The person behind
Experience and perspective
My professional path has been shaped by two complementary environments: Accenture and MSD. Across these organisations, I worked at the intersection of finance, portfolio management, governance, operating models and organisational change.
That work taught me that a strategy creates value only when the choices behind it are clear, resources are aligned, ownership is understood and progress is measured. An approved business case is an important decision point—but it is not the end of the value-creation journey.
At MSD, my responsibilities included stewardship of substantial technology budgets, alignment of investment with strategy, vendor and total-cost-of-ownership discipline, and support for portfolio and organisational performance decisions. I also led international teams and worked across complex stakeholder environments.
Earlier in my career at Accenture, I developed experience in large-scale transformation and in the financial and operational disciplines needed to make complex organisations work effectively. Together, these experiences gave me a broad view of how strategy, finance, governance and people need to connect.
I am applying this perspective to the business challenges facing biotech and life sciences organisations: how to prioritise, how to prepare for growth, how to strengthen operating capabilities and how to turn investment into measurable outcomes.
I bring a practical and collaborative style. My role is to ask the questions that help leaders see choices more clearly, challenge assumptions constructively and create a path from decisions to action.
“
Good strategy is not just about choosing where to invest. It is about creating the conditions for that investment to deliver value.
Irena Prášilová
What I bring
01 / CLARITY
Make the important choices visible.
Bring structure to complex decisions, competing priorities and investment trade-offs.
02 / ACCOUNTABILITY
Connect decisions with ownership.
Align governance, responsibilities and practical ways of working so teams can execute.
03 / VALUE
Focus on outcomes, not approvals.
Keep expected benefits, performance measures and realised value in the conversation.
Beyond my executive career
My professional life is not only about organisations, investment and transformation. Two other passions matter deeply to me: sharing knowledge with professional communities and helping people find their own answers as they navigate their careers.
01 / SPEAKING
Share knowledge and learn together.
I enjoy speaking at conferences and professional forums, sharing practical experience and lessons from portfolio decision-making, prioritisation, transformation and value realisation. The best conversations are two-way: they help audiences take away useful ideas while allowing all of us to learn from different perspectives.
02 / MENTORING
Help people make better decisions.
Mentoring gives people a supportive space to reflect, ask questions, explore options and learn from experience—without needing to have every answer from the start. My aim is to help people build confidence, judgement and ownership of their next steps.
03 / WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT
Make room for women to grow.
I especially value supporting women as they develop their voice, recognise their achievements, build stakeholder relationships and navigate career choices. I contribute to mentoring communities including Odyssey (Czech), Equilibrium by BCC and Together2Grow.
“I believe people grow when they have the space to think clearly, ask honest questions, learn safely and make decisions that feel genuinely their own.”
Executive experience
My previous roles involved large portfolios, substantial budgets and international teams. These figures describe the scale of my responsibilities in technology and corporate environments; they are not biotech-specific performance claims.
$300M
Technology investment portfolio managed
$200M
Annual operating expenditure stewardship
$100M
Annual capital expenditure stewardship
90
People in teams led
Experience includes leadership and transformation roles at MSD and Accenture. All figures and role descriptions should be checked against the final approved professional biography before publication.
Let’s connect
If you are building a biotech company, supporting a portfolio business or looking to strengthen the link between investment and outcomes, I would welcome a conversation.
Start a conversation ↗