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Karolína Topolová celebrates ten years at the head of AURES, seeing turnover almost triple
Prague, 15 November 2022 - In autumn 2012, the General Meeting of AAA AUTO confirmed Karolína Topolová as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. With this change, the company began the steps leading to its later sale to Abris Capital Partners and the change of its name to AURES Holdings. Topolová was tere at the birth of the group's new strategy of significantly strengthening its customer orientation. The company modernized its branches and bet on the development of additional services and computerization. It successfully relaunched the Mototechna brand, which celebrates ten years of successful operation this year, and concentrated new car sales, its fastest growing segment, under this brand. These changes were followed in 2014 by the successful sale of a majority stake to AURES Holdings for a value in excess of CZK 6 billion. The biggest milestones in Topolova's successful tenure as Group CEO in recent years have been the rapid transition to online sales of used cars in the era of covid lockdowns and the expansion of the new Driverama brand in Germany. This year, under Topolová's leadership, AURES also celebrated 30 years of successful operation on the market.
"The longer you stay at the head of a big company, the more you can fall into the belief that nothing will surprise you. Three years ago, I could hardly have believed that I would have to guide the company through such major challenges as covid-19, the new car market crisis or the current energy crisis. After almost 25 years in business, it has presented me personally with new challenges and tasks. The fact that we have grown continuously in spite of everything and that our thirtieth year on the market will most likely be record-breaking again fills me with pride for the entire AURES team," said Karolína Topolová.
Topolová is the only woman at the head of a large automotive trading company in Central Europe. Under her leadership, AURES Holdings has already sold over 750,000 vehicles and the company has served approximately twice as many customers as before. During Topol's tenure, AURES has further strengthened its position as a leader in used car sales in Central and Eastern Europe. In ten years, the number of AAA AUTO, Mototechna, Auto Diskont, Driverama and Mototechna Drive car dealerships within the group has grown to 61. The number of vehicles offered within the group has risen to thirteen thousand. The number of employees increased to 3,100 from just under eighteen hundred. New call centres were also opened in Ostrava and Katowice, Poland.
Karolína Topolová has also been repeatedly selected by Forbes magazine as one of the most influential women in Czech business and this year was also included in the list of 22 inspirational TOP CEOs of 2022. In 2015, she was awarded the “Lady Pro” title. She has also been included many times in the prestigious TOP 25 Women in Czech Business list, being named Manager of the Year in 2020 after which she was entered the Hall of Fame in 2021. She was also ranked in the Top 10 Women in Slovak Business. In the Marketer of the Year contest in 2017, she won the Golden Dolphin award for the revitalisation of the Mototechna brand. Under her leadership, AURES Holdings moved up from 67th to 39th position in the CZECH TOP 100 largest companies list and won the prestigious European Business Awards 2016/2017.
Karolína Topolová started her career at the Prague Hilton Atrium, but subsequently has been with AURES. In 1998, she established a call centre at AAA AUTO which became one of the most modern and largest in the Czech Republic. In 2006, she was promoted to Group HR and Call Centre Director. A year later, she became Vice President of the company and participated in the company's listing on the Czech and Budapest stock exchanges. Karolína Topolová is not only the CEO and chairman of the board of directors of a multinational company, but also a wife, mother of a nine-year-old daughter and chairman of the board of the Children's Traffic Foundation, which financially supports children who have lost one or both parents in a traffic accident. She speaks fluent English and enjoys playing football tennis and snowboarding in her spare time.
