I always knew I would come back to Montenegro
An interview for the portal of the Montenegrin diaspora on leaving, belonging, and building a career abroad without ever letting go of home.
Leaving home is never only a change of address. It is a route through nostalgia, a search for new challenges, and a constant return of the mind to what was left behind. This conversation, published on CG Dijaspora, starts from the Bay of Kotor and Herceg Novi — the sea, the mountains and the people — and the sense of belonging that kept shaping the story no matter how far away work took it.
The professional arc runs from Montenegro through Serbia and Germany: telecommunications, aviation, software development, and then leading security in companies handling the data of millions of users and, later, highly sensitive health data. Each move was a deliberate step towards harder problems, and each one was also a lesson in how much of what is learned abroad has no counterpart at home yet.
The return is the point of the story. Coming back was never framed as giving up an international career but as relocating it — building companies in cybersecurity and AI from Montenegro, teaching for free so that the next generation does not have to leave in order to learn, and treating the diaspora as a network rather than a loss. The invitation to others who left is the same: go, gain what only a demanding market can teach you, and then bring it back.
Key findings
- 01Roots in Herceg Novi and the Bay of Kotor — belonging as the constant through every move abroad.
- 02A career built across Montenegro, Serbia and Germany, from telecoms and aviation into software and health-tech security.
- 03Returning home was a relocation of an international career, not a retreat from one.
- 04Companies in cybersecurity and AI can be built from Montenegro; talent no longer has to emigrate permanently.
- 05Free education and mentorship at home so the next generation does not have to leave in order to learn.
- 06The diaspora is best treated as a working network, not as a national loss.