From reporter to minister, Dubravka's inspiring journey
“Commitment as a minister? All-encompassing. I knew I had the technical skills, but you have to learn how to deal with the media and communication.” Dubravka Djedovic has led Serbia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy since 2022, following a career in finance and banking. She tells us about her life: “I was born in Belgrade; my parents are both engineers. I decided to study finance because it would give me the opportunity to work in different fields and travel abroad.” The other options seemed limited at the time. “I saw engineering and medicine as very vertical faculties, and my parents told me that studying law meant staying in Serbia. So I chose Economics, even though I had initially considered the film academy.”
With a degree in Banking and Finance from the School of Economics at the University of Belgrade, Djedovic was set for an international career in finance. But her first job was as a producer and journalist for CNN International. This gave her the opportunity to work in the field in Afghanistan in 2001, then in Bosnia and to cover the civil war in northern Macedonia. “An extremely useful experience from a human and professional point of view. In addition to the ability to work under tremendous stress, I understood the mechanisms of geopolitics. This job gave me a new perspective on what international politics is.”
If journalism came “almost by accident,” she says, specializing in finance is a very definite choice. To hone her skills, Djedovic decided to enroll in a Master’s program in Finance and Management at the SDA Bocconi School of Management. She explains: “The choice was between Italy and the UK. I chose Milan because I already spoke Italian, since I studied it in high school. I was also familiar with the country and culture thanks to the summers I spent in Perugia at the University for Foreigners.” Djedovic also received a student loan thanks to Bocconi. “I was lucky because I remember a colleague from Bulgaria who was denied this opportunity. My advantage was that I had worked during my studies and had a salary to guarantee the loan.” But Djedovic did not stay in Milan. Thanks to an exchange program at Bocconi, she flew to the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles.
“It wasn’t easy to figure out what I really wanted to do. I had a degree in Finance but experience in the media; it wasn’t a typical profile. I also had some experience as an accountant, but I couldn’t find the right place for me. Office work was boring, slow. I didn’t get the adrenaline rush that I did as a journalist in the field,” she adds. So she set her sights on a new goal, one that combined her expertise with her experience in the field: helping developing countries rebuild after conflict. These were the wars she had seen and reported on for CNN.
She then applied to several international institutions. Her excellent CV landed her a job at the European Investment Bank (EIB), starting as an intern. She stayed there for 16 years, and eventually became the head of the Western Balkans office. She worked on many fronts, from energy and transportation to financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, traveling between Luxembourg and Belgrade. The next step for Djedovic was to become a member of the Executive Board of NLB Komercijalna Banka. In 2022, she took a turn at politics as an independent expert, without joining any party.
As for the gender issue, Djedovic is optimistic. “Serbia is a country that’s seeing rapid development; we’re at the forefront in terms of women in politics. I’m thinking of Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, but Parliament and local administrations too, where at least 40 percent are women,” the Minister concludes.
