What happens if, despite providing quality products and effective services, a company is not thriving? It will miss out on growth or face losses. In such scenarios, the company needs an expert coach who understands how to help an entrepreneurial business grow profitably. While discussing business coaching and consulting, how can we forget about Steve Istvan Preda, an unconventional entity in the business world?
Steve Preda is an accomplished leadership team coach and consultant who assists companies in achieving growth and prosperity. Since 2012, he has aligned with more than 100 private firms to rejuvenate their business strategies, make them self-managing, and increase their profits. He is an author of newsletters, books, and podcasts, and before moving to the US, he had already founded a network of investment banks in Europe.
Steve Preda was born in Budapest, Hungary. He is an author, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and business consultant. Preda attended Mihaly Táncsics Grammar School for his high school studies from 1981 through 1985. Later in 1989, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and Finance from Budapest Business School, and in 1990, he received a scholarship from the Government of The Netherlands, allowing him to study International Business Management at Hanzehogeschool Groningen.
He started his career in 1991 in London as an auditor at KPMG Peat Marwick McLintock where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant before joining the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). While serving at the EBRD from 1994 to 1997, Preda supported the bank in equity and structured debt financing projects.
Leveraging his structured financing experience gained at the EBRD in 1997, Preda joined ABN AMRO Bank, the third-largest Dutch bank with its headquarters in Amsterdam, where he was appointed as a director in charge of Trade Finance. Within three years, he was promoted to Secretary of The Board and Spokesperson of the CEO of the bank. And later, in 2001, he was put in charge of the Corporate Finance operation of the bank’s branch in Hungary.
In 1997, the enthusiastic and goal-driven Preda qualified as a Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) with the CFA Institute (formerly AIMR) in Charlottesville, Virginia. To promote the work of the Institute, Preda recruited the founding members of the CFA Society in Hungary. From 2000 to 2005, he served as the 1st and 3rd president of the organization.
After 13 years in the corporate world, Preda was finally ready to go out on his own.
Preda founded a predecessor organization of Concorde MB Partners, a Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm in Hungary and international markets, which he ran between 2002 to 2012. The Company attained more than 30 sales, acquisitions, and financing transactions under Preda’s leadership. To help find investors for the Company’s clients, in December 2003, he founded and served as 1st president of the M&A CEE Network of like-minded investment banks in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). CM&A CEE later merged with the global network IMAP.
Nowadays, Preda coaches the leadership teams of ambitious small to medium-sized entrepreneurial businesses and runs Strategy OS, Inc., which operates the Strategy OS App self-coaching strategy platform.
Preda is a prolific author who has published several books, podcast series, and newsletters. His work is based on his own experience, as well as the experience of his peers, clients, and podcast guests. He has written five books, three of which have become Amazon best sellers. He authored a newsletter, Cégérték, from 2006-2013 and compiled a selection of the most-read articles and his blogs into two books: Insights of a Maverick Investment Banker and Insights of a Maverick Exit Advisor, published by Amershire Publishing in Virginia in 2017. He has published two podcasts; Succession Secrets and Management Blueprint.
Preda’s best-selling books include Buyable: Your Guide to Building a Self-Managing, Fast-Growing, and High-Profit Business (2021); Pinnacle: Five Principles that Take Your Business to the Top of the Mountain (2022, with co-author Gregory Cleary) and Strategy OS: Implement an Advanced Business Operating System in Six Simple Steps (2023). Amershire Publishing has published all his books.
Having over 20 years of experience as a business owner, investment banker, and business coach, Steve Preda offers a holistic, practical, and viable approach for entrepreneurs that want to grow a profitable, and differentiated business. He provides a practical and customized approach to large and small businesses alike, using timeless business tools as well as his own creations.