Jan Buda — he’s the man most closely associated with SlidesLive production. Before he was managing complex global event recordings and leading a growing team, he was just a student with a camera and a passion for storytelling.

Originally trained in computer engineering, Jan began filming events as a side hustle during his university years in Prague.

I studied Computer Engineering, but I was always interested in movies. Since high school, I was a part-time freelance videographer. I did a lot of proms, weddings, promo videos, and oriental dance performances.

Over time, Jan’s portfolio expanded to include indie films (one of which won a festival prize), a stunt show promo, and even a heart surgery video. Eventually, his technical skills and creative vision converged — and in 2014, he joined SlidesLive, first part-time and later full-time.

When Vojta Ciml, founder and CEO of SlidesLive, offered me a part-time production manager position, I gave up my job as a Java/PHP programmer and jumped in. A year later, I moved full-time and relocated to the U.S. to help build our new office.

Building the Production Team

In the early days of a startup business, it's common for team members to wear multiple hats. While Jan was officially Head of Production, he also worked as a camera operator, stream technician, and whatever else was needed on-site. Gradually, he began building a team of capable, reliable professionals — allowing him to focus more on leadership and development and delegate other tasks.

Building a skilled team that knows what they’re doing is no small task. That’s why we developed a unique training system at SlidesLive — so everyone has the opportunity to grow, and we can ensure the quality of work at every event. We never send anyone into the field without proper training. That’s something I’m truly proud of.

This strategy paid off quickly, especially as SlidesLive began to break into the U.S. market. The company’s focus on premium quality work opened the doors to major clients and large-scale conferences.

From Head of Production to COO

Today, Jan serves as Chief Operating Officer, leading global production operations and overseeing both the technical and logistical sides of delivering high-quality event recordings.

Whatever the sales team is able to sell, we have to make it happen. Even with high seasonal peaks or completely new formats, we always find a way to deliver.

He’s especially proud of how SlidesLive has scaled while staying true to its core values: reliability, flexibility, and top-quality execution. One of his favorite parts of the job? Mentoring new team members and continually optimizing internal workflows to help everyone work smarter.

When we pull off a large event and see the final product, it’s a great feeling.

Beyond the Camera

Outside of work, Jan is a dedicated family man who loves the outdoors. Whether he’s hiking, climbing, or exploring a new destination, his sense of adventure keeps him moving, even when he's off the clock.

That same drive for discovery, growth, and pushing limits is exactly what he brings to SlidesLive every day.

3 Questions for Jan

1. What’s the biggest challenge in your role as COO?
   

   There are many, but if I had to pick one, I'd say keeping the costs down while scaling up. I'm happy to say that even though we're growing fast, we not only maintain our product’s quality (which is actually one of our three main company values), but actually gradually increase it. So with quality being number one, keeping the costs in check can be challenging.

   
   

2. What do you look for when building your production team?
   

   I'd list three main traits that are necessary for a production manager at SlidesLive:

   1. Diligence. Putting an event together requires a lot of small tasks, checklists and spreadsheets. The more thorough the preparation, the easier it will be. So "sweat the small stuff" is really important even if you're a brilliant production manager with years of experience.
      
      

   2. "Don't be a jerk." I've heard it from several mentors and the more experience I get, the more I agree. Most skills can be learned when people have the right attitude and team fit.
      
      

   3. "High fatigue tolerance." This is a term my colleague Bao used to describe what makes a good production manager. Internally, we like to make fun of union workers who go on a break the minute it's supposed to start, regardless of if they're needed at the moment or not.

   Of course we plan everything in advance to be done as fast as possible and finish early. But when it comes down to the crunch, we might stay until the wee hours to get everything resolved and ready.

   
   

3. What’s one SlidesLive moment you’ll never forget?

   There are many, but here's a nice one: It was in the earlier days, the first day of our largest event to date. We had 26 parallel live streamed tracks running – more than double our previous record. We were all quite nervous and stretched quite thin, but all was running. Around 30 minutes after all the sessions started, our client asked why one particular track was not live. It turned out they forgot to include this one and we weren't in the room at all. Within the next 30 minutes we scrambled some extra gear and me and our CEO crawled between chairs with an SDI cable to get our camera signal — and we were live!

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