Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency

The „Expat CEO of the Year" award honours the expat CEO chosen by the professional jury who is seen as having made the most important contribution to the development of the Hungarian economy and society, and who has carried out the most outstanding activity for the promotion of the Hungarian investment environment. This year to Erik Slooten, CEO of Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions Hungary was honoured to receive the award. He thanked business partners for their support, including HIPA, which he said:

The special accolade „HIPA Local Partnership Award" founded and granted by the Agency is also distributed during the event. It is to recognize a foreign company representative for his contribution to the economic development goals of HIPA and his efforts regarding the development of the company's suppliers network. In 2021 Nevijo Mance, Director of Engineering, Jaguar Land Rover Hungary has been selected to receive the honour for his efforts in establishing the Engineering Centre in Budapest and in integrating Hungarian suppliers into Jaguar Land Rover's supply chain, as well as for his participation in the Innovation Bootcamp program aiming to strengthen the position of the Hungarian automotive industry.

The main objective of Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA), official partner and co-organizer of the event, is to attract investors to Hungary, hand in hand with its genuine efforts to recommend high-quality Hungarian suppliers for those who are already present as investors in the country.

Róbert Ésik highlighted in his speech, HIPA noted that the past 18 months have been "extraordinarily challenging", adding that from an economic perspective there are promising signs of recovery, and offering HIPA's continued partnership to the company heads.