Nemanja Šormaz is the Director of Center for Advanced Economic Studies (CEVES). During five years in CEVES, he has been actively engaged with policymakers and other key stakeholders on economic development projects. He develops and coordinates projects with a goal to enable sustainable, smart and inclusive economic growth.

Nemanja is a lead author of two foundational and innovative studies “Serbia’s Real Sector Performance” and “Supporting and stimulating growth of competitive industries – Development Potential Index”. He led an in-depth gap analyses of 1.000 firms of Serbia’s economy, through survey and interviews, with a goal to understand critical success factors of performance and competitiveness, as well as existing constraints that block the potential of firms in Serbia’s economy.

During his career, he has also gained very significant experience and knowledge as a special adviser to Mrs. Ana Brnabic, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and Kori Udovicki, the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia’s Government. He led a process of rightsizing of Serbia’s general government, while creating a holistic and clear picture about its structure, functionality and performance, with a goal to enable regular monitoring and measuring of its results, as well as the international benchmarking.

Pavle Medic is the Deputy Chief Economist at the Center for Advanced Economic Studies (CEVES). As Deputy Chief Economist, he is engaged at managing and developing projects and project proposals, as well as selecting and training of employees. He primarily covers the topics of labor market, private sector development, public finances, inequality, as well as various types of impact assessment analyzes.

He started his professional career with a summer internship at the National Bank of Serbia in the Sector for Monetary Operations in 2018, after which has been employed in CEVES. He gained substantial experience working as an independent consultant for leading international and domestic organizations – the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, The Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit, the Union of Employers of Serbia and similar. Since September 2021, he is engaged at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, where he works as a teaching associate for the subjects Principles of Economics and Financial Markets.

He graduated in Economic Analysis and Policy at the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade, and is currently in the process of writing a master’s thesis in the International Masters in Quantitative Finance (IMQF) program at the same faculty. He is also completing a master’s degree at the Law and Economics Module of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade.