A success story from Sweden celebrates nineteen-year-old entrepreneur Zlatan Bajrić, who is originally from Brčko, BiH. He arrived in Sweden with his mother and brother in the mid 1990’s as a refugee via UNHCR. He achieved the highest grades in elementary school, and was admitted to the best high school in Sweden where he also finished with excellent results. He now has two scholarships for university.
“Due to the difficult economic situation in my family I began working when I was 14. I was a newspaper boy, waiter, mechanic, I worked in a bakery, pizzeria…”.
Now, he is one of the most successful business people in Sweden. He opened his first company when he was 17 years old. He made commercials and smaller websites, as well as menus for restaurants.
He currently has two companies-a bowling alley/restaurant/café Aros Fun House that employs nine people and a marketing agency GoPlus that employs six people.
“My clients in GoPlus are IKEA, ABB, Bombardier, ValboKem, etc… I have full ownership of GoPlus, and 50 percent of the bowling alley’’, said Bajrić in an interview for Fena.
He won the prestigious award in 2011 “Sweden’s best service/product of the year’’, and in 2012 “Sweden’s best entrepreneur 2012”. In 2012 he received a scholarship from Anders Wall, the most successful businessperson in Sweden. This year, he was named the 12th super talent in Sweden.
“I proved that something could be made of nothing. When I came here with my family from Sweden, we had nothing. I showed that success will happen if you want it to’’, said Bajrić.
He also said that in Sweden he is known for being a huge critic of politicians, the Swedish government and the EU. He has also criticized the BiH government for not doing much to use the BiH diaspora in a positive way.
He adds that other countries have programs, are looking for diaspora talent and are including them in projects, which is not the case in BiH and in other countries in the former Yugoslavia.
Bajrić said that his ambitions for the future are big. He wants to show everyone that “nothing is impossible’’. He said that he would like to invest in the Balkans, especially in BiH.
“One day I would like to launch a project in BiH. First, the stance of the government regarding diaspora has to change. Laws have to adopted for investors from other countries’’, said Bajrić.
