Robert Golob
Robert Golob shares his views on GEN-I Group being ranked among the most innovative and rapidly growing companies in the European electricity market.
GEN-I Group was established in 2004 and is owned equally by parent company GEN Energija d.o.o. and shareholder IG Energetski Sistemi. With presence in Central and Southeast Europe, the business operates on a sales and trading model. Its activities include international electricity trading, the sale of electricity to end customers and associated purchases of electricity from producers.
Robert Golob became CEO of GEN-I Group in 2006. He says the group is highly knowledgeable in the electricity field, as well as flexible and respectfulall key values that have enabled it to achieve great success. "Our success truly lies in being the most advanced and the most knowledgeable player on the market," Robert explains. "Flexibility means that it's not enough to develop a solution and then just stick to it; you need to constantly improve it because that's how you stay ahead of the flux, or competition, as well."
Finally, respect doesn't just mean that you ask for respect, but that you give respect to all those who can contribute to your success. That's what comes when you truly work within a team. Some of the people at GEN-I Group have been together for more than 15 years, working as a team in various fields even before the business was founded.
Robert started his professional career in academia and after roughly a decade moved into public administration. He worked as the Republic of Slovenia's Secretary of Energy, which was an appointed role straddling the line between administration and politics. In 2002, he joined the business environment, which is where the first foundations for GEN-I Group were set.
I would say I had three different stages in my professional career, and being in business was the latest one, Robert says. This has helped a lot to be able to understand all three different environments. On one hand, the academia with all the research-oriented tasks; on the other hand, the public administration and dealing with politicians; and, of course, applying all that knowledge and experience to the energy sector. This has helped a lot because energy is quite tightly related to both the research on the one side and the public administration on the other.