Milo remembers the empty room in the basement of the then PTT, with a large table and almost nothing else. The days when a small team worked late into the night, believing they were participating in something that would change the country. About colleagues who arrived from Montenegro and Norway, bringing new knowledge, a different work culture and a shared ambition to build the first mobile network.
"We worked fifteen hours a day, but nobody wanted to go home. We knew we were creating something big," he recalls. Milo Mihaljevic, one of the experts from the company's Technical Sector, who participated in building the network from day one.
Just a few months earlier, his colleague Milica Jovovic Together with the first team of engineers, she traveled to Norway for training. There, she held a mobile phone in her hands for the first time in her life. She still remembers the moment when, standing on the street in Oslo, she called her mother.
"It was hard for me to believe that I was talking to Montenegro while standing on the street. I knew we were learning something big, but at the time we could not have imagined how much it would change people's lives."
Not long after, the first call on the Montenegrin mobile network followed, a moment that still evokes the same excitement among the company's pioneers today, three decades later. The mobile phone was not just a new device back then. It was a symbol of a new era. Vanja Popovic, Even today, professionally dedicated to marketing communications, she remembers that the best advertisement for Promonte at the time was quite simple.
"It was enough to walk around the city and talk on the phone. People's looks spoke louder than any campaign. No one could believe that this had become possible here."
But the biggest changes did not happen in the cities.
Milo will never forget meeting an elderly villager from Mala Crne Gora on Durmitor. While they were preparing to launch a base station that was supposed to connect that area with the rest of the country, he told him that his village would soon receive a signal.
"He stopped, looked at me, his eyes filled with tears, and told us all to come to him, to welcome us as he should. That's when I realized that we're not just building a network. We're bringing people the opportunity to be closer to each other."
It is precisely such moments that have remained the most valuable part of their careers. Quite close to that sentiment is certainly everything you can do for your colleagues through your work in Human Resources. It tells the story Milena Milic, who had lived abroad for years before joining the company, and thought that a job at the then-new foreign company would be just a stopover. Instead, she stayed for a full thirty years.
"When I arrived, there were cables, engineers, and incredible energy all around me. After the first day, I realized that I had not just gotten a job, but an opportunity to be part of something that would mark a time. It was a great learning experience, professionally, personally, and in life."
Over time, it became clear that he was not only participating in the development of a new company, but also in the creation of a completely new business culture, based on knowledge, trust, teamwork, and standards that were then characteristic of the world's most successful companies.
"From day one, I felt like we were building something of our own. Once you cross the threshold of this company, you enter a completely different way of thinking, working, and relating to each other."
Over the course of three decades, phones, technologies, internet speeds, and user habits have changed. The company has grown, changed its name, and set new standards, but the constant has always been the people who believed in it from day one.
"I made lifelong friends here. If I had to choose again today, I would choose the same path again. I would recommend this company to my children, and now my grandchildren," Vanja says honestly.
"Thirty years sounds incredible. Those thirty years have been woven into a time filled with professional and personal pride. Having the opportunity to participate from day one in the creation of a company that has grown into one of the most reputable in Montenegro is a privilege that few experience. I am proud to have been part of that first team and that a part of me is forever woven into the story of the One company," concludes Milica.
And perhaps that message is the essence of this story. Da Some relationships really last.
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