Mojca Beljan
Municipality of Koper – Head of the PR Office
Mojca Beljan, Mayor’s adviser and Head of the Public Relations Office at the Municipality of Koper, started working in the PR field twelve years ago. That crucial moment was considered by those who followed her very successful journalistic and editorial participation in the Primorske novice newspaper as a crossover to the opposite side. She denies those assumptions and says it is possible to draw parallels between these two professions. She is convinced that both journalism and public relations are a mission, into which you have to believe and with which, step by step, you change the world. Most importantly, you must work with your heart.
When she got her job, the Municipality of Koper did not even have a true Public Relations Office. There was only a limited one-way communication with the press, which was not satisfactory for employees, and even less for the general public. Experience in journalism has undoubtedly help Mojca Beljan in identifying the right questions and topics. She upgraded her theoretical knowledge acquired at the Faculty of Sociology, Political Sciences and Journalism in Ljubljana (known today as the Faculty of Social Sciences) with the London School of Public Relations. In her work, she has never accepted labels of those who believe PR practitioners and journalists work on opposite sides, and even today she does not agree with those who consider the media a PR enemy. On the contrary, with the right arguments, it is possible to convince even the most stubborn journalist and big sceptics.
She says she has been very lucky to have always been supported by the administration of the Municipality of Koper and its Mayor in her professional growth, role and PR Office establishment. She has been working with the current Mayor for the third mandate. Even though the general public considers him the most controversial Slovenian Mayor, prevails the fact that the Municipality of Koper with Mojca Beljan’s help has become a real master of crisis communication. Together they sail through all kinds of storms and, as it is appropriate for a Mediterranean municipality, they successfully avoid all reefs.
