Tereza Tachovská is originally from Klatovy. She graduated from a Corporate Finance and Strategy double degree master‘s program at the IES and Sciences Po Strasbourg in 2015. She obtained her bachelor's degree at IES, during which she took part in the Erasmus exchange stay at EM Strasbourg Business School.

Tereza started gaining work experience during her bachelor's studies, when she worked as an intern at the European Parliament in Strasbourg and at European Development Agency in Prague. After completing her master's degree she started her career at RWE Energie in Prague, where she focused on weather hedging and retail position management. In 2016, Tereza moved to Luxembourg and started focusing on risk management of alternative investments (mainly private equity and real estate). In Luxembourg, she joined Royalton Partners, where she worked as a risk manager for almost 4 years. Last spring, Tereza joined The Carlyle Group as a risk and valuation manager. She holds the Financial Risk Manager (FRM®) certification.

In her free time, she enjoys yoga, dancing or traveling.
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Tereza, you studied the Corporate Strategy and Finance (CSF) program, in which you spent one year of your Master at IES and the other one at Sciences Po Strasbourg. What makes this program specific - apart from a year abroad?

The program is a very interesting combination of two universities that are looking at finance from a slightly different perspective. At IES, the content is more quantitative, theoretical and goes in to details. Sciences Po emphasizes understanding of issues in a wider perspective. The majority of the lecturers coming to teach at Sciences Po are working professionals. An important part of my studies in Strasbourg was team working, presentations and case studies through the semester.

You work as a risk and valuation manager in Luxembourg, why did you choose this place to live?

Luxembourg is a great place to live, both, from a career and a personal life‘s perspective. There are lots of interesting work opportunities and career development possibilities (mainly in finance). The city is very international and full of young working professionals and young families, which gives you lots of possibilities for your free time and also makes your life much easier in all the practical and administrative matters.
My initial motivation to move to Luxembourg was for sure the career growth part. However, after living here for nearly 5 years, I can definitely say that the second part played an important role.

What was your biggest job challenge?

Same as the majority of areas in finance, the alternative investments (mainly private equity in my case) has experienced big volatility and uncertainty in 2020, which highly influenced both risk management and valuations. Additionally to that, I have changed my job in the beginning of April (2020), which meant not only entering a new company and processes during this challenging time, but also fully remote onboarding.

What specifically would you recommend to people who want to work in risk management and / or valuations? Is there any subject at IES you would definitely recommend?

It may sound like a cliché but if you want to focus on the more quantitative part of finance, I would definitely highlight the importance of subjects like Mathematics, Statistics and Econometrics. All these will help you going forward with problem solving and will give you a great base for a future deeper expertise in your field. For the more specialized subjects, I appreciated Financial Accounting for the valuations and in general for understanding the reporting and performance of a company. I took a risk management course in Strasbourg which gave me a general idea about what a work in this field might be like.

I took the FRM exams (Financial Risk Manager professional designation issued by the Global Association of Risk Professionals) and got my certification after approximately 3 years of working in risk management. As mentioned above, the technical subject helped me a lot and saved me a lot of time on the preparation for the exams.

You worked in energetics in Prague, then you started to focus more on "risk". In your case, what was the motivation for another field, which directed your career towards risk management in private equity?

Working at energetics was for sure an interesting experience. However, after some time I had realized, I would like to move more towards finance. My decision to pursue my career in the fund industry, and more specifically in alternative investments including private equity, was led by the diversity and possibility of development the area is offering. Alternative investments is a fast growing industry with an immense number of positions in different fields. The decision to focus on risk management, and later on also on valuations, was directed by my interest in the quantitative and the technical side of finance, and at the same time by the possibility of being in contact with the deal part of the business.

How did you spend Christmas, in a family circle in the Czech Republic, or differently? Is there any Luxembourg specific Christmas tradition?

I was in the Czech Republic and I spent Christmas with my family. I came back to Luxembourg to celebrate the New Year‘s Eve.
The culture and traditions in Luxembourg are in general highly influenced by France and Germany (and increasingly also by other countries due to high number of expats). During Christmas time, Luxembourg is full of Christmas lights, Christmas markets with hot wine and concerts.

What are your hobbies, your free time?

I have started with yoga few years ago which turned out to be a great complement for an office, sometimes stressful, job. This year I am taking a yoga teacher training. I also enjoy dancing, I dance salsa and bachata, travelling and time with my family and friends. In general, I try to keep myself busy and stay active in my free time.