Emerging Europe Talks
By Emerging Europe
The series is delivered by Emerging Europe, a London-based growth hub whose mission is to foster the social, economic and democratic development of 23 countries in Central, Eastern, South-East and North-East Europe, and hosted by Andrew Wrobel.
Emerging Europe TalksSep 15, 2020
#EETalks reinvention and technology adoption with Rafael E. de Hoyos
Technology increases productivity. But it also brings about other consequences: it creates, removes and modifies the tasks that are supposed to be performed. This in turn affects the demand for workers with new skills.
This is why equipping all young people with the skills to adapt and reinvent themselves is one of the three policy recommendations, alongside promoting technology adoption and adapting technology to meet society’s needs, included in the recent report The Future of Work: Implications for Equity and Growth in Europe, released by the World Bank.
“I'm talking about numeracy, literacy, problem-solving, and in particular social skills; the ability to work in teams, the ability to project a future and be consistent...the ability to listen to others. These types of skills, these foundational skills are the perfect complement of new technologies,” Rafael E. de Hoyos, programme leader in human development for EU member states at the World Bank and one of the report’s authors, tells Andrew Wrobel.
“These are precisely the things that we should provide to our students because this is what will allow them to re-invent themselves,” he adds. “[These skills] will allow them to benefit from technology, not compete with it.”
They also talk about the future of education and about how to prepare educational systems in Europe and the emerging Europe region for future challenges.
#EETalks She's Next with Havva Safarova
“I was working in a corporate environment, in a hotel, in the marketing department, and we were seeking professional travellers and family travellers [who could help us] promote our hotel,” Havva Safarova tells Andrew Wrobel.
“Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to find any travelling families who have a blog. One night my husband said to me: ‘You travel, we have kids, and you are a marketer so you can do it best’.”
Now, Havva is an internet personality and a content creator with thousands of followers. She also educates others. She is the author of seminars and marathons that empower women and emphasise that, “the limit of women is only in their brains.”
Like many mothers, she struggled with dividing her time between family and work.
“I couldn't work and manage, taking the kids to the kindergarten and then taking care of them. As a freelancer it was very hard; when you are in a corporate environment, you are working from nine to six. But when you are a freelancer, you are working 24/7.
“And I was sitting in coffee shops aware that people were watching...I was bringing my kids to the coffee shop and people were saying that they disrupted them.”
So, Havva came up with yet another idea: Ninja Kids Club.
#EETalks She's Next with Viktoria Konstantinova
“My mother was my first mentor. I remember her advice when I was a child. Back then, we had grades from one to five. Five was the best mark, four was okay and three was not very good. And one day, I came back and said ‘Mum, I got a four, and that’s really good because the rest of the class got threes.’ And my mother said to me, ‘Darling, you had better look at those who are ahead of you, not those who are behind,” Viktoria Konstantinova, Head of EMEA Talent Marketing at GlobalLogic, tells Andrew Wrobel.
With over 20 years in marketing across various sectors, Konstantinova now works for an international software company with 30,000 engineers worldwide and leads marketing efforts in 20 countries. Now she encourages other women to look for mentors.
"We are literally sitting and waiting for you to reach out and ask questions. This is a two-way street. This is not a monologue. This is a dialogue. While giving, we are receiving; and communicating with inspiring people, especially women who want to start a business or who want to change their lives. This is inspirational for us.”
#EETalks She's Next Ana Nadiradze and Diana Kiguradze
“Our [solution] is an innovative platform for riders of any level to book and fully explore our tour features with the assistance of digital video routes. When you go to our website, you can see all horseback tours around Georgia. The platform's objective is to develop a niche market for equestrian tourism in the region,” Ana Nadiradze, co-founder of Horsetours, tells Andrew Wrobel.
“Ana has created a really interesting business and she can show how to combine ecommerce and equestrian tourism together,” says Diana Kiguradze, regional manager, Caucasus, CISSEE at Visa.
Not only that, she has introduced digitalisation to a sector that was analogue for too long.
“We are going to digitise the potential of equestrian tourists in Western Georgia and create a digital video road,” Ana adds.
#EETalks She's Next with Agnieszka Hryniewicz-Bieniek
“I am a person that loves experimenting and learning by doing. So, it was just this passion that I have for doing something that makes the world better, but by learning from others, by connecting with other cultures, and learning from those who have already done more,” Agnieszka Hryniewicz-Bieniek, Global Director of Google for Startups, tells Andrew Wrobel.
She has created a series of workshops called ‘I Am Remarkable.’
“We just wanted to support women to be more confident and to acknowledge their strengths, to acknowledge how great they are. Because very often we see female founders don't have that confidence. This is a very popular workshop right now, not only among female entrepreneurs but also any female audiences from students through regular individual contributors.”
Agnieszka comes from Poland and she cherishes the fact that she comes from Central and Eastern Europe.
“I come from this region. This region is diverse, with a lot of different countries, and a lot of different connections and languages. Somehow it's easy when you come from this region to actually manage a global team because you already know that there are differences, you already know that you have to listen and you understand the context of the other person from another country…because it all matters in communication.”
Today she manages Google for Startups initiatives carried out in over 125 countries including joint activities with over 60 incubators, accelerators, and co-working spaces.
#EETalks Redefining branding in life sciences with Nataliya Andreychuk
Do we need to say that technology is changing every aspect of human life? No, we don’t—and healthcare and life sciences are no exception. Leading pharmaceutical companies explore data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the development and production of new and more effective medicines. Healthcare professionals use virtual reality to improve their skills. Patients use virtual tools to access medical services.
Both groups consume far more content than ever before. High demand for personalised customer experiences forces companies to invest more in tailored content production.
“We are all about storytelling, about content” says https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreychuk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreychuk/, one of the founders and CEO of Viseven, a MarTech services provider. “We are a digital content agency, a digital content factory for pharmaceutical clients. We create digital content, digital narratives. We create a content strategy, end-to-end marketing services, omni-channel campaigns. We build the entire architecture and infrastructure for marketing content.”
She speaks with Andrew Wrobel about leadership, entrepreneurship and disruption. One of the biggest disruptions for her was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She turned it into an opportunity and her company’s team has since grown by some 50 per cent, now exceeding 700 people.
#EETalks She's Next with Milica Ličina Čalija and Vladimir Đorđević
“I started [the business] on my second maternity leave 10 years ago. Before that, I was engaged in large corporations in high positions in marketing and public relations. [...] I used the pause to rethink my purpose in business and I started testing healthy oatmeal cookies, which was really strange back then,” Milica Ličina Čalija, the founder of Anđeli (Serbian for Angels) tells Andrew Wrobel.
“Now, we do have some kind of awareness of the importance of healthy eating. Back then, online shopping was not as developed as it is now. And healthy habits in eating were not as developed.”
The cookie producer now has eight employees, and seven of them are women. They are a social enterprise because all of the female employees are either over 45 years old, which is a group in Serbia that cannot be easily employed, or have some kind of chronic illness.
“It's a community, a kind of family. And when I say that I'm an activist and I empower women, I do not only do that through some kind of advocacy,” she adds.
But Milica is also an activist and runs her own podcast.
"I always talk about difficult moments and obstacles, thinking that if I share that experience, someone else will be encouraged to overcome the same obstacle,” she says.
#EETalks the Future of Education with Sayasat Nurbek
Technology has significantly expanded access to education. We saw that firsthand during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also begun to change the roles of teachers and learners. The teacher’s role is changing as students take more responsibility for their own learning using technology to gather relevant information.
But the impact of technology is even more profound than that. Advances in technology have led to the automation of many tasks, which has led to the creation of new job roles that require different skills.
“We need to really teach our students to adapt, to learn, constantly relearn what they've learned so far and unlearn certain things that would limit them from learning new things,” says Sayasat Nurbek, Kazakhstan’s minister of science and higher education.
He speaks with Andrew Wrobel about how Kazakhstan is reinventing its approach to education, its educational system and the role teachers play in the process.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Climate intelligence with Climatig’s Duško Radulovic
Climate change affects all regions around the world, and the number of risks generated by changing weather conditions and disasters are increasing. Knowledge about potential risks is essential for their reduction, transfer, and adaptation.
Climatig is a Croatian climate fintech start-up that helps banks, insurers, facility managers, and real estate decision-makers mitigate climate risks such as drought, floods, extremely high temperatures, and more through the power of climate intelligence.
Duško Radulovic, Climatig’s CEO, spoke with Andrew Wrobel about his company’s solution to the challenges in obtaining reliable climate intelligence using geolocation with a precision of 10 metres. One UK-based investor considered flooding to be the main issue but after obtaining the coordinates it turned out wind might be a bigger risk.
They also discussed access to the solution. Currently, it is addressed at business clients but will soon be available for individuals who will be able to understand risks, for example, before investing in a new home.
#EETalks Regional Leadership — Innovative Moldova with Dumitru Alaiba
“Moldova is no longer just a consumer of technologies. We are now a nation that exports and generates technologies,” the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Digitalisation, Dumitru Alaiba, wrote on Linkedin in August. He shared the example of Informbusiness, a domestic company that has just launched the production of dynamically-charged electric buses.
“We have a booming IT industry. Year-on-year growth is 45 per cent, and 95 per cent of the IT services produced are oriented for export. Altogether, the IT industry in Moldova is about five per cent [of GDP] and if the sector grows even half as fast as it has over the past three years, I think we can double that soon,” he tells Emerging Europe’s Andrew Wrobel.
According to the Future of IT in emerging Europe report, 4.4 per cent of Moldovans are employed in the ICT sector. Across the 23 countries of emerging Europe, only Estonia has a higher percentage employed in the sector.
“We want to prove that it’s not just Estonia [that can be 100 per cent digital]. Any other country can do it if they take [digitalisation] seriously and if they believe it is possible,” Alaiba adds.
“We want to show that you can have a high quality of service when you deal with the Moldovan government, whether you are an entrepreneur, a citizen or a visitor. […] You don't need to go through a massive crisis in order to benefit from the digital transformation.”
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — AI for start-ups with Hotball.ai’s Maksym Nagara
It’s no secret that most start-ups don’t succeed. In fact, more than two-thirds never deliver a positive return to investors.
According to a recent Skynova study, 47 per cent of start-up failures in 2022 were due to a lack of financing, nearly double the percentage that failed for the same reason in 2021. Running out of cash was behind 44 per cent of failures, while 33 per cent of start-up failures were attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic’s wide-ranging effects on business and the broader economy.
Start-up founders often rely on their knowledge and experience, or that of external consultants, and mentors. And almost 60 per cent of almost 500 founders polled by Skynova said they would have done more market research prior to launching.
What if they relied on artificial intelligence to help them put together a business plan? This is what Hotball.ai intends to offer.
Maksym Nagara, the founder and CEO of Hotball.ai and the founder and leading consultant of Bezmezh.Consulting, talks with Andrew Wrobel about how the firm’s solution can help start-ups understand strategy and plan better.
They also talk about the reasons why start-ups often fail and how AI can help small businesses grow in a sustainable way.
#EETalks She’s Next with Nataliia Ievtushenko and Svitlana Chyrva
“Before I started my internship at Visa, I [ran] a small eco-hotel in the mountains of Ukraine. It was a travel co-working space. It was after the first invasion in 2014. A lot of travel agencies were closed and travel managers needed to work somewhere so I decided to open a space where everybody could help each other and develop the travel industry,” Nataliia Ievtushenko, first an intern and now a full-time employee at Visa tells Andrew Wrobel in the eighth episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
“During the [internship] interview, I chose the product team. It's very interesting for me to see how products are created from the beginning, from the idea until the product is done.”
“I'm the head of the women's Visa network inside the company. And I used to be the mentor for some of the newcomers and some of the women in the network. It's really great to feel that your experience, your advice helps someone to grow or just to realise themselves, to achieve results or even to build a relationship with someone. It's important not only for the mentee but also for the mentor just to know that they are helping the younger generation grow, find new paths,” Svitlana Chyrva, Vice President, Country Manager for Visa in Ukraine and Moldova, adds.
#EETalks She’s Next with Michelle Simmons
“I changed companies for the first three roles that I had and then I came to Microsoft,” Michelle Simmons, General Manager Central Europe at Microsoft, tells Andrew Wrobel in the seventh episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
“And what I found was that I've been able to take on new challenges and really work for many different companies inside Microsoft by changing functions, changing geographies and expanding my scope of responsibility. And so that's how I've ended up spending so long at one company because it's been just a platform for incredible learning, professional growth.”
“I had the pleasure of first meeting Michelle earlier this year and during our conversations it was her approach to leadership that struck me most,” Andrew says. “That curiosity and authenticity, showing the way forward, especially now in such uncertain times and being able to create a vision for what the future looks like. And identifying and challenging talent in a supportive way so that they can move into their next role, even if it is at a different company.”
“I measure myself on how I'm helping people in my organization to achieve their career goals,” Michelle adds.
#EETalks She’s Next with Dan Baxter
“There's been a lot of positive discussion and some positive progress when it comes to gender equality around the world, […] but I think clearly there's much more to be done to truly ensure the level of equality that we all aspire to and I think men have to play a vital role in that,” said Dan Baxter, Vice President, Corporate Communications for Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at Visa, in conversation with Emerging Europe’s Andrew Wrobel.
This is why halfway through the first series of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa, we take a look at the role of men in the development of female empowerment as the process must include the awareness and engagement of men.
“One of the steps is ensuring that you have a diverse work force to start with and setting very clear goals which are measured to ensure that you're continuing to increase the level of diversity within the organisation. [...] We need to show that there are significant benefits of having more women in the workplace, but also in the company environment.”
“Involving men in initiatives such as She’s Next contributes to a broader understanding that diversity is an enormous benefit in a workplace. I am also delighted to be the podcast host and I very much hope I will be able to help raise awareness about diversity and the value of female entrepreneurship,” Andrew added.
#EETalks She’s Next with Silke Horáková
"When we started in 2018, […] it was really to try something new in the region and in our country [of Czechia],” Silke Horáková tells Andrew Wrobel in the fifth episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
“It was about convincing investors that impact investing is something valid and has a future. That it's worthwhile to invest for financial returns, and doing something good for society at the same time.”
Silke is one of the founders and a partner at Tilia Impact Ventures, one of the first impact funds in central and eastern Europe. She was previously the CEO of the Czech Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and is originally from Germany. She moved to Czechia during the Velvet Revolution. She is also the co-owner of Albatros Media, the largest Czech book publishing company.
“Silke says she is not an entrepreneur herself. Yet she’s co-founded quite a few initiatives, including the European Women in VC community that empowers founders who are making a difference in the world. What struck me is the passion she has for social and environmental impact. I very much wish we had more people that are so committed to supporting changemakers in the emerging Europe region,” Andrew says.
“Looking back to 2010, when I heard for the first time about the concept of impact investing, right from the start I had a deep desire to do something,” Silke adds.
#EETalks Success and Failure — IT and software business with Oves Enterprise’ Mihai Filip
The global ICT market is bound to grow. Digitalisation, cloud computing, Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) are only a few drivers of that growth. Global ICT spending reached about 4.9 trillion US dollars in 2020 and is expected to reach 5.8 trillion US dollars by 2023. That growth encourages entrepreneurs to set up new companies offering IT services.
MIhai Filip, the founder and CEO of Romania-based Oves Enterprise, and also a serial entrepreneur, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about why he set up a software engineering company and how he found his niche in that rapidly developing sector, how he continues to innovate on a daily basis and provide value to his partners and clients.
They also talk about his successes and failures such as working with high-profile clients in the private and public sectors, and working to acquire a new client and admitting his company was not ready for that client at the time.
#EETalks She’s Next with Nadya Zhexembayeva and Cristina Doros
“I was born into a century and a family that went through every kind of disruption imaginable. I come from […] Central Asia, which has gone through tremendous turbulence: two brutal world wars, multiple civil wars in between every kind of disruption possible, and then that finished with the collapse of our government,“ Nadya Zhexembayeva tells Andrew Wrobel in the fourth episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
Her first job was in an insurance business selling life insurance in the collapsing Soviet Union. Now Nadya is a recovering academic scientist, entrepreneur, educator, and the founder and chief reinvention officer at Reinvention Academy.
“And if for some people stability is a norm, for me, turbulence is the norm. Today, as we face all kinds of disruption, it’s a competitive advantage, meaning I am more ready to deal with change.”
“Imagine this scene, a relatively young professor at business school meets a vice president of a bank in the same class,” says Cristina Doros, now vice president, regional manager for Central Asia and Azerbaijan at Visa, who first med Nadya back in 2009.
“It's an inspiration because sometimes when you feel down, when you think your things are going south and you are no good at anything, then I see, I look at Nadya's speeches, I listen to her online, I read the post and I said to myself, OK, you know what, that's the meaning you've been missing.”
“We are all learning from each other and in that environment, it's all about creating conditions where we can all share, because the wisdom in the room is tremendous with all of these executives,” Nadya adds.
#EETalks She’s Next with Elena Marinova
“I was born and raised in a family of engineers. All around me were gadgets and software, and I wasn't really excited about them. My father taught me how to programme. It was basic, and it was more than 30 years ago, and did not excite me that much,” Elena Marinova tells Andrew Wrobel in the third episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by VISA.
Elena is president and chair of the board of directors at Musala Soft, a software service company, founded in 2000 and currently with offices in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Egypt, and Emerging Europe’s Female Business Leader for 2020.
“But 2000 was the year of the dot com crash. We started with fancy Silicon Valley start-ups. Everything was super shiny…unicorns and rainbows. A few months later, we lost all our clients. And a year later, we were almost done. […] It turned out to be an extremely fun and dynamic field.”
Musala Soft was recently acquired by the KKCG Group and is now part of Qinshift, although it has kept its original brand.
“I have known Elena for a few years, and I cannot find another person who is so committed to supporting young generations of programmers, and not just in her home country of Bulgaria. Back in 2017, she co-founded the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics for kids from the Council of Europe countries and gave them a stage to compete and create friendships that will last for life and lead to scientific breakthroughs and a better and more connected world. And her enthusiasm is contagious,” Andrew says.
“If you like the things that you're doing, of course, you're doing more of them and it's not a nine to five thing. It's something you live with all the time,” Elena adds.
And she seems to have taken a liking to programming in the end.
#EETalks She's Next with Turkan Ismayilli and Cristina Doros
“My background is the tourism industry, but when my son was born, he came with a bonus. [This is how] autism came into our lives,” Turkan Ismayilli, the founder of the YouTube channel Cin Bala with animations and fairy tales addressed to special children, tells Andrew Wrobel in the second episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
Turkan started the channel during the Covid-19 pandemic, after her family had come to Germany and attending therapy sessions was close to impossible.
"Our direction is clear, and we started the YouTube channel [to help] autistic kids living in Azerbaijan who do not have a chance to go to therapy centres. [Thanks to these videos] children can learn to speak. We saw it day by day with our son and we have received a lot of messages [from others who say the same].
“To me, it is very much specific to women’s entrepreneurship overall because the research also showed that it's us women having a need from any standpoint, having the need to help, having a need to support our family, having the need to help our close ones move further. We are doers, we do stuff no matter how much we are afraid, no matter how much we are not sure. Mostly we are not sure, but we still do things,” adds Cristina Doros, vice president, regional manager for Central Asia and Azerbaijan at Visa, who also joined the episode.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — The Future of News with Post’s Noam Bardin
The world of social media is changing. In 2023, Elon Musk’s Twitter has 353.9 million users, almost four per cent fewer than in 2022, and is expected to lose another five per cent next year, according to BankMyCell.
Previously, it built its network thanks to three communities: politicians, celebrities, and journalists, who could broadcast directly to a large audience without any gatekeepers, build personal brands and promote stories that they believe are newsworthy. Trolls use Twitter because its algorithms give their content disproportionate weight in the conversation. As a result, according to MIT, falsehoods on Twitter spread 10-20 faster than facts.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads, launched on July 6, 2023, got off to a great start with over 100 million subscribers within just five days. But, according to SimilarWeb, Threads’ daily active user base dropped from 49 million in the launch week to 23.6 million now.
Where is news in this picture? Well, the average news platform subscriber is 50 years old. 40 per cent of 18-29 year-olds use social media to consume news.
Noam Bardin is the former CEO of Waze and the founder and CEO of Post, which he launched in November 2022. Post is an inclusive platform designed for social media natives and the way they want to consume news. He speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the future of the media industry, from both a consumer and publisher perspective.
They also talk about how to make sure that users are part of a community where debate is civil and constructive. They discuss a model that promotes access to content produced by premium publishers and countless experts and academics, without subscriptions or ads, using micropayments with publishers receiving the entire payment revenue.
#EETalks She's Next with Dragana ‘Gaga’ Djermanović
“I'm a growth guide which means I support leaders and managers and start-up founders and some public figures in sorting out their businesses and lives,” Dragana ‘Gaga’ Djermanović tells Andrew Wrobel in the first episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by Visa.
Gaga is a recognised and awarded personal and professional growth advisor. Through her extensive career, she has mentored more than 1,000 managers, leaders, public figures, and founders.
“I'm very passionate about supporting people who believe in their dreams and want to realise them, but suffer because they don’t have a clear goal or vision. Sometimes, even with a clear goal or vision, it's too small.”
“Gaga is a real inspiration for me. From being the youngest manager in a financial institution in Serbia in her early twenties, through leaving the corporate world to becoming a global influencer, she has shown that nothing is impossible. I was stunned by her remarkably positive attitude and her understanding of giving not only taking,” says Andrew.
"Wherever you are and whatever you have done so far, whatever you think you have, you can give to others. And that's an example, either ideas, context or you can even support someone's story: that's giving. And usually, people are building networks in order to receive,” Gaga says.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Air Pollution with Resysten’s Shajjad Rizvi
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a staggering 99 per cent of the global population breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits and threatens people’s health. More than 6,000 cities across the globe are now monitoring air quality, but the people living in them are still breathing unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, with people in low and middle-income countries suffering the highest exposures.
In Europe alone, air pollution kills more than 1,200 children and teenagers per year, according to a report released by the European Environment Agency (EEA). It also significantly increases the risk of disease later in life. Meanwhile, 78 out the 100 most polluted cities in Europe are located in the emerging Europe region, according to IQAir.
Shajjad Rizvi MBE, the CEO of Hungarian start-up Resysten, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about Clean Air, his company’s solution. It utilises advanced binding technology and the principles of titanium dioxide and sunlight, which purifies the air through photocatalysis eliminating harmful pollutants associated with various health conditions.
They also talk about the challenges of communicating innovative solutions to potential buyers and how businesses can offset their carbon footprint by cleaning their air.
#EETalks Success and Failure — Innovative tourism with VIP Silven’s Hristo Yanev
Tourism is one of the one of the largest and fastest-growing industries globally. In 2022, the entire market was worth over 10.5 trillion US dollars and it is expected grow by some five per cent per annum over the next five years.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry took a strong hit. It is certain that the future of sector will depend on digital and technological discoveries such as the use of chatbots to make reservations, mobility patterns to manage visitor flows, artificial intelligence, IoT, 5G, service-oriented robots, gamification methods for emotional monitoring and much more besides. These innovations will shape the new tourist experience.
Hristo Yanev, the founder and CEO of Bulgaria-based VIP Silven and a number of other companies, spoke with Andrew Wrobel about how his company has embraced autonomous vehicles and other innovative solutions in tourism.
They also talk about Hristo’s entrepreneurial path as he gives tips to other current and future business owners.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Tech for sustainability with Microsoft's Petra Čiček
The coming years will be decisive for a sustainable future. The foundations will be laid for unleashing the potential of digital technology and the cloud as the innovation platform for green transformation. This applies to the corporate sector as well as to the public sector and society as a whole.
Petra Čiček, Sustainability Lead at Microsoft Central Europe, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about how digitalisation, sustainability, and growth are interconnected and about how the digital skills of the general population are correlated with lower air pollution and more sustainable behaviour.
They also discuss the recent Environmental Sustainability Report, which confirms the company’s role in developing and advancing new climate solutions, but also recognises that the climate crisis can’t be solved by any single company, organisation, or government, and the Microsoft Sustainability Academy, which helps future leaders understand sustainability concepts and technology skills.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — The future of education with SET University's Iryna Volnystka
#67 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — The Future of Education with SET University's Iryna Volnystka
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — CEE family businesses with PwC’s Piotr Michalczyk
Family businesses are at the very heart of emerging Europe’s economies. Set up within the last three-four decades, they now contribute meaningfully to the region’s economic growth, development, and employment — accounting for 40–50 per cent of all jobs in the private sector.
Despite the current challenging economic conditions, family businesses in the region have seen strong performance over the last financial year, with 83 per cent experiencing growth and only five per cent seeing a reduction in sales. That is more positive than the global picture – across the world, 71 per cent of family businesses grew while eight per cent saw a reduction.
Piotr Michalczyk, Poland-based partner at PwC leading the private business practice in Central and Eastern Europe, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about why family businesses in the region are doing better and are more optimistic about the future, as seen in the Family Business Survey, PwC’s global market survey among key decision makers in family businesses.
They also talk about how these companies perceive innovation and digitalisation and how they are embracing sustainability and environmental, social, governance (ESG) and how aware they are of the importance of proper succession planning.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact—Making the most of waste with Releaf’s Alexander Sobolenko
Calculations made recently by University of Copenhagen professor Per Gundersen suggest that some 600,000 tons of CO2 could be stored per annum if all Danes simply allowed yard waste to decompose in their gardens instead of burning it.
Releaf Paper, however, a greentech start-up founded in 2021 by two Ukrainian innovators, has a different idea about how to use that waste. Their technology, developed by biotechnologist Valentin Frechka (currently 21 years old), allows the processing of fallen leaves and other green waste into cellulose, which is the basis for creating paper and some types of packaging.
This material is a direct replacement for primary cellulose obtained from wood. That leaf paper is fully recyclable and has a biodegradation period of only 60 days. As the solution uses raw materials it helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 78 per cent. It also contributes to forest conservation.
Alexander Sobolenko, chairman and general manager at Releaf Paper, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the solution and about how low awareness of alternative sources of paper is among potential business partners. Many are interested in sustainable solutions but find it hard to understand the concept.
They also talk about how other start-ups and small companies can understand their carbon footprint and what they can do to make an impact.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Measuring carbon footprint with ISFC’s Linda Zeilina
The Covid-19 crisis made people pay more attention—not less—to burning environmental issues such as climate change. The call for global climate action today is urgent, and companies are starting to recognise the need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions—not just for the planet, but for the benefit of their own business.
However, in a survey carried out by the Boston Consulting Group in October 2022, only 10 per cent of 1,600 companies with 1,000 employees or more and revenues ranging from approximately 100 million to over 10 billion US dollars, across 14 major industries and 18 countries, said that they measure their emissions comprehensively (scope 1, 2, and 3), a one per cent increase compared to 2021. In the survey, respondents also estimated a 25 per cent to 30 per cent average error rate in their emissions measurements.
Linda Zeilina, CEO at the International Sustainable Finance Centre (ISFC) and a member of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the EU taxonomy of sustainable economic activities, a tool helping investors understand whether an economic activity is environmentally sustainable and navigate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
They also talk about sustainability education and finally about the CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, taking place on May 15-19, 2023, in Prague, Czechia, which is a specialised event focused on sustainability in finance and business in the emerging Europe region.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Digital perseverance with Microsoft’s Kostas Loukas
Business leaders across the emerging Europe region are grappling with significant economic headwinds and are carefully weighing decisions around strategy and investment. They are looking for ways to reduce operational expenditure, increase productivity and ensure rapid return on capital investments. Efficiency and business resilience have become their top priorities.
Digitisation helps make businesses stronger, more agile and better positioned to weather unprecedented challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the war in Ukraine, or disruptions related to climate change. It also makes companies more secure.
For businesses looking to increase their security, the best thing they can do is be part of an infrastructure that is equipped to pick up and understand the signals, and ultimately prevent attacks even before they happen. By moving to the cloud, companies can leverage this strength and protect their critical infrastructure.
Kostas Loukas, General Manager Enterprise at Microsoft CEE, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about digital perseverance — an organisation’s ability to thrive despite risk provided they harness and wield digital technology to achieve their business goals and do more with less
They also discuss the areas where that digital perseverance can be built and strengthened — employee productivity, business continuity and supply chain.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Business confidence with PwC CEE’s Adam Krasoń
Three out of four CEOs in the CEE region project that global economic growth will slow over the next 12 months. These expectations represent a sharp reversal from 2022 when two out of three CEOs foresaw an improvement, according to PwC’s Annual CEO Survey.
Despite their gloom about macro conditions, CEOs in the region are nevertheless quite confident when it comes to things they can directly control: they are more bullish than the global average on their own company’s revenue growth prospects over the next 12 months, with 46 per cent saying they’re “extremely confident”.
Russia’s war on Ukraine and growing concern about geopolitical instability have caused CEOs to rethink aspects of their business models and the way they perceive risk. While in comparison to the 2022 findings, cyber risks have slipped down the list of regional and global business leaders’ threat priorities (20 per cent said this is the top threat), the picture changes for their five-year outlook. Over that timeframe, cyber risks join inflation, macroeconomic volatility, and geopolitical conflict in the top tier of risk exposure.
Adam Krasoń, CEO of PwC in Central and Eastern Europe, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about where emerging Europe’s CEOs are looking for growth opportunities, how they are responding to short- and long-term threats, and about the region’s sustainable growth.
They also talk about the role of digital transformation in the region’s future as 45 per cent of all CEOs taking part in the survey don’t think their companies will be economically viable if they continue on their current path.
Adam Krasoń will be hosting a live PwC CEE webcast on Friday, March 17, at 10:30. The webcast will present results from the CEO Survey and a panel discussion moderated by Kasia Madera, BBC World, will look at the role of CEE executives in addressing the tough challenges faced by our societies. Register here.
#EETalks Sustainable Impact — Mergers and acquisitions with CMS’ Horea Popescu
Over the last year, businesses have had to navigate the choppy waters of inflation, growing uncertainty, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Yet in 2022, the emerging Europe region’s merger and acquisition (M&A) market proved to be extremely resilient — M&A activity maintained a steady pace, though deal values were notably lower than previous years.
According to the Emerging Europe M&A Report 2022/2023, by CMS, a law firm with 16 offices across the region, in 2022, there were 1,229 transactions, 5.6 per cent more than in 2021. The deal value, however, dropped by 20.3 per cent and amounted to 32.9 billion euros.
Horea Popescu, managing partner at CMS Romania, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the impact of the geopolitical and macroeconomic circumstances on investment in the region.
They discuss which sectors contributed to overall M&A activity in the region and are expected to attract more investment going forward. They also talked about future trends and the role of environmental, social and governance (ESG) on the M&A market.
#60 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Governance with EIM's Bohuslav Lipovsky
It’s undeniable that governance is the forgotten or neglected one among the three ESG letters representing environmental, social, and governance. However, if real change is to take place, it may be the most important letter in the abbreviation.
Governance examines how an organisation polices itself, focusing on internal system controls and practices to maintain compliance. It looks at transparency, industry best practices, leadership management and associated growth initiatives.
With global ESG investment now exceeding 30 trillion US dollars, improvements in ESG execution are vital as strong and transparent governance underpins the planning, execution and reporting of any ESG strategy.
Bohuslav Lipovsky, managing partner at EIM Executive Interim Management CEE, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the state of governance in the emerging Europe region. They also look at practical steps that can be taken to improve governance, especially in small and medium companies.
They also discuss why doing business in and with Russia since the country’s invasion of Ukraine is contradictory to the ESG agenda and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
#59 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Industry resilience with IT Ukraine’s Konstantin Vasyuk
Both the public and the private sectors are experiencing a level of disruption and risk that have not been seen in generations, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In such circumstances, some companies operate on the brink of bankruptcy and fail, while others innovate and grow. Some even thrive. What makes the difference? How prepared they are for change? How agile and adaptable they are? How well they have worked out their contingency plans? Or simply, how strong is their resilience?
Konstantin Vasyuk, executive director of the IT Ukraine Association, whose members employ over 85,000 IT specialists, spoke to Andrew Wrobel about the resilience of the Ukrainian IT sector.
According to a recent report, Do IT like Ukraine, the industry brought six billion US dollars in export revenue to the economy and grew by 10 per cent in the first 10 months of 2022.
They also speak about the factors that have played a role in the IT sector’s resilience and why Ukraine is ready to share its expertise with other countries.
#58 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — LGBTIQ+ Inclusion with Simona Muršec
After two referenda failed to secure LGBTIQ+ rights in Slovenia, in July 2022, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that a ban on same-sex couples marrying and adopting was unconstitutional. In October, the country’s parliament passed an amendment allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt, making Slovenia the first post-communist country to legalise both same-sex marriage and adoption.
Simona Muršec, the president of the Ljubljana Pride Association, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about victories and defeats in the fight for equal rights for all couples in Slovenia, and about how the country’s cultural and societal specifics have played a part in the process.
They also talk about the importance of embracing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. According to McKinsey, in the US, three in 20 LGBTIQ+ women and six in 20 men believe their sexual orientation will negatively affect their career advancement at work.
Muršec also emphasises the different approach to LGBTIQ+ issues of the younger generation, and the fact that there are still companies throughout the emerging Europe region that can afford to ignore diversity and inclusion.
#57 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — A Virtual World and the Metaverse with Stephen Loynd
It is estimated that a single Ethereum transaction consumes an average of 60 per cent more energy than 100,000 credit card transactions, while an average Bitcoin transaction consumes 14 times more energy. The average NFT transaction produces 48 kilograms of CO2, which is equivalent to burning 18 litres of diesel.
Does that mean that the metaverse cannot be sustainable? Well, not necessarily. Replacing physical goods with virtual or digital goods, or substituting in-person engagements with virtual interactions can contribute to substantial reductions in CO2 emissions.
Stephen Loynd, a futurist and the founder and principal at TrendzOwl, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about what the metaverse and artificial intelligence might mean for the environment and how business strategists envision the potential of the metaverse in various sectors.
They also discuss how we will live and work in the future, the skills that we all might need, the nature of the metaverse, the hype surrounding it and why it is still unclear how the phenomenon will develop.
#56 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Impact Sourcing with Traci Freeman
Marginalised communities that are typically excluded from employment represent a massive potential workforce. They include people with disabilities, older workers, those living in remote, isolated, or depressed areas, or those who simply lack access to education.
With increased focus on shared value, an inclusive approach and environmental, social, governance (ESG), businesses are looking for both positive financial and social impact in their own practices, and in those of their supply chains.
The impact sourcing model can help business meet and exceed cost and quality objectives, opens up new talent pools that are more loyal — when given a chance — and provides an innovative new offering to clients in an industry looking for innovation.
Traci Freeman, a global business services consultant with a focus on impact sourcing, tells Andrew Wrobel what impact sourcing involves and what benefits it brings for both the organisation and the employee.
She also talks about how impact sourcing can be successfully implemented not only in poorer economies but even in the richest geographies. And finally, about why outsourcing in Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion of the country, contributes to making an impact.
#55 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Net Zero Start-ups with PwC's José Miguel Salazar Hernández
Together, 27 countries of Central and Eastern Europe contribute to approximately 3.73 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but the region’s share of global climate tech investment is only 0.79 per cent of the total, according to the CEE edition of PwC’s Net Zero Future50 report.
Climate tech investments in the region have risen from 10.6 million US dollars in 2013 to over 502 million US dollars in the first half of 2021 alone, but there is clearly room for more, not only investment but also sector and geographic diversity. Transport and mobility account for 59.8 per cent of that investment, and 74.8 per cent of start-ups are based in Estonia and Lithuania. The report also presents interesting insights into the most underfunded areas. Most notably, between 2013 and the first half of 2021, CEE start-ups in the food, agriculture and land use sector attracted just 2.26 per cent of total funding, and those in the energy sector a mere 1.29 per cent. Although Poland has the largest economy in the region, and it serves as a strategic hub for some industries, start-ups in Poland only raised 4.65 per cent of total CEE climate tech funding.
José Miguel Salazar Hernández, ESG Hub Manager at PwC CEE, speaks with Andrew Wrobel, about the report’s key findings, the impact start-ups make on the environment, the most active investment hubs and some of the solutions the top 50 start-ups offer.
They also discuss why each and every start-up should understand their own carbon footprint and consider implementing early-on impact assessment methodologies to support their value proposition.
#54 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Media for Growth with Diana Florescu
Media for growth investments are receiving increasingly more recognition as powerful engines for sustainable growth.
Globally, there are today more than 30 specialised funds offering advertising and media services in exchange for equity. Over the last two decades, over 1,000 start-ups have raised media for growth funding including Zalando, AboutYou, Carwow, Pinterest, and Glovo.
Such investments play an important role in revenue diversification for media broadcasters, whilst start-ups benefit from customer growth, increased brand awareness, and guidance from media groups, all without having to spend cash.
Diana Florescu, CEO of mediaforgrowth, a global network of media for growth funds, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about how start-ups can benefit from media for growth investment.
They look at specific companies’ growth and identify opportunities for start-ups in the emerging Europe region, where, so far, the market has not been yet explored.
#53 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Sustainable Real Estate with JLL’s Steffen Walvius
The built environment accounts for 39 per cent of annual carbon emissions worldwide. In order to reach net zero, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that direct building CO2 emissions need to fall 50 per cent by 2030.
There are a lot of incentives aimed at making the real estate market more sustainable. Decreasing buildings’ carbon footprint is maybe the way to start. This must be addressed both in terms of embodied carbon and operational carbon.
While the first refers to greenhouse gas emissions arising from the manufacturing and transportation of building materials, the latter refers to greenhouse gas emissions due to building energy consumption. This needs to be taken into consideration in building construction, even considering what are the right materials to use in each situation.
Steffen Walvius, head of sustainability services for Central and Eastern Europe at JLL, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about how much time and effort it will take to decarbonise the built environment globally and what specifically needs to be done to address the issue.
They also speak about environmental, social, governance (ESG) and sustainability in the emerging Europe region.
#52 #EETalks Success and Failure — Lawyering up with LegalAid’s Sona Salimli Alasgarova
Emerging Europe Talks Success and Failure — Lawyering up with LegalAid’s Sona Salimli Alasgarova
The Covid-19 pandemic made it more difficult to seek justice in courts globally. According to the World Justice Project, 67 per cent of countries covered by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index experienced declines in indicators that evaluate equal treatment and absence of discrimination.
At the same time as many as 94 per cent of countries in the index registered increased delays in administrative, civil, or criminal proceedings. In nearly two-thirds of countries, civil justice systems saw increased delays.
LegalAid is the first legal tech company in Azerbaijan. Coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic, the law firm, together with the Bar Association of Azerbaijan, created a mobile application making it easier for citizens to communicate with the country's attorneys.
Sona Salimli Alasgarova, the founder and managing director at LegalAid, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about disrupting the Azerbaijani legal sector, serving those who need legal advice, and setting up a new law firm in her mid-twenties.
She also talks about how she wants to help other female entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan start their own businesses.
#51 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Blue Economy with Andrius Sutnikas
Oceans and seas cover almost three quarters of the earth surface. They absorb almost all of the earth’s excess heat and store some 93 per cent of all CO2.
Now, oceans, from where life itself arose, are dying. It is estimated that over 150 million tons of plastic is already floating in the seas and oceans. The great Pacific garbage patch, 46 per cent of which is fishing nets, covers 1.6 million square kilometres. As far as commercial fishing is concerned, some 2.7 trillion fish are caught every year, even in marine protected areas.
And there is an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, leading to excessive blooms of algae that deplete underwater oxygen levels, resulting in the development of so called dead zones. Such zones in the Baltic Sea have increased more than tenfold over the last century and the Baltic Sea now has the largest dead zone in the world.
Andrius Sutnikas, coordinator of the Lithuanian Maritime Cluster at the Klaipėda Science and Technology Park, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the challenges the blue economy currently faces, and some innovative solutions bringing more sustainable development to the maritime industry and offsetting climate change.
#50 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — It’s now or never with WWF’s Andreas Beckmann
Throughout this summer, especially in July, persistent heat waves have affected significant parts of Europe, causing wildfires, droughts, evacuations and heat-related deaths. While the highest temperature across the emerging Europe region was recorded in Croatia — 39.4 Celsius degrees, the United Kingdom saw thermometer bars going beyond 40 degrees for the first time, while the mercury reached 47 degrees in Pinhão, Portugal on July 14 — the highest temperature among countries in Europe affected by heatwaves this summer.
Andreas Beckmann, CEO of WWF in Central and Eastern Europe, spoke with Andrew Wrobel about the consequences of inaction to protect the environment and the biosphere in the region on people’s lives, supply chains, and economies.
They also discussed the role of governments and businesses in setting up the climate action agenda, the role of environmental, social, governance (ESG) in reaching the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and finally, sustainable growth in the emerging Europe region, including building a sustainable economy in post-Ukraine.
#49 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Financing ESG with KPMG’s István Szabó
The first green bonds — or climate awareness bonds, as they were called — were issued 15 years ago by the European Investment Bank. Since then, the market has gone from niche to mainstream with plenty of options on offer: green bonds, sustainability bonds, and social bonds, just to name a few.
The accumulative value of such bonds exceeds three trillion US dollars globally. China is the world’s leading issuer and Hungary leads in the emerging Europe region.
Just recently, KPMG Hungary became an ‘Approved Verifier’ within the framework of the Climate Bonds Initiative, Climate Bonds Standards and Certification Scheme, which means the ESG team of KPMG in Budapest is authorised, as a third-party verifier, to certify that issuers and their bonds comply with Climate Bonds Standard criteria in the entire CEE region.
István Szabó, Director at KPMG Budapest, who has been leading the sustainability practice in Central and Eastern Europe for one and a half years now, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the standards bond issuers need to meet, about available sources of financing ESG (environmental, social governance) and about placing sustainability at the core of an organisation’s strategy.
They also talk about the mistakes that companies make when preparing to issue climate bonds and about examples of greenwashing — ecological arguments in order to forge an ecologically responsible image among the public.
#48 #EETalks Success and Failure — Soaking up the Sun with WeDoSolar’s Karolina Attspodina
Solar energy may be a renewable resource, but there are different ways of capturing solar radiation and converting it into usable energy.
According to the International Energy Agency, power generation from solar photovoltaics (PV) in 2020 is estimated to have increased by a record 156 TWh, marking 23 per cent growth from 2019. Solar PV accounted for 3.1 per cent of global electricity generation, and it remains the third-largest renewable electricity technology behind hydropower and onshore wind after overtaking bioenergy in 2019.
WeDoSolar’s smart balcony solar solution enables the users to lower their dependence on grid energy while also reducing the CO2 footprint by up to 600kg, which is the equivalent of 1,000 square metres of forest, and saving up to 25 per cent of annual electricity costs.
Karolina Attspodina, the start-up's CEO and co-founder, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the solution, helping to raise awareness about climate change and its impact on our everyday lives, enabling a large group of consumers to contribute to reducing their carbon footprint.
They also speak about Karolina’s path as a Ukrainian female entrepreneur in an industry that is dominated by men.
#47 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — Automation for Good with UiPath's Andreea Baciu
Relieving humans from repetitive, hazardous, and unpleasant tasks, decreasing costs and eliminating errors are perhaps the most obvious benefits of automation. But are they the most critical?
Even before General Electric coined the term ‘automation’ in 1947, workers worried about the implication of technology on their jobs and the security of employment. As early as 1936, the Trades Union Congress in the UK issued a leaflet demanding “a larger share of the benefits of increased output through innovation, with a shorter working week, a shorter working life and compensation to redundant workers.”
The point is that automation does not automate jobs. It automates tasks. For some people, automation has helped bring about a better standard of living and a more varied life, more efficient use of time, goods and materials, and an increased understanding of the world in which we live, which is critical in the context of the post-Covid Great Resignation or Great Re-Evaluation.
Andreea Baciu, Chief Culture Officer at UiPath, the first Romanian unicorn and a global software automation company, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about automation for good and about people being at the heart of automation both as enablers and beneficiaries.
In this podcast episode they look at robotic process automation (RPA) as a multipurpose tool helping to transform businesses as well as at the opportunities it creates for individuals to expand their skills and horizons, and most importantly, the impact it has on the environment, health and wellbeing.
#46 #EETalks Success and Failure — Personal Finance with FinqUP’s Dime Galapchev
The lockdowns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic encouraged a lot of individuals to start using financial apps more frequently with as many as 54 per cent of consumers using them every day, according to Open Up 2020 Challenge.
Europeans have become 52 per cent more likely to use fintech apps and 36 per cent say they now feel more comfortable using banking and money management apps since lockdown and trust them more.
In 2019, there were almost 3,600 fintech companies operating in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) region. Since then, the number of fintech start-ups in that same area surged by 160 per cent to more than 9,300.
The question is which app to pick as an individual investor to make sure you can make the most out of your money, and how to provide as much value as possible as a fintech start-up founder and a fintech app developer.
Dime Galapchev, the founder and CEO of FinqUP, a portfolio management app that is scheduled for launch in September 2022, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about democratising and decentralising portfolio management.
He also talks about running a start-up in a small country such as North Macedonia, where he comes from, about his successes and failures and gives tips and hints to new entrepreneurs working on providing new solutions.
#45 #EETalks Sustainable Impact — ESG Awareness with Professor Bolesław Rok
Climate change is a serious threat and the costs of not tackling the challenge accordingly will increase over time. According to NASA, 2021 was the sixth hottest year on record, with the planet warming by 1.1°C above the average from the start of the industrial revolution. Greater frequency and severity of climate hazards can create more disruptions in global supply chains — interrupting production, raising costs and prices, and hurting corporate revenues.
Climate change and the environment appear to be the primary drivers of investment decisions by individuals considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. They are, however, just one of the three areas that ESG concentrates on.
Social and governance factors are still not treated seriously enough. One of the reasons is that they are less measurable than environmental impact, according to Professor Bolesław Rok, an expert on sustainability management, the circular economy, values-driven transformation, and sustainable entrepreneurship.
In the first episode of the Emerging Europe Talks Sustainable Impact series, Andrew Wrobel speaks with Professor Rok, one of the founders of the Climate Leadership platform for business, powered by UN Environment, the head of Sustainability Transition at Koźminski University in Warsaw and the director of the Positive Entrepreneurship Research Lab.
They discuss the development of ESG in the emerging Europe region, the challenges that hinder sustainable growth and the factors that need to be improved to accelerate sustainability and awareness between both individuals and corporations in the region.
#44 #EETalks Success and Failure — Web3 with MVP Workshop's Ivan Bjelajac
Web 3 is the next generation of the internet that aims at shifting power from big tech companies to individual users. What this means is that, rather than availing themselves of free tech platforms in exchange for their data, users can participate in the governance and operation of the protocols themselves. As a result, they become participants and shareholders, not just customers or products. In Web 3, these shares are called tokens or cryptocurrencies, and they represent ownership of decentralised networks known as blockchains.
MVP Workshop is a Serbian venture builder company focused on Web3, instrumental in creating over 50 blockchain products, including 2 unicorn companies, Celsius Network and Polygon. The company works on several blockchain projects focused on FinTech, Supply Chain, Asset Management and Healthcare.
Ivan Bjelajac, a serial entrepreneur, one of the founders and the CEO of MVP Workshop, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the future of blockchain technology. They also speak about his earlier experience in building Devana Technologies – one of the most successful Serbian tech companies whose solutions were acquired by GoDaddy, as well as his other successes and failures.
#43 #EETalks Success and Failure — Increasing Productivity with Readdle's Denys Zhadanov
Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the largest disruptions to work — growing supply chains and new technologies — have been joined by the physical dimension of work, or remote work, all of which has had an impact on productivity.
Readdle, the company behind several productivity apps such as Scanner Pro, Calendars 5, Spark email, Documents and PDF Expert, which have been downloaded over 180 million times worldwide, has set its mission to improve people’s lives with technology that focuses on productivity.
Denys Zhadanov, a board member and previously the vice president of marketing at Readdle, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about how the company defines productivity and uses science and disruptive technologies to increase personal productivity. He also talks about the company’s successes and failures related to both marketing and products, and gives advice how to build a committed team.
#42 #EETalks Success and Failure — Designing the Experience with Ligna Group's Genoveva Christova
In 2022, the global hotel sector is expected to hit just over one trillion US dollars, according to IBIS World. The industry might still take time to return to pre-pandemic levels — in 2020 the market declined by 39 per cent and then by another 22 per cent in 2021.
It is estimated that there are 17.5 million hotel rooms across the globe. In the first ten months of 2021, 665 new hotels opened in the United States alone, 21 in New Your City, 21 in Atlanta and 19 in Orlando.
The US is the next destination for Ligna Group, an interior design studio, procurement and project management firm in the hospitality sector, employing 2,500 people in Bulgaria and the United Kingdom with a portfolio of clients representing the leading hotel brands, restaurants and office spaces.
Genoveva Christova, one of the founders and owners (alongside Anelia Kassabova) and managing director of Ligna Group, speaks with Andrew Wrobel about the company’s origins, successes, and challenges, and its further global expansion.