Milena Milicevic
Job title: Digital transformation consultant and business development manager
Short Biography
Milena Milicevic is a two-times entrepreneur with strong leadership and business growth skills. She developed a digital transformation consultancy & a non-profit for IT education.
Her international academic background includes studying at the University of Cambridge, working in the international project management context and being proficient in 5 languages – English, German, Italian, Serbian, and Russian.
As an independent digital transformation consultant and project manager Milena showed extensive experience in working with international teams and ecosystems - from Germany, Austria, the UK, Portugal, Spain, the Western Balkans and other EU countries.
She worked with C-suites and management teams in 150+ companies (startups, SMEs and IT companies) on digital transformation, innovation, stakeholder management and business development for innovative companies. Her clients stem from industries such as: banking, recruitment, manufacturing, SAAS, health-tech, agri-tech and e-learning, the future of mobility, energy and food.
Milena advised companies on receiving subsidies for technology implementation which resulted in IT product companies earning minimum USD 730K of revenue. Likewise, she runs distributed European teams for projects in value USD 50K-150K; while being open for growth.
Also, Milena grew innovative communities of practice as a team member of Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna and founder of her non-profit Innovation Attitude Centre.
Within Innovation Attitude Centre Milena delivered 3-day conferences in Belgrade with 1000+ participants, and 100+ speakers from 25 countries (from the US to Singapore) in April 2017 - Dec 2020. While managing an 8-person project team, she created learning programs about Industries 4.0 and mentored participants from 90+ IT companies, startups, and organizations.
She is comfortable with running meetings, workshops and delivering conference sessions.
So far she motivated the audience of 30-500 participants on topics such as innovation, design of ecosystems, digital transformation and youth entrepreneurship. Milena served as the speaker or panelist at innovation events 2013-2024 in Vienna, Berlin, Strasbourg,Dublin, Kiev, Budapest, Blagoevgrad, Sarajevo, Poznan, Novi Sad and Belgrade.
Milena is passionate about the future of work, future of food and future of learning. She believes that companies can thrive thanks to human-centred project-management and the digitalization and AI automation at right intersections of the business.
Motivation
My motivation for joining Projects & Co is based on 3 foundations: delivering value in dynamic environment with distributed clients and teams; harnessing the power of human-centric client understanding and data-driven decision-making; and building further excellence of Projects & Co operations with substantially increased profits.
The first result that I want to bring to Projects & Co team and clients is about making sense of the uncertain world we live in and making sense of the challenges that we are paid to solve on a daily basis. To do so, I will first align with Projects & Co team on the methodologies that we will use and the time frame for implementing the solutions.
I am motivated to work in an English-speaking environment, while I can also bring the expertise of collaborating in German-speaking markets, the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Slavic countries in Central and South-Eastern Europe.
Another extra mile that Projects & Co team and I can take is also to collaborate with clients in the US, Canada and Latin America, Singapore, Japan or India. It would be fascinating for me to deliver value in those ecosystems, apart from Europe.
I have built relationships with representatives from North and Latin America and Asia in initiatives such as Global Peter Drucker Forum (I worked there with executives and project managers) and One Young World (there I worked with Millennial entrepreneurs and corporate managers).
The second motivation for me at Projects & Co is that we harness the power of human-centric client understanding and data-driven decision-making.
From my experience so far of interacting and helping hundreds of organisations, one truth emerges: clients want to be heard and understood. Likewise, in our role as consultants and project-managers we deliver results to clients with both human-centric and data-driven approach.
Within Projects & Co brand I would use some techniques of human-centric management: facilitation, empathy mapping, design thinking, my frameworks from managing projects in the EU and the Balkans, as well as the legacy ideas of thinkers from Global Peter Drucker Forum, Harvard Business Review and PMI.
Likewise, I would also create results for clients thanks to data-driven approach, while building my consulting capacities. It motivates me that Projects & Co team intends to be on the edge of digitalization, AI and big data, technology innovation and customer insights.
Finally, the third pillar of motivation for me is internal. I want to build further excellence of Projects & Co operations with substantially increased profits. In my projects so far I brought innovation and specific expertise to clients that were exploring new frontiers and competitive advantages. I have seen at a particular sample of organisations why digitalization or change management work or do not work, which I can share with peers and managers in next teams.
Now at this stage of my career, starting in 2025, I am ready to tackle more demanding projects and to collaborate in bigger teams of senior, global consultants. As a side-result of working in such Champions League that Projects & Co represents in its industry, I would be motivated to make impact, improve operations, and increase profits for company. I have been generating business myself as an entrepreneur, so I am familiar with creating compelling offers, building digital products and events, and different compensation / bonus models. Certainly, this know-how will be useful to Projects & Co for the next stage of growth.
Thank you for the opportunity and I am eager that we collaborate in 2025!
Companies worked for
• Milena Milicevic Digital Consultancy – clients in industries such as: banking, recruitment, manufacturing, SAAS, health-tech, agri-tech and e-learning, the future of mobility, energy and food.
• Donors such as EBRD, GIZ, USAID; UN- initiatives, European Innovation Council, embassies and donors from Switzerland, Belgium, the UK, Germany and the US
• Global Peter Drucker Forum
• tech startup ARVRtech, Business Development Associate – the UK / Serbia
• Pexim Foundation in partnership with Cambridge University Trust
• One Young World
• London 2012 Olympic Games
• German Parliament
• The School of Engineering Management, University Lecturer – Belgrade, Serbia