Marina Cvetkovic, Chief Commercial Officer of The NextGen Project profile

Marina Cvetkovic
Chief Commercial Officer of The NextGen Project


Marina Cvetkovic, Chief Commercial Officer of The NextGen Project Certificate

“Impacting with Positivity”

Marina Cvetkovic, Chief Commercial Officer, The NextGen Project, is a visionary – thinking big and empowering others into their “bigness” is in her DNA. She believes that the culture of the organization is set at the top. Therefore, her mission is to help executives and boards have better conversations and stronger leadership alliance culture, as the ripple effect of such shifts at the top is enormous. Each leader casts a shadow – the more senior and influential the leader, the stronger the shadow. In this case, transforming one means essentially transforming thousands who operate in the shadow of that leader every day.

"The NextGen Project has tremendous potential, and Marina is proud to be co-writing its story with the rest of the team. "

Today, her work is two-fold: on the one hand, she coaches executives and top teams on authentic leadership and leadership alliance culture. On the other hand, being a millennial herself, she is a next-gen advocate. She leverages her influence at the top of the organization to open doors for transformation through better cross-generational dialogues.

As executive advisor and coach, Marina has noticed that one of the important voices missing in the boardroom is the next generation's voice. "I find it fascinating that while everyone is talking about gender diversity at top levels, generational diversity is still not quite at the forefront – although we live in the world in which the average age in the boardroom is still 64+," adds Marina. "At times when the pace of change in the market is unprecedented and when disruption is the only constant, I believe that traditional “legacy” expertise is losing importance while the relevance of “fresh” and different thinking that new generations are bringing is increasing." So this is how the idea to start a movement was born – a movement that advocates for stronger cross-generational dialogue and collaboration in the boardroom to successfully lead organizations into a sustainable and prosperous future!

The NextGen project is all about enabling the cross-generational dialogue at leadership levels by bringing in external, independent top-class nextgen voices from across all industries and geographies. This is why an organization like The NextGen Project is needed – cross-generational dialogue can be rather ineffective when it is not focused, structured, or even moderated. "We foster this dialogue in two ways: one - ensuring the next generation speaks with a louder and more powerful voice – by developing them into future executive advisors and board members through our nextgen leadership development programs," explains Marina. "On the other hand, we are also making sure executives allow the next generation to contribute and listen better when they speak up – by engaging them in structured, focused dialogue through nextgen advisory sessions."

The reverse mentoring sessions held between the nextgen leaders and executives of one of the world’s largest family-owned private banks is an instance to remember for Marina. The goal was to strengthen the entrepreneurial mindset and collaboration within this organization. "We have organized multiple advisory sessions between the leadership team and the next-gen leaders and have been told that these have been the most productive sessions this leadership team attended in a while!" This client has been extremely pleased with the nextgen project concept's effectiveness and the immediate positive impact it has had on the business.

The NextGen Project has tremendous potential, and Marina is proud to be co-writing its story with the rest of the team. The reverse mentoring sessions between their next-gen leaders and executives used to be in person – with the pandemic, have shifted to a fully remote model. "Our focus at the moment is on strengthening long-term partnerships with corporates, offering multiple opportunities to exchange with nextgen leaders throughout the year, publish co-branded social media content and white-papers, run nextgen surveys, etc," she says. "We believe that our mission of tearing down the barriers to facilitate a powerful, effective cross-generational dialogue will best be accomplished by growing the number of our long-term corporate partnerships as the longer duration of collaboration allows not only innovative insights but also a profound impact on the whole organization." For the days to come, Marina and her team are hoping that through this work, corporates will shift the approach to their nextgen talent internally and learn how to attract, develop, and retain them effectively. IE


Company

The NextGen Project

Management

Marina Cvetkovic
Chief Commercial Officer

Description

We are a growing international community of next generation leaders working in startups, corporations, and non-profit organizations. We help to shape initiatives that transform your company to 21st century.


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