For leaders navigating growth in tech-driven environments, Stepan reveals how early AI research, entrepreneurial grit, and a client-first mindset have shaped his leadership style. He discusses building high-performing teams, balancing technology and human creativity, and scaling sales in a consultancy.

Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with myself, Matt Best and as ever, the wonderful Jonny Adams. We're thrilled today to be in Prague, which is really, really exciting. And our guest for the podcast today, Stepan Kopriva from Adastra. Stepan, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hi guys, thanks for having me. Thanks for the invitation.

Brilliant, we're thrilled to have you. And as the listeners to the podcast will know, AI is a topic I get very excited about, and technology, and we're going to spend a fair amount of time today unpacking what that means, you know, what it means for industry, what it means for leadership, and how all of that comes together, and as a as a leader in a, you know, in an AI practice, in an AI consulting business, we're really keen to unpack that with you from both your clients perspective, but also when it comes to your your own business too. So thanks again for joining us. Stephan, I'd like just to ask, as is customary on the growth workshop podcast, if you had to choose three people to be on your personal board of advisors, who would they be and why?

Well, these people would be Marc Benioff, definitely, it would be Henry Kissinger and it would be Warren Buffett. Marc Benioff, definitely, because of what he did in sales with Salesforce. So basically how he structured his sales team and how he transferred the ideas into the implementation. To me that is, he's a great leader. So that's number one. Henry Kissinger, because of his strategy and and critical thinking, and also, I would say, strategic thinking. Warren Buffett, because of the way how he can analyze companies. He's seen so many businesses. So that would be a great advisor as well.

Very American, I have to say. Stepan. Well, is there a reason for that? Have you been brought up on American business people, or is it something that you just sort of thrive around?

Well, in software business, many of the giants are actually located in in the US. We've got some champions here in Europe, like SAP and others. However, most of the businesses going on in the US being in Silicon Valley or east coast. So that's maybe why. And I'm still kind of watching the software business mainly. So that might be the reason also I've spent here in the US during my studies. So maybe that's how I'm connected to that part of the world.

Whereabouts in the US did you study?

I did study in Milwaukee at Milwaukee School of Engineering, and there was part of an exchange program here at Czech Technical University. It's no Berkeley or Stanford or Harvard. However, I enjoyed it a lot.

Amazing. I mean, obviously founder of Salesforce. You know, Salesforce is a tool that a lot of our audience and ourselves we're average users of. What is it in particular Stepan that you like most about that? Why him? What component of his leadership do you think he brings to your board?

So actually, I was studying him a bit because he started in Oracle, if I recall correctly. And I spent part of my career in Oracle as well as a software engineer here in Prague. I really liked how he transferred through the organization, and how he could transfer his ideas, his product idea, product ideas, into life, and how he could sell it, basically. So that's very, very inspiring to me, going through through consulting, through sales, into having an own company and turning it into a giant and then going forward with all the AI initiatives and so on. So Marc Benioff looks like a well rounded personality to me, and great leader and entrepreneur, actually.

Yeah. Wow. Whenever I think of Marc and I think about Salesforce. I always think about, there's the AI component, but he tends to have been, always at the forefront, at least publicly. He's SaaS crowned, I guess, with that title of the founder of that in sort of modern technology. Now, sure, there would have been organizations out there doing things on a smaller scale, same with customer success. Actually, we talk a lot about customer success, and he's, you know, again, credited with a large part of the of what customer success looks like today. So yeah, he definitely is a great job of putting that business at the forefront of some of that, of some of those transformations. And I know we're going to unpack some of your own sales transformations and the journey that you've been on in your career and with the businesses that you lead to so so at the moment, you know a leader in Adastra for the audience, what's, what's been your journey?

Ok, so I studied computer science and AI back in the days when it was not so popular as today. So, so it's like 15 years ago, even more. And so I'm an engineer by education, however, entrepreneur by heart, I would say. And I actually started my career doing PhD, which I didn't finish, because I was kind of, I was kind of drawn to business. And we started our first startup here at the Czech Technical University doing, actually, software for drones like. Controlling large, large forms of drones, doing the software simulations and also the hardware control, again, back in the days when it was not so popular as today, and not so useful. And then I, then I left the company, because the business model was really complex, and it was kind of tough to sell to to public institutions and companies like that. And I enjoyed almost two years as a software engineer working for Oracle here in Prague that was developing complex pieces of Java software. So that was

really interesting. And then we actually started our first company called Blind Spot solutions, where we went into services. So we started offering consultation, consulting services in AI, working for clients, mainly from abroad, because in the Czech Republic, and we're talking about year 2013 AI was not so popular as today. So it was taught in the universities. We've got great experts in AI here in Prague. However, business wise, the companies were still looking more into, you know, data warehousing and traditional software development for AI, they were a bit they were a bit curious. However, they were also suspicious about AI, and with AI, as with other trends in it, we do see some lag behind the US, typically. And it might be two years, three years, I believe nowadays is much shorter. However, back in those days, it was, it was that amount of time. And so we were working for customers from abroad, being in the US, UK, Germany. And we started slowly with some Czech companies

as well. So and we founded the company with Michael Czech professor of AI later CTO of awas, the antivirus company, and Andre waniek, CEO who these days holds the role of chief AI officer in Adastra. So we started as a free guys, and we started growing, growing. And in 2017 we were acquired by Adastra. So that's how I got into Adastra check. And then we were developing the business, the AI business, for Adastra. And two years ago, almost I did, took over the CEO role of Adastra. Check, I, they offered me back, actually, the the role of CEO at Adastra.

Amazing. I we've met you a few times now, and Stepan, you've been a good friend and a partner of SBR Consulting, and we've worked with you through a number of your years as a leader, just for the audience. What do Adastra do as a business? What's the main sort of aim? Just so people understand, because it's a global organization, you're adding lots of value in terms of the commercial world, but be lovely just to hear a bit about what Adastra does.

So actually, Adastra worldwide does actually address the business problems of companies by applying technology to it, and that in these days is mainly developing solutions using AI and data in cloud. So we do address the business problems. We are consultants who do solve the business problems by technology solutions. So we are somewhere in between technology and business. And quite often we say that we are the bridge between business and technology in many organizations. And so we have to understand both. We have to understand the technology and we have to understand our customers such that we bring the value to them.

Amazing. And I'm gonna have to ask, because I just found it fascinating. You obviously have your history there as you as you were sort of talking about AI over 15 years ago. I mean, gosh, I think I've only heard about AI in the last three years. Say, for example, what was aI like 15 years ago?

Actually, AI 15 years ago. It was way before the neural networks or LLMs or agents got popular. Actually, I did my I did my PhD, which I didn't finish, so I was studying at the scientific group, which was called the agent Technology Center. So we had agents. We were actually researching agents in those days already, the AI in business, that was way before the neural networks. So the neural networks were studied at universities. However, there wasn't enough, let's say, hardware power to use them in production. So we were just at the very beginning. So those were the days when we were using, as McKinsey puts it, go far good old fashioned AI techniques very based on statistics. Neural networks are as well based on statistics, but like predictions, detecting patterns, also planning and scheduling. That means planning of large assets, like, let's say, planning hundreds of cells. People or planning other physical assets like fleet management and so

on. So we did work for many industries, and we still are being it finance, telco, utilities and then manufacturing, automotive, and in those days, it was a lot about actually persuading the clients that the value which lies in their data might be unlocked by applying AI principles to that.

Amazing. And we're going to dig more into that in just a moment, because we're really fascinated by how AI is transforming not just consultancy businesses, not just business, but just kind of, broadly speaking, the world, right? And we all know that that's happening. And AI, transforming the world is probably a popular podcast title, but...

Trying to do a spin off already.

But just before, we kind of look at the impact that that has on organizations, and organizational structure and leadership and some of those other things, before we get into that, though, I'm fascinated to kind of unpack a little bit about like leadership and transformation. You've come on quite the journey. CO founding team of blind spot, and now find yourself as a CEO of Adastra. You must have learned some lessons along that way, when it comes to kind of leading and empowering teams to partner with the clients in the way that you do.

Well, I strongly believe that rule number one is understanding the customer and his or her needs, so knowing exactly what the customer really needs. So that's rule number one. And in technology, I believe that there is a lot of people startups who kind of try to get around this rule, so they develop the technology first and they try to apply it to the problem. So I strongly believe that one needs to go vice versa, understanding the client first, that would be number one, and then number two. I always tried to, and I still, I still try to surround myself by the best people you can get for the job. So such that you are building an A team, ideally, team full of people who are much smarter than you. So I'm always trying to do that, and just to, you know, set the direction, balance what people are doing, and trying to remove obstacles from their way. So that is my philosophy. And I would say rule number three is trying to help these people grow, so trying

to let them shine and let them grow, help them. And I believe this is what gets the organizations forward, and also it actually helps the people to do the extra mile for for the organization.

We always talk about that as Discretionary Effort, Right? What's that effort that we can get beyond, above and beyond? What it doesn't mean necessarily working long hours, but it's just about that mindset and that mentality and Asha, correct? If I'm wrong, is a people business, right? So you need to be able to rely on those people to deliver those services to your clients. And having that client first approach, how do you balance a client first approach with a employee first approach? And I've just employee first approach is a renowned approach. I've sort of just coined that here. But how do you make those two things work?

So basically, we are, I would say it's, it's three things I would add also the technology to that. So, so so it's balancing customer approach with employee approach and with the approach of developing the technology competency in in the company. And we are actually trying to have a bit of each of those in the mix, having the having the right weights on what is currently needed, however, still thinking about the customer, because it's what brings the value right. So thinking about the customer and having the correct people in the correct roles, because that makes the people business much easier, and then bringing them joy with the with the technology development and also with the work they are delivering for the client. So we are always trying to be on the forefront of the technological knowledge, such that the people enjoy working for the clients, and when they enjoy their work, then they provide better results, and then it somehow nicely connects

all together.

I'll unpack that a little bit more, because I completely agree. I think, you know, Richard Branson always talked about you keep your employees happy and they'll keep your clients happy, but finding that balance is still really hard, right? And you need to try and what are the some of the ways you talk about technology as an enabler to that. How does technology help your team be able to focus on their clients as much as possible?

Well, it helps them. We try to automate anything we can, such that the people are doing really the work with high added value, I would say, work where they need to show some creativity, and the work which is interesting to them and the rest which can be automated, we always try. To automate by by the technology. And I believe it's not just IT or services business we can. I believe that it holds in other business fields as well. So automate what you can, such that the people do the interesting work, and also, since we are working in services business for many clients, we try to rotate people among the clients and the projects, such that they can learn something new. To me, it's all about learning and like keeping them happy in a way that they are still, still learning something new and working for a new client, in a new environment, in a new country, anything which keeps people interested in the in the work.

And presumably that extends into the way you bring people into your business as well, and recruitment.

Exactly, exactly. And so we are recruiting both from the universities, from the industry, experienced colleagues and so on. And one of our benefits, I would say, is that we are still keeping the the entrepreneurial spirit in the organization, even though it's more than 2000 people worldwide. So we are keeping that spirit, keeping fairness and bringing something unique to the people. And I believe that works.

Retaining that entrepreneurial spirit in a 2,000 person organization, that's no mean feat.

And with entrepreneurs sales and knowing that commercial side of things, because if you think about your history, strikes me as vastly intelligent. I still reckon you did a PhD.

Thank you.

But you've talked about your history. You know, software engineering by trade CEO now, so how does like the commercial and sales and marketing world fit within your structure as a CEO?

Well, when we started blind spot solutions, the consulting business, we I had to learn how to sell. So that was not my first sales gig. The first one was when I was actually selling as a part time job during the summer. I was studying computer science, and I was like, Okay, let's try to do something else over the summer. Let's get some sales experience. And friend of mine was working at Sparta. He was like, Okay, would you like to sell some advertisement to enterprise clients. And I was like, why not? Let's, let's give it a try. It was a lot of cold calling. Success rate very low. Actually. I learned a lot. I learned a ton. I didn't earn much money, actually, but I learned a lot. And that was the first time when I was actually put in front of the customers. Cold calling, very, in many cases, very unpleasant experiences, and in other cases, pleasant experiences. And then when we started our business, blind spot solutions, the CEO and CTO Andre and me, we were

the only ones who were selling from the very beginning for quite a long time. For five years, we didn't have any other sellers, so we had to somehow learn how to do that and and we learned the hard way why experiences trying this and that and so on. I wish I knew somebody who could help me in those days, like some some training or something like that. And later i i learned that there are concepts, ways how to organize sales, how to do it, how to improve individuals, how to improve the organizations. And most importantly, I learned that there is a way how to do it in a scalable way, working with you guys with SBR, so that helped me a lot to think about sales and how to organize it. Because, you know, I learned that there are some people who are rock stars. Nature born, maybe sellers. However, the whole thing is about how to scale that. And you just cannot find enough rock stars, right? You need to, you need to train the people who are talented yet don't have that super

ingredients, and it's absolutely possible. So that helped me a lot.

As someone who's obviously got an engineering background, I think it's probably a fair question to ask you about sales as a personal view from yourself, is sales an art or science?

I believe, I believe it's a science, and I believe you can get quite far with this scientific approach. However, if you want to be a superstar, I still believe there needs to be some part of talent so you can learn a lot, maybe to get to, let's say nine out of 10 ranking. However, if you want to be that 10 out of 10, then you need to have a bit of talent, and it's a bit of art.

Amazing. Yeah. What about you, Matt?

I agree with Stepan here. I think it's a blend of both the systematic approach, and I love that reflection of and there's nothing like being thrown in the deep end, right? Being a founder. Of a business and having to go out and sell. But I think recognizing that actually you can systematize and you talk about automation, is it key for how you help your your business grow now, like that's, you know, that's a great way to look at sales. And I think actually that's a thing that increasingly sales teams and sales organizations are looking at in terms of, okay, well, how do we cut because we're not always going to be able to increase our success rate, because the person on the other side of that conversation is still human. But what we can do is we can automate certain areas of the way that we the way that we carry out those tasks, so that we can do more of it, and, you know, and still get through but I think there needs to be that still needs there's still that,

as you say, that that little bit of talent, that little bit of art, sort of gets sprinkled over the top that helps convert. Stepan, let's take a pause right there, looking forward to seeing you again on part two of this conversation.