About The CEO
Not Richard Hlava, CEO
“People often ask me, ‘What’s your secret?’ and I tell them that it’s a secret and they can go to Hell.”
Richard Hlava is the founder and CEO of HlavCo Intl., a multinational corporation that supplies the world with a wide range of useful products from Leberkäse Lederhosen edible Oktoberfest wear to The Right Stuff home pet taxidermy solution.
A decorated war veteran with a throwback managerial style, Hlava brings his centuries-old survival-of-the-fittest techniques to each HlavCo Intl. subsidiary, with the ultimate goal of making as much money as humanly possible for his stock holders and, most importantly, for himself.
“Your first impulse is always right. If people try to tell you you’re wrong, they’re just not seeing the bigger picture because they don’t have the mental capacity to do so,” says Hlava. “They were put on this Earth to buy things, and they’ve stayed here as long as they have because of luck.”
Like most famous CEOs, Hlava came from humble beginnings, spending his early years squatting with his family in a West Virginia coal mine, an experience that taught him how to cough and talk at the same time and gave him a lifelong appreciation for his precious, black substance.
These days, Hlava doesn’t have to hide that cough in his speech as he has forsaken talking for the more efficient email method of communication.
“I’ve seen more changes in corporate culture and business technology than Bill Taft saw meals. And I refuse to let one single business trend pass me by. I have no problem rejecting these trends immediately, but I at least knew they existed.”
The blunt, divisive and always controversial Hlava prides himself in being a pioneer and a trend-setter in email corporate communication. To fully immerse himself into email and learning to perfect the communications tool, Hlava stopped speaking in 2005.
“Email is the wave of the future. It’s completely changed corporate culture. Now, people don’t waste my valuable money by gabbing at each other. Thanks to email, people work. They sit at their desk with these stupid smiles on their faces – occasionally bursting into laughter – happily and efficiently working the day away. That’s the power of email, the power of productivity.”
He still enjoys his Q&A sessions with his employees thought his company intranet and is known for being the highest-paid corporate events speaker who can motivate without saying a single word.
In a quest for a third island, he has made his communications secrets available in “How to Write Email That GETS RESULTS and Other CEObservations”.
