Šimon Pánek is the Executive Director and one of the founders of People in Need, the most significant humanitarian aid NGO in Central and Eastern Europe and development cooperation, supporting civil society and the worldwide fight for human rights and freedoms. 

Šimon was one of the prominent student leaders at the end of the 1980s, during the student strike, and a member of Václav Havel’s team that negotiated the end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
In the years that followed, he co-founded People in Need, believing that with freedom comes responsibility, not only for oneself but also for what is happening in the world. Later, he worked briefly as President Václav Havel’s foreign policy expert on Balkan and human rights issues, and for years was chairman of the board of the Open Society Fund Prague and chairman of the development platform of Czech NGOs FORS.

Pánek is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a founding member of the European Partnership for Democracy. He served as President of the Development of Alliance 2015,
a European network of NGOs. Since 2015, Pánek has been the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Prague Civil Society Centre, a newly established institution to support civil society in the former USSR. Pánek is a scout at heart and a lifelong mountaineer. 

Over the years he has received several major awards, including the Czech Medal of Merit and the European of the Year Award, underscoring his long-term commitment to humanitarianism and democratic values. In January 2023, he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour by the President of the French Republic and in 2025 the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (3rd class) from President Petr Pavel for his commitment to democracy and aid.