Jan Macháček is a former dissident, columnist, musician and university lecturer. He covers political, economic, european and geopolitical issues.
He is a a president of a new think tank called Strategeo Institute in Prague and just has started a new publishing project Machacek89 and a new podcast called Ředitelé zeměkoule (Directors of the Globe). Until the end of September he published his columns in the Czech daily newspaper Lidové noviny and his daily column called Monitor JM in an online version of the same paper. He also provides analysis for Czech radio and TV stations, Czech TV and CNN Prima News.
Between January 2015 and June 2024 he served as a Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Politics and Society. He took the main role in setting up the strategy and agenda of this think tank, and in organizing debates and conferences on various political and economic issues.
From 2011 to 2015, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Vaclav Havel Library, he took an important part in creating the agenda of this – at that time new - institution.
He is an active musician and was a member of the legendary band “The Plastic People of the Universe”, Macháček helped to form a part of the Czech underground music scene under the former communist regime. The band, which had recorded only studio albums at the time of his involvement, was officially banned from taking part in live shows. He has also been a member of the “Garage” rock group, as a guitarist from 1985 until now. Since 1997 he is also a frontman of an occasional band called Velvet revival Before 1989 he was an active dissident and signatory of Charta 77. He was involved in underground publishing and distribution of samizdat. He started to study at the Prague school of economics in 1985, but did not finish due to his political convictions and opposition to the regime.
In the second half of 1980s he made a living as a stocker, janitor and a night guard.
After the 1989 Velvet revolution Mr. Macháček co-founded the country’s first independent media outlet, the weekly Respekt. There he was recognized for his investigative and analytical writing covering mainly economic transformation and financial criminality. In 2000 he was the Respekt’s deputy editor-in-chief, later was writing for Prague Business Journal, Hospodářské noviny and Lidové noviny.
Macháček took part in an international fellowship at the National Forum Foundation in Washington D.C., USA, in 1994 and four years later became a Michigan journalism fellow and also worked at the William Davidson Institute at University of Michigan, USA. In 2009 Mr. Macháček published a book called “Mistri sveta amoleta” mostly analysing Czech attitudes towards the global financial crises. In 2017 he published another book, a collection of his comments and analysis called „Na tříkolce mezi tanky“.
His journalism and writing has been repeatedly awarded on several occasions, he was named the best economic journalist in 1996 (Preissova cena), the best financial journalist the same year and Ferdinand Peroutka Award in 2010.
In 1999 he signed and helped to put together a petition called Dřevíčská výzva by a few leading Czech economists with concrete proposals of how to structurally reform the stagnating Czech economy.
In 2019 Mr.Macháček was rewarded by a medal of defense minister for being a member of Czech resistance against communism.
From April 2023 Macháček serves as an external advisor to the president of Czech republic Petr Pavel for foreign policy.
Mr.Macháček also serves as a member of the preparatory committee of Globsec Forum, a huge and prestigious international security conference, which just recently resettled from Bratislava to Prague. Mr.Machacek is also a visiting fellow of Globsec.
From 2005 to 2018 he was teaching journalism courses in NYU Prague, semester abroad program.