Valentina Popovska

My Personal Hero

My mother Valentina Popovska was born on May 31, 1971, in Kumanovo, Macedonia. Her godmother insisted on the name Valentina, after the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova (1963). My mother is an economist by training, and she worked as a manager in the private sector and in the global development institutions. She is also my personal hero and I aspire to be a strong woman like her.

My mother graduated economics at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University at Skopje, and the University of Belgrade. She completed her master’s in business administration at the Duquesne University in Pittsburgh at the United States. Later, she worked in the World Bank Group to assist the economic development of the Balkan region, then she was an executive in the textile industry and logistics in Macedonia.

My mother’s passion is to travel and to get to know the world. Her trusted guide in all her adventures is a latest copy of the “Lonely Planet” books for the specific region. She taught me how to organize my travel itineraries, being most efficient with the budget and to fully immerse myself in the new cultures I am experiencing in my travels. In her youth she used to play basketball and today she loves hiking the Balkan Mountains peaks (my father is vehemently against these habits but to no avail). Like my father she has travelled all the continents, except for the Antarctica.

My mother is my guiding star and when in doubt about my actions I can always turn to her for advice. Her favorite genre is science-fiction, and she adores popular science books especially about physics. She always thought me to believe in myself, to think rationally and to use my head.

Global History

Ron Brown Scholarship – both my parents studied in the United States thanks to the Ron Brown Fellowship established by President Bill Clinton after the most recent Balkan Wars, and the fall of communism. My parents met at Ron Brown Alumni reunion in Skopje and if it weren’t for Ron Brown Program (and Presidents Clinton’s decision) I would not be born.
Independent Macedonia (1991) – during the breakup of Yugoslavia, she was attending the University of Belgrade in present day Serbia, initially as a domestic student in her own country (Yugoslavia), then suddenly waking up one morning as a foreign student from Macedonia in another country.
Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (09/11/2001) – my mom witnessed the events of 9/11 in the United States, directly watching the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and vividly remembering the events around United Airlines flight 93 which crushed near Pittsburgh where she was studying at the time.