Focus on the Essentials, Accept Change, Stay Humble: Valuable Advice from the Speakers at TAL 2025

Tereza Čechová

Aimtec

17. 7. 2025

4 minutes reading

• Trends
• Automotive
• Trends in Automotive Logistics (TAL)

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“If you had to choose the one thing that’s helped you the most... what would it be?” At this year’s Trends in Automotive Logistics conference – with the tagline “Digital. Future-Proof?” – speakers shared their opinions on the most important lessons their professional journeys have taught them. In these logistics experts’ answers, you’ll find both values and practical tips – from daily decision-making to strategies for managing people and changes. Together they offer a diverse yet surprisingly consistent map for everyone who wants growth – professional or personal.

Mojmír BarákLogistics Systems CoordinatorŠkoda Auto

Mojmír Barák is currently the head of the Digital Delivery Center at ŠKODA AUTO Logistics, where his team works to accelerate the company’s digital transformation.

What do you see as the most important thing you’ve learned during your career?

It’s hard to define precisely one thing. It helps me personally the most when I request open feedback. Fortunately, I learned to do that right at the start of my career, when feedback was coming in nearly every week. It’s something in fact simple that sometimes slaps you around and other times warms your heart, but everything’s inside it. It lets you grow as a person – or think over your decisions with a newfound perspective. Simply clever.

Michal ŠtěrbaChief Executive OfficerGZ Media

Michal is the CEO and a board member at GZ Media, which is the world’s largest vinyl-record manufacturer. This company recently expanded into the USA and Canada.

What do you see as the most important thing you’ve learned during your career?

The road to success leads past obstacles, which need to be overcome, and not avoided. If you don’t see or want to see a problem, it’s still there, and sooner or later it will catch up to you.

Tobias MayrGeneral Manager IT Inbound LogisticsBMW Group

Tobias leads a global IT team for inbound logistics at all the plants of BMW Group, and he has a twenty-year career in IT roles across multiple continents behind him.

What do you see as the most important thing you’ve learned during your career?

You’ll be successful if you build a team of people open to new ideas, able to function in a trust-based environment. Because innovations receive financial support and acceptance only when they are quickly implemented and bring true added value – to both internal and external customers.

Tomáš BrotzAutomation Engineer for Automotive StandardsSiemens

Tomáš joined Siemens as an expert in the standardisation of industrial automation after more than twenty years of experience with global projects in automotive.

What do you see as the most important thing you’ve learned during your career?

I wouldn’t say there’s one most important thing that sticks out above all the rest. Key among them is the ability to adapt to change, to approach problems with an open mind while drawing on experience from every discipline, to set the right life priorities and to deal well with failures.

Václav KopeckýHead of Key Accounts – Czech RepublicSTILL Czech Republic

Václav leads the team of managers in charge of Key Accounts at STILL ČR and boasts over twenty years of experience in logistics. In recent years, besides conventional solutions, he has mainly focused on automation projects implemented across multiple market segments.

What do you see as the most important thing you’ve learned during your career?

Humility, decency, professionalism and respect. These are the basic values I go by. Alongside these basic pillars, I try to be as efficient as possible. To split tasks into high-priority vs. those that are less important, but do also need to be completed. I give the priority and key tasks 150% concentration and focus on them with maximum precision. The Pareto Principle says 20% of our efforts give 80% of our results and vice versa. In my experience that’s exactly how it is. Many people spend a large part of their capacities on work that has no real use or added value. So it’s vital to identify which activities are the top priorities and then apply our full potential to those.