Branko Franc Selak, long-serving director of stone cutting company Marmor Hotavlje, has been honoured with the lifetime achievement award conferred by the Manager Association, one of Slovenia's leading business groups.

The association described Selak as a role model of innovation, drive, success and excellent leadership who helped the Hotavlje brand become synonymous with innovation.

Marmor Hotavlje is known for pink, brownish-purple and greyish marble from a quarry a kilometre away from Hotavlje, a town north-west of Ljubljana.

Under Selak's leadership, the company has become a world leader in furnishing yachts. It also supplies luxury furnishings for private mansions around the globe.

Selak joined the firm in 1969, became director in 1980 and partly retired in 2008 only to return five years later to help it amid a deep construction industry crisis.

Since its privatisation in the 2000s, Marmor Hotavlje is now a Selak family business.

Selak has always strived to keep the company one step ahead of the competition while keeping it Slovenian-owned, said the association.

Vita Godec and Eva McLellan, recipients of the Artemis Award for women who broke through the glass ceiling. Photo: Daniel Novakovič/STA

The Manager Association also handed out the Artemis Award for women managers that broke the glass ceiling. The winners are Vita Godec, director of Lenis Farmacevtika, and Eva McLellan, director general of the Slovenian subsidiary of Swiss giant Roche.

Michal Maco, CEO of real estate developer Corwin Slovenija, became the Young Manager of 2023.