PSIHOLOGIJA USPJEHA Antea Popović

Guest Antea PopovićHosted by Tanja PuretaMay 3, 2026

Antea Popović

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

Navigating a sprawling hospitality and retail group through a global pandemic means making decisions with no playbook. For Antea Popović, HR Director at Victus Grupa, the past year has been a masterclass in leading with radical transparency, even when the answers were unknown. With 15 years in HR, ten of them in leadership, Popović oversaw a portfolio including restaurants, cafes, fashion retail, and a wedding business that saw six months of complete shutdown. Her approach reveals how a willingness to admit uncertainty, share hardship, and relentlessly adapt can maintain trust and motivation when everything else is in flux. Listen for lessons on how to lead when 'we don't know what next month's salary will be' becomes your most honest and effective communication strategy.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

At the start of the pandemic, Victus Grupa made a clear decision not to lay off any employees, a move so impactful that some Leggiero staff adopted the hashtag 'no layoffs' on social media. In a crisis, an early, decisive commitment to employee security can become a powerful internal rallying cry, setting a baseline of trust even as conditions later shift.

The wedding business within Victus Grupa faced six months of complete shutdown, and motivating those employees was the most difficult challenge. The guest notes that the hardest part of a prolonged crisis isn't the work stoppage itself, but the lack of a clear, fixed end date; indefinite limbo erodes spirit faster than a known deadline.

When communicating salary changes and future uncertainty, Antea Popović chose radical transparency, telling employees, 'We don't know what next month's salary will be; we'll tell you at the beginning of the month.' In unpredictable conditions, admitting what you don't know is more credible than offering false assurances, and people will accept difficult truths if they believe you're being honest.

Antea Popović notes that her prior experience having to shut down an entire plant in a previous role made subsequent difficult decisions easier. Making tough calls like headcount reductions becomes less agonizing when you know you have genuinely exhausted every other possible option; the conviction that 'we tried everything' is the only way to deliver bad news authentically.

Victus Grupa ensured that management and back-office staff, including the entire board, were also on state subsidies during the initial lockdown, explicitly communicating that 'we were all in the same boat.' In a crisis, shared sacrifice across all levels, especially senior leadership, builds internal cohesion and makes transparency about financial hardship a unifying force.

Some Victus brands, like Batak, were able to pivot quickly to web shops and delivery during the second lockdown, suffering far less impact than the wedding business. A diversified business model isn't just about spreading risk; it's about having different parts of the portfolio that can adapt and keep the overall spirit alive during sector-specific shocks.

Antea Popović observed that employees generally did not leave Victus Grupa, largely because the entire hospitality industry was in crisis, and Victus was perceived as a stable employer. Sometimes, external market conditions, rather than internal retention strategies, become your strongest defense against employee attrition during a sector-wide downturn.

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