown coal industry even exists in this country today is due in a large part to the management of MUS at the time. The State decided to shut it down, and the management, in the interest of the company, decided to do everything in its power to ensure its survival."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cmejla, Marek 1967 births Living people Czech businesspeople Czech fraudsters Czech bass guitarists Czech rock musicians Czech Technical University in Prague alumni