Petr Kroča

Director Research, Innovation and Marketing
OLTIS Group, Czech Republic

Born in 1967, Analyst, Project Coordinator, Marketing Director, President of the IRFC/ERRIC Conferences and Director of Research and Innovation at OLTIS Group. Earned his Master’s degrees at the Transport University in Žilina, Slovakia, specialisation Operation and Economy of Railway Transport with focus on Informatics. Worked for Czechoslovak and Czech Railways and went through various positions: Station Dispatcher, IT Administrator, Chief-Analyst of freight IT systems and Head of IT teams. In 1993 co-founder of the company JERID (now part of OLTIS Group). Responsible for preparation, management and evaluation of projects focused on research and development of systems for European rail freight transport, particularly specialized on digital content, railway infrastructure and wagon monitoring. Coordinator of R&D projects in 7th Framework Programme and EUREKA. In 2009 awarded the prize EUREKA Innovation Days Award 2009 for the best European research project E! 3161 E-RAILMAP. In 2014 during InnoTrans, awarded the honour Golden Chariot as the Manager of the Year. Responsible for coordination of OLTIS Group involvement in the JTI Shift2Rail preparatory phase.