User:INZ60325/sandbox/Aleksander M.C. Ruzicka

Aleksander M.C. Ruzicka

Aleksander Ruzicka (Czech: Aleksander Maria Clemens Ružička, born 13.12.1960 in Alzey, Rheinhessen, Germany) is a German entrepreneur and one of the key players in the communications industry.

Table of Contents

1 Life

2 Professional career

3 Private life

4 Engagements, awards honors

5 Literature

6 Web links

7 Single Signs

Life

Aleksander Ruzicka is the son of the artist Franz Ružička  and the medical doctor Erica M. Ružička born as v. Hesselbach. His ancestors include Russians, Czechs, Austrians, Saxons and Hesse. Over the last few centuries, the family tribe has repeatedly produced prominent figures in various disciplines. In the course of the resettlement of the family from Saint Petersburg to Wiesbaden his father was born near Karlovy Vary in Bohemia. His mother came from an old Hessian / Saxon family, which was already documented before the Thirty Years' War.

The family lived in Wiesbaden, Rheinhessen and southern France , where Ruzicka grew up before starting his schools in Rheinhessen, which he completed in 1984 with the completion of his studies and diploma. Subsequent studies, among others at the Harvard Business School / MBA.

While the family lived at locations in Germany and France, Ruzicka began his professional career in 1984 at HMS Mediaservice, the leading media agency in Germany at that time, which was founded by Heinrich Kernebeck with a partner in 1972.

In addition to his work for HMS - today known as Dentsu Aegis Network, Ruzicka has been successfully developing its own business models and companies in Germany and internationally since 1989.

Ruzicka has been one of the key players in the communications industry since the 1990s, and since the separation from Aegis Group plc, he has been one of the few managers who know not only the internals of media agencies, their innermost commercialization models and business practices, but also the juridical Classification of these strategies and their succesfull implementation.

The fact that Ruzicka is not scared by conflicting situations, he has proved. When both, state institutions and Aegis Media CE&A were unable to substantiate their allegations in spite of all possibilities as an international corporation, Ruzicka resisted the pressure and refused to make false statements.

Aleksander Ruzicka now uses such experience as a means of attacking the communications industry and tackling such issues in an offensive manner, which the responsible industry associations and their board members deliberately avoid.

Professional career

Aleksander Ruzicka started as an assistant to the management at HMS Media Service GmbH. He was soon assigned customer and personnel responsibility, and in 1989 he became a member of the management board. With the sale of HMS MediaService GmbH to the Carat Group in 1989, Ruzicka served in various management positions in Germany and abroad and was promoted to the Group Managing Director of Germany in 1995 and to the Chief Operating Officer (COO) Central Europe in 1998.

Following the appointment of Doug Flynn as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Aegis Group plc London, Aleksander Ruzicka was appointed CEO of Aegis Media Central Europe in 1999 and decisively led the transformation from a patriarchically managed medium-sized company into a substantial backbone of an international communications group.

As of 1999, Aleksander Ruzicka was also a member of GLOBAL EXEC AEGIS plc, headquartered in London, and responsible for Central Europe and Africa. He was also responsible for the global product development. In addition, he was a member of the worldwide Risk Committee, which has developed and introduced pioneering corporate governance guidelines in the area of ​​media agencies.

Aleksander Ruzicka opened the African market for Aegis in 2001 and was appointed Deputy CEO for the Middle East and Africa region of EMEA in 2004.

After the company was stagnating until 1998 and abandoning a large number of customers, Aleksander Ruzicka managed to reverse this development and regain market leadership.

In the period from 1999 to 2006, Aleksander Ruzicka was able to increase the result by nearly 600%, to the most recent 69 million euros PBT in 2006 and a share of the total result of the Aegis Group plc of approximately 40%.

The fact that Aleksander Ruzicka has successfully developed and implemented a variety of strategies - despite some resistance - has brought him recognition and disgrace. He was called "Enfant terrible" of the industry due to the innovative approaches, regarded as one of the 99 most powerful people in Germany, but also as the "golden boy" of the top CEO, since he was a reliable guarantor for the company's target achievement.

After a management buy-out could not be completed, and Aleksander Ruzicka had fallen into disgrace with the CEO EMEA, a Frankfurt attorney, who had previously also personally looked after Aleksander Ruzicka as well as by the then CFO of the Aegis Media Central Services GmbH a criminal complaint, declared as 'anonymous', reimbursed. For the initiators of the criminal complaint, this initially led to a clear promotion of their respective professional careers.

This was followed by an unprecedented pre-judgment by almost all relevant national and many international media and other market participants.

In the course of the review, it became evident that the initiators of the criminal complaint had themselves known more about the procedures relevant to the process for years and actively implemented them than was initially claimed. In a criminal case unparalleled, the allegations from the original criminal complaint, as well as the resulting accusations of the public prosecutor's office, were, to a large extent, weakened in 68 trials but nevertheless pronounced a condemnation on the grounds of alien disloyalty. Aleksander Ruzicka was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of eleven years and three months. This too is an unprecedented process in the younger German legal history.

Although from the point of view of the outside, the findings of this sentence were already disproved in the criminal case, it took another six years and various civilian court cases. It was only in 2016 that a civil court ruled that the assumptions made in the criminal court could not have existed or could exist at any time, and that any damage actually done or a threat of damage could not be proved at any time.

Already during his imprisonment Aleksander Ruzicka systematically worked on the processing of the relevant procedural questions. Carat's own customer Danone,   and  the company Haribo  defeated the former partner of Carat, Mediaplus. The former Europaminister Hoff and his partner Reinhard Zoffel defeated the Aegis / Carat Allegations with support of Ruzicka.

Although Aegis continued to produce massive accusations in view of the imminent release from prison of Ruzicka to prevent the conditions of detention, the related communication restrictions and possible premature release, interest in Ruzicka's expertise in the market was great, and so various publications engaged in the endeavor enlightenment and transparency.

Aegis raised further accusations against Ruzicka from this situation, probably also to prevent a claim against Aegis about the implementation of the settlement agreement made by Aegis in favor of Ruzicka.

In a no less sensational process, RA Sören Gemmerich, as the criminal defense officer responsible since 2012, has shown the previous deficiencies in the reconnaissance by the state prosecutor. Ruzicka was then released from the same criminal chamber, which had once condemned him after only 14 days of trial. The revision, which was subsequently made by the prosecutor's office, was withdrawn on the order of the prosecutor's office due to the lack of success being obvious.

Ruzicka, along with his legal advisers, Paule & Partner, was also able to prevail against Carat and Aegis before a civil court, when Aegis´s claim against Ruzicka was dismissed.

As a consequence, Aegis then declared to the court in 2016 that the claims which had been claimed against Ruzicka were settled, the initiator of the criminal complaint was terminated without notice by Aegis.

Unlike all the co-defendants, Ruzicka never contemplated or concluded a deal with the judiciary. He instead - on behalf of the entire branch of media agencies - proceeded with the judicially clarification of the issues which were not completed in the years 1970, 1973 and 1993 finally.

With the judicial clarification initiated and operated by him, a reliable and legally sound clarification of the business model of media agencies as a Service-business was achieved for the first time in Germany and thus brought transparency into an industry which until then was operated as a "black box".

For Aleksander Ruzicka, his struggle finally resulted in an activity for the European Institute of Media Law and the Bavarian State Media Institute, as well as the establishment of a service offering based on this.

Although these Basics could be created, it appears that neither the OMG e.V. organization of the media agencies, which Aleksander Ruzicka supported for many years substantially since its foundation , as well as the organization advertisers in the Markenverband (OWM) today has an interest in further creating transparency.

Since medium-sized advertisers who have neither the dominant budgets nor the corresponding appraisal of their interests in the OWM can be disadvantaged by this, Aleksander Ruzicka has since 2012, with INZIDE, placed an offer of services in the market which allows advertisers to compensate the lack of information of the associations by accessing exclusive detail knowledge and information and thus to realize substantial advantages for themselves.

The initiatives of INZIDE and Ruzicka are taken up nationally and internationally and supported by a worldwide network.

For example, the work of this group has recently published the erroneous accounting of the Dentsu Group concerning many years and many customers. The CEO of Dentsu Inc. has assumed personal responsibility and has resigned, as well as other known circumstances.

For the formerly significant location in Wiesbaden, where the Group's Central Europe and Africa were consolidated and managed, the collapse of the business not only resulted in the loss of tax revenues, but also the loss of 500 jobs.

Private Life

Aleksander Ruzicka lives in a relationship with Thomas Ruzicka born Sauer since 1988. Both have been married since 2004 and live in Germany and South Africa.

The family is engaged intensively in various social projects. Ruzicka is the founder of Carat Kinder und Jugendhilfe and both are members of the Nelson Mandela Childrens Fund.

For the city of Wiesbaden, the Ruzicka family, together with Reinhard Zoffel, have decisively developed the "Ball of wine" and supported the "Ball of Sport". The initiative of the former Prime Minister Roland Koch to support the work of the current Dalai Lama has been supported by the family over many years.

Engagements, awards and honors

Aleksander Ruzicka was a member of the German Bundeswehr and completed the military service in 1980/1981. He has been a member of the MAD reserve since 1981. In June of the same year, the Federal Minister of Defense, Hans Apel, awarded him the honorary medal of the Bundeswehr, for the exemplary fulfillment of the soldiers' duties.

Aleksander Ruzicka traditionally has close ties with the Czech Republic. Since 2004 he has been a guest professor at the University of Economics Prague.

Ruzicka was also a member of Commerzbank's Economic Advisory Board in Hesse and member of the Board of Trustees of the WWF

Already in 2005, Aleksander Ruzicka has been involved in the "Trade Fair & Congress for Digital Marketing", which was then known as OMD. Today, under the demographic label Demexco Messe, it has become the world's leading business and innovation platform for the digital economy.

Ruzicka is also involved in the promotion of young talent and shares his experiences with newcomers and start-ups.

Literature

The Aegis scandal was also literally processed with the central person Ruzicka, although much more was added to it from design freedom.