Danijela Paska

Captain

Danijela ​​studied sociology and anthropology at the University of Zadar. She is competent in the field of qualitative research and in the field of socio-humanistic topics of human rights and public policies, social inequality and power relations. Her master thesis in sociology focused on the evaluation of the institutional framework (university) in terms of counseling services and care for the mental health of students and their emotional work in the academic context. Also, in her master’s thesis in the field of anthropology, she analyzed the discourse of mental health, i.e. public policy in Croatia. Danijela works in Impact House as a junior impact specialist on projects such as Gender and Energy Innovation Facility as well as providing expert support in other policy, corporate and community impact activities.

Michael Freer

Executive Director

Michael Freer is serial social entrepreneur with a strong love of travelling and the outdoors. His passion is in social enterprise and social startup development, as well as pushing traditional companies towards having a better impact.

In 2010 he started working for a local charity – Druglink, where his passion for social entrepreneurship began. Firstly, implementing a mental health and substance misuse training arm, before developing, raising funds, opening and running ‘Links Drinks’, a cafe that employed people with substance misuse or mental health issues. His love of travel then pulled him away from the UK, and halfway across the world to Cambodia, where he worked at a local NGO and on a part time basis to develop and implement the SA8000 (social accountability) quality standards for Pactics, owners of a garment factory in Siem Reap.

He decided to head back to Europe in 2015, choosing Croatia as his main base. Since then he has worked to promote social entrepreneurship in Croatia, and having been a partner of Impact House for four years, he finally became a part of the team in 2022.

Stjepan Mikec

Partner

Stjepan has over 15 year of experience in management, and development, of social economy organisations. He is specialised in green economy, community development and new technologies.  His employment history includes a full mandate as the Executive Director of ACT Group, a consortium of social enterprises, as well as leading support organisation for entrepreneurs with positive social impact.  Before becoming the CEO, in said consortium (which employs over 70 people and are a leading example in the region) his roles were development and capacity building. As the CEO he founded an incubator and accelerator, brining networking, mentoring and access to finance to social enterprises and impact startups in Croatia. He mentors in areas of: strategic management, people management, project management, services development, social impact management, operations and processes.

Ana-Marija Međurečan

Advisor

Ana-Marija is a lawyer with over 15 years of experience in national and European legislation and regulation practices and a contractor for the Court of Justice of the EU. She is a connoisseur of legal systems and German and English language and a trained mediator specialised in alternative dispute resolution. With a passion for generating positive social impact and the knowledge of complex systems and procedures, Ana-Marija is a senior adviser specialising in guiding complex systems towards simple impact solutions.