Meet our Leading Figures: Šimon Pánek

Šimon Pánek was born on 27 December, 1967, in Prague.

He grew up in a family that emphasised the values of freedom, education, and independent thinking. His father was imprisoned in the uranium mines in Jáchymov, and his mother was an art historian. Following his parents’ divorce, Šimon became acquainted with the world of Charter 77, the civic human rights initiative.

Student leader during the Velvet Revolution

In 1988, Šimon took part in his first anti-regime demonstration on Wenceslas Square.

From then on, he became more socially engaged. Together with Martin Klíma, Jiří Dienstbier Jr., and Marek and Martin Bendovi, he founded the independent student organisation STUHA in early 1989. 

STUHA helped organise a demonstration of several hundreds, later thousands of people in Prague's Albertov on 17 November of that year. However, he did not participate in the demonstration and the subsequent march to the city centre—he was working a temporary job in the Šumava Mountains. 

After hearing the news of the demonstration on Národní třída, he quickly returned to the capital and set to work at the student strike coordination centre at the DAMU Directing Department on Řetězová Street.

Departure from politics

During the Velvet Revolution he helped Václav Havel negotiate the formation of a new government and ran in the first free elections in June 1990 in the "unelectable" 13th place for the Civic Forum in Ostrava. Thanks to preferential votes, he jumped to second place, just behind the leader of the candidate list, Václav Klaus. Nevertheless, he did not pursue a political career—he gave up his mandate and began travelling the world.

The birth of People in Need

Immediately after 17 November, he and journalist Jaromír Štětina organised humanitarian aid to Romania and later to refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh. At that time, they began to build an organisation from scratch; this would later become People in Need.

First, they connected with the editorial staff of the newspaper Lidové noviny and in 1992 they founded the Lidové noviny Foundation. They began providing humanitarian aid to war-torn Bosnia and gradually expanded the distribution of aid to other countries around the world. From 1994, this organisation began operating under the name People in Need Foundation at Czech Television. During the floods in Moravia in 1997, they also began working in the Czech Republic, and since 1999 has been operating under our current name, People in Need.

A break for politics

In 1997, Šimon left People in Need. However, after two years as an advisor in Václav Havel's presidential office, he returned, where he remains as our CEO.

At the helm of People in Need

People in Need gradually expanded its scope to include human rights work, initially in Belarus and Cuba, and later also in Moldova, Egypt, and Vietnam, as well as social work programmes and educational activities.

Šimon also been personally involved in humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Kosovo, Pakistan, and Haiti.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he saw a huge increase in interest in financial and material aid. Šimon helped to efficiently organise the logistics of trains transporting drinking water, food, and hygiene supplies to Ukraine, and significantly strengthened the Ukrainian team so that the large volumes of humanitarian aid could be distributed effectively.

Šimon has helped to negotiate with the Czech government on how to systemically manage Ukrainian refugees who came to the Czech Republic after the outbreak of war.

Social engagement, jury membership, and awards

Šimon currently continues to work as CEO at People in Need. In addition, he is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of the European Partnership for Democracy, and chairman of the board of the Prague Civil Society Centre. He is also a member of the jury for the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.

He participates in public discourse on a range of topics related to global responsibility, democracy, human rights and freedoms, the position of minorities, and social issues. He draws on the values of the Velvet Revolution, in particular, he is interested building a society based on truth and openness, which is supportive, inclusive, self-confident, and responsible. He also serves as a lecturer on values-based and authentic leadership.

As a prominent public figure, he has received several awards: the Medal of Merit, Third Class (2002) from President Václav Havel, the European of the Year Award (2003) from Reader's Digest magazine, the Memory of Nations Award (2010) from the Post Bellum organisation, the Silver Medal (2021) from Senate President Miloš Vystrčil, and the Arnošt Lustig Award (2022) from the Czech-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

In 2023, he received France's highest state honour, the Order of the Legion of Honor, and in 2025, Czech President Petr Pavel awarded him the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Third Class.

Czech Presidency? No, thank you

Although he is constantly asked about a possible political career or presidential candidacy, he is not currently considering it.