Primož Zupan
Primož Zupan graduated in sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV) in 2007, but was very active in his profession even while he was a student. Among other things, he was president of the DŠKM student organisation, occasional lecturer in business ethics at FDV and member of the board at Gospodarski izzivi. In 2005 he visited Seattle, where he represented Slovenia (or more precisely, the University of Ljubljana) on the Global Business Challenge 2005 project.
After graduating and working for IBM Slovenia, he again travelled abroad, this time to Austria, where he undertook further studies in human resource management, as well as sales, marketing and negotiation, at the IBM Global Sales School. He then returned to the Faculty of Social Sciences and completed a Master’s in sociology with a dissertation titled “Idea Manager: The key role for developing a culture of innovation in organisations”. In this period he also wrote his first three academic articles on the topic of employers within the Bologna process.
After completing his studies, Primož held a large number of different positions before landing at Halcom, d.d. in 2013, where he assumed the role of “idea manager” for three years, a period that has had a major impact on his subsequent career path. Working at this company provided him with enough insight into the idea-creation process, and the pitfalls that can appear on the road towards the creation of successful innovations, to enable him to strike out on his own. The one-man company he set up in 2016, Manager idej (“Idea manager”, of course), advises companies on how to develop and maintain an ongoing system for the development of ideas and innovations by the organisation’s employees. In addition to advising companies on innovation, he has also been director of the MBILLS company since 2017.
In the course of his career, Primož Zupan has come to realise how important the role of idea manager is in every company, regardless of sector or field. He says that an idea manager should encourage the continuous development of innovative ideas and promote an idea culture within the company. Primož emphasises the importance of this to every company he advises and, at the same time, strives to give it maximum focus in the companies he represents himself.