When we walked through the door at the ZenDev office in Mostar it easily could have been a place in London, Stockholm or Berlin. With a small army of new generation techies, ZenDev premises reflected what the new world working spaces look like. Three electric scooters were leaned against the wall for staff to get around to meetings around town. The suave and super comfy sitting room could have been a google office. But was struck us most was the light and productive atmosphere among the young staff. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was busy as a bee. Some we perched on a couch where others gathered in groups around a collection of monitors and laptops. It was clear that ZenDev’s founder and owner, Mostar native Senad Santic, had found the secret potion in creating a positive and productive work environment in the sometimes draining atmosphere of Mostar’s political quagmire. “Our founding philosophy is to take care of our employees. We are trying to create new jobs with little stress and no overtime. Our network of clients is expanding, and whereas we mainly work with the Swedish market, we are moving into other areas as well. We need more skilled people, we are looking for more technicians and engineers and will continue to invest in them”
Senad Santic was only 4 years old when he and his family fled to Sweden from Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, in the midst of war. Like many other Bosnians abroad, his family maintained close links to their home city of Mostar, spending most summers there since 1996. Years later, Santic realized he wanted to connect his friends and business networks in Gothenburg, Sweden, with those in Mostar. After studying information technology (IT) in Sweden, Santic lived in the United States for a year, where he discovered his second passion – business and entrepreneurship. Loaded with two key passions for success, he returned to Gothenburg and, together with some of his professors, started a company to develop a mobile application for local schools. In 2016, Santic finally made the leap and co-founded an IT firm, ZenDev, that brought together his two hometowns separated by more than 1,000 miles.
ZenDev was founded by engineers with extensive knowledge of programming languages and engineering principles that they apply when creating customized solutions for individual clients. Their team covers all aspects of software development using the latest technologies and frameworks to deliver outstanding software solutions effectively. Today ZenDev does software development for companies from all of Europe and the US. Santic was quickly recognized by the local community as a credible and ambitious young entrepreneur willing to work with new ideas and provide new opportunities to Mostar youth where he now employs 27 young and brilliant minds that, in the current situation, might have otherwise packed their bags and headed for brighter horizons. Many now see BiH’s tech industry as the brighter horizon and the proverbial golden egg to carve out a future for themselves right here at home.
Contact: [email protected]; 060 331 2395: www.zendev.se
