A communications professional whose past work with the United Nations Sustainable Development shaped how she thinks about global issues, sustainability, and everyday choices.
Karunamaya Vesna Blazhevska grew up in Yugoslavia, in what is now North Macedonia. She attended High School Josip Broz Tito in Skopje, where she played tennis and did gymnastics between classes. Later, she earned a degree in Economics from the Faculty of Economics in Skopje, part of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University.
As an adult, her fitness interests shifted from the courts and the gym floor to step aerobics and Pilates, habits she has kept for years. In 1991, she stopped eating meat and fish, a choice that has stayed with her for more than three decades.
Vesna eventually moved to New York City, where she worked as a Communications Assistant with the United Nations. It was a role that put her close to conversations about international cooperation and the kinds of issues that affect people far beyond any one country. That chapter is now behind her, but it left a mark on how she approaches communication: with patience, with care for accuracy, and with respect for how complicated global problems can be to explain simply.
Outside of work, Vesna has spent years developing an interest in spirituality, especially ideas about peace, unity, and harmony among people of different faiths. She also follows conversations about climate, clean energy, and gender equality, not as abstract policy topics, but as things that shape daily life. Her story is less about one job title and more about how curiosity, discipline, and quiet conviction can carry someone through very different chapters.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
I start early with quiet time, usually some form of meditation, before I look at anything else. I follow that with a Pilates session or a walk. I try to protect the first hour of my day from noise. The discipline carries over from my years coordinating translations and communications work as a Communications Assistant with the United Nations, a role I no longer hold but still draw habits from. To be clear, anything I share here reflects my own views, not any organization I have worked for.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I focus on coordination, communication, and attention to detail. In my work with the United Nations, I managed translations across the six official languages and worked with government representatives, NGOs, TV stations, and newspapers seeking approval to use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) icons during their early adoption. I helped ensure requests were handled accurately and that the icons were used appropriately and consistently.
What’s one trend that excites you?
I am drawn to how cities are rethinking public space for sustainability, things like shared green areas and walkable streets. It feels like a practical, visible way people experience bigger goals like clean energy and sustainable cities.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
Keeping my mornings free of email. I do not check messages until I have finished my own quiet routine first.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Stop comparing your pace to other people’s. Progress that comes from competing with your past self lasts longer than anything chasing someone else’s timeline.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you on?
I believe success, in the way most people define it, with recognition and material reward, is less meaningful than quiet personal progress. Most people I talk to want the first one more than the second.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Sit with a problem before reacting to it. I learned this through meditation, but it applies just as well to a tense email or a hard conversation.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I stop and return to stillness rather than push through. Losing my inner calm costs more time than pausing to find it again.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Staying genuinely curious about how things connect, economics, communication, sustainability, and people’s everyday choices. That curiosity kept me useful in a role, as a Communications Assistant with the United Nations, that touched many different subjects at once.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
Early on, I treated a setback as a final verdict instead of a single experience. I got through it by reminding myself that one difficult stretch does not define an entire effort. I try to treat every outcome, good or bad, as information rather than judgment.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
A simple service that helps small organizations translate their sustainability materials accurately into several languages. Good intentions often get lost when the language around them is unclear.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
I rely on a basic note-taking app to track ideas and reading notes in one place. Nothing complicated, just something I can search quickly later.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
I return to reading about Eastern philosophy and meditation. It keeps me grounded in the idea that inner peace and outward effort are not opposites.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
I enjoyed a documentary series about ocean ecosystems. It connected directly to my interest in life below water and made a distant issue feel close and specific.
Key learnings
- A career built around communication benefits from patience and attention to accuracy, especially when the subject matter is complex.
- Long-standing personal habits, like a 1991 shift to vegetarianism or a steady morning routine, can quietly shape professional discipline over decades.
- Treating setbacks as experience rather than verdicts supports longer-term resilience.
- Curiosity across fields, economics, language, sustainability, often matters more than expertise in just one.
- Quiet daily practices, such as meditation or protected morning hours, can support focus without requiring complicated systems.