21 Apr Meet The BASE Founders

Meet The Founders: BASE Conference

BASE conference came to life in 2019 with the first event at TSH Collab west in Amsterdam. It is the brainchild of two international Entrepreneurs based in that city. Read on to discover their vision and passion.

Veronica Anca Guguian

Co-founder Veronica is also a Marketing Strategist and has her own company, SPIN Ideas and Co-founder of BASE. Veronica describes the source of her motivation to do everything as curiosity. “I am curious by nature,” she says, “I want to see how we can bring ideas to life and make them better.”

Veronica brings her marketing strategy expertise to the BASE table. Her speciality is the BIG picture that often gets lost in the day-to-day rumble of everyday business. She is the glue helping the different parts of the BASE operation to work together towards the same goal.

She does this in the first instance with strategic thinking: plotting out the extent of the BASE picture and what it requires. Then, Veronica loves on to the planning and bringing the right people together to meet those goals. She describes ‘joining the dots’ as her secret superpower.

The decision to start BASE was an easy one for Veronica. There are many experts out there, but each in a different area. BASE was conceived of as a means of approaching scaling up more holistically. The heart of the BASE ideas is to become a hub that brings all these experts together and helps entrepreneurs grow in areas needed. “I believe in collaborating instead of competing. And BASE is a great example where experts in the same field or complementary fields are coming together to share their expertise and help us grow.”

Veronica believes that BASE is crucial in 3 separate areas of business for scale-ups. Firstly, it started a dialogue about the needs of scaleups, secondly, it provides a focal point for the learning that is required to meet those needs and thirdly that business is conducted. BASE effectively starts the dialogue that establishes the relationships that lead to business deals.

Lana Kristine Jelenjev

Co-Founder Lana is also the Director of Learning and Community for Dream See Do. She is driven by the desire to contribute and connect in everything she does. “I thrive in spaces where impact, community work and learning are woven in as integral pieces to the mission and vision. My biggest wish is to live a legacy.”

Lana is the engine behind creating engaged and impactful communities of BASE. This has emerged from her experience of the lack of operational and human support that scale-ups get. She brings the lens of designing transformational communities to amplify the work that scale-ups do.

To be able to do all of this, Lana brings three crucial skills to bear: listening, big picture thinking and action planning. By raking in the intonation, the expression and the energy that goes along with what is being said, Lana able to see frameworks with both macro and micro perspectives and put structure to them. Lana’s superpower is her uncanny ability to check in on people at the right moment.

Founding BASE for Lana was about building the foundation that is needed for scale-ups to expand. “I believe that by gathering founders, decision-makers and managers through the conference, we are creating a hub for scale-ups where we can all connect locally and globally.

Like Veronica, Lana believes that BASE is providing crucial support for starting businesses to scale up and succeed. This support consists of the framework for best practices in scaling up that 4 Pillars of BASE name provide, the supportive community to connect with that all the BASE events provide and finally, the experts that can provide meaningful strategies and support.