Olivera Stojanovic, founder and Managing Director of Absolut Time – Don’t fear to go where there’s no safe road ahead

(Olivera Stojanovic) Interesting trips, prestigious events and precious jewelry all constitute the kind of job most women would want to do. She’s living one such dream. Watches are her passion and our interviewee’s life story began to take form more than a decade ago.

Olivera Stojanovic is the founder and owner of the company Absolut Time, which has become one of the leaders in the market of luxury watches and accessories since its foundation in June 2012. They are representatives of manfucturers Omega, Breitling, Mont Blanc, Hermes, Longines, Gucci, Tissot, Calvin Klein, GAGA Milano and, since recently, Swatch.

Before she founded her own company, Olivera Stojanovic worked for the renowned company Europen System, first as the founder’s personal assistant (2002-2003), and then as the brand manager (2003-2004) and executive director (2004-2012) of its subsidiary Identico, for watches and luxury goods. Her decision to enter the field of entrepreneurship is a result of her strong desire to advance and follow her vision. As she admits in her interview for our portal, she feared whether she would succeed on her own, as she had spent the previous 11 years “in a company with over 500 employees, where the system was there to back me up if I needed it”.

– I was inspired by the wise words from the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path – and leave a trail. It was then that I had the words tattooed on my arm. And here I am now.

Nice shop-window and hard work

As the founder and Managing Director of Absolut Time, Olivera now runs a team of ten employees, and the work is organized through the channels of retail, wholesale, corporate sale and watch service. Working with luxury brands in the market whose economic power is rather low, with clients who have high expectations and demands, means a daily amount of stress, but our interviewee, naturally dynamic and always dedicated to improving her business, sees obstacles as challenges.

Olivera is in fact a professor of the English language and literature, but she only worked in the field for about a year. She was born in Sabac, from where she went to her studies, and she wished to use her excellent command of English and German as an advantage and a foundation for further development.

– Watches used to be a great dream of mine, and then they became an inseparable part of my life, throughout each working day, and a great passion of mine – our interviewee says and adds that working with luxury goods doesn’t just entail interesting trips, prestigious events and a nice shop-window in Kneza Mihaila Street.

– The brands I work with are the most luxurious brands in the world, with the highest standards and no compromise in their expectations from local partners, whether from America, Great Britain, Japan, France or Serbia. This is why precision, reliability, top quality performance – characteristics of the best Swiss watches in my portfolio – have also become the basic principles in my work.

Absolut Time believes that the postulate that says that “the only permanent things is change” is a necessary approach in modern business, and therefore continually works on improving its wholesale network, range of products, business organization and goals.

An agreement on cooperation with another renowned top quality Swiss brand, the company Swatch, was signed in November, and Olivera is working intensively on preparing the launch campaign for this brand these days, along with the development of the wholesale network and presentation through improved Shop in Shop systems, as is the trend throughout the world.

– In accordance with the design of each shop, an analysis and selection of the best concept are performed, so that the visual identity of the brand dominates in relation to other brands on offer. This requires a lot of time, energy, communication with the owners of the business, their architects, creative teams of the Swatch brand, subcontractors etc. Nevertheless, we are happy and excited, as these are all creative processes accompanied by numerous challenges, hard decisions and positive results!

Each year, Olivera visits international watch exhibits, SIHH in Geneva and BaselWorld in Basel, as well as numerous seasonal Kick Off meetings of international distributors, where she learns about new trends in design and new technological achievements and attends presentations of new collections of the brands she cooperates with.

As she says, it’s important to have fun, enjoy yourself and be creative when doing your job.

– Set your standards high and make your visions long-term. Build your team and respect each other. No single person can play a symphony by themselves, it requires an entire orchestra – our interviewee emphasizes and expresses gratitude towards the people she works with.

Along with constant education, the employees at Absolut Time, as she says, tend to spend some weekends together, whether as a team or with their families, talking, getting to know each other, making new plans and setting new goals.

The job of a distributor of Swiss watches and luxury goods means constant trips, but Olivera is a passionate traveler privately anyway. She remembers a family trip to Paris and visits to Disneyland, Abu Dhabi and the Ferrari World, the Maldives and Bali…

Success comes with a smile

Our interviewee has recently been awarded a prestigious acknowledgment. Together with Mila Litvinjenko, owner of the cosmetics company Aura, she was pronounced the most successful business woman in Serbia in the selection for the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award.

– I believe that a woman faces numerous expectations and challenges in the modern world. I see as my greatest success in life the fact that I’ve managed to establish a balance between my family life and my business life, to be a successful business woman, a dedicated wife and mother, a friend, someone who exercises regularly, eats and lives healthy, enjoys her body, her life, knows how to have a good time, laughs heartily and loves herself in all her roles, all at the same time.

She has never had idols in the classical sense of the word, but she seeks inspiration in strong personalities who made an impact and left a mark on a certain period through their work or appearance. As she says, these include Coco Chanel, an icon of style, the unsurpassed Greta Garbo, as well as the often disputed Angelina Jolie.

She sees as her greatest life value that she is true to her self and her upbringing – working hard every day and more than others, knowing when the time is right to make a decision and loving the people around herself. Don’t be afraid to go where you see no safe road ahead. On the contrary, make a step, carve your own road and leave a trail behind you, Olivera emphasizes with confidence.

In addition to being too lenient towards her son, she counts her shopaholic tendencies among her weaknesses, as a kind of a modern addiction.

When she temporarily puts aside selecting new brands, negotiating with potential suppliers and organizing the sale and the marketing strategy, Olivera spends what little free time she has with her family and loved ones, those that make her smile.

– Smiling is very important, and my smile is my driving force. ABSOLUTely!

Ivana Bezarevic

Absolut time d.o.o. Beograd

Olivera Stojanovic

Olivera Stojanovic CV

Omega

Breitling

Mont Blanc

Hermes

Longines

Gucci

Tissot

Calvin Klein

GAGA Milano

Swatch

Europen System

Identico

sale of luxury watches and accessories

sale of Swiss watches

SIHH Geneva

BaselWorld

Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award

most successful business woman in Serbia 2016

luxury watches

luxury goods

Swiss watches