Former Czech Minister of Education, Youth and Sports and a graduate of Charles University, Miroslava has a lifelong interest in competitiveness, education and development of human resources. 

After the Velvet Revolution, she completed internships at the European Commission, the OECD, a course on Effective Top Management – Henley Management College, UK, a study stay at the Field Institute in the USA, an intensive course on ESF in France, the Netherlands and Germany and an intensive course on EU policies and institutions at the European Centre for Public Administration. She worked as an analyst in the qualification department of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the State Commission for Scientific, Technical and Investment Development.

Since 1991, she has prepared and managed European education and employment programmes on a national level. In 1994, she became the first director of the National Training Fund. She participated in the formulation of decisive Human Resources Development policies by managing the most important programmes of European assistance to the Czech Republic in the field of education, employment, social policy and management. More recently, she has been working on human resources issues for Industry 4.0; Work 4.0; Mapping the innovation environment in the Czech Republic in the period of 2014+. She has represented the Czech Republic in a number of European institutions, such as the ETF, EFMD. She has worked as an EU expert in Kosovo, an expert at USAID, OECD LEED Committee and an external examiner for the MBA at Sheffield Hallam University, in the UK. She was 1st Vice-Chair of the Government Council for Human Resource Development.

Miroslava also deals with research management issues. For eight years, she was 1st Vice-Chair of the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovations. She led the preparation of the reform of the research system in the Czech Republic, managed the work on the National Policy on Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) and co-authored the Priorities of Applied Research of RDI, etc.

During her working life she has been an advisor to two Prime Ministers and for two periods she was Secretary General for the preparation and negotiation of Structural Funds documents with the EC.

She is the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Anglo-American University in Prague, a member of the governing bodies of the Prague University of Economics and Business,  Brno University of Technology and Pardubice University.

Miroslava became a Governor of the ECP in 2019.

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Zdeněk Tůma graduated from the University of Economics in Prague, completing his postgraduate studies at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of the 1990s, he participated in the reintroduction of Economics education at Charles University where he was appointed an Associate Professor. He continues to lecture at Charles University, specialising in central banking and financial regulation. He was Chief Economist at Patria Finance and in 1998, moved to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as a member of the Executive Board. In February 1999, Zdeněk was appointed Vice-Governor of the Czech National Bank and in December 2000, became Governor, serving in this position until 2010. He was a partner at KPMG Czech Republic from 2011-2019, focusing on consulting in the financial sector. He is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of ČSOB. He is also a member of the scientific and statutory boards of several universities and a member of the Czech Economic Society, of which he was President from 1999-2001.

After grammar school and university in Leeds and four years in Finland, Ann joined the Foreign Office.  She spent most of her diplomatic career on the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, serving at Embassies in Moscow (until expelled in 1971 in retaliation for the UK’s expulsion of 105 Russian spies), Helsinki and East Berlin, and on secondment to the Cabinet Office.  A long stint in Eastern European Department (non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries) straddled the events of 1989 and included the invention and early running of the Know-How Fund. She retired as Head of Cultural Relations at the FCO.

Ann is a Founder Governor of The English College in Prague, becoming Deputy Chairman and then Chairman of Governors in 2017.

Since retirement Ann has edited books on the EU’s relations with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and two books on the history of the English College. She is also a long-standing Trustee of The BEARR Trust, which supports health and welfare NGOs in the former countries of the Soviet Union.