“I was born and raised in a family of engineers. All around me were gadgets and software, and I wasn't really excited about them. My father taught me how to programme. It was basic, and it was more than 30 years ago, and did not excite me that much,” Elena Marinova tells Andrew Wrobel in the third episode of Emerging Europe Talks She’s Next empowered by VISA. 

Elena is president and chair of the board of directors at Musala Soft, a software service company, founded in 2000 and currently with offices in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Egypt, and Emerging Europe’s Female Business Leader for 2020. 

“But 2000 was the year of the dot com crash. We started with fancy Silicon Valley start-ups. Everything was super shiny…unicorns and rainbows. A few months later, we lost all our clients. And a year later, we were almost done. […] It turned out to be an extremely fun and dynamic field.” 

Musala Soft was recently acquired by the KKCG Group and is now part of Qinshift, although it has kept its original brand. 

“I have known Elena for a few years, and I cannot find another person who is so committed to supporting young generations of programmers, and not just in her home country of Bulgaria. Back in 2017, she co-founded the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics for kids from the Council of Europe countries and gave them a stage to compete and create friendships that will last for life and lead to scientific breakthroughs and a better and more connected world. And her enthusiasm is contagious,” Andrew says. 

“If you like the things that you're doing, of course, you're doing more of them and it's not a nine to five thing. It's something you live with all the time,” Elena adds.  

And she seems to have taken a liking to programming in the end.