Mentee
Aleksandra Ilic
I am Aleksandra Ilić, an account manager in a company which is a global provider for online trade on global financial market. I have worked on this position for almost two years. In addition to having developed professionally, this position has also stimulated me to become more determined and to improve my communication skills. Both at work and out of it I aspire to improve and leave my comfort zone. I enjoy running, socialising, meeting new people and new cultures. I like having conversations which inspire me to challenge myself for a change of perception.
Mentorship programmes of this kind contribute to strengthening of women and encourage us to plan business steps and steer our careers.
It is a great advantage to have a woman accomplished in the corporate world for a mentor, from a company with 64% women at managerial positions. The greatest value of this programme is a possibility that one business woman can objectively look into a career road of another woman and give advice for overcoming challenges which we encounter at work on a daily basis or for further career planning.
I find it especially important that the mentorship programme will overlap with my promotion on a new position where I will manage a team and be a mentor myself. Finding a balance between motivating members of the team to do the job engaging their full potentials, and remain a leader is the question I am occupied with at the moment.
Jelena Maksimovic
I am Jelena Maksimović and I am currently a Team Leader of a team that is engaged in creative production for e-commerce. At work, I have the opportunity to combine my creative and my analytical side, and I enjoy looking for ways to improve and optimize processes.
Out of work I enjoy reading and I am in constant search for new knowledge and prospects in order to continue my personal development. My commitment to personal development is also reflected in my professional life since I believe that learning and self-improvement and improvement of my skills is a lifelong journey. This has helped me a lot to become a more complete person, because I am constantly looking for new challenges and opportunities for growth.
Mentors can help us to overcome challenges at work, to work with people efficiently, and to be better leaders and mentors to our teams. In addition, they are important in identifying our strong and weak points in our development. I believe this mentorship programme will be an excellent opportunity for upgrading and raising my leadership skills to a higher level.
It is not easy to find an interlocutor with whom you can talk about challenges that women encounter in the course of their career development and how to overcome them. I am also glad for having the opportunity to meet other mentees, women in similar positions and challenges, so we could be support to each other. As someone who works in a man-dominated industry, especially in managerial positions, I often encounter various challenges, and I believe this mentorship programme will help me to overcome the stagnation in my career and help me achieve my career goals in the future.
I have applied because I believe this programme will enable me to develop leadership skills and achieve my career ambitions. The work with my mentor will help me to overcome the challenges at work, to work more efficiently with my team and to support their development, as well as to build influence within the company. It is a great thing that the value is recognised, which we can achieve by finding a supportive community of our colleagues and mentors who can help us get to grips with career challenges and develop our own leadership skills.
Jovana Miladinovic
My name is Jovana Miladinović, food technologist for the research and development at Desing company since 2017. My speciality is food technology engineering and creating B2B food products for categories such as confectionery industry, bakery industry, and HORECA. I am proud to be a team player who is motivated by achieving collective goals and results. I like to solve problems in creative ways, and I am enthusiastic about learning new things which I would use for expanding my skills and views. I am family oriented, and I appreciate a healthy balance between work and private life, so in addition to the love of science and developing innovative products, I tend to find my life balance in every smile I can elicit from people, in loving animals, tennis, music, travelling and new acquaintances.
I have applied for this programme because I believe it is a great opportunity for my further development and for establishing links with inspiring women leaders from different environments. It is important to me to be selected for this programme because of the many advantages it can offer, including learning new methods and techniques from successful professionals which I will be able to use in my personal and professional life. Moreover, participation in this programme will give me a precious insight into challenges that women leaders are facing in different industries, and what is probably most important – to encourage and help other women in the industry to progress in their careers.
An additional value which I expect to get from this programme are the skills and insights necessary for achievement of a sustainable development in my career. I hope to improve my skills in strategic planning, public speech, networking, and to be able to recognise other positive examples of corporate cultures. I believe these skills will be priceless in my career and will help me progress to a leadership position in the food technologies industry. I am convinced that I can give a positive contribution to the programme by sharing my experience with other programme participants. This is where an additional benefit lies, namely building closer relationships with other mentees in various fields, which might lead to opening of new business opportunities after the end of the programme. I am motivated to contribute to the society, and I hope that the #uniqueandimportant programme will help me in achievement of my intentions.
Svetlana Stefanovic
My name is Svetlana Stefanović. At work, I am a focused and responsible colleague, focused on tasks and a team player before all, who exchanges opinions, experience and viewpoints with other colleagues and employees. Out of work, I accumulate the necessary energy in order to feel fulfilled in both of these areas. I achieve this by spending time with my family, enjoying leisure activities, such as walking, reading, spending time with friends out of my professional world, who frequently offer me a different view of certain situations. I enjoy this outside-the-box approach.
This mentorship programme, as well as the mentoring in general is very important in different career phases, and also in lifelong learning. The rhythm of both personal and professional life nowadays does not leave space to learn from your own mistakes, but requires from you sometimes to have prepared answers to certain situations in life. Working with a mentor will allow me to share experience, insight into situations and circumstances from the mentor’s perspective.
The Unique and important program can provide breadth when it comes to the possibilities of how to respond to different situations in life.
It is of special importance for women who wish to make progress at work and take positions which used to be exclusively occupied by men before. An additional value of this programme is the possibility to view certain situation from different angles – from the angle I have brought with me and from the mentor’s angle. This means personal upgrade and adds an extra value to my existing skills and attitudes.
I have applied for this programme because I wish to progress both in personal and in professional area. I am an advocate of lifelong learning. In this regard, this programme seems to be ‘my cup of tea’. I expect my progress will be reflected in adopting new approaches in thinking and acting, which will enable me to have a different and better answer to the situations I experienced in the past, and have more options for new circumstances in life and work which will provide me with the best possible solution.
Tajana Kenjalo
I am Tajana Kenjalo, Manager of Specialist Practice for Jaw Orthopaedics, in Novi Sad.
I am a dental nurse – technician and a future dental technician, which tells you that teeth are my first love.
I am a sociable and communicative person who enjoys working with people.
Our practice is aspiring to turn into a clinic soon, which for me would mean a larger team, new people, new process standardisations and new challenges.
The mentorship programme Unique and important will help me through the advice of mentoring experts who have successfully developed teams for a number of years and who can share their experience with me which will enable me to develop my leadership potentials, achieve a balance between work and private life and do the job I love at a completely new level, discovering new professional and personal possibilities.
Vanja Kosovic
My name is Vanja Kosović, a journalist, in a professional sense, in the world of digital technologies. I earned my master’s degree in political culture at the Faculty of Political Science, with a wish to better understand the concept of functioning of the society and all the ways in which politics defines us and exercises its influence on us in everyday life. Over the last couple of years, my career has been directed towards digitalisation, primarily through activities in the field of marketing. Since recently, I have also been active as a consultant of UNDP on a digital transformation project, with the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro.
Out of work, I am a trail runner, focused on getting to know myself through conquering mountain tops. I am always planning my future races and adventures, because – nature is the best companion in everything!
Education is a lifelong process, so I believe that well designed mentorship programmes which provide for cooperation with professionals from a relevant field can be of vast importance, especially for young professionals.
I have decided to apply for this programme before all because I see Hemofarm company as a positive model of careful building of a success story, as well as because of the very profiles of the mentors with whom we have the opportunity to cooperate. I believe that through this programme I can clearly map the segments of activities which I think I can improve, to work not only on my individual progress, but also on contribution to the organisation that I am a part of.
I eagerly expect all the future steps and I look forward to our joint progress!
