August 31, 2019 - A star-studded lineup of Croatian entrepreneurial excellence will assemble in Zagreb on September 12 for a stimulating one-day conference on the entrepreneurial mindset.
About 18 months ago, I received a phone call from Nenad Bakic, one of Croatia's most successful and high-profile entrepreneurs. Along with Mate Rimac, Bakic was named recently in the Financial Times' list of top 100 digital champions of Europe. Shortly before he called me, Bakic had taken over the ailing Varteks company in Varazdin, and he was in town to turn things around (and you can read more about the Nenad Bakic Varteks revolution in a recent TCN feature).
Our meeting was very friendly on a number of topics, and then he reached out for his phone and said:
"I want you to see something that you will enjoy, a totally different picture of Croatia." One phone call later and my place was reserved - I was to be a guest at the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in Zagreb.
It was an outstanding evening of positivity, where Croatia's emerging entrepreneurial class celebrated the very best of their own, with Mate Rimac taking the first prize. It was a real privilege to be a foreign fly on the wall that evening, and it showed me that there was hope for Croatia, as well as a stimulating group of people that I wanted TCN to spend more time investigating. You can read a report on that inspiring evening here.
On September 12, that positivity and creativity will take on a new angle, with the first Entrepreneurial Mindset conference taking place in Zagreb. Several of the judges and winners from the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award will be sharing their knowledge and experiences of being an entrepreneur in a one-day conference in Zagreb. They will talk about their vision, successes, mistakes, courage and mindset. Among the speakers will be two of the more procactive foreign ambassadors on the Zagreb scene: Ambassador Robert Kohorst from the American Embassy and Ilan Mor from the Israeli Embassy.
The event is organised by business magazine Casopis Poduzetnik, in collaboration with EY. The programme is above, the speakers are below. It promises to be a very stimulating event, one which TCN will be attending and covering in detail in the coming days. My understanding is that the conference will be mostly in Croatian (but with translation) with the presentations from the ambassadors in English.
You can learn more about the conference and how to attend via the Casopis Poduzetnik Facebook page.
