Sandra Nešić

Sandra is a senior innovation consultant and startup mentor with over 15 years of experience guiding corporations, SMEs and early-stage companies through strategy, commercialization and growth across Serbia and the wider Western Balkans.

What Sandra does:

• Diagnoses where a business model breaks down: value proposition, pricing, go-to-market, revenue logic. Rebuilds it on validated assumptions, not inherited ones
• Designs and runs customer discovery and validation processes: interviews, experiments, A/B tests, and pilot programs that generate real data before resources are committed
• Develops go-to-market strategies for SMEs and startups entering new segments or repositioning, from ICP definition and channel selection through to sales frameworks and first-customer acquisition
• Guides research teams and science-based startups through commercialization: translating R&D outcomes into market-ready value propositions and investor-facing narratives
• Supports companies through digital business model transformation, rebuilding how value gets created, delivered and captured in a digital context
• Designs and delivers corporate innovation strategy and programs (workshops, academies, challenge formats), then builds the internal systems that keep them running after the engagement ends
• Builds innovation and business support capacity for BSOs, accelerators and development organizations: curriculum, methodology, facilitation tools and service design
• Mentors startup teams through structured national and regional programs, from early validation through investor readiness and grant applications

Her project portfolio spans some of the region’s most respected development programs. She has worked with the World Bank Group, EBRD, UNDP and OECD/SIGMA, delivering innovation and digitalization engagements in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and beyond. As a Business Advisor to the Innovation Fund of Serbia and the Science Fund of Serbia, she has supported twelve competitively funded projects in biotechnology, green technology, agriculture and sustainable development — helping research teams bridge the gap between science and market. Most of her mentees go on to secure follow-on funding.

She is one of the pioneers of corporate innovation consulting in Serbia. At ICT Hub Belgrade she rose from Program Manager to Head of Innovation Consultancy, building and leading a team of ten consultants and delivering more than forty corporate innovation projects for leaders in banking, telecommunications, FMCG and energy. She designed and directed the Innovation Management Academy — the region’s flagship program for corporate innovation leaders and intrapreneurs.

She is also an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade, where she introduced Lean Startup methodology into the curriculum in 2018. Every year, more than fifteen student ideas are tested against a real market.

At Zavisi, Sandra leads corporate innovation engagements and validation methodology, turning innovation from a performative exercise into a system that delivers measurable results.