Sanja Pesic, CEO of Alma Quattro – We have strengthened the trust of Swiss owner APG SGA

Alma Quattro is a Serbian company 100% owned by AOG SGA Group since 2003, which is a national leader on the market of outdoor advertising and street furniture (also known as OOH or out-of-home advertising). The company's portfolio consists of: the most modern LCD and LED screens, billboards, backlit billboards, scrollers, bus stops, citylights, bigboards, pole ads...

The company has been operating successfully in the Serbian market for 25 years now, which was celebrated with a ten-month campaign and an event which gathered over 650 guests from the region and the whole world on November 14, 2019. Among the guests were representatives of the company's owner (the Swiss APG SGE Group), Jean-Francois-Decaux, as the chairman of the Executive Board and a Co-CEO of JCDecaux (the biggest company in this industry in the whole world), clients, colleagues from agencies and representatives of city institutions, the Swiss-Serbian Chamber of Commerce and the Swiss Embassy.

Our interviewee is Sanja Pesic, the CEO of Alma Quattro, who looks back on the past 25 years of successful operations.

What is the measure of success according to you?

– There are numerous financial indicators, such as the fact that we are among the 0.40% of the companies with an AAA credit rating in Europe. However, it's important to note that Alma Quattro is the only company in the APG SGA Group to keep its name and identity, its management and employees, based on the trust we have been strengthening year after year through our results, our professional approach and our familiarity with the local market. We believe in it, and our results speak for themselves, proving that we are “the people who do the job (the best)”.

The best proof of your quality and professional approach is what is said about you when you leave the room. In the speech given by Mr. Daniel Hofer (the chairman of the Executive Board of APG SGA), we had the opportunity to hear how he first heard of our company. He shared an anecdote about how Jean-Francois Decaux himself told him a long time ago in Moscow about our founder, Dejan Petrovic, and our general manager, Kosance Dimitrijevic: “Look at these two men. They do a great job and they are managing a large, large company.” He added that, after 10 years, summing up his own experiences and impressions, he was convinced that our employees and management are crucial to the success of Alma Quattro.

He shared that he personally believed that Alma Quattro is an excellent ambassador of Serbia internationally, as it presents the OOH industry in Serbia in a way that projects a good image of the country not just within the group, but worldwide as well, as a reliable, loyal, honest partner, a partner worthy of trust in every sense of the word. To us, that is the measure of success: the trust in our ability to do the job.

Neither the circumstances nor the time when you were building the company were in your favor. Looking back to the very beginning, what would you say was especially difficult, and what was the factor that ensured the company's future?

– One speech from the ceremony provides a perfect answer to the question. Kosance Dimitrijevic, who successfully guided us through various challenges for 23 years as the general manager of Alma Quattro, reminded the guests of the period when “inflation made poor billionaires of us”.

He also said that, in such times, one group of people had managed to establish and maintain the company, which has always provided job security to its employees. Our founder, Dejan Petrovic, further developed this point by underlining that it had not only been difficult to establish an outdoor advertising company in Serbia, but also to maintain it, and added that he believed that it will remain just as challenging in the future. He also concluded that the company would not be able to succeed and persevere without the employees, most of whom have been working at the company since its founding. He thanked each person who had contributed to making Alma Quattro the leader in outdoor advertising in Serbia and said that the evening was too short for him to mention everyone individually.

To me, as the CEO, the founder Dejan Petrovic and the director of many years Kosance Dimitrijevic, our whole team is to be thanked for the leading position in the outdoor advertising industry. That is why our motto is: “Success is not what you desire, but what you work hard for every day.”

I have been a part of the company since its founding, exactly a half of my life. New technologies are our friend and the future, but hard-working people remain irreplaceable, as well as our well trained team of professionals, who know how to best do the job. In that spirit, we invited all the employees to get up on the stage, as those are truly people who do the job regardless of the circumstances.

Alma quattro doo Beograd

DELTA HOSPITALITY DOO BEOGRAD - OGRANAK HOLIDAY INN BEOGRAD

APG SGA group

Jean Francois Decaux

JCDecaux

Sanja Pešić

Daniel Hofer

Dejan Petrović

Kosanče Dimitrijević

outdoor advertising

street furniture

OOH

Out of home advertising

25th anniversary of Alma Quattro