#HOTCS: Synthia Dodig, Zagreb

“When you’re involved closely on a project with a company, you really start to feel like you’re part of the company. You’re in there in the trenches with them, like a team member. For example, just before Croatia joined the European Union, we had a Croatian company interested in acquiring Canadian cattle. Live cattle can’t be exported from Canada to the EU ^{Footnote 1} , so we had a narrow window of opportunity. Not to mention that live cattle had never been exported from Canada to Croatia before. We found a Canadian company to supply the Croatian one, and we helped them with the veterinary and export certificates. There was a significant amount of back-and-forth with the veterinary authorities as well as border control. Croatia was beginning to harmonize its legislation with the European Union, but we were still able to get this export in on time. The cattle came in to the country by air, it was quite exciting!

I’m also motivated by my colleagues, who are doing the same work in other markets. Especially in central and eastern Europe, where some of the countries are smaller, we work together to make sure Canadian companies have greater access to not just our particular market, but to more markets across the region.”