Dr. Sanja Popovic Pantic

Dr. Sanja Popovic Pantic   

Dr. Sanja Popovic Pantic is leading innovation in the SME sector and female entrepreneurship. She is the President of the biggest national association of female entrepreneurs in Serbia, running since 1998. During that time, nearly 200 projects have been realized to strengthen female entrepreneurial initiatives, projects, start-ups, and established companies. She obtained her PhD in female entrepreneurship in 2013 at the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, Serbia.

She has been chairing the Women’s Entrepreneurship Group within the EU-funded project Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) since May 2015. She is the author of two books based on research on female entrepreneurship in Serbia: “From Vulnerable to Sustainable Group” – how to overcome poverty among women through self-employment in 2007, and “Sustainability of Female Businesses”, which was published in 2010. She has also been engaged as a UN Women expert in their project “Advancing Women’s Economic and Social Rights in Serbia.”

Currently, she is engaged as a Sustainability expert by the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME), which is an appointment within EEN’s new expert group on sustainability support to SMEs. She has completed several comparative studies in female entrepreneurship, including the latest one related to SMEs’ access to supply chains in the Balkan countries. She actively promotes gender equality in supply chains. The US Embassy in Serbia nominated her for The World of Difference 100 Award, which was delivered to Sanja by The International Alliance for Women in 2012. In the same year, she was awarded the national award in entrepreneurship development by “PLANETA BIZNIS”. She has been awarded by the Ministry of Economy in Serbia for her special contribution to female entrepreneurship in Serbia. She has also been honored with the regional prize “Creators for Centuries” in 2015 and “The Best Businesswoman of the Year” in 2017 by the noted national Foundation “Captain Miša Anastasijević“.

In an interview, she adds, “I think it is high time to ask ourselves what we can do to place our skills, knowledge, and experience, even if only briefly, in the function of promoting something that certainly won’t bring us money, but will undoubtedly improve our quality of life and bring smiles back to our faces.”