The CEO of Plzeň 2015 will step down, a successor will be sought

Plzeň - The director of the company Plzeň 2015, Tomáš Froyda, will resign from his position. He wants to continue only as the director of the Alpha Theater. Froyda announced his decision today to the board of the company; a selection process will be launched for his position around mid-December. Froyda will lead the company until a successor is found. His two-month notice period will officially start on December 1. This was reported to ČTK by Froyda and the chairwoman of the board, Marcela Krejsová.
     "I want to focus solely on the theater. I don’t want to leave the project in a way that negatively affects the team's work; rather, I want to hand everything over continuously to my successor," he stated. He denied that the main reason for his decision was that the project is currently struggling with a lack of funds. Froyda told ČTK that he also considered family reasons and stated that he "feels fundamentally like a theater person."
     The company Plzeň 2015 is preparing the West Bohemian metropolis for the European Capital of Culture in 2015. The project is currently threatened by a lack of funds; it has secured around 20 million euros (approximately 750 million Czech korunas), but according to Froyda, an additional 300 million korunas would be optimal and necessary. "When I joined the project, I knew that there wasn't much money compared to what was declared in the application," he stated. However, Froyda believes that not all options have yet been exhausted.
     "I am convinced that the director who emerges from the competition should lead the entire project until 2015," said the mayor of Plzeň, Martin Baxa, to ČTK. His deputy, Eva Herinková, acknowledged that the city might also directly approach suitable individuals for the vacant position.
     According to Baxa, the city will seek European funds; however, he finds it unfortunate that the old and new programming periods are now overlapping. "So far, the share of funds from the Plzeň Region is also exceptionally low; it currently stands at single digits, which means single millions," Baxa stated. To encourage the city to seek resources elsewhere, he recommended that its representatives examine the monitoring committee that took place in mid-November in Brussels. However, according to Baxa, the lack of funds was not the main criticism; the project's reserves lie in the area of communication, particularly in engaging citizens.
     Froyda has been the director of Plzeň 2015 since last November. He succeeded Milan Svoboda, who had been involved in the project from the beginning and helped the city win the title, after which he left at his own request. This is not the first change in high positions within the company. Last year, Yvona Kreuzmannová, former artistic director of the project, left the team on bad terms. It was Froyda who suggested that her contract not be renewed. Actor Petr Forman took her place.