Franjo Bobinac is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Management 2024

The Managers Association presents the Lifetime Achievement Award in Management 2024 to Franjo Bobinac, longtime Chairman of the Board of the Velenje-based company Gorenje and current President of the Olympic Committee of Slovenia.

From musician to businessman

During his student years, he supported himself with music, singing with Oto Pestner and the Gaudeamus Chamber Choir, which over the years was renamed Perpetuum Jazzile, he mastered playing the piano and guitar, performed at the Slovenian Song Festival and became completely enthusiastic about French chansons. No, this is not the story of a professional Slovenian musician. This is the story of a successful businessman, longtime sports official and diplomat with rich international experience in various business fields. The story of Franjo Bobinac, who after completing his studies at the Faculty of Economics began his professional career at Emo Celje, three years later joined Gorenje and tried himself in various roles.

Among other things, as the director of the branch in France. In this role, he achieved his first notable successes, namely by patching up Gorenje's losses caused by the disintegration of the Yugoslav market. In a very short time, he managed to find other markets, especially the French market, where he increased sales by 65 percent, while also significantly increasing market shares in Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. Later, as the first person in charge of sales, he contributed to the exceptional growth of Gorenje and in the years from 1998 to 2003, with his colleagues, he increased the sales of the entire Gorenje Group by 93 percent.

In a global industry in which no one survives without economies of scale and capital strength for the development of ever-new products and services, and in which similar large players such as Gorenje (Italian Ardo, Spanish Fagor and others) have failed for these reasons, the success of Franjo Bobinac and his team was that they fought with all their might and survived.

How did they succeed? By attracting top designers of world renown (Swarovski, Karim, Ora-ïto, Pininfarina) to collaborate with them and becoming a design trendsetter with the first colorful and differently designed appliances. In addition, they developed their own brands and acquired others all over Europe, including in the West (Dutch Atag, Czech Mora Moravia, Swedish Asko), they never laid off hard, they moved part of production to Serbia without social tensions and thus increased competitiveness, and finally, for Gorenje, without political or banking assistance and aware that Gorenje would soon no longer be able to produce competitive washing machines due to distribution chains, they found the right business partner. The Chinese multinational Hisense.

When Gorenje merged with a Chinese strategic partner, Franjo Bobinac was appointed Vice President of Hisense International. He thus became the first non-Chinese businessman to be given the opportunity to co-manage a Chinese company, and the Velenje-based company began to grow and strengthen its business after this extremely carefully considered decision on a strategic partnership.

Namely, if in 2019 Gorenje recorded almost 900 million euros in net revenue, last year they already had more than 2 and a half billion, and the profitability of the company also increased significantly due to all the synergies and economies of scale. The company's capital and added value per employee are also increasing, and in the last five years they have radically increased the number of employees, by more than 1,500. Finally, Gorenje has become part of a larger global corporation and its story, while gaining new development opportunities and access to additional capital and new markets.

Franjo Bobinac, who was a member of several supervisory boards, from 2005 to 2009 also the president of the Managers Association, has established himself as a business leader who swears by and implements the principles of multicultural management in the business arena, respecting differences between individuals and seeking synergies within diversity.

His group of former closest associates describes him as cooperative, insightful, passionately committed to work, excellent in communication, extremely understanding of both employees and brands, and his team spirit and contribution to the company's progress remain forever etched in Gorenje's history.

In addition to the economy, Franjo Bobinac has also dedicated himself to sports officialdom, realizing that when society embarks on the wrong path, sport plays an important role for all of us. First, he was at the head of the handball association and in his mandate our handball team achieved some of the best results, now he has been the president of the Olympic Committee of Slovenia for two years.

In this role, he strives for the development of Slovenian sport at all levels, and also places great emphasis on the digitalization and modernization of Slovenian sport, with which he wants to create conditions for better recognition of Slovenian athletes in the world and encourage young people to lead an active life, while strengthening Olympic values: fairness, excellence and friendship.

The qualities and imprints he has left on his business path are strong, as evidenced by the numerous awards he has received. Among other things, he received the Slovenian award for outstanding economic achievements and the national award for merits in France, and recently became the first Slovenian to become a member of the marketing commission of the International Olympic Committee.

Awards, recognitions and functions

• 2006 and 2008, he was selected as the most respected Slovenian director in the survey of the company Kline and Partner,
• 2007: Primus 2007 award for manager excellence in communication, awarded by the Slovenian Public Relations Association,
• 2008: Honorary Excel (Excellence in Communication Leadership) Award for excellent communication skills and the value he brought to Gorenje with communication breakthroughs; the award was presented by the International Association of Business Communicators IABC,
• 2008: recipient of the Valvasor Medal for innovation culture,
• 2008: award of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia for outstanding economic achievements,
• 2009: Knight of the National Order of Merit of the Republic of France (awarded by the President of France),
• In 2017, he was appointed as the representative of Slovenia in the executive committee of the European Trilateral Commission,
• He is the honorary consul of the Principality of Monaco in Slovenia,
• Member of the ZM Governing Board,
• He occasionally lectures at various institutions at home and abroad,
• As the first Slovenian, he was appointed a member of the marketing commission of the International Olympic Committee.

About the Lifetime Achievement Award

The Managers Association presents the Lifetime Achievement Award in Management to fellow professionals who have inscribed themselves in the history of Slovenian management with their achievements and influence. The commission that proposed the recipient of the award consists of Aleksander Zalaznik (chairman), Tomaž Berločnik, Petra Juvančič, Tjaša Kolenc Filipčič, Medeja Lončar, Aleša Mižigoj, Marko Lukić and Boštjan Gorjup.

Previous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award are (since 2021 in chronological order back): Branko Franc Selak, Ivo Boscarol, Igor Mervič, Stane Rožman, Jože Mermal, Bogomir Strašek, Jožica Rejec, Aleš Mižigoj, Cvetana Rijavec, Danica Purg, Stojan Petrič, Cvetka Selšek, Niko Kač, Milan Matos, Zlatko Kavčič, Tone Turnšek, Tone Krašovec, Bruno Korelič, Miloš Kovačič, Jože Stanič, Janko Kosmina and Marjan Prelc.