Gábor Széles

Biography

Graduated from the Technical University of Budapest as an electrical engineer then continued his studies in the executive management programme of Harvard University. Until 1981 he worked at Eötvös Lóránd Geophysical Institute of Hungary as a science co-worker then as a head of department. His first enterprise – Műszertechnika – started in 1981. Currently the Műszertechnika Group consists of more than 20 companies. Its main profile covers industrial manufacturing and financial services, and it also owns a significant real estate portfolio. The falling of Videoton during the nineties was stopped by the privatisation led by Gábor Széles in 1991. As the President-CEO of Videoton he successfully reorganized the biggest company of the Hungarian electronic industry and developed new co-operations with the most significant multinational companies. Since September 1996 he has been the president of Ikarus Rt.
He was the president of the Confederation of Hungarian Industrialists from its foundation in 1990. With the merger of the Confederation of Hungarian Employers and the Confederation of Hungarian Industrialists he became the president of the Confederation of Hungarian Employers and Industrialists (CHEI). From 2008, he is an honorary president of this organization. The primary goal of CHEI is the representation of the interests of the private enterprises, the subservience of their productive participation and to ensure their intensive involvement during the transition to market economy.
In 2005 he founded a television company called ECHO Hungária. His media enterprise was expanded with “Magyar Hírlap” (a Hungarian national newspaper) in 2006.
His work was acknowledged with “Neumann János” award (1993) and with “Eötvös Lóránd” award (1994). In 1998 he won the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. In 2000 he received Presidential Gold Award and still in this year he became the “Freeman of Székesfehérvár”. In 2005 he won the MERCUR Award of HCCI (Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry). In 2006 he was honoured with the Knight Cross of the Order of Vitéz and the Grand Cross of the Knightly Order of Saint Gellért. In 2007 he received “Báthory” Award for his work on behalf of the transborder Hungarian higher education. In 2008 he received “Pesti srác” award from the World Federation of the ’56 Hungarians. In 2009 the “Független Újságírók Szövetsége” (Federation of Independent Journalists) awarded him with the Gold Grade of “Nemzeti Újságírásért” (For the National Journalism) honours for his sacrificing work in the field of national journalism.
For acknowledging his versatile work and public-life activity in the interest of founding a knowledge-based national economy, he received the Commander’s Cross with Star from the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2013. In 2014, he received the Gold Medal of the Hungarian Academy of Arts for his support of the national media, his public-life and community activities