János Petrenkó

János Petrenkó (30 March 1940 – 3 March 2020) was a Hungarian industrialist, inventor and politician, member of the National Assembly (MP) from 1990 to 1994. He was noted as owner of the first private large company, the rolling mill for heavy products within the Ózd Metallurgical Works after the fall of communism in Hungary.

Career Petrenkó was born into a mining family with eight children in Ózd on 30 March 1940. His parents were György Petrenkó and Jolán Král. He grew up in the mining settlement of Bánszállás (today a borough in Ózd). He finished elementary studies there. He studied electro-mechanical engineering since 1958, at the age of 14. He worked for Ózd Metallurgical Works for 25 years. He joined Hungarian Communist Workers' Party (MSZMP) in 1962.

He co-founded his company PEKO Works at Arló in 1971, a small manufacture of high wear materials. Becoming a full-time private small entrepreneur, he owned the company from 1979 to 1989. He bought the rolling mill for heavy products section of the Ózd Metallurgical Works under bankruptcy proceedings for 100 million HUF in 1989, becoming the first private industrialist tycoon in Hungary following the transition to democracy. After lengthy legal and political wrangling, he took over the company under the name PEKO Steel Works on 1 January 1990. He was a member of the parliamentary Economic Committee for a short time between October and December 1992.