AI Summit Budapest 2026

Elek Nagy

MKIK
president

Nagy Elek was born in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania. He graduated as an architect and interior designer, and also worked in areas such as theatre set design. He has lived in Hungary since 1980 and founded his first own business in 1989. In the 1990s, he also earned an international Master of Business Administration qualification. By the early 2000s, he had become a significant figure in Hungarian motorway construction, first under Vegyépszer and later during the MSZP–SZDSZ government period, consistently meeting the required quality standards and deadlines. Vegyépszer won its first motorway construction tender in 2000.

The 2008 global financial crisis and the events of the Arab Spring in Libya, where Vegyépszer had invested nearly HUF 10 billion, placed the company in an extremely difficult position. Vegyépszer eventually reached a successful bankruptcy settlement with its creditors, but he has described this period as the most difficult time of his life.

Following the end of his construction industry activities, Nagy Elek’s other companies continued to operate within Lexholding, on a market basis as before. He was a major owner of Főtaxi and Inforg, and in the early 2000s, BÁV also became part of the corporate group. Recently, he helped facilitate Uber’s return to Hungary in cooperation with Főtaxi. He is the Honorary Consul of the Principality of Monaco in Hungary. Since 2019, he has served as President of the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and since the end of 2024 as President of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In spring 2024, as President of BKIK, he received the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Hungarian Order of Merit, Civil Division. Through the literary foundation he established, as well as the foundation that owns the castle in Gilău near Cluj-Napoca, he is a committed supporter of Transylvanian culture and the preservation of Hungarian communities beyond Hungary’s borders.

In addition to his native language, he speaks five foreign languages. He is married and the father of five children. In his free time, he enjoys reading. He was formerly a youth national team chess player and university chess champion.