That week, official negotiations for joining the European Union began, journalist Josip Jović was arrested based on a warrant from the Hague Tribunal and transferred to The Hague, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Agrokor’s credit rating, the battle for control of Elka culminated among shareholders, the third mobile operator Tele2 (now Telemach) offered future subscribers the reservation of their desired number in its 095 network, clouds over Croatia and rain prevented the observation of the solar eclipse, the national football team was preparing for a match against Sweden, and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings performed in Zagreb.
That week, on Thursday 19 years ago, the first issue of Lider was also published, which was also marked by the most important event, but from a specific aspect: we published interviews with the most sought-after targets of Croatian headhunters and called them ‘Top Managers for the European Union’.
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Where Are the Young Lions Today
Marinko Benić has since changed a number of managerial roles, although not all companies were successful. He was at the helm of the Dubrovnik construction material manufacturer Ragusa, participated in projects of Karisma Hotels, led Kolocep Hotels for a while, was a member of the Management Board of Va-ba bank (now J&T bank), and his last managerial engagement was in the company Dubrovnik Sunsets, which recently went bankrupt due to unresolved relations with the county regarding the Sumratin beach they had under concession.
Zoran Bogdanović has made a great career at Coca-Cola. He was the general manager for Croatia, later for Greece and Switzerland. He is at the head of Coca-Cola HBC, which covers operations in 27 countries in Europe and in Nigeria and Egypt, with a total of nearly 740 million inhabitants.
Zadranin Marin Pucar crowned his managerial career at Podravka (with a detour into the management of Zvečevo) with the position of CEO, in which he was from 2008 to 2012, and at its helm from 2017 to 2021. He held several other important positions – he was the president of the Suppliers Association of Agrokor and the first man of HUP. Who knows how his career would have developed had it not been interrupted by his death at the age of fifty.
Tomislav Radoš was already the CEO of Auto Zubak at the age of 33, later earned a doctorate, was an advisor in the Ministry of Economy, and since 2015 has been the vice president of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce for Industry and Sustainable Development.
Kristian Šustar has established himself as one of the most respected managers in tourism, with rich experience from several prestigious hotel companies, agencies, and associations – from receptionist at the Bonavia hotel to Adriatic Luxury Hotels, Maistra, HUP-Zagreb, Dubrovnik Riviera hotels, and Uniline to the Rijeka Jadran hotels.
Grigor Vidmar, as the best economics student in his generation, first got a job at the Faculty and then changed several companies, after procuring in Vetropack Straža at the age of 31 he led Dukat’s finances and then moved to the Management Board of Dunapack Corrugated Paper, and then settled in his own consulting company Ordinatio Experti, which, among other things, led the largest restructuring project in Croatia – HP Croatian Post.
Welch, Marković, Luković…
These sketches of six rich careers show that we made a good forecast with the young lions from 2005. They really were (are) hot commodities in the managerial market. Perhaps that sense of recognizing trends is one of the key characteristics we are proud of in the editorial office. Of course, it is prestigious for journalism to bring exclusives like the rigging of the sale of Pliva to Americans in 2005, in which the then CEO Željko Čović and the indispensable Prime Minister Ivo Sanader participated. As early as 2009, we uncovered the Forex scam in which at least 400 investors in the chain of luck in the foreign exchange market lost 70 million kuna, for which ten years later the ‘Forex Seven’ were sentenced to a total of 28 years in prison, while the eighth member of the group escaped with a suspended sentence. We recall the exposure of public procurement – when the Constitutional Court in 2011 in the purchase of luxury furniture wrote that it was looking for furniture ‘like Giorgetti’, or the purchase of a piano for the new building of the Music Academy in 2014 worth about 13 million kuna, with conditions that could be met by only one bidder. A piano with 92 keys was sought, which only Bösendorfer has. At the beginning of 2016, we discovered that the first 12 kilometers of railway track built in the last 50 years was for 114 passengers. Namely, the project connecting Sv. Ivan Žabno and Gradec from 2003 had prepared documentation to apply for 85 percent of the investment from EU funds. And just before the start of construction, 12 out of 16 direct trains on the Bjelovar – Zagreb route were canceled due to unprofitability…
