Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium highlight talent pipeline success

Amidst all the bad news about Covid-19 across the world, good news is emerging from Eastern Europe, where Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium have built an excellent talent development scheme.

Now the Group would like to highlight the stories behind three of these future leaders. It is about encouraging more skilled and bright recruits to join up, but also to show the depth of talent now working at Selectium, and the quality of the management approach that has led to this success. The three future leaders are Jelena Simić, Đorđe Nedeljković and Marko Stojanović.

“This story really is about people who started their professional career as interns in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, proved themselves during their time in the organization, and are now one of the main driving powers of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium,’ said Sonja Canjuga from Selectium.

According to Sonja, the talented team members are predicted to achieve further career development and rise through organizational ranks into managerial positions. The office where the team are based was wholly-owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise until November 2018, after which it became Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium. All three started working for the Midis Group in 2016-2017.

Two of the three shone in their first roles and attracted the attention of management early on: “Even before I became a part of HPE team, while I was working for a customer, I met two young interns who started attending customer meetings together with their older colleagues,” said Ivan Bulatović, Business Development Manager, Jelena and Đorđe’s manager.

“I immediately noticed them; the sparkle in their eyes were showing a great thirst for learning new things. From those moments on, and also today, now we are all part of the same team, I still feel their passion for business that we jointly share. It is truly a pleasure working side-by-side with them, to see how much they have evolved and grown into team members that are completely capable of handling big and important tasks with the same level of expertise as their older and more experienced colleagues. I feel blessed and thankful to have been given a chance to manage these young people in my team.”

And Marko also stood out from the crowd when he started with the Group, added his manager, Žarko Subotić, HPE Pointnext Business Manager. “I’ve been Marko’s direct or indirect manager since he joined our company. I quickly recognized his development potential, so I promoted him to our Sales team, where he really came to shine. Based on that, we created, together with Marko, a career path for him that involved continuous education and an opportunity for him to raise through the levels of organization, becoming a leader on his own someday.”

“I am happy to be able to say that he has not only lived up to our expectations so far, but outdone them. I believe that in the upcoming years we shall be seeing many great things coming from Marko, and I myself am very pleased to be following his career journey.”

More about the team

Jelena Simić

Jelena studied at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Department of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Belgrade. Her role and expertise center around a combination of technology and pre-sales, with a good understanding of business. She is always proposing and creating solutions, talking to the customers about technology, understanding their needs, communicating with the partners and enlightening them.

Jelena said this about her relationship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium; “We have the same goals in terms of the business, and strategy, the way we run the business; and we are focusing together on my improvement and creating a career path.”

Đorđe Nedeljković:

Đorđe studied in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade and graduated with a BSc and Masters in information and communication technologies, and at HPE is a specialist in a combination of technology and sales. As a Pre-sales Consultant from a technology perspective, his obligation is to cover whole the HPE portfolio and its details, and from a sales perspective the job is to know what and how to position the portfolio to both customer and partner, and to have constant and close communication with both of them.

Đorđe is keen to progress: “…to learn new things, to have a job closely related to IT market needs, to have a passionate leader who is future oriented, and of course to have a decent salary!”

Marko Stojanović

Marko studied in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade, and is a specialist in Sales. For him, it is all about having the ability to deliver results while improving stakeholder relations. Marko was attracted to HPE by the possibility to handle project-based work in an IT company with a proven portfolio.

In terms of what he wants from his employer, Marko seeks a chance to demonstrate working with a high level of responsibility and through that, gain a 360 degree understanding of the business landscape. Beyond that, it is important to expand the range of work he carries out: “I want to broaden the scope of my work, and build my knowledge and skills continuously through meaningful core business responsibilities.”

Why was HPE so attractive to work for in the first place?

A range of positive attributes attracted the three to working for HPE: according to Jelena the attraction was the team work, the organization itself, their way of leading the business, the company values, and the culture and people.

For Đorđe, HPE was his first employer and he found there was an “extremely well connected team with excellent communication among colleagues. Beside this huge advantage, I was attracted to the great possibility to develop my technology perspective even more and to improve the knowledge I acquired at University.”

Starting on the ground floor

All three began their internships at a basic level in the Group, but they soon won promotion: Marko said this about his start at HPE: “I was a project coordinator for spare parts strategy in partner-lead markets. After being a project coordinator, I quickly won a Pointnext SMB Sales role for the same Adriatics territories, and I then progressed to Pointnext Services Sales for Serbia and Montenegro.

Jelena had a basic first role and progressed from there: “It was my first job and I started as an Intern in HPE in Belgrade as a Presale Consultant on the servers portfolio, working only on server solutions together with HPE Software. I then switched to Prague Inside Sales Hub where I worked as a Solution Architect for the Balkan region, covering the whole HPE portfolio and working closely with our worldwide experts. After two years being in the Hub, I moved back to Serbia where I now work as a field Presales Consultant, helping our customers with their data centres and infrastructure.

Đorđe started as an Intern Presales Consultant focused on HPE Storage portfolio, but soon won developing more parts of his portfolio: “in time, I have added the HPE Server portfolio, and finally the HPE Networking portfolio. That means, as a team, we can offer advice and knowledge in every part of HPE technology field.

All three agreed that Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium is a great place to work, and team spirit is central to that. Jelena likes the team work, “…which we’ve derived from HPE, I also like our organizational culture and values. We all have the same team spirit and the same business goals.”

Đorđe: “…the first thing that attracted me to this company, the team, is still the one which I like the most. Besides that, technology and technical improvements and progressing are my second love. With the combination of those two, I am getting all that I need.”

Marko likes the autonomy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium to handle ongoing business and make decisions without much interference. “Also, as we are now a direct link between HPE and the partners/customers, I enjoy the necessity to monitor various financial aspects of our business dealings, and not only top line revenue.”

What happens after work?

All three of these former interns, now successful executives, have busy and interesting private lives: Jelena does a lot of sport, reads books, loves to learn languages and she travels around a lot.

For Đorđe, spare time is sports heavy: “well, I mostly like to play tennis, but beside this, I’m busy with cycling, swimming, playing volleyball and table tennis. I am a very extrovert person, so hanging out with friends is always my first option. Also reading, especially anything philosophical and also thrillers. And for the end, never forget to eat!”

Marko: “I follow the start-up and e-commerce scene and engage as much as I can, whether it’s a live event, business case or just a podcast session. Aside from this, I truly enjoy spending evenings with my girlfriend and my friends, with some good food and craft beers. Rest of my time goes to non-fiction, psychology books (Malcolm Gladwell, highly recommended) and Netflix.