When I moved to Croatia, I didn't want to simply live here. I wanted to be part of it. Croatia is the land of my ancestors, and moving here was never, for me, the story of finding a pretty Mediterranean country and deciding to stay. I came with a very conscious desire to build a life here, and, perhaps more importantly, to contribute to the place where I was building it. I actually wrote that when I applied for Croatian citizenship. I want to contribute. It sounds like a very simple sentence. But years later, I realise how much of what I've done here can be traced back to it.
When I was invited to join the board of FBOA, I was genuinely happy because it gave me a way to participate. When I mentor startups and entrepreneurs, I love seeing an idea become clearer, stronger or more possible. When I work with a local business and watch it grow, I'm not indifferent to what happens after I send the invoice. Of course I work for money. This isn't a romantic manifesto against capitalism. But money has never been the only reason I work. I like being useful. I like ideas. I like connecting people. I like helping something that didn't exist take shape. I like looking at a business, a project or a community and thinking: maybe there's something I know that can help here. And that is probably why Innovate Split felt important to me.
At Innovate Split, I moderated the FBOA panel “International Business in Croatia: Creating Local Impact”, together with Geoff Bratton, Sara Dyson, John Rogošić, Kit Pepper and Jennifer Gilman. Five people I genuinely admire, all FBOA members, all with completely different stories, industries and backgrounds. And yet there is something connecting them. They didn't just move here. They built here. Businesses. Communities. Schools. Media. Hospitality projects. Wellness initiatives. Networks. Jobs. Ideas. Different forms of contribution, but contribution nonetheless. And that distinction matters to me. Because there has been a lot of conversation in recent years about international people moving to Croatia. Digital nomads. Expats. Entrepreneurs. Foreign workers. Returnees and descendants of the Croatian diaspora. We talk a lot about what Croatia offers them. Maybe we should also talk about what they can offer Croatia.
I don't think integration means blending in until nobody can tell where you came from. I don't want to erase the Argentine part of myself to prove that I belong in Croatia. Patagonia shaped me. Argentina shaped the way I communicate, work, argue, create, laugh and probably interrupt people. Croatia is another part of that story. Belonging, to me, has much more to do with participation. You learn the place. You respect it. You understand that you arrived with your own assumptions and that not all of them will survive contact with reality. But you also bring something with you. Experience. Knowledge. Culture. Connections. Another way of looking at a problem. And then something interesting can happen. Instead of merely adapting to a community, you begin exchanging with it. You contribute something, and it changes you in return. That is much more interesting to me than simply fitting in.
Split has given me opportunities I couldn't have predicted when I arrived. I've worked with businesses here. I've mentored entrepreneurs. I've spoken at events. I've joined organisations and boards. I've met people whose projects I now care about independently of whether I'm professionally involved with them. And last week I got to sit on a stage at Innovate Split and moderate a conversation about international people creating local impact in Croatia. That doesn't feel accidental. It feels strangely consistent. Because this was the idea. Not the conference, obviously. I didn't arrive in Split with a three-year strategic plan ending in a moderator badge. But participation was the plan. I wanted to know the community. I wanted to work here. I wanted to understand what was happening around me. And when possible, I wanted to add something to it.
Maybe that's ultimately what I've learned. We tend to think about belonging as something a place gives us. Do they accept me? Do I feel at home? Am I one of them yet? But perhaps there is another side to it. What are you giving to the place you're asking to belong to? Not because you owe a country some grand gesture in exchange for living there. Contribution doesn't have to be heroic. Sometimes it's starting a company. Sometimes it's employing someone. Teaching. Mentoring. Creating a community. Sharing knowledge. Making something culturally interesting. Helping somebody else's idea become better. Sometimes it's simply deciding that the place where you live matters enough to participate in what happens to it. I came to Croatia knowing that I wanted to do that. Three and a half years later, I'm still figuring out what contribution looks like. But after Innovate Split, I think I'm even more certain about one thing: I never came here just to live here. I came here to be part of it.
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