Alenka Jajac-Knez

When Alenka Jajac-Knez speaks about leadership today, she doesn’t start with position, hierarchy, or titles. She starts with people. With trust. With integrity. With the ability to leave behind a system that endures even when you’re no longer in the same role.

That’s why her story isn’t a typical corporate tale of climbing the ladder. It’s a story of continuous learning, openness to change, and leadership built through experience, relationships, and authenticity.

Today, as the CEO at JGL, she leads complex transformations in a company that is growing, expanding, and constantly developing new competencies, markets, and talent. But when she reflects on her professional beginnings, she returns to the moment when, as a young brand manager, she first stepped into the world of business education through COTRUGLI Business School.

 “I started my MBA at a relatively early stage of my professional development. I had a background in medicine, and some areas simply weren’t familiar to me – finance, accounting, strategic management. I knew that experience alone wasn’t enough. It was necessary to invest in knowledge simultaneously.”

Her decision to enroll wasn’t part of a pre-planned career trajectory. In fact, Alenka admits she wasn’t even thinking about where she would be in ten or fifteen years. The MBA was a suggestion from her then-supervisor, who recognized her potential before she fully realized it herself.

 “She probably saw more in me at the time than I saw in myself. I had heard positive experiences from colleagues and thought – why not? Gaining new knowledge always makes sense.”

But what COTRUGLI Business School gave her wasn’t just formal education. It was a leap beyond the familiar boundaries of her own industry.

“The MBA catapults you out of your comfort zone. Suddenly, you’re surrounded by people from completely different industries, with different perspectives on the same problems. If you’re open to it, it forces you to question your own thought patterns.”

One module that particularly stood out to her was Knowledge Management, a topic that, years later, found concrete application in JGL’s operations.

“That module fascinated me. I was captivated by the idea that companies can systematically leverage the internal knowledge of their people and build development on that exchange of experiences.”

Years later, this very idea became part of the company’s strategic initiatives through the development of internal knowledge-sharing platforms, leadership programs, and projects like the Drive Academy system for developing sales teams.

“It’s inspiring when you see how one employee’s idea grows into a project implemented across multiple markets and becomes part of the company’s strategy. It creates an entirely new level of energy within the organization.”

Still, when Alenka talks about leadership, she always comes back to the same thing – people.

While the market increasingly focuses on artificial intelligence, automation, and technological transformation, she believes that the future of leadership will demand even more humanity.

 “The paradox is that in a time of rapid AI development, we actually need to return to people.”

She believes that the companies of the future won’t build their advantage solely on results but on their ability to create healthy organizations where people can find meaning, purpose, and motivation.

“We should talk much more about the balance between achieving goals and the way we achieve them.”

In her leadership philosophy, there’s no room for egocentric management.

“Being a leader and being a boss are two completely different things.”

Authority, she says, doesn’t come with a title. It’s built through relationships, consistency, and trust.

“A position gives you formal responsibility, but it doesn’t guarantee people’s trust. That’s built through integrity, authenticity, and the way you lead.”

Integrity and authenticity are the values she emphasizes most when discussing leaders people want to follow, especially during challenging times.

“People need to believe you’re authentic. In difficult moments, no one will follow someone they don’t trust.”

And while she now leads JGL at an executive level, managing large transformation processes, talent development, and strategic projects, Alenka still believes that professional growth never truly ends.

“I’m still learning; from colleagues, from young people, from teams. If you’re open enough and self-critical enough to admit you don’t know everything, growth never stops. I’m proud that we recognized this from the very beginning in our company. We’re aware that a defined set of competencies is only valid today, that we must always ask ourselves what we don’t know yet, what we’ll need to know, and we’ve built a center of excellence accordingly, for sales teams, as well as for new and existing employees in pharmaceutical technology operations. In our internal Education Center, we focus on preparing employees and managers not only for efficient onboarding for new business challenges but also in the area of innovation.”

At the end of the conversation, she returns to a simple yet perhaps the most important message of her entire career.

“It’s important to love what you do. If there’s passion and a sense of purpose, the amount you can build and leave behind becomes incredible.”

This is precisely why stories like hers best illustrate what COTRUGLI Business School represents today – not just a place to gain business knowledge but a space where leaders are shaped to understand that sustainable results are always built through people.