Business Leaders Motivated Students with Their Life and Business Stories

You are the future of Croatia! Although it sounds like a cliché, you can make Croatia a better place to live. Opportunities are everywhere, you just need to be brave. The competition never stops. There are no limits. Making mistakes is good. Believe in yourself and never let anyone kill your dreams… This is a small part of the important and useful advice given by owners, directors, and CEOs to the students gathered at the CEO (Career and Entrepreneurship Opportunities) conference held on Saturday, November 7, at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, organized by that faculty in collaboration with the Faculty of Economics of the University of Sarajevo.

This is the largest regional project aimed at connecting young people with successful individuals who motivate them to take an active approach to entrepreneurship and career development by breaking myths about success and acquiring new knowledge and skills. Indeed, it was a motivating, inspiring, enthusiastic, educational, and humorous conference. Entrepreneurial and life stories were shared with 700 gathered students by Vedran Antoljak (main partner at Sense Consulting), Miljenko Vaić (Nestlé), Ida Pandur (Entourage), Branka Slaveska (Heineken Croatia), Luka Abrus (5 minutes), Krešimir Dvorski (Nextbike), and Ivan Brezak Brkan (Netokracija & Meme Media). There were also many surprise guests: singers Mladen Bodalec and Miroslav Škoro, and journalist Fani Stipković, who, like the leaders of some of the stronger companies in Croatia, shared their life paths with the students.

Making mistakes is good Making mistakes is good, one of the pieces of advice that could be heard, came from the main partner at Sense Consulting, Vedran Antoljak:
– Make mistakes! No success has come without mistakes, no innovation has happened without mistakes. At Sense Consulting, we nurture a culture of mistakes. They are expected from you if you try. Be authentic and active, believe in yourself and know that there are no limits – said Antoljak, who has extensive knowledge and international experience. He shared his business and entrepreneurial journey, which he started as a kid in elementary school, from which useful advice emerged that can help today’s students become more successful. He emphasized the importance of lifelong learning and family as his greatest motivation.
Vaić, the regional manager of Nestlé for Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, also recalled his studies and career path, emphasizing the importance of working on one’s own competitiveness and acquiring skills through work, as well as learning from the best and the worst.
– The future is full of challenges and opportunities. Grab yours – said Vaić, who has 20 years of experience working in large companies.
Ida Pandur certainly grabbed hers, but as she said, she realized early on that prejudices are something she would encounter in her career.
– When I was a little girl, the professor chose a boy for the journalism workshop, not because he was better than me at something, but just because it was easier for him to work with a boy – Pandur told the students.

It’s harder as a woman That same little girl is now at the helm of the digital agency Entourage, and all the challenges and prejudices have only hardened her. She advised students to travel the world as it should open their eyes, liberalize their views on life, and prepare them for the harsh job market they will encounter. She also highlighted social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn as excellent ways to establish useful contacts. Why are men still better paid and positioned than women in the business world, was a question from the gathered female students who intend to follow her path.
– Women in the business world are less likely to get what they deserve because they are afraid to ask for what belongs to them. Men rarely have this problem – stated Pandur.
The path of Branka Slaveska, CEO of Heineken Croatia, from an engineer who could not find a job in her hometown of Skopje to the head of a multinational company was not easy. But she succeeded, and as she admitted, it seems to her that everything happened for a reason and that every difficult experience and challenge led her to where she is today.

Energy and ambition – I was lucky to work with exceptionally good leaders in my company, those who were not afraid to hire people who would question their decisions – concluded Slaveska, who, like Antoljak, emphasized the importance of family. Through laughter, she revealed the secret of successfully balancing private and business spheres, which is that despite all the success, women must not forget to love the world, their family, and that the man in their life must always be satisfied. Like the other participants of the conference, she is distinguished from those less successful in the business world by a huge amount of energy and ambition. Just like Luka Abrus, director of the company Pet minuta.
– If you want to be successful in your job, regardless of what you do, you must have an insatiable thirst for learning and a great love for your profession, which manifests itself in constantly thinking about it. You need to know how to say ‘no’ when you feel it is the right time and always get a good night’s sleep. Those are my tips for you if you want to be successful in what you do – said Abrus.
The show was stolen by Krešimir Dvorski, bursting onto the stage on a metrosexual bicycle, as the conference moderator Frane Ridjan called it. The author of the public bike system project Nextbike humorously, but also painfully honestly described his life path, which includes being fired from his position as marketing director in a company that went bankrupt, divorce, and being in the red at the bank. Today, this marketing expert is a pioneer of the public bike system in Croatia. For the success of this project, he revealed, a combination of luck and risk was needed. After meeting ‘little’ Ante Gustin from Metković, Dvorski saw potential in his idea.
– When I first saw Ante, I started laughing. All sweaty, with trembling hands, he presented his project to the audience. Later, I realized that the idea had great potential. It was just that his presentation was catastrophic – Dvorski recounted, advising students that entrepreneurs do not accept crises as an excuse.