O TS

PhDr. Tomáš Sedláček, Ph.D.

Tomas Sedlacek gained international fame for his award-winning, bestselling book Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street (Oxford University Press, 2011), which was translated into 22 languages and received the prestigious German "Wirtschaftsbuchpreis" at Frankfurt Book Fair for its original philosophical contribution to economics. In Switzerland, he was listed among the top 100 influential global thinkers (Top 100 Thought Leaders, GDI). For 16 years, he was the Chief Macroeconomic Strategist at CSOB, the largest Czech bank. For over a decade, he served under various Prime Ministers in the National Economic Council of the Czech Government (NERV), spoke at WEF Davos and was a part of Barroso's New Narrative for Europe. He is currently the Director of the Václav Havel Presidential Library think tank.

Detailed

Born in 1977 in Prague, Czech Republic, Sedlacek grew up partially in Prague, Czechoslovakia and Helsinki, Finland (1981-1986) - having the rare view of the Iron Curtain from both sides. At the age of 12, he participated in the 1989 Velvet Revolution alongside his parents. Later, he lived and was educated in Copenhagen, Denmark (1994-1999).

During his studies at Charles University, Throughout all this, he was active in academic circles, both writing and teaching at universities worldwide. He wrote a number of case studies with Harvard University and Georgetown University and published weekly columns in major economic newspapers, which were later published in a book trilogy, Second Derivative of Desire. After his work at the Ministry of Finance, he received a fellowship at Yale University as a Yale World Fellow in 2006; during this time, Yale Economic Review ranked him among the Five Hot Young Guns in Economics.

Before he worked for President Václav Havel, he served as a teaching assistant to the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, co-teaching Ethics and Economics, Institutional Economics, and the History of Economic Thought. He was the Executive Assistant to the Board of The Leadership Forum, a corporation established between Georgetown University and Charles University, initiated by Václav Havel in 1990. This was a gathering of businesspeople striving for excellence in leadership through post-communist transformation and advocating for business ethics. Prior to this, he established a student debate organisation Economics Club (e-club), which hosted prime ministers and governors of the Czech National Bank and various global economists (Prof. Stiglitz, Paul Valker).

At the age of 24, shortly after his cum laude graduation, Sedlacek became an economic advisor (2001-2003) to Václav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic. Here he was responsible for euro adoption at, Prague Securities Commission, flood relief and relations with the Czech National Bank. After Havel's departure from office, together with Václav Havel and his wife Dagmar, he established the Vaclav Havel Presidential Library - a US-inspired think tank - in the summer of 2003.

He toured the Czech Republic with a pro-EU message before the 2003 extremely positive EU accession referendum.

To secure a front row seat to witness the EU accession (May 2004), he served as a non-political economic advisor to the Minister of Finance and deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. He was responsible for fiscal reform, pensions and health care reforms and number of tax reforms (VAT, personal income tax and corporate tax) and paid close attention to EU accession finalization. He was responsible for negotiations with the World Bank and OECD. He toured the world on a roadshow for the extremely successful inaugural Czech eurobond emission (1,5 billion euros). During this time, he cooperated with Europeum think tank.

Upon returning from Yale, he worked as a Chief Macroeconomic Strategist at a major Czech bank, CSOB, for sixteen years. Innitated by the financial crisis in 2008, he became a founding and long-term member of the National Economic Council, an advisory body to the Government of Czech Republic (NERV) and became its unofficial coordinator and spokesperson) responsible for Global Financial Crisis management, fiscal reforms and later Covid relief.

His book was turned into a theatre play with LisToVani and he again toured the Bohemain lands (2008-2010) with this interactive 3-person, 2 hour performance, in which he himself acted. the show gained international traction and was performed in London, Berlin, Bucharest, Bath, and Helsinky and other cities.

Global thinker and speaker

Tomas Sedlacek has spoken at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on several occasions (20010, 2011) and has become a member of the Program Council for New Economic Thinking at WEF. He spoke at the Royal Academy of Arts, Google headquarters in NYC. For more see below. 

He was a member of an advisory body to EC president Barroso on New Narrative for Europe. He was sent on pro-democratic, transition-ready economic missions to Egypt, Kurdistan and Tunisia by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For many years, he taught at their Diplomatic Academy summer school, preparing future diplomats for their missions.

He became an internationally sought-after media commentator and an entertaining and engaging speaker (100+ keynotes with London Speakers Bureau), Tomas travelled the world to debate burning questions of current economics with glitch mirrors from the deepest mythological past, philosophies and beliefs which he likes to combine with a wide variety of other fields. He debated with Nasim Taleb, Dan Ariely, Deidre McCloskey, David Graeber, Markus Gabriel, Peter Sloterdijk, Timothy Garton Ash, Yanis Varoufakis,

Current activities

In 202, he established SpiritAcademy together with his wife Tanja and son Chriss - offering 3 hours long personal fire-side lectures for professionals based on LinkedIn. The year 2024 he spent together with his son Chris igniting love and curiousity for Math&Economics in 1000+ children (6-18) around the country under their #Father&Son programme.

Due to high spontaneous demand, he is taught eight evening semesters of "MetaMorphosis of Body, Soul and Spirit of Economics" - each semester comprising of 10 lectures 3 hours each. Here he offers his original take on reuniting economics with the rest of the humanities.

He is currently finishing 4 books:
- Metamorphosis of Body, Soul and Spirit of Economics,
- Job of God,
- Lilith and the Demons of Capital and
- Spirit of Europe.

Personal

He is married to Tanja,  German-Swiss strategy consulant and has two children, Chris (18) and Europa (3). They live in the heart of Prague and Tanja frequents Zurich and Norimberk. 

Keywords: business, governance, economics, philosophy, spirit of Europe, crisis, psychology, history of economic thought and Western culture, popular culture, mythology, movies, art, anthropology, theology, faith and science, methodology, post communist transformation, Václav Havel, fiscal policy, euro, debt trap, digitalization, future of Capitalism.

Topics/lectures:

BUSINESS: Google, New York (2012, Workshops 2018, 2019), KBC Global Finance Management Forum, Brussels (2014); National Bank Correspondent Network, Toronto (2014); Future of Banking Conference, Rotterdam (2014); Global Alliance for Banking on Values, Berlin (2013); Deutsche Bahn AG, Postdam (2013); SAS Institute annual EMEA Leadership Series 2013, Amsterdam (2013); Markant Annual Congress, France (2013 and 2022); National Bank Correspondent Network, Toronto (2013); Coface, country risk conference (2017,2018), Microsoft Envision (2020) Deutsche Telecon Global (2021), Blue Orchard Impact Summit St. Moritz (2022), Capgemini, Paris (2022), T-mobile (2025), KPMG (2008, 2012, 2023), Erste (2020, 2022, 2025), etc.

All in all Tomas does over 30 high-level (global CEO and CFO) business strategy lectures for corporate clients.

FINANCE: World Economic Forum in Davos (2012) and Dubai (2014); European Central Bank, Frankfurt (2014); CFA Institute, Seattle (2014), Netherlands (2013); Frankfurt Main Finance – Frankfurt Finance Summit (2014); European Economic Congress, Poland (2012); Conference for APN, Paris (2014); European Banking Conference, Frankfurt (2012); Finethikon - Congress on Finance Ethics, Zürich (2012); Institute Economy of the Future, Frankfurt (2014); The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Conference, Königstein (2014), Sustainable Finance Forum Luxemburg (2018), Singapore Sustainability Symposium (2018),

EUROPEAN UNION: New Narrative for Europe, Brussels (2013 – present); "Promise of the EU", European Commission, Rome (2014); Forum Evropejskie, Warsaw (2012); "40 UNDER 40" - European Young Leaders, Brussels, Rome (2014); Lecture for European Commission, Bratislava, Budapest (2014); Brussels European commission Culture Forum, Brussels (2013); Forum on "Culture & Development" New Narrative, Lisbon (2015); First General Assembly on Culture and Thinking on Europe in Poland, Warsaw (2013), Friends of Europe - State of Europe roundtable, Brussels (2013)

ACADEMIC: Post-Keynesian Conference in Aalborg (2014); The State of Joy - Yale Center for Faith & Culture, New Haven (2014); Yale World Fellows Program, Forum, New Haven (2013); Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Zürich (2013, 2015, 2017); Amsterdam Academic Conference, VU University Amsterdam (2013); lecture for Columbia University and Center for Economic Governance, New York (2013); St. Gallen Symposium, Switzerland (2012); Van der Leeuw Lecture, Groningen (2014); lecture for UniCredit CEE Student Circle, Vienna University of Economics and Business (2013); Economics and Business student Faculty association Conference, University of Groningen (2014); Academic Schuman Lecture, Maastricht University (2014); lecture for Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands (2014), London School of Economincs, London (2017), University of Northern Colorado (2018), Kozminsky University (2018), University of Konstanz (2018), University of Nebraska (2018), Fribourg University Integral Economics Module (2022-2023), Anadolu Üniversitesi (2022), Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia (2022).

Tomas is newly a 2025 Institute for Human Scinences Vienna (IWM) fellow.

THEOLOGY: Theology of Joy, Yale divinity center, "Impossibility of Joy", USA (2014, 2018); "Market, ethics and religion" symposium, Copenhagen (2014); ICF, Zurich (2012); ICF Mittelland, Zurich (2013); The Congress for Christian Leaders, Gideons, Suhl (2014); Italian Philanthropy Forum - Wealth against poverty, Rome (2013); European Christian Political Foundation Congress, Brussels (2012); German Protestant Kirchentag, Hamburg (2013); Theological conference "Towards a Christian Ethic in contemporary Europe", Paris (2014); Interdisciplinary Conference "Economic Theology, Theological Economics", Rome (2014); Christliches forum, Bern (2014); Kongress christlicher Führungskräfte, Hamburg (2014); Conference "Leading with Values", Austria (2013), New York Q Cities, USA (2013), University of Asheville (2020)
Cambridge Leaders Apologetics, Norhter Virginia lecture, Wheaton stay, Templeton Foundation, Polish Vatican conference, government initiative "reconciling religion"

POLITICS: National Economic Council; Forum 2000 conference, Prague (2010 - 2020); OECD, Paris ; NATO Post 2014, Brussels; European Forum Alpbach, Austria (2012 - present); The State of Europe Forum, Dublin (2013), Zurich Economic Impulse (2017), WHO - The Ministreal Conference, Estonia Talin (2018), CEE forum with Ivan Krastev, Bratislava (2017), Progressive Slovakia, Žilina (2018)

PHILOSOPHY: Dutch Philosophy Night, Amsterdam (2013); The Day of Philosophy, Tilburg (2013); Philosophy Festival DRIFT, Amsterdam (2014); Festival der Philosophie, Hannover (2012); Alpbach Talks, Vienna (2012); International Economic Forum: Les Rencontres Economiques d'Aix-en-Provence, France (2013), Schloss Elmau, Germany (2013), Club of Rome, Zürich (2013), CEE Forum (2017, debate with Prof. Stiglitz 2022), European Festival of Philosophy, Velké Meziřící (2008-2023)

LITERATURE: European Literature Night III, London (2011); Internationales Literaturfest lit.COLOGNE, Germany (2012 – present); Slovenian Book Fair, Ljubljana (2014); Prague Writers Festival, Prague (2013); Leipzig Book Fair (2015); Literaturhaus Zürich, Zürich (2012); Book Fair Frankfurt (2012); Mind the Book, Antwerp (2013); The Literary Festival, Ascona (2013); Big Book Festival, Warszaw (2014), Frankfurt Bookfair (2022).

ART: Katz Contemporary, Zürich (2013); BOZAR, Brussels (2014); GLOBArt Academy, Krems (2012); Project "Rich and poor" at Schauspielhaus, Zürich (2013), Slot Art Festival, Poland (2012); What Would Thomas Bernhard Do, Kunsthalle Wien (2013); Royal Society of Arts, London (2011); Hacking Habitat – Art of Control, Utrecht (2015); Debate in 3 Acts – "Bridging the Divide: Arts, Economics and Irrational", Museum for modern art, Vienna (2014), Open Eyes Economy and Art Summit (2018)

MEDIA: published over 580 articles in leading Czech economic daily, contributed to Handelsblatt, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Swiss TV Sternstunde Philsophie, Die Furche, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Schweizer Monat

INTERNET AND DIGITALIZATION: Into the Digital for Avast, Prague (2015); ZURICH.MINDS, Zürich (2012); d.day, currents of the digital age, Berlin (2014), Week of Innovation (20021,2022, 2023,2024, 2025).

PSYCHOLOGY: World Psychology Forum, Prague (2015); Lectures and seminars for Psychology magazine, Prague.

Books and publications

Sedláček, T. Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. (translated into 21 languages)

Sedláček, T., Orrell, D. a Chlupatý, R. The Dusk of Homo Economicus. Prague: 65. pole, 2012. (translated into German, French, Polish)

Sedláček, T., Graeber, D. a Chlupatý, R. (R)evolutionary Economy: Of systems and men. Prague: 65. pole, 2013. (translated into German)

Sedláček, T., Tanzer, O. Lilith and the Demons of the Capital – The Economy on Freud's Couch. Munich: Hanser, 2015.

Sedláček, T. 2036: jak budeme žít za 20 let? Praha: 65. Pole, 2018

Sedláček, T. Druhá derivace touhy – Člověk duše-vnější, Nakladatelství 65. Pole, 2018

Sedláček, T. Druhá derivace touhy – Na prahu digitální teologie, Nakladatelství 65. Pole, 2020

co-author:

Sedláček, T. Der Glaube versetzt Sterne. In: Newmark, C (ed.) Viel zu lernen du noch hast: Star Wars und die Philosophie. Germany: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2016.

Sedláček, T. Good, Evil, and Economic Practice. In: DeMartino, G., McCloskey, D. et al. Oxford Handbook on Professional Ethics for Economists. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Sedláček, T. Need for greed: The origins of human economics and value. In: Lovelock, J. et al. The Earth and I. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2016.

Sedláček, T. Tomáš Sedláček im Interview mit Falter Redakteur: Der blinde Glaube ans Wachstum. Über den Schuldenkick und matematische Pseudo-Sicherheit. In: Die Krise und das Gute Leben. Tagungsband zum Symposion Dürnstein 2014. Krems, Austria: Donau-Universität, 2015.

Sedláček, T. "Homo Oeconomicus vs. Animal Spirits." One is an extreme of "god-like" rationality, the other its exact opposite. Both are economic terms. Where does economy stand? In: Wie viel Vernunft braucht der Mensch? Texte zum 3. Festival der Philosophie. Berlin, Germany: LIT Verlag, 2015.

Sedláček, T. Es ist sehr naiv anzunehmen, dass die Sonne jeden Tag scheinen wird. Interview mit Tomáš Sedláček. In: GELD. Jenseits von Gut und Böse. Lenzburg, Switzerland: Stapferhaus Lenzburg, 2014.

Sedláček, T. Europe - Hiden in Plain Sight. In: The Mind and Body of Europe: A New Narrative. Brussel: European Union, 2014, EUNarrative.

Sedláček, T. Economics of Good and Evil: Theaterstück (Auszug). In: Macho, T. et al. Bonds: Schuld, Schulden und andere Verbindlichkeiten. Paderborn: Fink, Wilhelm, 2013.

Bučková, Veronika ed. Ekonomika pro střední školy. Brno, Czech Republic: Didaktis, 2013.

Sedláček, T. Decadentie, weelde en het onvermogen in beweging tek omen. In: Skidelsky, R. et al. Nexus 64 - Luxe en Verval. Netherlands: Nexus Institute, 2013.

Sedláček, T., Welby, J. et al. Podiumsdiskussion II (Schlusspodium). In: Weber-Berg, Ch. et al. Finethikon: Jahrbuch zum dritten Finanzethik-Kongress. Stuttgart, Germany: Steinbeis-Edition, 2013.

Sedláček, T. Shopping, hopping, or hoping for growth? In: Liesmann, K. P. et al. …Und Schopping Centre: das Lesebuch und Nachdenkbuch. Wien, Austria: Ekazent Immobilien-Management, 2012.

Sedláček, T. Role intelektu(ála) ve veřejném prostoru: Člověk jako přirozeně nepřirozený aneb nevědomé lži. In: Hlaváček, P. ed. Intelektuál ve veřejném prostoru: vzdělanost, společnost, politika. Prague, Czech Republic: Academia, 2012.

Sedláček, T. Diplomacie a ekonomika. In: Štucbartová, L. ed. Velvyslanci i bez diplomatického pasu: 21 rozhovorů nejen o kariéře s osobnostmi, které proslavily naši zemi v zahraničí. Prague, Czech Republic: Sociologické nakladatelství (SLON), 2011.

Sedláček, T. Small Differences – Images of American and European Culture. In: Fischer, P. et al. Fixed Star America: Ideal and Illusion of Central Europe. Berlin, Germany: Bwv Berliner-Wissenschaft, Osteuropa, 2011.

Sedláček, T. Ekonomika. In: Havel, Ivan M. et al. Hlavou zeď 2011: úvahy nad civilizací a její budoucností. Prague, Czech Republic: Dybbuk, 2011.

Sedláček, T. Je krize skutečně u konce? Poučili jsme se z ní? In: Příčiny, důsledky a řešení finanční a ekonomické krize. Prague, Czech Republic: Newton College, a.s., 2009.

Sedláček, T. Transformation and the Impact of Ethics – a Case Study from the Area of Collective Investment. In: Mejstřík, M. ed. Cultivation of Financial Markets in the Czech Republic. Prague, Czech Republic: Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2005.

Sedláček, T. Of Spontaneous Creation of Moral Order. In: Kabele, J., Mlčoch, L., Pscheidt, S. eds. Konsolidace vládnutí a podnikání v České Republice a v Evropské unii. Prague, Czech Republic: Charles University, 2002.

Sedláček, T., Benáček, V., Kudrna, Z. Konkurenční schopnost české ekonomiky. In: Kabele, J., Mlčoch, L. eds. Institucionalizace (ne)odpovědnosti: globální svět, evropská integrace a české zájmy. 2, Proměna české společnosti. Prague, Czech Republic: Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2001.

Potůček, M. et al. Vize rozvoje České Republiky do roku 2015. Prague, Czech Republic: Gutenburg, 2001.