People

DARKO MANDICH

Founder & President

Darko Mandich is an entrepreneur with experience launching ventures in the food and biotechnology industries both in Europe and the United States. Driven by his commitment to giving back to the community he started from, he founded Foodscale Hub. His vision is to make a positive impact on the future startup ecosystems that are creating solutions empowering the wellbeing of humankind and our planet. He is very passionate about bees, and his latest venture MeliBio is set to use science to produce honey without bees and remove the pressure of commercial beekeeping on wild and native bee species.

PROF. MLADEN RADIŠIĆ

CEO

Prof. Mladen Radišić is a university professor in the area of Business and Finance, and he has the position of CEO at Foodscale Hub. Mladen has been holding various management positions and has participated in numerous EU-funded projects (CIP/COSME, FP7/H2020, etc.). He has previous experience in running large-scale projects and organization of international EU-funded business accelerator programs.  These projects and programs have delivered more than 12 mEUR to more than 150 European SMEs and startups, covering sectors such as agrifood, ICT, manufacturing, logistics, health, finance, energy, and environment. His fields of interest are financial and small business management, international project management.

GRIGORIS CHATZIKOSTAS

VP for Business Development

Grigoris Chatzikostas is an expert in financing innovation in agtech and foodtech. He is managing multi-national and cross-sectoral consortia, developing proposals for EU funding, and coordinating large-scale projects that promote tech-enabled entrepreneurship in the agrifood sector. In the past 15 years, he has managed projects exceeding the total value of 100 mEUR. He has delivered programs supporting more than 150 startups and SMEs with pre-seed funding and business support services. As a passionate and engaging public speaker and trainer, he makes complex subjects related to EU funding and technologies accessible and easy to understand. He also offers mentoring and strategic consulting to a small number of carefully selected companies that are aligned with his interests.

Dimitris Fotakidis

Project Manager, Head of Thessaloniki office

Dimitris Fotakidis is an economist, graduated from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), and holds a MSc in informatics and management from the same university, combining the two fields of his expertise, economics and IT. Over the last 10+ years, Dimitris has conducted business and marketing plans and developed the digital presence of numerous European SMEs and organizations. He has proposal writing and project management experience on research & innovation projects mainly in the fields of IT, agtech and foodtech

Dušan Pevac

Financial Manager

Dušan Pevac is a Financial Manager at Foodscale Hub. He has experience working as an external accountant and payroll associate, working mostly with SMEs and entrepreneurs. Before that, he was an intern at NIS (Gazprom Neft), where he assisted senior financial analysts in cash flow calculations and preparing internal financial publications.
Dušan got his bachelor’s degree in Finance, Banking, and Insurance and has completed his master’s thesis in Accounting and Audit.

VUKAŠIN ORSIĆ

Project Manager

Vukašin Orsić is a Project Manager with a Master’s degree in Engineering Management & Project Management. He has two years of international NGO experience as a member of the youth organisation AEGEE, where he took a PR team member role. He has previously worked in the event industry, he is skilled when it comes to data mining, organizing hybrid events, trade fairs and online workshops. Vukašin is passionate about environmental issues, project management and marketing.

Mackenzie Baert

Project Manager

Mackenzie holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Alberta, specialising in palaeontology and geology and a Master’s degree in Environmental Management and Sustainability from the International University of Greece. She is a project manager at Foodscale Hub and she is working in research and innovation projects focusing on raising awareness about environmental sustainability and protection.

Ioanna Giannopoulou

Office coordinator at FSH in Thessaloniki

Ioanna Giannopoulou is currently the office coordinator at FSH in Thessaloniki. She holds an integrated master from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Hydraulics, Soil Science & Agricultural Engineering and a M.Sc. on Environmental Protection & Sustainable Development, also from AUTH. She has 20+ years of expertise in organizing and promoting services, events & products, fully understands and meets clients’ needs as customer support & sales expertise with professional experience, both in Greece & Dubai. She has teached ArcGIS to pre-graduate students and i-cloud apps to adults and has worked as a lab & field researcher at N.AG.Re.F. She is interested in environmental sustainability and has numerous publications and articles on protection and restoration of fresh water and soil consistency, especially in agriculture sector, both in Greek and international conventions.

milica klavžar

Project Manager

Milica Klavžar is a Project Manager with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Philology. Passionate about project management, she recently undertook a one-year program in the fundamentals of PM. Furthermore, she has over three years of experience working for an American NGO organization where she demonstrated her skills as an event manager, leader of volunteers and English translator and has proved herself as a reliable team member with a personable nature and positive communication style.

Olivera Stojilović

Project Manager

Olivera Stojilović is a Project Manager and sustainability scientist. She has over two years of experience in science communication, STEM empowerment and training delivery. With over two years of research experience, she was able to work with the Institute for Nature Conservation of Vojvodina Province and Prince of Songkla University in areas of socio-ecological systems. Olivera holds a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University in Marine and Environmental Science and a master’s degree from Lund University in Sustainability Science showing passion for both aquatic and land systems. At Foodscale Hub, she is working in the domain of bioeconomy and stakeholder communication and empowerment.

Branka Kosanovic

Financial & Administrative Assistant

Branka Kosanovic is a Financial & Administrative Assistant at Foodscale Hub. She has over 10 years of experience working in finance and administration, mostly with SMEs. Branka studied Faculty of Business at Megatrend University in Belgrade and obtained a Certificate IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping at Monarch Institute in Melbourne.

Branka is passionate about environmental issues and financial management.

MILICA NENADIC

Graphic Design

Milica Nenadić is a web and graphic designer with a bachelor’s degree in graphic engineering and design. She also attended the IT Project Management course at Strathfield College in Sydney, Australia. During her studies abroad, she worked in a design studio on logotypes and creating websites. She has 8 years of experience in the field of graphic design as well as 4 years in marketing, particularly in campaigns for web networks and social media, and she has also participated in making TV commercials. She is passionate about thematic photography, environmental protection, and health matters.

George Vouroutzis

Project Manager

George Vouroutzis is an Agronomist, with a MSc degree specialized in the economical – social – political management of cooperative enterprises. Bearing the title of VP of Finance in IAAS World, Proposal Writer and Project Manager in Private companies, he has more than 7 years’ experience in EU projects in the field of Education, Agritech, Environment and Agrifood. Working with interdisciplinary and multinational consortia, George expanded his expertise in the development of competitive market analysis, business models and strategies for the exploitation of R&I results. At FoodScale Hub, George is responsible for organizing events and trainings, conducting strategic plans to expand projects’ growth opportunities and building stakeholder networks.