“I didn’t want a bigger role — I wanted a bigger life”: Jasmina Antić on leaving the corporate treadmill

After more than two decades in corporate HR, Jasmina Antić chose a different pace: mountain ridges, guided trips and underwater dives. Rather than fleeing responsibility, she reframed professional maturity and leadership into a new project that blends outdoor experience with people development.

From boardroom to 2,000 metres: a deliberate reset

Antić began working at 16 and spent over 20 years building teams, processes and results inside companies. Last year she reached a turning point. As she describes it, a persistent inner question kept returning: "Jasmina, now you are 42 and probably living the second half of your life, do you really want your life to look like this? Are you really this?" That reflection led her to rethink the metric of success.

“Everyone expects…” she says, and then adds: "Really — what do I have to do with 'everyone'? Everyone is not me, not my life, and the greatest freedom comes the moment we clear ourselves of the idea that other people's criteria for success have anything to do with our truth and our choices in life." She realised that one can be outwardly successful by other people's standards and still not feel successful in one's own life.

Antić did not abandon her corporate skills. She transferred them into another context: on the mountain there are no titles or offices, but there is terrain, people, decisions, responsibility and the need to be fully present. She summarises her change with a single contrast: she did not want a "bigger role" — she wanted a "bigger life."

Her new work combines HR, coaching, sport, tourism and leadership under the brand VERTIVA. The idea is simple and practical: businesses and people grow sustainably when you develop both individual potential and the environment that allows it to be realised. She admits there is fear about where the path will lead, but says that's part of what makes it meaningful.

Corporate experience shows in how she runs trips: reading people, recognising who is tired or afraid, deciding when to push and when to stop. When asked about KPIs, her measure is straightforward: "When everyone gets back down safely and asks, 'When are we going again?'"

To women in steady but unfulfilling jobs she offers pragmatic advice: you do not have to resign tomorrow or burn your whole past to begin a new chapter. "Do not ignore the moment when something inside you keeps telling you that you can do more. Do not ignore the moment when on Monday morning you have the urge to vomit because you have to go to work, when" — she pauses, leaving the image unfinished but unmistakable — "the rest will follow."

Photo: privatna arhiva