Czech Piano Maker Petrof Focuses on China Sales to Survive

Zuzana Ceralová-Petrofová was hardly thrilled when her father asked her to join the family business in 1999. The great-great-granddaughter of the founder of Czech piano maker Petrof was working at a pharmaceutical company and dreaming of opening her own pharmacy. Her father, Jan Petrof, had other ideas when he regained control of the company after decades of Communist-era mismanagement. “He really didn’t give me a choice,” Ceralová-Petrofová says with a shrug. “We had to save our heritage.”

Once an esteemed producer of pianos sold on five continents, Petrof was nationalized in 1948 and merged into a behemoth called Czechoslovak Musical Instruments, which manufactured everything from guitars and violins to trombones. By the time the family regained control in 1998, the company had become bloated and unprofitable, churning out mediocre instruments destined mainly for the former Soviet Union: “The proverbial cheap product from the East,” Ceralová-Petrofová says.