New Director-General Swap at Foundation Maintaining the Non-Existent Fudan University
The beginning of the new year has brought a leadership change to the public foundation tasked with maintaining the yet-to-be-established Fudan University, whose future remains uncertain. Just nine months into the role, the current director-general, Andrea Cecília Szilas, has stepped down from her position and has also left her seat on the board of trustees. Janos Csak, the Minister of Culture and Innovation's advisor, has taken over her duties.
Within a year, the Fudan Hungary University Foundation, responsible for the maintenance of the Chinese Fudan University's non-existent Budapest campus, is already on its third director-general. This public foundation, created in 2021, is designated as an asset manager carrying out public tasks.
According to the change registration application filed with the company court on December 22 last year and finalized on January 8 this year, not only has Andre Cecília Szilas left her leadership position, but she has also resigned from the foundation, seeing her membership on the board of trustees expire as well.
The departing director-general's positions, both on the board of trustees and as the operational leader, are to be filled by Péter Harsányi, who has served as a political advisor to Janos Csak, the Chair of the Fudan Foundation's board of trustees since the beginning of last year.
Harsányi may be known to some for his previous role between 2019-2022 as a columnist and research director for the economic news portal növekedés.hu, regularly appearing on news programs as an expert. However, he doesn't seem to have a significant background in university administration, higher education management, or any direct connection to China. Given the freezing of the Fudan project in 2023, these skills appear to be dispensable, even for the director-general's role for the time being.
The Fudan Foundation, which is maintaining the university, has nothing to maintain since the university does not exist, even though plans suggested that education would have begun in the fall of 2023. The government cites a pause in investment, although the 450 billion forint project was to be financed not through the state budget but with a loan from China.
Szilas Andrea Cecília's tenure with the foundation was brief she joined just at the end of March last year, immediately taking the position of director-general. Szilas has qualifications in Sinology and Economics and is fluent in Chinese. She served as the ambassador to Beijing from 2014 to 2017.
Szilas was previously exchanged for the son of Fidesz MP Imre Pesti before her ambassadorial tenure ended, followed by a period as deputy secretary of state, and until 2021 as an advisor to the prime minister. Alongside her role at Fudan, she is currently serving as the international director for the Authority for Regulated Activities and had made news when her phone number was identified on the list of individuals targeted by the Pegasus spyware.
Her arrival last spring coincided with the departure of Levente Horváth from the Fudan Foundation's board of trustees, where he had been a member since 2021. Horváth, one of the primary proponents and supporters for the establishment of Fudan University in Budapest, had studied at the Chinese Fudan University, served as the Shanghai Consul General, and was actively facilitating Fudan's expansion in Hungary. When Viktor Orbán and the president of Fudan University discussed this in 2019, Horváth Levente could be seen in official photographs to the left of the prime minister, while Szilas Andrea Cecília stood to the right.
Szilas' predecessor lasted even less time as director-general, serving only about seven months. With the reformation of government when the Fudan investment shifted to Janos Csak's portfolio, László Szabó took over operations in the fall of 2022. Previously, Szabó had been the government commissioner responsible for the pharmaceutical industry and was well-known for his prior role as state secretary in foreign affairs in 2014, later serving as ambassador to Washington before returning to become CEO of the government-adjacent Mediaworks Zrt., leaving abruptly after a decline in readership.
The longest-serving initial director-general at the foundation was Krisztina Bertáné Bényi, a former deputy secretary of state, who joined in the fall of 2021. Even after a year when Szabó took over, she was not made redundant; instead, she was demoted to deputy director-general and remains in that position today. We recently wrote about her husband:
Despite not maintaining a university and there being little to prepare for due to the Fudan project's suspension, the Fudan University Foundation has cost taxpayers significantly. In the first four months following its establishment, it burned through 55 million forints of public funds, and in 2022, it spent 123 million just on salaries:
This ties into the announcement last fall by Minister Gergely Gulyás, who mentioned that the state would no longer maintain project companies without meaningful work, as projects were not progressing. Following this decision, the board membership of Kocsis Máté's wife, the spouse of the Fidesz parliamentary group leader, is also expected to end soon.
According to the change registration application filed with the company court on December 22 last year and finalized on January 8 this year, not only has Andre Cecília Szilas left her leadership position, but she has also resigned from the foundation, seeing her membership on the board of trustees expire as well.
The departing director-general's positions, both on the board of trustees and as the operational leader, are to be filled by Péter Harsányi, who has served as a political advisor to Janos Csak, the Chair of the Fudan Foundation's board of trustees since the beginning of last year.
Harsányi may be known to some for his previous role between 2019-2022 as a columnist and research director for the economic news portal növekedés.hu, regularly appearing on news programs as an expert. However, he doesn't seem to have a significant background in university administration, higher education management, or any direct connection to China. Given the freezing of the Fudan project in 2023, these skills appear to be dispensable, even for the director-general's role for the time being.
The Fudan Foundation, which is maintaining the university, has nothing to maintain since the university does not exist, even though plans suggested that education would have begun in the fall of 2023. The government cites a pause in investment, although the 450 billion forint project was to be financed not through the state budget but with a loan from China.
Szilas Andrea Cecília's tenure with the foundation was brief she joined just at the end of March last year, immediately taking the position of director-general. Szilas has qualifications in Sinology and Economics and is fluent in Chinese. She served as the ambassador to Beijing from 2014 to 2017.
Szilas was previously exchanged for the son of Fidesz MP Imre Pesti before her ambassadorial tenure ended, followed by a period as deputy secretary of state, and until 2021 as an advisor to the prime minister. Alongside her role at Fudan, she is currently serving as the international director for the Authority for Regulated Activities and had made news when her phone number was identified on the list of individuals targeted by the Pegasus spyware.
Her arrival last spring coincided with the departure of Levente Horváth from the Fudan Foundation's board of trustees, where he had been a member since 2021. Horváth, one of the primary proponents and supporters for the establishment of Fudan University in Budapest, had studied at the Chinese Fudan University, served as the Shanghai Consul General, and was actively facilitating Fudan's expansion in Hungary. When Viktor Orbán and the president of Fudan University discussed this in 2019, Horváth Levente could be seen in official photographs to the left of the prime minister, while Szilas Andrea Cecília stood to the right.
Szilas' predecessor lasted even less time as director-general, serving only about seven months. With the reformation of government when the Fudan investment shifted to Janos Csak's portfolio, László Szabó took over operations in the fall of 2022. Previously, Szabó had been the government commissioner responsible for the pharmaceutical industry and was well-known for his prior role as state secretary in foreign affairs in 2014, later serving as ambassador to Washington before returning to become CEO of the government-adjacent Mediaworks Zrt., leaving abruptly after a decline in readership.
The longest-serving initial director-general at the foundation was Krisztina Bertáné Bényi, a former deputy secretary of state, who joined in the fall of 2021. Even after a year when Szabó took over, she was not made redundant; instead, she was demoted to deputy director-general and remains in that position today. We recently wrote about her husband:
Despite not maintaining a university and there being little to prepare for due to the Fudan project's suspension, the Fudan University Foundation has cost taxpayers significantly. In the first four months following its establishment, it burned through 55 million forints of public funds, and in 2022, it spent 123 million just on salaries:
This ties into the announcement last fall by Minister Gergely Gulyás, who mentioned that the state would no longer maintain project companies without meaningful work, as projects were not progressing. Following this decision, the board membership of Kocsis Máté's wife, the spouse of the Fidesz parliamentary group leader, is also expected to end soon.
