We are currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of our purchase of Sanoma Media Budapest, which we renamed Central Media, one of the leading magazine and online publishers in Hungary. In 2014, I was a private equity investor and I was motivated by the fact that it seemed like a good deal. Initially we wanted to sell on the assets at a nice price but we understood that if we wanted to keep independent, free media alive on a large scale in Hungary, we had to protect it. So we decided against selling to the government, aware of the effect that it might have on the country’s media landscape.

We realised that, if we were going to survive, we also had to grow beyond Hungary. So that’s why we invested in Slovakia, Czechia and, last year, Poland. In the last of those three countries we became a shareholder in Gremi Media, which is the publisher of the daily Rzeczpospolita, the oldest and most respected newspaper in Poland. Slovakia is interesting for us too, because free speech is also under threat there. It’s a buying opportunity, given that we have spent the past decade learning how to fight against oppression.

It is challenging at times. We have been attacked by investigations and spyware, and also faced character- assassination attempts. On the other hand, it has been good training for my mission to advocate democratic values and freedom of speech throughout the region. We gained ample experience in Hungary through being the underdog yet building a thriving independent media portfolio that informs and helps people to read news and analysis that they would not get elsewhere. We have found a way forward to counter propaganda in countries run by populists and make a free media business flourish.

We have more than 50 titles in Hungary. Our bestseller is Nok Lapja, which is the oldest women’s newspaper in the country. It shifts more than 140,000 copies a week. It’s all about families and family values, and is completely free of politics. But that hasn’t stopped politicians approaching us and hoping to be covered in it. We’ve said no every time.

We get absolutely no revenue from the state, which is a big deal given that the government is the biggest advertising spender. And yet we still survive. We are a profitable company because we have fantastic titles and good colleagues. And we were somehow able to adapt to the circumstances, which makes me think that we can do the same in Slovakia despite the new situation we are facing there under the current government [of populist prime minister Robert Fico].

For me this is not only a business but also a mission. Press freedom, factual news coverage and commentary based on critical thinking ensure that people make informed decisions about their lives and their broader community. We have a duty to inform citizens and give them the right to have the proper information. Simply put, a nation can’t evolve without these principles.