“I was born in a country that no longer exists.”
Between worlds
Sonja was born in the former Yugoslavia and was twenty-one when the country collapsed. What followed was more than three decades of movement between countries, cultures, languages and professions. Over those years she lived in Stockholm, Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, London and Lisbon.
She took a master’s degree at the University of Belgrade and studied computer information systems at the University of California, Berkeley.
She describes how she became skilled at adaptation, learning to translate herself between different worlds and to build bridges across cultures. That experience of transition is the ground from which she now works with people and organisations going through change.
Innovation at scale
At Pearson, the world’s largest education company, Sonja was Senior Vice President for product and a member of the senior leadership team, based in New York from 2013 to 2017. She led the global team that designed and put in place the Global Product Lifecycle, a programme that changed how the company developed new products and managed investment in its portfolio, with the aim of a faster and more entrepreneurial organisation.
In 2015 the programme won Best Innovation Programme at the Corporate Entrepreneur Awards in New York and Best Innovation Culture at the awards in London. It was the first programme in the history of Market Gravity’s awards to win in both the US and the UK.
With Tendayi Viki and Craig Strong she wrote The Lean Product Lifecycle: A Playbook for Making Products People Want, published by Pearson. It was shortlisted for the Business Book Awards in 2019.
In 2017 she co-founded Spinnaker Co, a boutique advisory firm in New York and London for companies navigating disruption. It designed innovation systems and strategies and advised leadership teams, for clients including News Corp, PMI, the UK Foreign Office, LexisNexis and Santander. She also taught leadership and innovation at THNK Executive Leadership and the ICT Innovation Academy.
The artist
Questions of identity and belonging stayed with Sonja for much of her life, and over time they became harder to set aside. She began to work as an artist in 2021 and has been exhibiting since 2022.
She works in visual and textile art and in site-specific installation. Her work has been exhibited in London, Milan, Madrid, Rome and Belgrade, and her installations have taken her to Uruguay and Provence.
For Expo 2025 Osaka she made Tell Me the Story of Your Life Without Once Touching Mine outside the Serbian Pavilion. Visitors drew and wrote on a landscaped bench, and she wove their marks into a single changing work.
In 2026 she showed in Where Silence Breaks at Art Forward Gallery and Matter of Threads at PaintSpaces Gallery, both in London, and made The Forest of Hope, a participatory installation for the Deeply Human Summit at the Learning Planet Institute in Paris. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Change that goes deeper
Since 2020 Sonja has worked with a small number of leaders and executive teams as an external adviser and executive coach. She combines her innovation experience with creative and participatory practice, helping them step out of old agreements and work with uncertainty.
She designs interdisciplinary experiences and speaks and lectures for universities and leadership programmes, drawing on art, philosophy, dialogue and contemplative practice. In 2023 she trained in Nonviolent Communication with the Center for Nonviolent Communication.
In 2022 she founded revillage, an emerging ecosystem of people, places and practices working to reimagine how we live and work together. She is a long-time resident of the House of Beautiful Business, which she first joined as a speaker at its Lisbon festival in 2018. At its forum in Athens she and Kenneth Mikkelsen hosted What Makes Us Human, a philosophical play in five acts.
She writes Letters From My Heart on Substack. With Group Partners she helps leaders link strategy to the daily habits that make change last.
The path
From product innovation to the deeper work of change.
- Yugoslavia
Born in the former Yugoslavia. Her country collapses when she is twenty-one, and three decades of movement begin.
- Studies
A master’s degree at the University of Belgrade, and computer information systems at the University of California, Berkeley.
- 2013
Joins Pearson in New York as Senior Vice President, Product.
- 2015
The Global Product Lifecycle wins Corporate Entrepreneur Awards in New York and London.
- 2017
Co-founds Spinnaker Co in New York and London.
- 2018
Speaks at the House of Beautiful Business festival in Lisbon and begins her work as an experience designer and speaker.
- 2019
The Lean Product Lifecycle is shortlisted for the Business Book Awards.
- 2020
Begins her advisory and coaching practice. A founding member of the Warrior Women Network.
- 2021
Begins working as an artist.
- 2022
Shows her first work, in Italy and Spain. Founds revillage.
- 2024
Artist residencies in Uruguay and France. Shows Love After Love at Gradska galerija, Belgrade.
- 2025
Creates an installation at the Serbian Pavilion, Expo 2025 Osaka.
- 2026
Exhibits in London and creates an installation in Paris. Joins the Group Partners Expert Network.
In her own words
“I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me, so I created another.”
“Over time, I became skilled at adaptation.”
“Where what we create is less important than who we become.”
“What becomes possible when we meet life as we truly are?”
“The maps already exist. The question is whether the world can learn from the people it chose not to see.”