The PILC Conference Held, Connecting Leaders and Linking Higher Education and Business for 10 Years

The organizer is the PAR Business School, while this year’s conference partner was the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP). The jubilee PILC conference was marked by positive and inspiring themes.

Considering all the experiences from the past year, discussions focused on examples from the economy that successfully overcame insurmountable obstacles despite challenges and created opportunities for further successful projects and steps in business.

In a pleasant atmosphere and with quality discussions, conference participants answered some of the questions: Is leadership challenged? How did leaders cope during the pandemic? Has the role of leaders changed in the corona era? Have these obstacles actually proven to be opportunities for further progress? What does the time after Covid bring, and are we ready?

Kristijan Pavić, CEO of ACI d.d., described how they faced the crisis caused by the Covid-19 virus. Given that the crisis began in March 2020, Pavić emphasized that they had enough time to prepare for last year’s season, achieving promising results in July and August. Pavić also highlighted the need to adapt to the crisis and move towards new victories afterward.

Marina Pulišić, a member of the Management Board of JGL, announced that this year JGL celebrates its 30th anniversary and that last year, despite the crisis, was their most successful yet, achieving one billion kuna in revenue and employing over 1,000 people. Pulišić also emphasized that JGL is a company of a distinctly international character, exporting over 80% of its products to foreign markets.

Petar Šimić, CEO of PRIMACOSPED d.o.o., described two stages of the Covid crisis and how it affected PRIMACOSPED’s business. The first stage was marked by the crisis in China, which significantly impacted maritime transport. The second stage of the crisis, as Šimić emphasizes, occurred in Europe and had a devastating impact on all transport possibilities. Šimić particularly highlighted the positive side of the crisis, which is that it pushes us all to become creative.

Manuela Šola, director of the Communication Laboratory and president of the HUP Supervisory Board, explained how the previous year was extremely challenging for all areas, especially for the event management sector. Šola compared this crisis to that of 2007/2008 and emphasized its uniqueness. This crisis, as Šola points out, has increased and strengthened internal and crisis communication, unlike the previous one when companies were closing en masse and weakening in communication.

Ognjen Bagatin, co-owner of Bagatin Polyclinic and the media platform Poduzetnik, compared the relationship between the private and public health sectors during the previous year and emphasized that private healthcare achieved positive growth due to the closure of the public sector, which was overwhelmed by the crisis caused by Covid-19. Bagatin also enthusiastically pointed out that trust in the private healthcare sector has generally increased in Croatia and hopes it will remain so.

Ivan Ante Nikolić, vice president of HUP-ICT, director of the Digital (R)evolution conference, and member of the Management Board of Blinka, belongs to one of those sectors that Covid crisis positively impacted because it stimulated digital transformation.

Gordana Nikolić, dean of PAR and president of the HUP Association of Employers in Education, hosted Hrvoje Balen, vice president of HUP-ICT and member of the Management Board of Algebra, in a one-on-one discussion. They talked about the phases of the National Recovery Program, and Mr. Balen particularly emphasized its most important aspects: the importance and development of innovation, modernization of production, and digital transformation. 

And as Mr. Nenad Seifert, director of the Regional Office in Rijeka of the Croatian Employers’ Association, emphasized, the conclusion is that we must persistently strive together to ensure that entrepreneurship enters public topics, which is also the goal of this PAR conference that has been creating a link between higher education and business for a whole decade.

Hrvoje Balen:

HUP has always been constructive in proposals for improving the NPOO, which, in combination with the VFO and other instruments, truly creates a generational opportunity for our country. The Republic of Croatia is facing a demographic problem, and if we want to ensure recovery and respond to the challenges of youth emigration and the increasing number of retirees, along with all the reforms we mention, we must create 60,000 – 100,000 quality and sustainable jobs in the private sector in the short term, for which it is necessary to secure between 10 billion euros in investments from the national recovery plan, the multiannual financial framework, and private sources by 2027. In the next few months, we expect that there will still be room for corrections to the NPOO and enabling the inclusion of the private sector in certain investment programs.

The recovery plan can still be managed, and this will also be possible through future reallocations, as the private sector has proven in the past that it can quickly and effectively absorb funds from EU sources. Therefore, we hope that we will approach these final changes in a partnership manner. At HUP, we are pleased that negotiations regarding the investment of funds from structural funds 2021-27 have started transparently from the beginning and with greater involvement of the real sector in certain segments, but I must also note that now is the last moment to jointly determine the overarching priorities and overarching allocations of the Regional Development Fund for investments in the competitiveness of Croatian companies in the post-crisis period.

We recognize the efforts of the Government, which has negotiated more favorable conditions and a map of regional aid with the European Commission, thus opening up space for encouraging private investments and sustainable employment, and we must also commend the new dynamics of communication with the ministries of economy, labor, tourism, and regional development.

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