prof. Dr. Dadja Altenburg-Kohl
Honorary member of the Czech National BalletBiography
Born in Prague, Dadja Altenburg Pešta Kohl studied medicine at Charles University. In 1972 she emigrated to West Germany, where she worked as a jaw and facial surgeon. At the end of the 1980s, she established one of Germany’s most successful pharmacology companies, in which she is a partner and chair of the Board of Directors. After 1989 she began returning regularly to her homeland and in 2006 settled in the Czech Republic for good.
Throughout her life, Dadja Altenburg Pešta Kohl has dedicated to philanthropy and actively engaged in civil society, supporting culture institutions and projects (cinematography, theatre, fine arts). She founded the DrAK foundation, whose mission it is to promote culture and preventive medicine, and the Montanelli Museum in Prague, focused on modern art and one of the very few private museums in the Czech Republic. Dadja Altenburg Pešta Kohl is an adviser to the Unicredit Group in Munich and a member of the Board of the Culture Forum in Berlin. She has sponsored the National Theatre in Prague since 2005. She has financially supported several productions, bought a violin for the orchestra’s concert master, had the Hynais Curtain restored and, together with her husband, donated a bronze bust of Václav Havel to the theatre. At the present time, her family is financing the restoration of Aleš’s lunettes at the National Theatre.