Aleksandra Hristov

“Flower of success for the dragon woman” is a prestigious award that represents not only a symbol of successful women in our society, but also a concept of gender equality -  nowadays missing  in Serbia. This is the third year that this award is given to:  “the best woman entrepreneur” who implements European standards and solves unemployment of women in a creative manner.

 
Sanja Popovic Pantic, The President of the “Association of Business Women” and a successful business woman herself, who`s defending women`s rights here in Serbia, explained that this award, other than paying tribute to all  successful women  entrepreneurs, changes the existing stereotypes about women performances and success, which, in our country, are  usually associated with  music and “estrada”.
This award is important because it brings together women entrepreneurs (with no relevance of their sector of activity), women who want to start up their own business, as well as those at top positions in institutions.
The potential award winners will have the opportunity to present their business and their personal business experience (CV) – important elements that will support their nomination in one or both categories.

 
My agency Hristov Consulting d.o.o  supports these kind of projects and one more time we were there: there were 27 journalists and so far the public is informed about the award through 13  most important media in Serbia.

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Magazine Status seventh award ceremony for year 2008 surprised the winners of these prestige’s awards.  Decided by 40 of their colleague journalists the rewards awarded to: Author of Kaziprst from B92 Radio Danica Vucenic was awarded as the best journalist in 2008. and the best photo reporter was Nemanja Janovic from daily newspaper Press. Newspaper Blic and Vreme were the best printed media and B92 was pronounced the first in categories TV, Radio and internet.  Second place was Politika editor Dragan Bujosevic, and the third is Status columnist Zoran Panovic.

TV faces of the year are Antonela Riha, athan Olivera Kovacevic and Olja Beckovic. The best TV show is Insajder (B92) and then Utisak nedelje (B92) and Kvadratura kruga (RTS). Tennis star Jelena Jovanovic was pronounced media personality of the year.

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Fonet News Agency celebrated on February 7 th 15 year anniversary. Zoran Sekulic owner and editor, in hard times for media in 1994 succeeded to start the first independent news agency in Serbia. At the celebration he said at the beginning it was sometimes life-threatening to be a journalist, but he was hoping after 2000 situation would change. Unfortunately the conditions for media hasn’t changed as much as he was expecting. Fonet and others who fought against Milosevic regime, are still fighting for elementary media equality in Serbia.

Many top government officials were present, Dragan Sutanovac Minister of defense, Vuk Jeremic Foreign minister, members of the cabinet of the President of Serbia,, Radovan Jelasic the national Bank governor.

It was with great pleasure that I congratulated my friend Zoran Sekulic on 15 years of successful existence, because he stayed loyal to highest professional standards in objective journalism.

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CCASA project was successfully ended at the end of December when director of The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Michael Harvey and director of CCASA project Milo Stevanovich symbolically gave keys to the AVP system to Dejan Pesic deputy minister of Justice of Serbian Government and Radomir Lazarevic the president of supreme commercial court.

This project enabled judges and employees of Serbian courts to manage court cases and all other interested parties and lawyers to have complete information on status of their cases. This way commercial courts became leaders of justice reform in Serbia. In this project the courts were equipped with computers and information system.

At this unique event (from professionally designed banners to detailed protocol) there were honored guests his Excellency Cameron Manter USA Ambasodor in Serbia, Maja Piscevic, executive director of Serbian Association of managers, and others. The project was implemented by Booz Allen Hamilton consulting company which successfully assisted in transformation of Serbian Commercial Courts so they are leaders in justice reforms.

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SIEPA Serbia Investment & Export Promotion Agency organized in December its traditional New Years Party. SIEPA was founded in 2001 during Zoran Djindjic government to help foreign investment in Serbia (information on possibilities of foreign investment) and help Serbian exporters succeed on global markets. Measuring by its effectiveness SIEPA is definitely the most successful of all other governmental agencies. When I talked with foreign businessman they always said SIEPA was a big help. Success of this effective governmental organization is due to young energetic people who work there.

The party was attended by so many people and very well organized. So we had the end of year 2008  (when our society faced serious problems) marked with laughter and rock and roll music.

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Serbian Public Relations Association held its end of the year meeting on 29th of December. Association was founded on 2004 and now has 246 members (agencies, business, government, universities, NGOs). Apart from many problems facing our society (because of political nepotism) society was successful not because of quality but because of tough environmental conciliations and a fact that in Serbia advertising, PR and marketing are all put into the same basket, so its hard to differentiate quality PR services.

Due to large membership base our association has a good chance to influence political will and development of PR industry as one of the best professional associations in Serbia.

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It was a very busy week for me. “Association of Business Women of Serbia” together with BAS program in Serbia have organized the conference “European Union integration – challenge for woman entrepreneurship“. This is part of the wider program of support to Serbian business woman by EBRD and Holland Embassy in Belgrade . As their communication consultant and member I have organized the press conference and media relations campaign for this event.

Photo: Aleksandar Levajkovic
 
Association of Business Women of Serbia consists of women from various professions. Most of the members are running their own businesses, or have senior management positions in major Serbian corporations. In the course of its nine-year existence the Association has implemented more than 50 projects of economic empowerment of women in Serbia, helping them to improve their existing business, or to start up their own business through information giving, acquisition of new knowledge, contacts and networking at the local and regional levels. I am glad I was able to give my own contribution to association’s success.

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Very important event took place on November 24th in Hyatt Regency Hotel in Belgrade. The conference “Effective enforcement: a competitive necessity in a global financial crisis” was organized by USAID office in Serbia. I was in charge of media relations and communication campaign for the event.

Sometimes the truth is so simple that we do not see it because its too obvious. What is the use of judicial system if nobody (or just a few) enforces its decisions? Hopefully this program will help make Serbia’s legal system more meaningful and enable tens of thousands of companies to get their cases resolved in real time (not years as it is now). This is one of the essential steps towards competitive economy in Serbia, absolutely necessary if we want to get integrated into European economy.

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Conference “Four steps to equal opportunity” was held in Belgrade on October 28th 2008. At this conference the results of research were released on discrimination on persons with invalidity, in workplace, schools, health care and other. I have helped communicate event to target groups and medias.

Foto by Bozidar Petrovic

Conference was open by Mr. Zeljko Ilic director of “Youth with Disabilities Forum” and Mr. Thomas Gnocchi, main secretary and chief of political department of The Delegation of the European Commission to the Republic of Serbia. Youth with Disabilities Forum is an organization founded on idea to gather and engage as many young and energetic people as possible in order to achieve full equality and equal opportunities in a society.

Foto by Bozidar Petrovic

This research paper is part of the “Four steps to equal opportunity” program started in May 2008 in four cities in Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Nis) and consists of research, campaign, creating advising facilities and discrimination monitoring.  I just hope there are more projects like this in Serbia.

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On Monday September 22 nd in Belgrade Aero club, my new client Belgrade Aviation Academy has celebrated its 84 th anniversary. There were representatives from Serbian Ministry of Education, Serbian Ministry of Defense and Diplomatic Core. The Aviation Academy school has presented its achievements especially its integration in European Union education system.

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