The journey of an Entrepreneur, in my view, is often a solitary one, where the person aims at business, success and expansion. What really does happen is this process an expansion of one’s spirit and mind to become someone who can digest the success and growth. Add a growing family to this mix, and you have what today’s modern woman experiences. Bratislava, or Brana as she is called fondly, co-founded Infostud in the year 2000. “Back then, internet was a really new thing in Serbia, with almost no online market at all. We created the first website with information about universities and that’s where the name Infostud came from. I was 20 years old at the time”.

“We actually created Serbia’s online employment and cars sales market, because before us, those markets were completely offline or based on newspaper ads.” she shares. Infostud is now into motoring, education, employment, real estate as well as insurance and keeps growing. To see a gap in the market, to fill the need and create your own space and lead it is what Brana and her Co-founders Branimir Gajić and Stefan Salom did.

Did she ever feel lonely in this journey of co-creating one of the digital giants of Serbia, I ask. “It was when I had my first child.” Brana is quick to share. She has an incredibly supportive husband, parents as well as business partners. Nevertheless, to have a child is a huge change - mental as well as logistical. “I had to accept myself as a women and not just a business-women or I-can-do-it-all-kind of person. I was used to arranging life the way I wanted and that changed” Brana says. She went through what a lot of business women and working mothers do - priorities suddenly change as the primary care giver and things you always held so dear to you in your business life feel different. With brutal honestly, Brana shares: “I became very confused about my priorities since work was always a huge part of my life and now family started melting my heart and I wasn’t sure how to mix it all.”

Male entrepreneurs have it a little different, she feels. They love their families and kids, and many are very attentive to their family’s needs, however, their primary focus is often the business and someone else tends to the family no matter which part of the world you live in. Brana chose to do this differently. She tried balancing both. When she came back to work after her first child, maternity leave, and dealing with physical-mental-emotional changes, she found a lot had changed in her company and things were being done in a different way that she didn't always like. Challenging, is how she describes her experience. It took time to regain some balance but it all helped her accept the flow of life much more and let go of the illusion that one can and should control and lead everything.

Child care is one of the top most reasons for a woman across the globe to step back from her working life. Brana addresses this very important topic and shares her insights into achieving both. She feels having children is often harder on women who work as they end up feeling divided between their work and home and that causes a lot of guilt. “Of course, there are men who find themselves in similar situations, but when it comes to male business owners or CEOs I know, most of them don’t pressure themselves so much about it. They are there to bring money and success to the table, and the rest is just priority Number 2 or less.” she shares.

How did she manage this ultimate conflict of the modern woman, I ask her. She still struggles with it at times, Brana shares candidly. But she has learnt to take life step-by-step. She has also developed an acceptance for things she cant change and the ability to choose which battles she will fight. That has made all the difference. Whenever she still feels engulfed in the conflict, she brings her focus to the fact that life is a lot bigger than her and her problems and that gives her perspective to take better decision and bring better results. She controls her life, her work, her energy and decides where to apply it and not the other way around. 21 years to Infostud, 9 businesses, 250 and more employees, 3 children and a thriving family - this is what Branislava Gajić Stanojević is all about. And this truly makes her a superpower.