“I decided together with my family that it was time we returned to Romania after nineteen years abroad. I want to pursue certain personal projects in Romania, which is why I stepped down as general manager Coca-Cola HBC. I will be in Bucharest as of September 1,” the Romanian executive says.
Mircea Draja has held various top management positions with Coca-Cola and Multon (a juice company later acquired by Coca-Cola) on such markets as Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. His last position before his decision to return home was general manager of Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia.
Draja is not the only expat who decided to come back to Romania after spending many years abroad. Another such example is Mihai Albu, who spent a number of years on top management positions at brewer AB Inbev. He returned home for an entrepreneurial business.
Angela Cretu, 40, one of the most powerful Romanian expats, who is running an over $1 billion business, said a few months ago she might want to come back home in two or three years. She became group vice-president of Avon for Turkey, Africa and the Middle East, supervising operations on 17 developing markets.
Mircea Draja left Romania in 1996 and went to Russia. He had a middle management position at the Coca-Cola plant in Timisoara back then and moved to Russia when the company bought a plant in Siberia and put him charge of developing it.
At some point he returned to Romania for a year and then went back to Russia, this time to Moscow, where he received an offer he could not refuse, to become general manager of Multon, a company Coca-Cola bought. He was in charge of 23% of the Russian juice market at the time, as Multon was the undisputed leader with its Dobrii juice.
He traded Russia for the Balkans in 2009, when he took the reins of Coca-Cola Hellenic bottling Company in Bosnia and Herzegovina and later added Croatia and Slovenia.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)