Michal Laco

He works with leadership teams to test new business ideas, develop business models, build investment cases and plan market entry. He also designs and runs innovation programs that turn employee ideas into new business opportunities. With startups and growth companies, he focuses on business development, go-to-market strategy, financial planning and fundraising.

Over 10 years in innovation consulting and startup acceleration, Michal has mentored more than 120 startups and companies and trained hundreds of entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. He co-founded Challenger Accelerator and led seven editions, supporting over 100 startups. He co-founded Climathon Bratislava, Slovakia’s largest hackathon focused on smart cities and sustainability, and led it for four years. He also co-organized five editions of Startup Awards Slovakia and developed and led programs for urban innovation and cleantech with EIT Urban Mobility and EIT Climate-KIC. He invests in startups as a business angel.

Teaching entrepreneurship is close to his heart. At the C.S. Lewis Lyceum, he designs and teaches the entrepreneurship curriculum, helping the next generation of founders and intrapreneurs get started.

Before co-founding Disruption Embassy, Michal was an Associate Partner at Civitta, an international consultancy founded in Estonia. He also co-founded Symmetric, a training company that has trained more than 10,000 professionals from over 500 pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide.

He holds a BSc in Economics from the University of St Andrews and an MSc from the London School of Economics.