POWER LOOKS DIFFERENT TODAY. Not just in who holds it, but in how it works. Across the Adria region, the traditional symbols of authority—titles, offices, inherited institutions—are losing their pull. In their place, a new generation is leading through credibility, skill, and results.
You can see it almost everywhere. A scientist in Maribor whose research shapes national AI policy. A start-up founder in Zagreb who employs more people abroad than at home. A mayor in Skopje who understands that infrastructure now means data as much as roads. None of them waited for permission; they built their own mandate.
This is the quiet shift happening beneath the surface: influence moving from formal power to earned power. From those who inherited authority to those who create it through ideas, networks, and proof of concept. The region is no longer led by those who simply hold positions, but by those who make progress visible.
That shift matters because it’s changing the region’s rhythm. For years, the Adria story was told through the language of transition and potential—what might be, what could be, what still needs to happen. But momentum is no longer hypothetical. Across energy, technology, infrastructure, and diplomacy, the people driving results are the ones refusing to wait for consensus.
In Slovenia, innovation has become industrial strategy. In Croatia, entrepreneurship is not a buzzword but an export. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, citizens are filling spaces that politics left vacant. Serbia’s new corporate generation is balancing continuity with reinvention. And in Albania and Montenegro, regional cooperation is no longer seen as symbolic—it’s practical, competitive, and essential.
These stories don’t always align neatly. Some leaders are impatient for reform; others are cautious with legacy. Institutions are still learning how to share power, and not every transition is graceful. But taken together, these examples point to a region that’s learning how to lead on its own terms.
What we’re witnessing is not a revolution. It’s something more complex and, perhaps, more lasting—a redistribution of agency. Power is becoming less vertical and more connected. The people who shape outcomes today are those who can build alliances, speak across sectors, and bridge national divides. Their influence doesn’t rely on visibility; it relies on trust.
This issue of The Region looks closely at that transformation—the people and decisions defining how power actually works in Adria now. You’ll find profiles of leaders who’ve earned their authority through consistency, not volume; stories of companies that have outgrown geography; and examples of innovation proving that leadership here no longer needs validation from elsewhere.
Power, in the end, is not a trophy. It’s a tool.
And in this moment, the most powerful people in Adria are not those who command attention, but those who can turn attention into progress.