Mentors and Mentees - Artist of moving forward.

Mentors and Mentees
Artist of moving forward.

Mrs. Vera Gergely Novák built up a large and successful company from nothing, and not just once. Whatever happened she always looked ahead and there were always a ’B’ and ’C’ plan in her mind. She was very disappointed when her business partner after a collaboration of ten years her dispossessed, but she could stand up from this stroke. She hardly could do it without her husband’s help who closed his architect’s office for 3 months 19 years ago in order to help her in realizing her plans. Today her business has already been after a successful generation change and Vera is looking forward to new challenges.

You have become salesman from architect. Did you ever want to become an entrepreneur?

On the contrary, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. As the question reveals, I was originally an architect. Back then, in the 80’s at the company where I used to work had offered external servide opportunity however arranging the papers took so long time that our first child was born in the meantime. However, we persisted to our original goals. My husband being also architect got a possibility to work in Algeria on big investments financed by the Hungarian Government, so we went there. In the meantime, during our Algerian staying our second children was also born.

It would be so boring for me not doing any useful in Algeria. So, I started to arrange different kind of things for everybody being around me. First of all, I started to procure different goods for our Arab friends because in Algeria the deficit economy "worked better" than in Hungary. My business was getting bigger and bigger, actually I started trading.

Later I have realized that the Hungarian Government expects from the employers working on external service to bring into Hungary goods, for example from Vienna computer’s parts having on COCOM-list. I took them and sold on.

The business was getting better, and I was enjoying it more and more. Then, after five years, in 1985, we came home. Our third child was also born, and after a while I wanted to go back to work. My old company was not welcomed me, partly because we were living quite well by then. There weren't too many job opportunities at the company then. They said if I wanted to work, bring work with me to the company. That's when I decided to become self-employed namely entrepreneurs.

In your profession or in the trade did you imagine yourself as self-employed?

At that time there was no opportunity in the architecture to become independent. But I had no other knowledge. After some thought, I decided to open a boutique not needing much expertise. I bought clothes and sold them in my boutique. However, I didn't like the models I bought so I created my own sewing workshop. Then came the idea, if I already have a sewing workshop, why do not sell our own sewn clothes to other boutiques and shops.

Why did you stop this?

One thing bothers me if I'm not good enough at something. But I was not particularly good at the fashion trade, because it was a profession I did not know. Therefore, this adventure only lasted a few years.

I had a friend from whom I rented a shop. He suggested to do something together. He had very good contacts, but he had never done business. We found that we would be dealing with catering. We very consciously founded a Viennese donut bakery plant. At that time, one bakery has been already working in Pest, but we thought that two could also work. The problem was that the donut baking was a night activity and we, as mothers of children, could not supervise the night baking. So, after a while, we decided to finish it.

What's next? - we asked ourselves. At an auction we bought a retail space in the Rákóczi Square market. At least we thought to buy it. It was only afterwards that it became clear that we did not buy the property, but only the rental right, and that we could do anything else but open up a vegetable shop. There was no way to sell the rental right within a year, we didn't want to be grocery for overnight stays, because the procurement takes place at night and dawn in the wholesale market. We thought a lot how to solve this situation. We decided to deal with so-called "spice and colonial" trade. We have asked permission from the Market Directorate to expand our activities to this field. We got the permit and the business started. I would say we created the predecessor of today's bio-store.

But you didn't stop here.

The goods were mainly purchased from wholesalers. Not only we had a lot of problems with them, but thanks to God also others. So, one day we had the idea to set up our own wholesale. We started in a cellar of 53 square meter, but within a relatively short time, we had a cellar of 360 square meter as warehouse. The business was so successful that we decided to build our own warehouse. It was already 1,500 square meters ... By then, we owned four businesses: one for import, one for production, one for wholesaler and one for marketing.

By then, there were problems between me and my business partner being otherwise lawyer. I raised the question what if we would stop working together after 10 years and sharing our companies and assets. He was so offended by this that he completely disposed me financially with skilful manoeuvres, even taking the property as well.

It is not easy to survive such a situation.

It was not. I got sick of this. Companies and real estate were worth about one billion forints at that time. My husband, however, was with me and he encouraged me to start again. He even offered to close his architectural office for three months and help my new start with his full force. He has been doing this for 19 years and has been working in our business since then.

I "shook" myself and I rented a 250 square meter warehouse and we set off. Of course, this was also a wholesale for bioproducts. It's been about six months when I decided to take a big step instead of staying in one place. I moved in: I rented a space of 1500 square meters. I have seven businesses today, and I'm not lamenting on the past.

3 years ago, we decided to start retail business as well: At the end of this process, we plan to establish a franchise network of 50 stores, including 10 own units. Due to labour shortages, we are moving a little slower as planned, but we have already opened four of our own stores. Last year, I gave control to two of my children in companies. Although four of us are managing directors, the actual leadership is in the hands of the kids. For example, after a month, I consciously left management meetings to avoid interfering in leadership decision-making.

It's a bit like giving your fourth child to someone. Was it difficult to make the decision to step back?

It was a very difficult decision, but I think we were forward-looking because we used the help of an external expert to prepare us for the changeover. By the way, I applied for a SEED mentorship program as a generation change mentor, and then the situation developed differently.

You have also participated in MENTOR-NET, the former SEED Foundation Mentoring Program. What experiences did you get there?

The idea seemed to be very good: Experienced entrepreneurs are helping the less experienced ones. I had two mentees and none of them were striving strongly for increasing price income. One of them first wanted to decide if he was a true entrepreneur. Not because he was so insecure, but because he also wanted to be a politician. He was a typical entrepreneur, by the way, and I confirmed that. So, the decision was made. My other mentee worked for a large multinational company, but the company withdrew from it and then he decided to become an independent entrepreneur. She was a smart, clever woman, she joined a franchise store network, but she felt she was more than that. She wanted to know how to move on. My answer was simple: open eight other stores by focusing only on management.

How much did you think about joining when you learned the launch of the Personal Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program?

The truth is that I'm still looking for my place after the change of generation. I am hardly working, but I am still lacking the intensive entrepreneurial activity.  Of course, I have been doing something else since then, such as organizing two bridge clubs, dealing with travel organization and with many other things as well. I would like to work for a very long time. So, this program has been good to me. There was no question for me that I wanted to deal with the maximum number of mentors, which means three entrepreneurs in this program.

 Károly Bognár