Programme studied and graduation year: MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI), 2022, Chevening Scholar
From education and social impact to digital transformation and AI, Nela Sladojevic’s career has been shaped by a willingness to explore new fields and connect seemingly unrelated experiences. Now working at the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she focuses on data strategy, digital transformation, knowledge management and AI, using technology to help organisations work better and deliver meaningful outcomes for people and the planet. In this Alumni of the Month interview, Nela reflects on her transition into technology, the value of becoming a beginner again, and how her time at LSE helped shape her approach to technology, people and organisational change.
What are your current areas of focus, professionally or otherwise?
I work at the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on development coordination, data strategy, digital transformation, knowledge management and AI across 19 UN entities.
I have never been interested in technology for technology’s sake. What interests me is how it can help organisations work better and contribute to better outcomes for people and the planet. That connects my current work to areas of social impact that have shaped my career, including youth empowerment, education, gender equality and disability inclusion.
Tell us about your career journey since graduating from LSE?
Since returning to the UN after LSE, my role has moved increasingly into digital transformation and AI-enabled innovation. I developed the UN BiH AI Navigator, designed to make institutional knowledge easier to find and use, and co-developed an AI-powered search solution for a UN peacekeeping mission, which received a Reboot UN Disruptor Award.
As an LSE student in 2022, I attended The AI Summit London as a participant, mainly to listen and learn. In 2025, I returned to London as an invited speaker contributing to discussions on AI governance and responsible innovation. For me, it was a tangible reminder of how much can change when you allow yourself to enter a new field and keep learning.
What skills have you learnt along the way?
- Connecting ideas and strategic thinking – Developed through identifying links between issues or perspectives that may initially seem unrelated and bringing them together to understand the bigger picture.
- Communication and translation – Built through working between technical and non-technical colleagues, translating complex evidence and ideas into language that different audiences can understand.
- Change management – Developed through recognising that technological change is not only about the technology itself, but also about trust, incentives, organisational culture and human behaviour.
- Influencing and relationship-building – Built through experience in complex organisations, where successful change often relies on creating understanding, trust and ownership, rather than relying on formal authority.
- Organisational awareness – Developed through understanding how culture, behaviours, incentives and internal dynamics can influence whether new technologies or ways of working are successfully adopted.
What motivated your transition to a new role or industry?
My route into technology was not conventional. I arrived at LSE after around 15 years working across the private sector, civil society, government and the UN, with a degree in Music Pedagogy and an MA in Preschool Education. I was one of the more experienced students in the cohort, yet I was entering a completely new field.
Technology had nevertheless been a recurring thread in my work, particularly as a tool for education and inclusion, and I wanted to understand it more deeply. The UK Government’s Chevening Scholarship made that transition possible. Without it, studying at LSE would probably not have been accessible to me.
Has your career worked out the way you envisioned?
Not in terms of job titles or disciplines. I could not have imagined while studying music that I would eventually work on data governance, digital transformation and AI. But the underlying motivation has remained remarkably consistent: understanding complex systems, how people interact within them, and how they can work better. In retrospect, the different parts of my career are much more connected than they once appeared.
What were the most valuable lessons you took away from studying at LSE?
What I came to appreciate about the UK education system, and LSE in particular, was the freedom to find my own niche. MISDI gave me space to work at the intersection of technology, organisations and human behaviour, and the diversity of students’ starting points became part of the programme’s value.
My dissertation grew directly out of my life in London. Alongside studying, I worked part-time as a cat sitter and became fascinated by how people decided whether to trust a stranger they met through a digital platform with their pets and, often, access to their homes. That became my dissertation, Two-sided Platforms and Trust. I interviewed cat sitters and cat owners to understand which platform features helped trust develop.
I was fortunate to be supervised by Professor Chrisanthi Avgerou. Coming from such a different academic background, I had never imagined I would have the opportunity to work so closely with a scholar of her calibre. Her socio-technical perspective on information systems strongly influenced how I think about technology today.
I also particularly enjoyed Organisational Change with Dr Dorottya Sallai. I valued the way her teaching brought in perspectives and case studies from different parts of the world, including leaders often underrepresented in mainstream management teaching. That course shaped how I think about the relationship between technology, people and organisational culture – something directly relevant to my UN work today.
What’s the greatest challenge you’ve had to overcome?
Learning to be comfortable becoming a beginner again. Arriving at LSE after 15 years of work experience, yet knowing less than many younger classmates about the technical language of the field, was humbling.
It taught me that experience is transferable, but only if you remain willing to learn, ask basic questions and accept that someone with much less experience than you may know far more about a particular subject.
If you had one piece of advice you could give your younger self, what would it be?
Do not worry so much about making your career look linear. A degree in music can shape how you recognise patterns and systems. Work in education and youth policy can teach you about organisational change. Cat sitting can become a dissertation about digital trust. Experiences that look unrelated can become useful precisely because you learn to connect them.
Share with us your fondest memory of the Department of Management.
Sprint Week is probably the experience I remember most vividly. As part of Innovating Organisational Information Technology, representatives from Visa came to LSE with a real-world challenge, and our team had one intense week to research it, develop a solution and build a prototype. We created Simplex, a prototype digital payment solution aimed at people who were underbanked or excluded from mainstream financial services.
It was intense and slightly chaotic in the best possible way. It gave me a real sense of how multidisciplinary teams work through ambiguity and turn an idea into something tangible. It brought together exactly what had attracted me to MISDI – technology, people and social impact.
If you would like to be our Alum of the Month or if you would like to nominate a Department of Management alumni, please email dom.alumni@lse.ac.uk.