Dear members of the Managers’ Association,

When my appointment to this position was approved, my friends and those who know me a little better asked me why I was interested in this challenge. I have a keen interest in establishing connections and searching for synergies. This can be quite a challenge in Slovenia, but we have always managed to make something good out of it.

Connecting and uniting

Statistics, figures, theories, models and tools – we can all learn this relatively quickly, but what I want for everyone in Slovenia is to connect even more and to stick together. I wish we weren’t inspired only by sportspeople but to find inspiration also from among ourselves, entrepreneurs and businesspeople. The Managers’ Association can enhance the reputation of the management profession by connecting and uniting power and knowledge, people and organisations. That is also our first strategic theme in 2018. Our Association currently boasts more than 1,100 members and not everyone knows everyone else. This opens up an opportunity for many not yet explored synergies among all the members as well as with partner organisations outside the Association.

Mentoring 4.0

Besides establishing connections, sharing our vast knowledge and experience is extremely important for management and the economy as well, which is why mentoring remains at the core of the Association’s endeavours and links together all Association’s activities.

Modern leadership

Our Association believes management also plays an important role in creating jobs, managing and leading in such ways that generate higher value added. We want to develop excellence in management and leadership and thus we created a third strategic orientation, i.e. modern leadership. We have emerged from the crisis and now is the right time to do this. In the spirit of the fourth industrial revolution, the human potential is one of the most important political, social, economic and also ethical challenges. This does not concern only talent management and development, it also encompasses understanding and prediction of the future as well as development of jobs and new competencies of our staff and of the management.

A study by the World Economic Forum on human capital development ranked Slovenia on the 15th place in 2015 and on the 16th in 2016, while last year we placed 9th among 130 countries. That’s good and we must continue to build on this. Either we are even better together or we are not better at all.

Saša Mrak, Executive Director of Managers' Association of Slovenia