Editorial: In Praise of the Backstory

We had a strong shortlist of potential winners, representing a mix of genders, nationalities, and business sectors. You’ll find a full report on pages 13 and 14 and three pages of pictures from the night. If you were there on March 23, see if you can spot your face among them.

Any one of our shortlisted candidates (Raffaella Claudia Bondi of Roche Hungary, Chresten Bruun of Lego, and Arne Klehn of Budapest Marriott Hotel & Marriott Executive Apartments) would have been a worthy winner, but what I particularly liked about our eventual winner, Chresten Bruun, is his backstory. As a business journalist, I’m all about finding the story behind the data. It elevates what can otherwise be quite dry by humanizing the facts and figures. That, in turn, makes it more accessible to a broader audience.

Forgive me a personal illustration. I’m just back from a week in the United Kingdom catching up with my sadly increasingly frail mother (aged 94) and my eldest daughter (a vibrant 21). As we drove through my old hometown, I pointed out what had been the newsagent’s store where the 13-year-old version of me assembled the newspapers to deliver on my paper round.

“I hadn’t realized this is such a full circle moment for you,” said Daughter Number One. “You started off delivering newspapers, and now you are editor-in-chief of a newspaper.” Honestly, it hadn’t struck me either, but you get the point.

In Bruun’s case, there is a lovely narrative arch to his backstory. He took over at Lego’s Nyíregyháza factory in June 2021, but his involvement with this country goes back much further. In 2008, he was part of the “Discovery” group that toured the CEE region looking for a new factory site for the Danish toymaker and eventually recommended Hungary. And as he made clear in his acceptance speech, the connection is even older than that. Back home in Denmark, he had a Hungarian friend whose presence there could be traced back to the 1956 Uprising.

So, Bruun, too, has a full circle moment. But I stress that this is far from the end of the story. To quote again from his speech, “So, we have a long past here in Hungary, and I believe we have an even longer future. [.…] Tonight, I also want to bring big thanks to all of my colleagues back in the factory in Nyíregyháza.”

I think kudos are also due to Veronika Spanarova of Citi. With the obvious exception of our debut event in 2015, our tradition has always been that the winner from the previous year joins the awards jury and announces the new title holder. In her short speech, she spoke of “a community of people who not only work in Hungary but also live here. [….] For many, this is a second home, a country where we live because of our work, because of our professional journey, for part of our lives. What is so important is that, regardless of whether we were born here, or moved here, or lived here for a couple of years, at this moment, this is our home. Wherever and whenever we go, Hungary will always have a special place in our hearts.” Well said.

Robin Marshall

Editor-in-chief (and former paperboy)

This editorial was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 8, 2024.