At one point in my life, as a very young girl who was truly lucky to escape the war and move temporarily to Albania, I dreamed of going to the US.

I even once seriously tried to convince my parents to allow me to move with an Albanian family already living there. I believed with all my heart that the US was the land of prosperity and did not judge your race or status, but valued hard work and discipline. They told me, “Do the same here and you will prosper too.”

As the oldest child in my family, I felt a huge responsibility to help. This weighed on me, especially after the war, when we came back to a burned house with literally no roof over our family of six. Everything my parents had built had turned to ashes, yet we were grateful to be alive. Many were not that lucky.

In the chaos of settling in the city, I wished I was older and that I knew English better than a few words, because those who fulfilled these two conditions were able to work for international organizations and get paid well. At that time, we could barely afford groceries, let alone private English courses, so I tried to learn English from a small book that wasn’t practical at all. Still, I dreamed that one day I would speak English fluently and work with international people. I remember I would not only yearn but envy those who wore their organization badges proudly and walked around the city.

I didn’t realize it back then, but I was manifesting my own future.

Before even graduating, I got an incredible opportunity to join one of the biggest banks in Europe — Raiffeisen Bank. I moved up the ladder by learning everything I could: reliability, data security, high-level client management, process optimization — you name it. It was an incredible place to learn and grow, as I had the opportunity to train and meet professionals from around Europe and apply the same culture and strategy for our local citizens; no wonder the banking industry thrived better than any other.

I was eager to learn more, so after working hours I pursued my Master’s, which allowed me to work part-time as a teaching assistant at the University of Prishtina. It was only natural for me to continue with a PhD, as I imagined I would eventually move fully into the academic world. For the final year, I was awarded a full Erasmus Mundus scholarship to complete it at the University of Bologna. I was already used to hard work, but this was a different level. I spent over 16 hours per day reading, researching, and synthesizing articles to build my thesis. I finished it on time, but I didn’t only get a doctoral degree — I got anxiety too.

Nevertheless, I realized that the slow academic pace — the idea of seeing impact in 10 years — wasn’t aligned with my goal of seeing and measuring tangible results, even though my father was so proud of me being an academic that he would tell people about it constantly… without being asked :D. 

I made a decision that logically made no sense at the time: I left a comfortable job where I was working with incredible Silicon Valley companies, serving clients like Alexis Ohanian and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to open my own startup in an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. 

I chose the LPG gas industry because people in Kosovo were dealing with unsafe cylinders and their lives were at risk, more precisely a good friend has just lost her father due to this. This was my time to give back to my country, to my community. For four years, I dealt not only with management but with sales, customer service, technical issues, marketing, product iteration, and everything in between. It was the most intensive and transformative experience for me and deeply shaped my perspective on entrepreneurship. Unlike academia, I didn’t have time to schedule meetings and discuss; decisions needed to be made already.

 Within the first year, we managed to solve the issue by bringing the safest LPG cylinders in the world made in Norway to Kosovo market, digitalizing the entire process, and becoming the first company in 25 years to be certified and legally operating. 

My next vision was to have this company operate independently from me, and once part of that was achieved, I began thinking about how I could make a difference in the tech world, where I had spent 15 years building and leading teams. I knew I wanted to build a company that connects Kosovo’s incredible talent with fast-paced companies in the West and have them be wowed by our young professionals. So here I am, once again building from scratch but with a lot more experience. Over the years, I learned so much about systems, structure, and management, and I was excited to finally apply my own recipe. That’s how Fluxa was created. I designed the entire system based on 15 years of experience, yet I am aware there is still so much to learn and improve. I’ve applied lean processes and AI in workflows, the hiring process, and quality checks — because I want every client to feel my personal touch and know that I am making sure everything moves as smoothly as possible.

Thanks to people who trusted me, the once dream of the little girl who wished to work with international people has come true, and this is only the beginning of the incredible vision I have for Fluxa — a place where clients get reliable, cost-efficient, high-quality services, and where people genuinely love to work.