Management of the Agency

Anka Čadež is a university law graduate with the state bar exam. After completing her studies at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana she joined Dinos storitve company in 1991. The following year she continued her career at the Ljubljana Higher Court as court trainee. After passing the state bar exam in 1994, she was employed as judicial clerk at the District Court of Ljubljana. Between 1996 and 2001 she joined the Slovenian Development Corporation as senior legal advisor, where she performed the most demanding tasks in the field of corporate law. In 2001 she held a position of a senior advisor in the Public Assets Management Directorate at the Ministry of Finance. During the service at the Ministry she participated in the Commission for the Sale of Capital Investments of the Republic of Slovenia and chaired the Commission for the Sale of Receivables of the Republic of Slovenia in Compulsory Settlements and Commission for the Sale and Other Disposal of Small Assets of the Republic of Slovenia under the Ministry's competence. She was a member of the working group for the management and supervision of the merger procedure of Nova kreditna banka Maribor and Postal bank and prepared proposals for system solutions in the field of corporate governance. In the period from 1999 to 2010 she was active as a member of various supervisory boards.

Between 2008 and 2018 she was Deputy Director and Head of the Capital Market Department at the Securities Market Agency, responsible for the supervision of the primary capital market. She has led several projects in the field of the capital market and participated in the preparation of explanations of European regulations in the field of the market of financial instruments. From July 2008 until July 2013 she was a member of the Council of the Securities Market Agency and Deputy Chair of the Council of Securities Market Agency, and from 2014 to 2016 she was a member of the Financial Stability Board. In 2015 she was appointed Acting Director of the Securities Market Agency for a short period.

Since 2012 she has been a member of the Settlement Board for the review of the exchange ratio referred to in paragraph 2 of Article 609 of Companies Act. From 2014 to 2020 she was Deputy Chair of the Council of the Agency for Public Oversight of Auditing.

In 2019 after working for a short period of time at the Capital Market and Takeovers Division at Securities Market Agency, she took office of an Assistant Director for General Affairs at the National Institute of Chemistry.

On March 31, 2021 the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia appointed her Director of the Securities Market Agency for a six-year term. As Director of the Securities Market Agency she is also a Chairwoman of the Council of the Securities Market Agency, a regular member of the Board of Supervisors and a member of three IOSCO Committees.

Sabina Bešter graduated in June 1991 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana, where she also obtained Master's degree in March 1999.

After graduation, she started her career at Nova Ljubljanska banka d.d. (NLB Velenje) in Treasury Department. She has been employed by the Securities Market Agency since its establishment in September 1993. During that time she performed the tasks in the area of primary securities market, notably approval of the prospectuses for public offerings of securities, supervision of public companies’ reporting requirements, approval of takeovers and supervision of those activities. The other area of activities has been international cooperation. She has actively led the Agency's activities for the membership in IOSCO (International Organization of Securities Commissions) as well as the procedures for the admission of Slovenia to the EU, later on in the OECD in the areas of the Agency’s competences and responsibilities.

In 2000 she was appointed the Head of International Cooperation Department, where she cooperates actively with other securities market supervisory authorities within the EU and other countries, international organizations (IMF, World Bank, etc.) and other institutions. Since 2003 she is an active member of various working groups and committees as well as the contact person for Slovenia in the CESR (Committee of European Securities Regulators). After foundation of ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) as an EU Authority in January 2011 in addition to the above tasks she also represents the Securities Market Agency as an alternate member of the ESMA Board of Supervisors.

Sabina Bešter speaks English.

Primož Pinoza graduated at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1994.

In 1998, he obtained a Master’s degree at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana.

Primož Pinoza gained experience in the field of capital markets as a member and president of the Management Board of a brokerage company and advisor to the Securities Market Agency. As the Head of Financial Instruments Market Department he performs the most demanding tasks related to the implementation of supervision over the operations of the supervised entities and over the issuing of licenses or approvals in accordance with the provisions of the ZTFI and other laws related to the financial services market.

Primož Pinoza is a member of the ESMA's Secondary Markets Standing Committee and the ATVP's representative at the ESRB.

Primož Pinoza speaks English, Serbian and Croatian.

Primož Damjanovič graduated in 2000 from the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana.

After graduation he started working at the Ministry of Finance in the Financial System Department. Since 2003 he has been working at the Securities Market Agency (SMA), where he initially as a consultant and then as an adviser to the director performed the most demanding individual tasks in the field of regulation of investment and pension funds. In 2008 he took over management of the Funds Department, which is responsible for regulating investment and mutual pension funds. During the service at the Agency he led numerous projects, among others the introduction of ETF funds, umbrella funds with sub-funds, the introduction of alternative investment funds, the renovation of the investment fund’s reporting system and its integration with the Bank of Slovenia, the development and introduction of user-friendly applications of e-legislation, the introduction of umbrella pension funds of life-cycle investment strategy. He is a member of the Investment Management Standing Committee, which operates within the framework of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), President of the Examination Committee in the field of marketing of investment funds and technical editor for the English language.

Primož Damjanovič is a member of the Council of the Securities Market Agency. Between 2015 and 2021 he was also a member of the Council of Experts of the Insurance Supervision Agency.

Nikolina Prah graduated in 2002 at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. She passed the bar exam in 2004.

After graduating, she was employed at Pivovarna Union d.d., in 2004 she continued her professional career at the District Court Ljubljana. She is employed at the Agency since 2006. As a senior legal advisor she performs the most complex legal tasks and represents the Agency in administrative, judicial and offenses procedures. Nikolina is a member of the Legal network and the Takeover Panel at the ESMA.

Since January 1, 2018 Nikolina Prah is the Head of Legal Affairs. From January 2020, she was also appointed Secretary of the ATVP's Council.

Nikolina Prah speaks English and Croatian.

Tanja Lovka graduated in 1999 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana, where she also obtained Master's Degree in Economics in 2009.

In 1994 she was employed by Koto d.d., Ljubljana where she completed internship. Since 1995 she has been working at the ATVP. The area of her work has been constantly connected to the securities market, public companies reports, market abuse and takeovers. In these areas her tasks included examination of the requirements for the issuance of various licenses, she also supervised procedures related to the above mentioned areas, she participated at the legislation amendments pertaining to the before mentioned areas.

In 2017 she was appointed as a member of the Settlement board for the review of the conversion rate as defined in the second paragraph of Article 609 of the Companies Act, on March 28, 2019 she was appointed as a member of the Council of the Government of Republic of Slovenia for corporate governance and on January 8, 2021 she was appointed as a member the Council of the Agency for Public Oversight of Auditing. She is also a member of the Corporate Finance Standing Committee and the Expert Group on takeovers (Takeover Panel), which work within the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

As of 1 January 2018 Tanja Lovka is Head of the Capital Market and Takeovers Division.

Tanja Lovka speaks English.

Gregor Nastran graduated in 1999 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in Ljubljana.

After graduating, he was employed at Hermes Softlab (now Comtrade) where he performed tasks of programmer and project manager until 2002. From 2002 to 2005 he worked in the following firms, at Adacta as project manager, at Oria Computers as head of development, at Ixtlan as head of marketing for BPM product and at MikroCop as programmer. In 2005 he founded his own company.

Since 2010 he has been working at the ATVP at the IT department. In December 2015 he became head of IT department. Gregor has been in charge of numerous IT projects at the ATVP, including the introduction of the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certificate, data warehouse, virtualization of workstations and servers, renewal of the reporting system, documentation system and data exchange with other Slovenian and European regulators.

Gregor is a member of the ESMA IT Management and Governance Technical Committee.

Gregor speaks English.