Women in Focus - Sofche Jovanovska

“ONLY MOTIVATED WOMEN, WHO WORK HARD AND BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES, CAN INNOVATE AND LEAD GLOBAL COMPANIES”

INTERVIEW BY

MAJA DAMJANOVSKA MOMIROSKA

Sofche Jovanovsla

General Manager of Scalefocus LLC

Woman, manager, motivator - this is how we can briefly describe the General Manager of Scalefocus in Macedonia, Ms. Sofche Jovanovska. Her professional experience is deepened by countless worldwide relations, participation to numerous events in more than 52 countries, highest level bilateral meetings with powerful business people from around the world, owners of large corporations, international institutions. For our magazine, she talks about her professional achievements and her long-term plans in the company.

Ms. Jovanovska, what was your path to success and what is your life motto?

There are several principles that I am guided by in my life, and these are: you should always dream of what you want to achieve, believe that it is possible, and invest every day in new knowledge. For every unit of “time” or “assets-funds” invested, you will surely get a 10-times higher refund one day. Without having ambition and awareness of self-development, there is no realization of your dream. It is important whenever you set goals in life to distinguish between what is the goal and what are the actions that will lead you to this specific goal. Every goal incorporates specific steps towards its achievement – a goal without steps is just a wish list. I am constantly interested in new innovative things, and in my mind, I always repeat, “I know what I want to achieve, I know why it is important to me, and I am thinking about finding out how to make it happen”. The important thing is that I can take responsibility for my own decisions; I know whether I should do something or not.

As a General Manager of Scalefocus LLC, you positioned the company as the fastest growing one within the group. What was crucial for this accelerated growth in times of crisis?

The company success we have achieved in the country is our joint success of all our colleagues in North Macedonia and in Bulgaria, where the main headquarters of the company are located. To establish the company and leverage its image as a desirable company to work for, it certainly requires a lot of effort, talent, and strong experience. Today, as the General Manager of Scalefocus LLC, looking back in time, I have a 30-year career behind me, which has taken me to many peculiar, exciting, extraordinary, and responsible work positions. I started as an Oracle database administrator and developer, but my desire to constantly learn and improve and give my best in every task took me to the field of telecommunications, macroeconomic policies, and legal regulations. I was part of the Chamber of Commerce of Macedonia for 25 years in various managerial positions. The Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia appointed me as the Chairwoman of the Commission of the Agency for Electronic Communications during the period 2005-2010. A particular challenge for me was my role as a Chief of Cabinet of the Vice-President of the Government of North Macedonia in charge of economic policies, where the focus was on attracting foreign investments to the country and creating an optimal business environment.

Nevertheless, the biggest challenge for me is my current position as a General Manager of Scalefocus LLC, which allowed me to return to my area of expertise, after all my prolific experiences, countless relations, events, highest-level bilateral meetings with powerful business people from all over the world, owners of large corporations, international institutions, participation to symposia, business forums, conferences and events in more than 52 countries in the world. My previous experience is what gives me the wind beneath my wings, so we can ambitiously continue with the implementation of the investment plan for the next five years, according to which we need to employ 300 people, but with the current pace of growth, we may reach this number of employees much sooner. Our vision is to gather the best IT talents not only in Skopje and Bitola, but also in the other cities in the country.

This year, Scalefocus marked its 10th anniversary, 10 years of accelerated growth and development, recognized even by the renowned Forbes and Financial Times, which have included the company in the fastest growing companies in Europe in the recent years. What are the future plans?

This year we mark 10 years since the founding of Scalefocus (www.scalefocus.com). Today, our company is a synonym of success, growth, and excellent market positioning. Scalefocus is one of the most successful IT companies established not only in the region, but also in Europe and America. I am part of a strong and ambitious team of more than 800 professionals, who work tirelessly on multiple continents and contribute to the company’s success. In the long run, our goal is Scalefocus to become an even bigger international company with an even stronger presence in the world, creating solutions for the needs of renowned clients.

So far, we have successfully delivered more than 500 projects for hundreds of clients worldwide. As a company, we have experience in several industries, since our clients work in different sectors and activities, and we follow and understand the challenges they are facing. The key to success is when for each new system we develop for our client, we also have to ensure its integration, automation and co-communication with the rest of the systems used by the same client. Scalefocus provides higher value-added technology solutions that save our customers’ resources, time, people and provide a competitive advantage in their industries. In the software industry, especially after the pandemic, the world has recognized quality and agility over quantity when working with customers. In the future, digital transformation will be inevitable for every company, and this implies the need for IT services and IT personnel will parallelly grow. Our mission is to engage the best technical talent in our projects and conquer new markets.

What was the reason and the main motive for expanding towards the Macedonian market?

The company’s ambitious plans motivated more than hundred young people to work for the company. The company’s business plan is to motivate and retain young IT experts within the country.

The reason for expanding into Macedonia was part of our development strategy and a preparatory step for further growth in the Western Balkans region. We are proud as a management of the achieved success, but we are also extremely thankful to our employees who recognized the company as a place for their future professional growth and success. Our employees are our greatest asset in the company.

Although Bulgaria and North Macedonia are small countries compared to the big wide world, our best practices and policies, acquired and inspired by the international companies we work for, empower us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors with our quality and passion for excellence, which result from the commitment of our employees and their true talents. That is why we are striving to create ideal conditions for work and make young people stay at home or bring them back to our countries while contributing to the economic prosperity of the region.

What is the main motivation for the young IT staff and how do you manage to keep them in the country and work for Scalefocus?

What we offer as a company is a unique opportunity for career development in a supportive environment, through continuous learning from colleagues, managers, clients in projects and other complementary forms of technological and business improvements. Each of our colleagues has an equal start, no matter in which Scalefocus office they start working, but everything depends on the ambition, individual motivation, skills and results and how one manages to develop them over time. We monitor them and support them, because that is part of the company’s work culture, to share knowledge with our colleagues and thus jointly move to the top.

The company’s business plan is to motivate and retain young IT experts here in the country. It is an advantage, but it also requires the skill to find common values, while nurturing mutual respect and commitment, and cultivate your business success on the possibility of being able to extract the best skills from your employees. We try to create a positive environment for each talent, aligned with the corporate values of the company, and as they say “You can do it alone, but to succeed, you need a team”.

In addition to successfully managing an IT company, you are also successful and growing in NLP coaching. Can you tell us some details on your growth in this field and how much NLP techniques help you in your daily work?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP *) encompasses a range of skills, techniques and models by which we can actively use our mind, emotions and body to successfully manage our lives – as well as communicate with the others around us with extreme effectiveness, regardless whether it is in our private life or professionally. Practicing these NLP techniques allows me to communicate more easily with the employees, but also with our clients in the stages of presentation, negotiations, implementation of projects and, of course, at the sales level.

My role as a professional coach is to help others change the way they think and behave, becoming aware of their potential, so they can overcome their problems or reach their desired goals sooner and easier.

The satisfaction is immense when you manage to touch someone’s life and inspire them to achieve a goal or solve a problem. Their success is also my responsibility, and I simply cannot allow myself not to help them when I know how to do it.

*) NLP was developed in the 1970s by Richard Bandler, a mathematician and psychologist, and John Grinder, a university professor of linguistics at the University of Santa Cruz in California (USA)

We have started this interview and we are closing it now with your professional challenges. You mentioned that your key success factors are your commitment and your readiness for new endeavours. What would be your advice to future generations?

What is important to know is that you cannot change your life in a day, but there is something you can do in a day - you can make a decision to start learning and doing everything that is in your power, and it is required to improve all segments of your life. That day could be today - you can make the decision today.

One who believes shall not make haste!