Top entrepreneurs in Serbia – CEED’s educational and support programme for young leaders to start in November

The programme for education of and support to young entrepreneurs in their personal, professional and business development – “Top Class”, of which organizer is CEED Serbia (Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development), was presented on Friday (September 24, 2009) in Belgrade’s hotel "IN".

CEED is a strong regional network of entrepreneurs, which provides support, trains and enables access to financial means for small and mid-sized enterprises in Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and, since recently, Poland. It is a member of the US Chamber of Commerce, which hosted the meeting.

The Vice President of the US Chamber of Commerce, Miloš Đurković, said on that occasion that CEED Serbia had opened its door to young entrepreneurs and professional managers on January 29, 2009, with the conference on “Investment opportunities in Serbia”.

- It was an introduction to future activities and plans of CEED in Serbian business environment. CEED Serbia will start realization of “Top Class” programme in November, which is already traditional in the region, and now it will have its premiere in Serbia. It is a one-year programme intended for young entrepreneurs who plan to develop their companies. Realization of “Top Class” programme in Macedonia and Slovenia resulted in positive experience that will help the programme in Serbia gather young and already formed regional leaders in order to exchange their experiences. Therefore, the US Chamber of Commerce in Serbia finds this programme necessary for Serbian business community - Đurković said on that occasion.

Presenting the experience from Slovenia, which will enroll the third generation of entrepreneurs this year, Alenka Zavašnik, the Programme Manager in CEED Slovenia, pointed out that two main characteristics of that type of education were transfer of knowledge and development of network of contacts, which also made achievement of good business results easier.

- We have 150 companies in Slovenia with which we cooperate. That number may seem small, but we choose “top associates” every year, ensure cooperation with chambers of commerce, associations of managers and various entrepreneurial groups. Over 50 tutors, some of whom are the most acknowledged managers from the region, have joined us over the last three years. One of them is Zoran Janković, current Mayor of Ljubljana, who sees CEED as an exceptional place for discovering new, young and energetic associates with fresh ideas – Ms. Zavašnik added.

(Boris Kapitanovič)

All the present were able to hear how the entire "Top Class" programme looks like from the viewpoint of Boris Kapitanovič, a young entrepreneur who attended it, who is Technical Manager of Slovenian IT company "Inventera".

This 32-year-old man with eight-year managerial experience has joined CEED with the aim of expanding the operations of his company to various markets. The company has managed to do that very and now only 10% of their customers live in Slovenia, while the company’s main focus is on Britain, Switzerland, Egypt, USA…

Kapitanovič told “eKapija” that young people should apply for this programme because, although they may have certain previous experience, “that does not mean that they have all the experience of this world". Tutors are people with more than 20 years of managerial experience, and such path to knowledge should definitely be taken.

Boris Kapitanovič holds MBA degree, he has completed "leadership" programmes, former Deputy Director of NASA trained him to become a leader, etc.

- However, this programme is different from all others because it is the place where experiences are exchanged and a network of contacts is created. I was 32 when I entered this programme, that is, I was already a successful manager. But this programme is also attended by 19-year-old people. One of them provided 5m USD worth of investments in the first year with the help of the network. CEED is excellent for such things because it provides opportunities for finding and collecting finance – said Kapitanovič.

In order for someone to become a participant in "Top Class" programme, he or she must be younger than 40 and have a company that actively operates for minimum three years and has minimum 5 employees. It is desirable that the company has internationally-oriented strategy, and that it registers annual turnover of minimum 200,000 EUR (or that it has a high level of growth over the last three years). CEED also support candidates who do not strictly meet all these conditions because every applicant is taken in consideration individually.

Annual participation fee for the first generation of "Top Class" for season 2009/2010 in Serbia is 1,100 EUR + VAT. More information on CEED and the application process for "Top Class" programme can be found on website www.ceedserbia.org