“Even though I had a lot of management experience, my success and self-confidence in actual tough situations, I attribute to formal knowledge I gained at COTRUGLI.”

For 15 years, I was working as a consultant and manager in different companies, on different positions, settings and even different countries, but as I am computing engineer, I was always perceived as technical person and not manager knowledgeable in economy and management. This was the reason why I started EMBA at COTRUGLI Business School.

My first month in school accidently coincided with starting my position as government official leading Croatian Health Insurance Fund (CHIF) where, during 4 years, I had the opportunity (and responsibility) to lead 2400 people, 3 billion EUR budget and supporting Minister of Health in managing health system in Croatia. Luckily, I was gaining a lot of very useful skills and knowledge in COTRUGLI school and having support from teachers who were there to answer any question I had. Also, I had support from other students, some of them still very good friends of mine. When I look back, management part of my experience in CHIF was interesting and easy – managing people, teams, budget, operations, strategizing, every-day communicating with media, designing and implementing reforms, negotiating, fighting, presenting, debating, reporting etc. Even though I had a lot of management experience, my success and self-confidence in actual tough situations (which I had almost every day), I attribute to formal knowledge I gained at COTRUGLI.

Currently I work as an international expert in Armenia, Austria, Spain, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, Russia, Albania etc., leading, organizing, advising, teaching, managing, communicating etc., and for all that I very often browse through my COTRUGLI books. Also, I started my PhD in Health Financing on the University of Maastricht where they acknowledged my EMBA COTRUGLI diploma as prerequisite.

In my experience, every investment in education always pays off. Learning just never stops.