Marjan Batagelj is chairman of the board of the company Postojnska jama, the CEO of the company Batagel & Co., and the president of the Slovenian Business Club. He is also a majority shareholder of Postonjska jama d.d. Batagelj is an entrepreneur with a philosophy that one may succeed anywhere, provided that they stay loyal to their principles. He uses his own reason and follows exclusively his inner convictions and thus cannot be influenced by what he deems bad. His business success secret: he never does things in a way that is expected from him or that most people would do. That is why he is successful and treads in the direction where everybody could go, however most people don’t see it. He is interesting and unpredictable.
Anže Burger is a Senior Fellow at the Visio Institute and Assistant Professor of International Economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Earlier, he was an economic adviser to the Slovene Finance Minister, young researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences and visiting researcher at LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at KU Leuven, Belgium. In 2006, Burger co-founded Free Society Institute, a Slovenian think-tank promoting libertarian ideas. His work and research interest include international trade, foreign direct investment, outsourcing, international business, and industrial policy. In 2009, he earned his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Tomaž Butina has year-long managerial and capital markets experience, which he gained and upgraded in Slovenska zadružna kmetijska banka d.d. (today DBS d.d.), Fistro d.o.o., PM&A d.o.o., and Beta Invest d.o.o. He acted as a member of the Supervisory Board of Final d.d., Jata d.d., Gradis IPGI d.d., KD ID d.d., KD d.d., KD Življenje d.d. and KD Skladi d.o.o., and was a member of the Board of Directors of KD Banka d.d. He is the initiator of the first Slovenian mutual fund, later renamed KD Galileo. He serves on the Board of Directors of KD Group d.d. and KD d.d., the Managing Director of Avra d.o.o. and DERMATOLOGIJA BARTENJEV – ROGL d.o.o., and a member of the Supervisory Board of Adriatic Slovenica d.d. He also works with charities, being a member and the President of the oldest Slovenian Lions Club. Butina holds a Bachelor of Computer Science.
Radovan Ďurana is an analyst at the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS), a think tank which he co-founded in 2006 in Bratislava, Slovakia. In the past, he worked as a credit risk analyst for a commercial bank In Prague, Czech Republic. Durana graduated from Faculty of Management at Komensky University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Roland Fritz is a research fellow at the Austrian Economics Center, Austria. Fritz obtain his bachelor’s degree in sociology and political science at the KF – University Graz in Austria and is currently a master student in socioeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, University of Vienna, Austria.
Peter Hasslacher is a managing director of Advantage Austria for Slovenia, Albania and Kosovo. Earlier, Hasslacher was a managing director of FOCUS Invest GmbH between 2011 and 2013 and a board member of Aussenwirtschaft Austria beween 2008 and 2010. He served as head of Advantage Austria for BiH between 2010 and 2011 and as a head of Advantage Austria for Croatia between 2001 and 2008. Hasslacher hold a PhD from Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.
Ivan Jovetić is an entrepreneur and researcher. He has been working at the Institute for Strategic Studies and Prognoses since 2005, where he has been involved in and led numerous projects. His fields of interest are entrepreneurship, EU, NATO, cyber defense and defense economy. Jovetić is also Executive Director of Centre for European Education and Studies – CE²S, a research center dedicated to the European research, education and entrepreneurship. He is also member of the Working Groups for negotiations with the European Union (chapters 31 and 21). He is co-founder of MSI INVEST Ltd. through which he has been executing his own and his partners’ entrepreneurial ideas. Since 2007, Jovetić has been working at the UDG – Faculty for International Economy, Finance and Business as a teaching assistant. He has also been acting since 2013 as manager and Vice-Dean at the UDG – Faculty for Sports Management. Jovetić holds MSci degree from Entrepreneurial Economy Postgraduate Studies and is PhD candidate at the International Economy Postgraduate Studies at the UDG.
Barbara Kolm is President of the Friedrich A. v. Hayek Institute in Vienna, Austria and Director of the Austrian Economics Center. Being a worldwide networker she uses these abilities to promote free market policies; in addition she is a frequent speaker on public policy related issues, especially on deregulation and competition topics, the Future of Europe and Austrian Economics. Barbara Kolm is an Associate Professor of Austrian Economics at the University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro and a member of the Board of Business Consultants of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber and a Member of the Mont Pélerin Society. She is President of the European Center for Economic Growth.
Goran Novković is an adviser to the CEO of the Slovenian Chamber for Commerce (Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije – GZS). From 2007 to 2012 he was executive editor of a daily Žurnal. Novković graduated from Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Tanja Porčnik is the founder and president of the Visio Institute. She is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, USA. She serves on the Globalization Institute scientific board (Poland) and The Fund for American Studies alumni council (USA). Between 2012 and 2013, Tanja was a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. In 2012, she was a teaching fellow at Georgetown University / The Fund for American Studies program in Prague, Czech Republic. From January 2006 to December 2011, Tanja was both research associate and manager of external relations at the Cato Institute. As an undergraduate, Tanja studied Applied Economics at both University of Maribor, Slovenia, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She did her graduate studies in American Political Thought at both the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Georgetown University, USA.
Oliver Rothschild is a corporate strategist active in a variety of business arenas. He has held management level positions with Buchler Rothschild Investments and is currently Chairman of Oliver Rothschild Corporate Advisors. He is active within a range of industries and holds a diverse portfolio of business interests. Amongst a number of Chairmanships, Oliver Rothschild is also active in other, non-commercial spheres, having previously been elected Chairman of UNICEF (Appeals Committee). In the charitable sector, Oliver Rothschild currently holds the post of President of the trading arm of ACEVO, the leading association of voluntary and charitable Chief Executive Officers, and in addition is Chairman of the Sustainable Business Forum. Oliver Rothschild also acts as Ambassador or Patron of a number of charitable organisations.
Andrzej Rzońca is a member of the Monetary Policy Council at Polish National Bank, which he joined in 2001. He is also adjunct professor at the Chair of International Comparative Studies at SGH, associate of the Civil Development Forum, and lecturer of the Canadian Executive Master of Business Administration Program (CEMBA). From 2002 to 2004 he assisted the Division of International Comparative Studies at the NBP International Department and was later that year appointed as an advisor to the President of the NBP. He was also a member of the editorial board of the “Bank i Kredyt” (Bank and Credit), a scientific journal issued by the NBP. Between 2007-2010, Rzonca was Deputy President and Director of the Analytical Department of the Civil Development Forum (FOR). Previously, he cooperated with the CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research. Rzonca holds a PhD in economics from Warsaw School of Economics, Poland.
Jure Stojan is a Senior Fellow at the Visio Institute and a business journalist for Večer, a Slovenian daily newspaper. In addition. Jure attended many Liberty Fund conferences in Europe. An advocate of economic freedom, Jure is covering topics in European macroeconomy and the Slovene business environment. Jure holds a doctorate in economic history from St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He studied the political economy of regulatory reform in 20th-century Britain, with a focus on how the growth of the welfare state and the rise of new business models influenced the market for healthcare. His research included a case study on the British Health Freedom League, a grass-roots movement of the 1940s that tried, unsuccessfully, to block the emergence of a State-operated, monopolistic National Health Service (the NHS).
Christof T. Zeller-Zellenberg currently serves as President of Europa Institute, a public policy think tank, located in Austria. He lectures internationally on economics and ethics. He is a private equity investor, focusing on new technologies and financial institutions. He has been serving as director for private wealth management for Russia and Eastern Europe at Deutsche Bank Austria AG for 15 years. Earlier, he was a project manager – M&A in CEE for Raiffeisen Investment AG and Procurator at Raiffeisen Investment Ukraine. He was the federal chairman of Young European Studentinitiative (JES) and PanEuropa Austria Youth Movement. In the 90s he worked in the U.S. at the Leadership Institute and the US Congress. He holds a master degree in Economics and Business Administration from University of Vienna, Austria.
Ekkart Zimmermann was professor of sociology at the University of the German Armed Forces (Universität der Bundeswehr) in Munich till 1992 and at the Dresden University of Techonology till 2011. He studied political economy, public finance, law, sociology and social psychology at the University of Cologne and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany. He held fellowships at the University of Essex, University of South Carolina and Yale University. His most extensive publication “Political Violence, Crises, and Revolutions” was published in 2011. Zimmermann is also the co-editor of the most current handbook of sociology, “Concise Encyclopedia of Comparative Sociology”. Since 2011 Ekkart Zimmermann teaches at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, at the “Hochschule für Politik” in Munich and at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. Zimmermann received a doctorate from University of Cologne.
