The first telling glimpse of Jack Stack comes from behind.

Sitting in the front passenger seat of his dark-green Audi A8, the 60-year-old CEO of Česká spořitelna, is on the phone. His head moves side to side and pitches to the right; his right hand occasionally flies into view.

Even on the phone, Stack is animated.

For the past seven years, ČS has thrived on that energy. When Erste Bank of Austria hired him in 2000 to transform its new acquisition, ČS had just come off a year that found it 6 billion Kč in the red. Today, ČS is making billions in profits.

Stack plans to leave ČS in the summer of 2007, when his contract expires, to return to New York City, where he worked in banking for more than 20 years before coming to Prague.

"I've been in this job seven years, and I think it's time for somebody else to come in with new energy and new emotions," he says. "I believe in term limits."

But today Stack is on the road, visiting ČS branches in three Bohemian towns to speak with employees about the present and future of the bank and get a sense of their concerns.

'A real inspiration'

The first stop is Hořovice. The cars pull up to the ČS branch at 9:20 a.m. Stack hops out quickly, grabs his suit coat from the trunk and heads inside.

Upstairs, he stands talking with the branch manager with the help of company secretary Patricia Plášková, Stack's interpreter for the day. Klára Gajdušková, spokeswoman for ČS, is also here, taking minutes of the meetings.

Stack wears a dark-gray suit, a light pink shirt and a silvery blue tie with small pink rectangles. He has the body of the football player he once was and a full, expressive face with thick jowls.

He peppers the manager with questions. "How long is your commute? Who's your biggest competitor? Where's your office?"

"Downstairs," the manager says after the last question, "to be close to the clients."

Stack asks to see it, though the group is pushed for time.

"Five minutes," he says, moving toward the stairs. "Just give me five minutes. You guys stay here."

In Prague business circles, Stack has become an icon over the years. This is especially true in American business circles. At American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) committee meetings, Stack's name is always dropped first when members discuss whom they'd like to participate in an upcoming event.

This esteem goes beyond Stack's position atop one of the country's largest banks. When people talk about him, they always describe an easygoing, down-to-earth man.

"He's someone who is quite practical but always optimistic," says Weston Stacey, executive director of AmCham. "He's been a real inspiration to a lot of people, including myself."

Stack was raised the only child of Irish immigrants in New York City's Bronx borough during the 1950s. His parents both grew up on farms and left Ireland in their teens.

His father, John, owned two bars in the Bronx — Stack's and The Shamrock Inn — both of which were popular with the transit union guys. His mother, Mary, Stack helped out in the bar, and their son began working there as well at 18.

Stack hated tending bar, but it gave him his first taste of business. It also taught him a valuable lesson about dealing with people.

"The most important thing I learned is to listen carefully, in terms of what people are saying and the body language they're using," he says. "Most people don't listen."

In 1964 Stack went to Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, on scholarship. He was student body president and a member of the Gaelic Society, an Irish heritage group.

"We drank more than anything else," he says, smiling.

From Iona, Stack went straight to Harvard University, also on scholarship, where he had a bit of a shock.

"I was unprepared," he says. "My fellow classmates had all worked for a while and had business experience. All of a sudden I was thrown into an environment where I was struggling."

Stack nevertheless received his MBA in 1970 and started working in New York City government for influential Mayor John Lindsay. A year later he met his wife, Patricia, the person, Stack says, who has most influenced his life.

"She doesn't like me to talk about her," he says, then goes on. "If she wasn't in my world, I would be someplace else."

In 1977 Stack entered the private sector, joining what was then Chemical Bank — its name changed to Chase Bank after a 1996 merger.

He spent the next 22 years there, advancing to executive vice president for marketing and consumer advocacy by 1998. During that time Stack learned that customer service, above all else, is the key to banking. He also learned the importance of understanding that different companies have different cultures.

This lesson would serve him well when he joined ČS.

Openness, modernity, consistency

At 10:55 a.m. Stack enters a room of 32 people at the regional branch in Písek. The meeting is essentially an open mic between ČS employees and their CEO.

Stack makes a brief introduction, referring to himself and the bank as "We." He doesn't use notes and speaks in short, concise sentences.

"Some of you have gone to these sessions before, and there's only one rule: Anything you say will not be repeated."

Then he opens the floor to questions. For a few moments, the room is silent.

This initial reticence is indicative of one of the first challenges Stack faced at ČS. Before 1999, when Erste Bank asked him to participate in its bid to buy ČS from the Czech government, a culture had developed at the bank where employees were so terrified of failure they were afraid of speaking out or taking risks that might change things.

But change was necessary — that much was clear to almost everyone at the bank.

In 1999, the year Stack first visited Prague, ČS lost 6 billion Kč. Forty-five percent of its loans were nonperforming. Many of its ATMs didn't work the day before Christmas.

ČS — and the entire Czech banking sector — was 15 years behind more-developed markets in Europe and North America, Stack thought at the time. While he didn't speak Czech and had never lived long outside New York City, Stack knew he could work with Erste Bank to modernize ČS, despite the wide cultural and professional divides. He also couldn't pass up the chance to become a CEO.

"Banking is banking," Stack says, explaining how he felt about the obstacles he would likely face. "The standards and approaches developed in more developed countries can be applied here."

To make it clear that things would be different, Stack gave a presentation in front of 500 people from ČS and Erste Bank at the Žofín in Prague in 2000.

During the presentation, he started shedding clothes, eventually getting down to a T-shirt and running shorts.

"I started taking off my clothes, and they didn't know what was going to happen," he says. "My Austrian colleagues in the front row, they were shocked. I think I could have been fired that night. But I think it sent a signal that things were different."

Improving customer service, increasing employee training and improving the quality of ČS's information technology systems were the new priorities.

The first major success was getting the ATMs to work consistently. From there, it was a process of showing people that risk and decisiveness were the new lynchpins of ČS's corporate culture.

Indeed, Stack's motto during that time was "implement today, perfect tomorrow." If something couldn't be 100 percent right, 80 percent would have to do.

The culture at ČS has become less risk-averse, but changing a corporate culture is never easy. "It takes time, but you can bring together cultures and change cultures," he says. "You've got to get out there. That's what today is about."

Beyond breaking even

Standing in the stairwell listening to the group waiting in the meeting room at the top of the regional branch in Tábor at 2:25 p.m., it sounds like a small cocktail party is in full swing. The room quiets down when Stack enters.

It is the last meeting of the day, and Stack begins his introduction: "The bank made 9 billion Kč in profit last year; we predict it will make 10 billion Kč next year; this makes ČS world class; very few banks achieve these numbers."

Indeed, ČS has come a long way since 1999. It took 18 months to execute Erste Bank's modernization plan. In 2000 ČS broke even; in 2001 it made 1.8 billion Kč.

This didn't come easy. ČS has had to reduce staff from 15,000 to about 10,000 along the way.

"It's been painful," he says. "These are people's lives. You reduce force in Ostrava — there aren't many jobs in Ostrava." But "I don't think you're a manager unless you struggle with those sorts of decisions."

Stack turns 61 next year. At the Tábor meeting, there was much talk of his plans to leave ČS. One person even made a comment suggesting he was a lame duck CEO.

Stack quickly made it clear that's not the case. He has goals for the bank, primarily increasing revenue by, among other things, making more loans. One of his primary objectives during the next year, if not his singular objective, will be to help select a successor. Stack says he hopes the person will be a Czech, and that there is already a list of candidates, which he wouldn't discuss.

Whoever those shortlisted people are, they might just have to wait a little longer. Stack refers to leaving ČS as "his plans now," saying nothing is set in stone.

Part of this evident reluctance might have to do with Stack's affinity for Prague. The adjustment period may have been difficult — not speaking the language, having to learn to drive alongside trams — but Stack has come to see Prague as home.

At the same time, he recognizes it might be time to get some new blood at the top.