Sanja Kon, Chief Executive Officer of Utrust, was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in a country that, before the war, was about the peaceful coexistence of multiple religions and backgrounds. Her family was lucky enough to have moved to Italy a year before the war started, so she was in a very particular situation where Sanja was physically safe but still fully witnessing the devastating consequences of it on our extended family and friends.
People lost properties and money overnight and could not access their savings in a crisis when you have to escape a country to survive. Sanja feels this, and only some understand what it means, and these kinds of scars are difficult to heal. They don’t just affect you; they affect your entire family, your whole world. They also make you who you are, and this is Sanja’s backstory of being passionate about financial inclusion and working on solutions allowing people to control their money.
Creating Mark Globally
Sanja had the privilege of living in multiple countries, including Croatia, Italy, Denmark, the UK, the US, and Portugal, and she will never be able to define herself as belonging to one nationality. Sanja would go on to work in many different companies, seeking a good fit. Consulting, Telco, e-commerce, and traditional payments for years and in many countries.
As the head of the Italian Consumer strategy team at eBay Italy, Sanja had the opportunity of launching eBay in the Italian market, and that experience was for sure one of the most rewarding and entrepreneurial-like in her corporate life.
When she moved to the UK, Sanja had the opportunity to head the European Partnerships strategy at eBay, forming key global relationships to enhance the experience for eBay professional merchants. After many years in e-commerce and Telco, she was offered to join PayPal as the head of Marketplaces and Large Enterprise Partnerships, and that was a natural step, as payments were always a fascinating area to her.
“The PayPal experience was what brought me to crypto. It gave me the opportunity to see the inefficiencies in the traditional payments space. It made me understand how much something we all take for granted, the simple ability to pay for goods or services, can become a roadblock,” says Sanja.
When Sanja joined PayPal as the Head of Payments for Marketplace platforms, she quickly realized how inefficient the traditional payment systems could be. Merchants and buyers were overcharged and had little transparency about the fees they paid. Cross-border payments were complicated to process, and international payments were prolonged.
At the time, she was already investing in cryptocurrency and had some general knowledge about blockchain. Sanja knew some projects were already experimenting with blockchain to increase payment efficiency.
Blockchain payments allow them to remove all the traditional intermediaries. Every person and institution exist to ensure money moves around securely and seamlessly, such as banks and credit card schemes. At some point, all of these things were necessary, of course.
“By ridding ourselves of these unnecessary steps, we are removing high costs, chargebacks, and fraud, all characterizing the traditional payments industry. I fell in love with using blockchain to solve traditional payment problems. I wanted to integrate this technology into PayPal’s product. That would prove to be a fruitless endeavor. I was too early in Europe, far from where these decisions are made. I wasn’t too late to change my path. In any case, the seed was planted in my mind to change how the world pays, with or without PayPal,” says Sanja.
“I analyzed many whitepapers, went through a bunch of interesting ideas being written at that time, and the Utrust one got my attention as it covered all the aspects I wanted to solve. These were kindred spirits. Then, I decided to leave my safe corporate career to pursue what can only be described as a dream. At the time, we didn’t even have a product, just an idea we wanted to pursue, and that was the beginning of my journey in Web3 payments,” Sanja added. “This was difficult, as only a few people left their corporate careers to move into blockchain. Today, this is different, and the situation is reversed. The most talented people in the business are moving from Web2 to Web3 as it becomes clear that we are the future,” she continues.
It is not hyperbolic to say that this will change the world
Sanja is an investor and advisor in the Web3 space. The next few years will be crucial for blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption across the globe. The potential to unlock value for everyone using the Internet in this industry is unparalleled. Instead of centralized platforms controlling the data, users will own the content they create. This reality is closer than they imagine. She worked in the corporate world for almost ten years before entering the Web3 space, and this allowed her to see the problems of traditional e-commerce and payments in real-world scenarios, affecting real people and real lives.
Lastly, as a woman in tech and a CEO of Web3, Sanja is involved and always interested in initiatives that promote gender diversity and education for women.
Sanja’s Utrust Mission
Utrust is the Stripe for cryptocurrency payments, bridging the gap between Web3 and Traditional Retail by allowing anyone, anywhere, to pay with cryptocurrency from any wallet, and allowing any merchant to choose whether they’re ready to get paid in crypto or whether they prefer to settle in fiat.
Today, as the CEO of Utrust, Sanja’s primary mission is to increase cryptocurrency adoption among businesses and individuals. What drives her isn’t some fascination with crypto as an investment opportunity or as the next technically fascinating thing in tech (even though she understands why these things captivate people) but the awareness of how much fixing payments changes everything.
Fixing payments and making them as safe, fast, and cheap as possible is the single thing that will make the most significant difference for the greatest number of people. “What we’re doing at Utrust right now is building the technology that will turn payments into a source of income for merchants, as opposed to something that eats into their margins,” says Sanja.
Our mission at the outset was to provide the safest crypto payment solution to merchants and disrupt the traditional payment space by drastically reducing payment processing fees, eliminating chargebacks and fraud, and providing the best borderless payment solution.
Sanja’s journey from student to entrepreneur
Sanja completed her university degrees in Italy and Denmark, with a BA in Economics and Business Administration and a master’s degree in marketing management. At the same time, the university did give her an excellent mindset framework and allowed her to meet amazing people who are part of her inner circle today.
“What prepared me to be an entrepreneur was the skillset I have acquired with the experiences I had to go through in life, as well as an innate curiosity and willingness to disrupt the status quo I always had,” assures Sanja.
Individuals who have shaped Sanja’s life in the most profound way
According to Sanja, she will never forget that, and she owes everything she has achieved to her mum and the immense love she dedicated to her.
Her grandmother and aunt were also very strong pillars in Sanja’s life. They both escaped the war as refugees in the 1990s, and her grandmother always said that everything could be taken away from you except your brain, intelligence, and ability to pick yourself up and start again. That’s why Sanja firmly believes that she will always be able to handle any situation, no matter what life reserves for the future. It gives her great comfort to know that with such certainty.
Apart from her family, entering the coaching world has changed her life profoundly.
“From the moment I attended my first Tony Robbins event, my life was never the same again. I learned a lot about self-development, and I had the opportunity to meet many amazing people from all over the world who shared similar values, backgrounds, and desires as me. Every year, I will still attend at least one of Tony’s events because I love to be immersed in that energy, and I constantly challenge myself to achieve more, be more, and give more,” says Sanja.
As an influential woman entrepreneur, Sanja has many responsibilities
On top of her Chief Executive Officer role at Utrust, Sanja is a limited partner in a few VCs, advising/mentoring start-ups in her free time.
“I take up so many different challenges because discovering new businesses, meeting new entrepreneurs, and hearing about new ideas are the things that light up my day and help me become a better student of life Seeking new opportunities to learn, grow and improve myself every day are definitely that drives me. I want to serve causes that I believe in and get better at them,” says Sanja.
“I am, first and foremost, the CEO of my own life. I have the freedom and flexibility to allocate my own time in the best way for me. I make the time for family, friends, passions, and creativity, and I ensure all of that needs to be in harmony with work, not separated from it in tiny little sealed boxes,” Sanja added.
